An Ordinary Life, Holding an Extraordinary Camera
For a long time now, in my inbox and in the comment sections of my videos, I keep seeing comments like “Dream,” “perfect,” “jealous” — and I want to remind everyone of a few things. Social media is only the highlight reel of real life. Most of what’s here is the happy moments; even the exhaustion looks aesthetic, and even the sorrow turns into a pleasant kind of melancholy because of the sweet background music laid over it.
But in real life there is no background music.
Real life doesn’t move in slow motion.
At the focal length of the human eye, there’s no dazzling background blur.
Real life is all right there in front of you, with no cinematic composition whatsoever.
Those of you who don’t know me personally — some of you know me from the Iceland videos, some from the video of my proposal in the mustard field, some from the cinematic videos after the wedding.
Notice one thing: I’m thirty-two, and that little slice is not the whole of my life.
A person’s life is really like a sine curve. Strip away the background music, the cinematic composition, the crafted storytelling from my videos, and what’s left is something very ordinary.
That “ordinary” is the upper part of the sine curve, right now.
Before the curve rose, I was down at the bottom of it — and as much as I don’t like to think about it, I know I’ll have to go back below the curve after this… and then climb up again.
That’s exactly what life is — lives that stay always above the curve, or always below it, can’t keep going. They stop.
So if right now you happen to be somewhere below the sine curve, never compare yourself to the life of someone who’s above it and sigh. The comparison is meaningless.
Across all places, times, and people, roughly the same kinds of things happen in almost everyone’s life. A little while in happiness, a good deal of time in sorrow, and at some point we die. That, basically, is life.
That dreamy moment in the mustard field… is just 0.0007% of my thirty-two years.
Those cinematic shots in Cox’s Bazar — only 0.017%.
The time I spent in Iceland — only 0.086% of my life.
So don’t think of my videos as my life; think of them as edited snapshots of life.
For the rest of it — especially the time below the sine curve — I don’t get the luxury of picking up a camera.
So in the end, all I want to say is this: I’m living a very ordinary life, holding an extraordinary camera. Thanks for being here.