Life is in the doing

As frequently happens, my sister and I are on the same wavelength. This happens so often and in such a freaky way one would swear we are twins. The true irony is that while I was still snuggling in the womb, the docs thought I WOULD be twins. Go figure.

She recently let out a howl of frustration that I wholeheartedly agree with. More so because of a totally unrelated incident. Last weekend I went on a series of adventures with Lisa and her family. Now I have become somewhat of a hermit in recent months, so this was not only a strong break in routine, but possibly the most time I have actually spent with my niece since she was born.

I have not been stretching my creative muscles (or any muscles for that matter) as I should for quite some time. I have been doing occasional writing, but have let my other passion – photography – get dusty on a shelf. So for this great adventurous weekend I dug the camera from the bottom of its pile, and ended up taking 300+ pictures over the weekend. A sample can be seen here.

I commented to my mother on the fact that I had taken over 300 pictures, and her reaction? “What are you going to do with them?”

This kind of floored me.

It was not so much that I was stumped by the question. More shocked by the asking of it. In my mind, if someone I knew had some skill with a camera said I took a few hundred pics this weekend, my reaction would not have been “Why did you bother?”.  It would be more like “Can I see them?”. Especially if the pics and the photographer were theoretically close to you. Granted my mother has a skill for jumping on the negative side of things, but it did bring the question to mind:

“Why bother?”

Why do I write if nobody seems to want to read it? Why take pictures if nobody wants to see them? My own mother doesn’t even want to look, and I thought that it was written in the Mother’s Rule Book that you are supposed to be interested in what your child does just cuz.

And why does it seem that skill has nothing to do with interest anyway? We are a culture that is easily seduced by shiny things, even if they have no substance. And it seems I don’t polish my stuff enough to catch anyone’s notice.

As a result of this internal debate, I have done nothing creative for the last week. And even questioned why I am bothering with the so-called Social Sites. I mean what’s the point right? Then my sister let out her primal scream .

Get out of my head sis!!

Of course that is just what I needed to find the answer. Or actually re-find.

I do it because I can. And because I enjoy it. I do it because if even one person actually enjoys what I have created, then I have done a good thing. Even if that one person is just myself. I do it because I choose to.

I do it because life is in the doing.

Nothing is achieved if we do not do. Nothing. Simply thinking about something gets nowhere without action. Worrying about the why’s of things does nothing except screw with your mind. It gets you no where. Maybe when we do, the results are not what we hope for, or we find that we chose the wrong thing to do for us. The choices are simple then. Accept. Or change what and how we do. But the important thing is to continue to do.

Nike still has the right of it.