Today I want to talk about what I believe to be one of the most important things in life. The ability to bo a child. I believe that as human beings we only start to die when we start to feel as though we understand everything. That’s when we stop our natural childlike wonder with the world and start accepting our biased view of ow the world is. What I think our society needs is more wonder and more curiosity with everything and everyone around us.
It’s easy to accept what goes on around us as being nothing more than unimportant banalities of everyday life, a silly distraction from the wars, political upheavals, and murders that are going on. It’s hard to notice the small moments of beauty that life gives us.
One of the people I think understands this incredibly well is Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese animated film director whose movies almost always feature children as the protagonist. Miyazaki creates some of the most loveable characters because he understands how curiosity is a virtue that comes naturally to children. He is incredibly skilled in showing the characters that he creates play with the mundane things that are around them. Often seen running around, playing with random objects, exploring nature, in a way that just seems so natural, and these scenes make me wonder why I don’t do more playful exploring.
Often times these scenes become even more powerful at the end of the movie because there’s usually some kind of underlying tragedy that’s going on in the character’s life. Which makes it critical to emphasize that the moments in life where we are capable of finding something to entertain us and make us smile are important because they remind us that there’s more to life than terrible events. Being a child doesn’t mean forgetting all of the tragedies, it just means appreciating every moment that we are capable of being silly, or able to celebrate all of the little gifts that life brings us. Like having a good meal with friends or family, noticing some remarkable nature on your walk to work, etc. This is what I want people to receive from my photography, I want the images that I present to others to be a reminder of the little moments of beauty in mundane life.
