Going through old photos

Every part of our lives are documented. Our every movement is tracked on Google Maps, our lives photographed as background characters on somebody elses Instagram. It's hard to remember that things weren't this way. Every now and again the sobering reality of how weird it is to see thousands of people watching a concert or seeing David through a vitural screen filter. The wave hits you like a gush of water and for a grumpy curmugeon like me, it leaves a sour taste. How much effort and strife it takes to have a sobering moment. It's almost impossible to experience something that'll only exist once.

That said, I absolutely love photos. Photos are magical portals back into your life, bringing back memories through the remaining brain cells long killed by booze and age. Recently, I've been travelling a lot. My wife and I have hit the road in our van and are travelling around central Europe for a few months. This means we're taking a lot of pictures. But it also means we're going through a lot of old ones.

I decided then to download my old Facebook photos. I don't use Facebook anymore but I have to realise it's where a good portion of my life is stored. Whether I like that or not. Running through the local download of photos brought over a wave of emotion I could not prepare for.

Candid moments from over 10 years ago. Seeing myself, my friends, and my family experiencing their lives in snapshots. Although these existed during the rise of social media, the lack of quality and stage meant they felt more real.

Your life is just a series of moments that you react to. Each reaction steers you down a path, minorly influencing the odds in a way that only makes sense when you look back in retrospect. The more hours I clock in, the more I come to understand that you can never understand things in the moment but only looking back with a fair buffer of time.