The Worn-Out Triangle

We all were a child once, 2021

No, it’s not Cathy, it’s not even Ashbury that bothers me most about my new situation (I still think of it as new, although it’s been two years). It’s the loss of control.

It’s a passage from a book called "The Girl on the Train," that I started recently. I like to keep a habit of writing down by hand any parts that speak to me. The Kindle device conveniently archives my highlights for easy reference, a feature I previously relied on dog-earing pages in paper books. Sometimes when I revisit these passages later, I find the stirring emotions that initially came to me have waned. I'm left wondering what version of myself resonated with those words.

The feeling of being lost, as suggested by the book, is, I believe, a fear of losing control – a fear shared by many. While total control over our lives is an unattainable idea, we can only learn how to be okay with it.

One of the Kindle's features is displaying popular highlights. I believe a lot of my work is about understanding people and/or trying to understand people including my photography. So I like to pause whenever I see the popular highlights, to imagine what meaning that text gave to other people. Oddly, I sometimes resist highlighting the same passages - a tiny act of rebellion or egoism?

I don’t know. I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it.

Another passage from the same book recalls an analogy I learned in my childhood – comparing the human conscience to a triangle. In youth, it stands tall and rigid, its sharp points piercing the heart with the prick of wrongdoings. But without the nurturing to sharpen its edges through good acts, the triangle gradually wears down. I feel as though the journey of growing up has transformed me into a worn-out version of myself, where the once-sharp edges of childlike courage, worn down by life, fade away.