like gravel and threaten to burst my heart, or blow a blood vessel in my brain and leave me a half-wit.
“Don’t let me stop you.”
Then he told me about how tired he was of working for other people, how sick of trading his time for a subsistence wage. Also, he’d had enough of programming, designing websites for guys who were unable to learn the basics themselves. He told me he wanted time for himself, that when he headed out with his Nikon he felt he was better, healthier, a good person. He told me that ever since signing his first employment contract he’d been waiting for the ideal moment to dedicate himself entirely to photography: he had a real feel for light, he felt his talent deserved recognition. He’d tried to steal hours from work, but by the time he left the office he was too tired, he couldn’t find a second wind. He was swamped by the shopping and the washing and all the other tasks that pile up, oblivious to the artistic spark that burned within him.
“I’m not fooling myself anymore. The perfect time is never going to come. You have to force things along, you have to dare to jump from the train while it’s moving.”
He gave me his Instagram.
“That’s what I do. That’s my calling.”
He told me not to miss the comments, which would show me what his photographs evoked in other aficionados. Their words were injections of energy that kept him from giving in to the zombie life, the office life, the life all the rest of us lead.
“I’m tired of dreaming of a shadow life. I want to attack it head-on, get inside it, live at its center.”
He told me he planned to ask for fewer hours and less pay, or at least to be absolved of all the meetings: staff, department, sales, purchasing, empathy and synergy trainings. He told me that at big corporations they keep track of every minute you spend having breakfast, going upstairs to smoke a cigarette, or to the bathroom.
“It’s despicable.”
He told me that there is life throbbing within each of us, and we have the chance to feed it. He told me that our forties are a creative decade, that he felt he had the strength and imagination to reinvent himself, and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way. He wasn’t about to stay stuck in the hole they’d dug for people like him: people who had gone to school, fulfilled their responsibilities, people who let themselves be hoodwinked. He told me it was a good moment for entrepreneurs, that the atmosphere was charged with energy and banks were giving credit away.
“I don’t know about you, but I can’t waste any more time.”
He told me he was sick of being tested. They demanded an output he couldn’t keep up with, his nerves were as exposed as stripped wires (and he reached out his arm as he said it, as if I could see right through his skin). The envy he felt, which diminished him and left him dwelling on his own insignificance, wasn’t a sign of small-mindedness—it would disappear once he’d embraced a life equal to his ambitions. He was willing to live on as little as it took; he felt compensated because a good photograph brought beauty into the world. He was going back to basics: money in his pocket, straightforward adventure—that’s why he’d sought out old friends online who were single or divorced, undomesticated boys who weren’t going to surrender, who wouldn’t give up until the final whistle blew. And that’s why he didn’t ask anything about me: he had me all figured out.
“No one can understand me like you.”
Why would I understand him? Because we’d shared eight years of classes, a hundred training sessions, a thousand physical exertions? We’d had similar experiences, but they had gone through different heads that they’d imbued with different characters, before being integrated into constellations of events, fears, and expectations we could never share.
“Of course I understand you, Pedro, I understand you perfectly.”
He invited me to have another
“Don’t let me stop you.”
Then he told me about how tired he was of working for other people, how sick of trading his time for a subsistence wage. Also, he’d had enough of programming, designing websites for guys who were unable to learn the basics themselves. He told me he wanted time for himself, that when he headed out with his Nikon he felt he was better, healthier, a good person. He told me that ever since signing his first employment contract he’d been waiting for the ideal moment to dedicate himself entirely to photography: he had a real feel for light, he felt his talent deserved recognition. He’d tried to steal hours from work, but by the time he left the office he was too tired, he couldn’t find a second wind. He was swamped by the shopping and the washing and all the other tasks that pile up, oblivious to the artistic spark that burned within him.
“I’m not fooling myself anymore. The perfect time is never going to come. You have to force things along, you have to dare to jump from the train while it’s moving.”
He gave me his Instagram.
“That’s what I do. That’s my calling.”
He told me not to miss the comments, which would show me what his photographs evoked in other aficionados. Their words were injections of energy that kept him from giving in to the zombie life, the office life, the life all the rest of us lead.
“I’m tired of dreaming of a shadow life. I want to attack it head-on, get inside it, live at its center.”
He told me he planned to ask for fewer hours and less pay, or at least to be absolved of all the meetings: staff, department, sales, purchasing, empathy and synergy trainings. He told me that at big corporations they keep track of every minute you spend having breakfast, going upstairs to smoke a cigarette, or to the bathroom.
“It’s despicable.”
He told me that there is life throbbing within each of us, and we have the chance to feed it. He told me that our forties are a creative decade, that he felt he had the strength and imagination to reinvent himself, and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way. He wasn’t about to stay stuck in the hole they’d dug for people like him: people who had gone to school, fulfilled their responsibilities, people who let themselves be hoodwinked. He told me it was a good moment for entrepreneurs, that the atmosphere was charged with energy and banks were giving credit away.
“I don’t know about you, but I can’t waste any more time.”
He told me he was sick of being tested. They demanded an output he couldn’t keep up with, his nerves were as exposed as stripped wires (and he reached out his arm as he said it, as if I could see right through his skin). The envy he felt, which diminished him and left him dwelling on his own insignificance, wasn’t a sign of small-mindedness—it would disappear once he’d embraced a life equal to his ambitions. He was willing to live on as little as it took; he felt compensated because a good photograph brought beauty into the world. He was going back to basics: money in his pocket, straightforward adventure—that’s why he’d sought out old friends online who were single or divorced, undomesticated boys who weren’t going to surrender, who wouldn’t give up until the final whistle blew. And that’s why he didn’t ask anything about me: he had me all figured out.
“No one can understand me like you.”
Why would I understand him? Because we’d shared eight years of classes, a hundred training sessions, a thousand physical exertions? We’d had similar experiences, but they had gone through different heads that they’d imbued with different characters, before being integrated into constellations of events, fears, and expectations we could never share.
“Of course I understand you, Pedro, I understand you perfectly.”
He invited me to have another
Similar Books
