Just do it.

Hey, everyone!

Even though we had a 4-day week, I'm still feeling exhausted. Sigh. Probably because I had a bio lab report due this week and a physics quiz and I'm worried about stats and bio and physics and because Buddhism says the truth of life is suffering (we went over Buddhism in Rel 251 this week) and omg, this sentence is way too long. But you know what? All of that is ok. You know why? Because I went to Madison Avenue yesterday and admired all of the beautiful clothes and then I bought some awesome tights at H&M and also because my friends are awesome and make me laugh and because The Big Bang Theory makes it cool to be a nerd and because it feels good to really understand stuff in bio and physics and because we're in NY and people are stressed out but still manage to look awesome and say awesome things and do awesome things.

Ok. There were way too many conjunctions in that paragraphs and too many thoughts. But I think it made some sense. Stream of consciousness feels liberating.

But I'll go back to "normal" writing so that people can understand me. haha.

I don't know how many people know about Humans of New York (HONY), but if you don't, you need to get on Google right now, and search for it. Seriously, stop reading this blog post, and go look for it. (But please come back to reading this later :p) I'll make it easier for you.

Here is the website: http://www.humansofnewyork.com.
It's also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork

In 2010, former Chicago bond trader and now full-time photographer, Brandon Stanton created HONY. He started taking photos as a way of creating a photographic census of New York. But as he met more and more of these amazing humans of New York, things changed. He writes, "I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs." Instead of just a census, these photographs became a series of captions and short stories that say so much about the people in them and that are incredibly inspirational. Stanton released a book of some of his photographs this past Tuesday and held a book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square that night. I was supposed to go, but I had a physics quiz at 8 AM the next morning. Sigh.

But back to talking about the awesomeness of HONY. I don't think I can even do it justice. But I'll try. New Yorkers are notoriously characterized as always in a hurry, rude, and cold. But Stanton's photographs show that New Yorkers have a beautiful, introspective side to them that HONY captures so perfectly. Along with the photographs, his online posts feature snippets of conversations that he has with the people he's photographed. He asks everyone the same questions, and it's incredible how many different responses he gets. It's truly amazing how people are willing to tell some really personal things to a complete stranger with a camera. Everyone wants to be heard, and everyone wants to feel like their story matters, and HONY does that in the simplest of ways.

For the people who read these posts, these photographs and stories touch them because of their sincerity and simplicity. I know that this is true for me. Whatever I may be feeling at a particular moment, if I look at these photographs and read these stories, I connect with the individual's happiness, frustration, confusion, or inspiration. These complete strangers reaffirm my hope for a better existence for all of us.

Stanton took a chance when he moved to New York to start photographing strangers. It developed into something that no one could have imagined. There's a great lesson to be learned here. Don't wait for the right time. It's never the right time. Whatever you want to do, just start, and work out the kinks as you go along. There is nothing easy about anything, but if people allowed the fear of difficulty and failure to stop them, they would never get anywhere. As Nike says, "Just do it."

S.

Quote of the Week

“We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”

~ Bob Ross