One day unexpectedly...
my true realized fear became a crystal clear "click."
What’s your biggest fear, Dad?
Whoa. We didn’t have quite enough time to explore this question. We tend to ask ourselves this question in a mostly superficial way because of our hurry, don't we? This time was no different for me.
“Heights.”
That was a convenient answer. My son nodded but his eyes seemed to know the answer was too easy and probably not real.
If my son was older and we weren’t racing out the door, I’d probably answer him more honestly with “failure.” That’s a pretty common answer too, and it applies to me in every way. That answer is probably too easy as well.
Days passed.
I stood posed among the trees, camera held and ready.
I pressed the shutter button on my camera.
Click.
I removed the camera from my eye.
Click.
This time that click was in my mind.
At this moment, I realize that I push the shutter button on my camera to capture this moment in time forever. I’m obsessed with doing it over and over, now and forever it seems.
My finger on the camera button drives a stake through the ground of this earth that spins relentlessly through space and time. I cling to this button tightly with all of my strength.
This tiny button I push is a miniscule plug for the expanding hole that seeps sand through the hourglass. Still, the sand makes its way effortlessly and perpetually through the cracks.
This is the best I can do to make myself feel like I’m stopping time, or at best, slowing it down.
All of this is an elaborate illusion I create for myself to save me from my greatest fear: The Passage of Time.
What seems like a week ago is a month ago. What seems like a month ago is a year ago.
Each click of the shutter on my camera is a notch carved in my life timeline, and the picture taken is a precise moment that I will remember forever and hope to reflect on. In most images, I remember the year, the month, and many times even the day. I associate it with the song I was listening to in my earbuds. I remember the uniqueness of the cloud formation in the sky.
The more stakes I can lay down, the more reassurance I get from not wasting the time within and surrounding that moment. I suppose it is an image diary and visual proof that the moment was lived and hopefully experienced fully. But was I experiencing life fully at this moment? That is the eerie paradox.
There’s some irony in what happens during these abundant attempts to slow down time. The more times I push that tiny button, the faster each "mind milestone" accumulates in my brain, revealing that more time has passed. It incites my greatest fear even more...one click at a time.
So let me ask you:
