So what do I do now? Where do I go now? What happens to my life now that it's purpose is gone?

From a friend :)

Hey Hillary,

Did you know that I love your photos?
I always go to your flickr and just ogle over them
Richard Avedon didn't care about who was before him or ridicule others for lack of knowledge or money or anything
All he cared about was doing what he loved regardless of the critics
And he practically invented a whole new genre of photography

Positive thoughts Positive thoughts Positive thoughts :)


Also, the super great photojournalists that you may not know about (who does?) didn't have the best equipment or the most supportive fans
They had heart and they followed it, through a lens!
And there is no such thing as trying or being no good
There is only doing and not doing
Because everything else is relative, you know?
Keep doing, keep living, keep loving

Even if no one else shows it, I'm proud of you
I thought your IC photo story was just precious
As are all of the other darling photos I've seen thus far

<3

I can't find any of the tell-tale symptoms. It's alright though, symptoms aren't for everyone.

My friends ask me all the time, "Hey have you seen his new photos? You should do something like that," or "Why don't you go and take pictures of them like her?". And I know they mean well, I do, but it really gets a gal down. Basically saying that what I do just isn't up to snuff. Which is fine, I never said it was and I'm pretty open about the fact that I don't think I'm that good at all. I just like taking pictures. They think they're being helpful but I don't think they see that I don't take the kinds of photos that they're pointing out to me. I like a photography that is very different than what their friends are doing and I just don't feel the need to imitate what they like to do if it's not what I like to do. And I'm very much aware that I'm not competitive enough for "this kind of work" and I've stopped taking my camera everywhere if I'll be with friends that tend to compare my work to others. I'm okay with that, I have no problem failing at this and I think everyone should just take a deep breath and be cool with that. Support your friends' work, just don't try and compare one kid with a camera with another kid. You'll never make any sense out of it.

I really enjoy spinning tales in my head to explain strangers. I think we all do. I wonder what stories people tell themselves about me. I wonder if they wonder about me at all. We weren't all cut out to be the heroes and heroines of fairy tales. Though no less worthy, we're the people that make up the small crowd of village people in story books.

So much waste. This evening I read a National Geographic article about feeding the world's population. In America we struggle, but millions of loaves go stale and then go in the dumpster. In Egypt they pass out government-subsidized bread and in Eritrea they starve. And by no fault of their own. How can they plant in arid, war-torn lands? In India they have bread but also cancers from the fertilizers and pesticides that run from the wheat fields, into canals, into thirsty mouths. Die by malnutrition and starvation or by painful disease? Tough call.
My relatives started arguing over the war. So much money wasted on new technology and so little spent on veterans. One relative kept saying 'we should have blown the whole darn country up'. I wanted to ask her which exactly she meant but she's vengeful and likely without answer, feeling that all nations with a majority of devout Muslims is just one big evil stain. We've wasted enough lives ('casualties', they call them. What a disgusting euphemism) as it is. How can you not care that people over are people? We're just people over here. That's all. Nothing makes us any more special or deserving though that's what we're brought up to believe. It gives us no right to live while killing others and thinking it just.
Someone chuckles and says they're glad at least they go to bed feeling safe at night, as if they would ever not be. I doubt many consider how others feel as U.S. bombs drop on their neighbors homes in the soiled name of democracy and so-called peace. They discuss the UT tower shootings in the 60s. They shake their heads over the 15 killed that day. I don't think they even consider how many died in Afghanistan under U.S. fire just a couple days ago.

Remember that you're more than this. Remember?