I am not a photography enthusiast and I don’t know much about the art. But I do know when a photograph tugs at my heart. Of all the millions of images we see ever since we open our eyes in the morning, some just stand out. One such image is the one you are looking at right now. I picked this up from an article featured in Times Life titled ‘We are all nomads in a way.’ In one instant this picture of an elderly woman standing amidst the leftovers scattered from the house she lived in connected me to my mortality. Someday I’ll have to vacate this earth, I thought.
A familiar thought. But the thought that followed was ‘I was here’. Where did that come from?
My wife and I had recently shifted from our first house and in the last hour of moving out, we found ourselves standing in the middle of the empty house and recalling all the moments we had here. We felt sadness that we were going but at the same time we also felt joy that we had been here. I found myself thinking that someone else would be here soon and our times here would be lost forever. I think something similar happens as we approach the end of our lives as well.
We look back at a full life and think of all the experiences we had here and soon it will be time to vacate. All our joys, sorrows, hopes and despairs we will leave behind and the memories of which will be lost forever in time. I don’t think we can comprehend ‘not-existing’ because we have always existed. But we have desire to leave a little residue, a few snapshots of our existence. Now I know why etching names on everything from classroom benches, trees to monuments is so enduring. Its our deep desire to say ‘I was here too’…
This article was emailed by Samson Sheel Kumar – from TLF[The Learning Foundry]- Chief Learning officer
(if you want to express your views, thoughts, etc… Please have that mailed to neil@itouchedathought.com)
itouched a thought... 