What a trippy day it was yesterday. I woke up, at 4.30am, to the sound of “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas, playing in my head, like it was in auto-repeat. The universe was speaking, I was listening.
I’ve always loved this sound and song
Popular songs today attempt to make us feel good.
This song, in particular, attempts to make us think.
“I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment’s gone”
I can feel the judgmental voice of my Bible-totting and Bible-quoting Christian friends, here, telling me, in their belief system, that, this song is nothing more than a recipe for fatalism, pessimism, and defeatism.
Not so fast
I don’t think so. It’s the voice,. for people like me, of humanism, realism, and rationalism-earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“All my dreams.
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity”
What probably woke me up, was the quiet realization that, as a photographer, my humble role in the cosmic scheme of things, is really nothing more or greater than being a photographer of dust particles.
I photograph dust particles-the fleeting and ephemeral moments and memories of life, hidden beneath the cracks, crevices, and creases of life itself.
Let’s be honest, times relentless march can’t be stopped.
We don’t and can’t stop time.
But, luckily for us, it can be suspended and frozen, temporarily, in two-dimensional forms, through photographs.
All photographs will eventually, like each of us, become dust in the wind. But, for the present, we can delay time’s relentless march and enjoy our moments in the sun.
I have no idea what is going to happen when I die.
I think I know. But I could be wrong, grossly wrong. But I could be right too.
Life is a gift
We are born, we live, and we die. That’s it.
If, in my worldview, there is no immortality of the soul, nothing beyond the grave, then I want every minute, every second, to count for something.
I want, at every turn, to be the best possible version of myself.
Want to live life on my own terms.
I want to love with no regrets
I want to leave behind a breadcrumb trail of kindness, grace, mercy, and goodwill, wherever I go and whoever I touch.
I want to die…trying
I want to photograph particles of dust in the wind
“Don’t hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky It slips away
All the money won’t another minute buy Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind”
Click
Jack
Dustin in the Wind
by Kansas
Arranged by Rober Emerson
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment’s gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind—-
Oh–
(Instrumental solo)
Don’t hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky It slips away
All the money won’t another minute buy Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind—-
