MIST.

I feel a little like a misty void. No longer sure where my walls are and what defines me as me, the things I won't and the things I will. Forgive me for being a bit vague and pretentious, but in winter when darkness falls at 5:30 and the temperature is rarely above 10 degrees, my mind seems to lose whatever it is that normally holds it together. There are times in life I suppose when you are suffering from neither the devastation of a great low or the excitement of a great high, and in my experience I have found these times to be the most difficult. 

The problem is that these mid-points stop me thinking like a normal (and hopefully passionate) person. They remove my physical motivation and render me senseless in front of a screen, watching endless series of archetypal nonsense in 22 episode form. I have found myself in the same unwashed jumper and cross legged position at around 4 o'clock everyday this week and begun wondering what I am doing with my life. Everyday wasted is.. Well, a day wasted. My thoughts and intentions, like the days themselves seem clouded, so, what to do about all this? I could lie to myself and promise to propel my life forward and spend each day drawing, travelling, singing and reading, living in the fashion of eat pray love. But in truth I know what I will do: nothing. 

Inspirational stuff, right? But unfortunately for anyone looking for enlightenment, that's it. These periods in life come and they go, so let it be (if you are thinking right now that i would be the worlds worst life coach, it's okay, i agree). With this newly found cavalier attitude in mind I find myself adapting my aims in life. For now these aims include consuming my weight in butter and watching at least 20+ hours of mindless television before something in me stirs, and I am reassured by my knowledge that this will pass, soon the fog will lift and so continues life's harrowing adventures. 

Voilà.

i-phone, i-know

It is truly difficult to escape the constant clicking of iPhone cameras and the insatiable need to publish each minute detail of life- or, perhaps a more refined take, revealing only snippets that we aim to tantalise our peers with and make our lives seem even more intriguing.

It is so easy to buy into the prospect of ourselves as 'celebrity' when our own friends become our followers and we worship images of each others carefully arranged thighs and falsely captured smirks (such selfies being intricately arranged in the privacy of a well lit bedroom). But the more I fall into these snap-happy habits myself, the more uncomfortable I become, wrapped in the social media web of perfection and deception. Too fearful of missing out on some sordid scandal or arrangements made by friends if I abandon my profiles, but also frightful of my own attachment to them. My wish is to simplify, yet this is difficult to do beyond a certain social point. I mean, sure, if everyone did it I'd be fine! If no one had facebook of instagram or snapchat then we could really get on with enjoying our lives, instead of worrying about who else is watching them. but to be the only one who is disconnected? This, my friend, poses far more of a challenge.

To live in a world where 'did you see that picture of (insert name here) on facebook last night?' was not the main topic of scintillating conversation would be bliss! Removing oneself from this world however, is harder than it seems.  It is easy to justify keeping things as they are and maintaining our online lives as stopping something in motion takes far more effort (cheers Newton! Or Einstein, or someone..?) than we are often willing to fathom. So where to start? Culling my friends to only those I truly care about and erasing all traces of my online activity?.. Ah, but here we hit another difficulty. Do we choose not to care entirely and let unflattering image after unflattering image of ourselves be splayed across a screen, or do we choose a select few pictures, perhaps 4 or 5, to be available to the prying eyes of those investigating our namesake online. Not caring is cool (oh how I wish I could do so), mystery is sexy (but takes so much effort), and striking a balance between the two seems an almost impossible task! A suggestion in the art of neither caring nor spending ours culling: Just. Get. Rid. Of. It. All. One day soon, I plan to be brave enough.

To jump back on my original *everyone takes a ridiculous amount of pictures of everything* train of thought: I have always had an obsession with taking pictures, and since I first wrapped my hand around a camera have been documenting everything I possibly could. This is no bad thing, but I have decided for my own sake, with a little encouragement from my dad, to reserve my lens for art only. His gem of advice was this- think of your camera as an old film camera, where every shot was dutifully thought out and executed due to there great expense. If I only had one photo to take a month would I waste it only my breakfast? Perhaps not. save those precious snaps for beautiful moments you really want to remember, and keep in mind that not everyone needs, nor wants, to see them.

We live in a fast paced world where we are obsessed with capturing every moment of life on our camera or iPhone before it passes us by. Now is the time to exist as a mystery to others and to give our selves a chance to truly experience the things we have become accustomed to photographing.

Shut of the computer/leave the phone at home/put down the camera and have a bloody good time!

If you are not very careful
Your possessions will possess you
TV taught me how to feel
Now real life has no appeal
-

Marina and the Diamonds, Oh No.

-Rachel
Image: Photographed by Charlie Engman for Vogue | Styled by Jorden Bickham