It's Okay

I'm going to reproduce a post by Matthew Knight from the 3six5 project today:

I’m sorry.

I’d planned greatness for today.

I’d planned a trip to the other side of the country and back.
I’d planned a spun yarn of pirates and robbers and sharks and helicopters.
I’d planned a million dominoes clattering after one another around a six mile course of twists and turns and ups and downs and tunnels and bridges.

I’d planned a rodeo.
I’d planned a circus.
I’d planned a perfectly cooked poached egg.

I’d planned to create something so wonderful, wierd, wacky and wicked.
I’d planned to craft and cajole and create and curate.

I’d planned on doing so many things.
But instead, I went out for lunch.

I get easily distracted.
Somewhat like a magpie in a hall of mirrors.

I get distracted by another idea.
I get distracted by the dozen things which float around me in my personal digital cloud.
I get distracted by the thing I was meant to be concentrating on an hour ago.

I’m not actually that sorry.

It was a great lunch, with friends.
Wine, Roast Meat, Potatoes.
There was even cake.

I guess, one should never apologise for simply spending time with friends.

Putting down the laptop, and not writing a blog post.
Putting down the camera, and not taking a photo.
Putting down the pen, and not writing your diary.

It’s okay to not document.
It’s okay to not capture, edit, post, repost.
It’s okay to forget the infinite detail, and remember the fuzzy whole.
It’s okay to go outside and just be.

I’d planned greatness for today
I had a better day by just doing nothing.
I should try and remember that more often.

I think we should all try and remember that more often.

Every time I turn on my laptop, my fingers reflexively move through a familiar sequence of keys. Windows+2 to launch Firefox from my Quick Launch menu, keyword fb to bring up Facebook, Ctrl+T for a new tab, gm to get to Gmail, etc., etc. It all happens in a flash and a flurry of "tap-tap-tap"s


But wait, I didn't mean to open Facebook, I needed to print something! Oh well, I might as well take a look at my notifications...and my messages...and the news feed...

I don't really need to keep up with everything my friends do. I don't need to post my every feeling online for them to comment on (which I don't do anyway). I'm not a ticket in a parking garage - I don't need to be validated.

But sometimes I worry that I'm going to forget all these experiences that I'm having. I don't have a camera besides the one on my phone, and even then, I rarely take pictures when I'm with friends. Sometimes I feel like it will seem my social life is inadequate because I only have 200 photos on Facebook (about half of which are from one dance performance - they don't count).

This 3six5 post reminded me that, you know what, everything doesn't really need to be documented. I'd much rather be in the moment than looking at it through a camera lens.