It’s not so easy to be bored anymore

On Dialing Down, Saying “No”, and Making Time (Shawn Blanc)

It’s not so easy to be bored anymore. You have to choose to be bored. It used to be that boredom chose you — you were somewhere and you were waiting and there was nothing to do and you were bored. Now, you’re never bored. You can see pictures of some stranger surfing on the other side of the world, or get a live video stream of someone’s hike over Tokyo. This stuff is amazing.

But it means we have to be proactive about our boredom and down time. It means we have to be intentional about creating margin for thought. If 100% of our down time is filled with passive entertainment and bits of information, then when does our mind have a chance to be calm? When do we have a moment to think without needing to think?

60 Seconds at Carnegie Lake ...

A few weeks ago, when I looked out the window and saw the light fog hanging over the area, I knew I needed to hurry. I quickly assembled my diabetes kit, bolus for my liquid breakfast of Soylent, packed my TimBuk2 messenger bag, grabbed my iPhone 6 and Nikon D5100 and headed out the door. The tripod was already in the car.

Driving along Blue Spring Road, I noticed that the colour start to appear in the sky. A sort of reddish-orange. I headed toward Carnegie Lake intending to capture images of the fog over the lake. But as I pulled into the parking area, I knew I had to do something else. I mounted the iPhone 6 on the tripod and set about capturing some images.

After a few long exposure shots of the lake with Slow Shutter Cam I tried something new. I put myself in the image. I have only done this one time before. I knew I had to stand still to reduce ghosting since I set the shutter speed to 60 seconds.

But as I stood there counting down the second, I forgot about the image. The camera had long ago captured the picture, but still, I stood there. I am not moving. Just enjoying the scene before me. The air was crisp. For 60 seconds, no cars passed by on Route 27. For 60 seconds, I could hear the sound of the lake water lapping against its bank. For 60 seconds, I could listen to the birds call out to each other across the lake.

60 seconds.

This image was captured on my iPhone 6 with the Slow Shutter Cam app. I applied the Fuji Velvia 100F filter in the Really Nice Images Films mobile app.