It was one of those mornings where you have time between what you have done and what you next need to do and you ask yourself how best to fill it.
All the babies had been fed and released and I was still a couple of hours before I was meeting Cassandra for breakfast.
The weather app (not even sure why I still check it any more) said fog so believing this to be the theme to run with, I decided that I would head towards downtown Tampa with my camera. Scenic shoots on lakes or bays would be rendered impossible so any shoot worth taking would need to use the fog as a feature rather than an obstacle to a good shot.
Of course it was pitch dark outside so I was initially none the wiser on the app accuracy until I got a little bit down the road.
I was passing by the ball fields on Walker Road when the thickness of fog was clarified and sure enough, downtown buildings were the only real option.
So I spent the best part of an hour wandering around different parts of the downtown area, looking for shots that would use the fog and tell the real story of this particular morning.
It was really great fun and I felt accomplished by the time I headed off to meet my breakfast date and begin the day in earnest.
I have attached a few at the end of this blog and I hope you enjoy!
The idea for the blog came from a moment as I was leaving the ball field area. The stop sign suddenly appeared closer than I had thought it was so, I ended up breaking hard.
Everything slid off the back seat behind me and I cursed my slow reaction.
That’s when the notion hit me of how fog changes our perspective on the road and things around us.
The reality is that I have been in that spot many times before and have never been suddenly surprised by the stop sign. So my perception of what was around me had nothing to do with the newness of where I was.
There are many things in life that affect our perception of the journey we are on.
We might have a bias, or an expectation, or might be in a particular mood (good or bad) and each of these will affect how we see something unfold in front of us.
This is one of the reasons why many people can witness the exact same event play out and come out with entirely different explanations on what they just saw.
Or we slip and fall somewhere and get up cursing one moment but have an identical slip and fall and get up laughing, another.
Our own ability to alter our perceptions is therefore a major factor in whether our experiences are generally good or generally bad. If you always see the glass half-empty then most of life will be a disappointment and frustration.
Those with a happy and half-full disposition will find life much more rewarding and enjoyable.
The facts of what we experience won’t change because of how we perceive them but our own response to these facts will change.
Being aware of how we are predisposed is therefore an important part of understanding the life we are going through.
I gave up on trying to understand the biases and perspectives of others. Some people are the most stupid fucking idiots out there and yet they are convinced in their own righteousness.
As long as they are not harming others with their perceptions, then fuck ’em. I leave them to their own misery. Those people will never be happy.
So when it comes to understanding perspectives, I try to focus mine internally.
We need to understand our biases, our mood, our state of expectation and try to adjust them to give us a more positive view on the experiences we are about to encounter.
At the end of the day, our perception becomes our reality and if we allow ourselves to perceive things in a negative fashion, then we most definitely experience a negative reality.
… just a thought.
