I can no longer concentrate. Twenty-nine was the year I admitted to myself that I have a serious issue maintaining focus on single tasks for any substantial period of time. I turn 30 this March and I recently have dedicated some serious thought on how to turn this around.
Not only does this lack of focus affect my professional work, but it has also destroyed my ability to have meaningful conversations and retain anything about those conversations. I find myself quite literally asking people for their name and not hearing it come from their mouth a millisecond later. I find myself asking my wife what her plans are three separate times. I don’t think I do this because I don’t care about people; in fact, I deal with a lot of anxious feelings about not having heard them. My brain simply is in rapid-fire think mode ALL OF THE TIME.
I fear this is a side effect of long-term exposure to mass information intake. Genuinely, there was a period of time before 2018 when I felt far calmer and could actively listen and remember things. Post-TikTok, however, was really when I began to feel the egg that is my brain sizzle.
On any given day, I wake up, check my social media (upwards of five websites), drive to work and listen to one of any number of podcasts or audiobooks that I have running concurrently at any given time. Then I do my job, which consists of a separate realm of information intake all on its own. I have Reddit open in a window for news at all times, check my phone and socials during any and all breaks, listen to more podcasts and books on my drive home, check socials again, binge television, watch TikToks for three hours, and read Reddit until I pass out!
There are so few moments when I don’t spend time attempting to bombard myself with a distraction or research some new piece of information — that was until Christmas 2023.
For Christmas 2023, my then-fiancé, now wife, purchased me a Polaroid instant camera. I had expressed interest in one and have always had a knack for photography, but I had really put it down over the last five years or so. My first snap was on 12/25/2023, and by the end of 2024, I had shot over 500 instant film photos. Five hundred photos might not seem like a lot in the digital age, but if you’re aware of the insane price of instant film, you’ll understand just how many that really is.
I took my camera EVERYWHERE. I was going on three-hour-long walks in my neighborhood daily, simply to find something to photograph and have an excuse to use the thing! I blew an entire pack of photos just to capture a picture of a potted plant I stuck in an old boot in front of a bookcase for ART. And I noticed that any time I was seriously engaging with my camera — even on a two-mile loop around the same neighborhood I’d walked through 100 times before — I was NOT on my phone. Groundbreaking revelations here, folks.
Within the same year, I continued to reinvigorate my love for hobby photography in every capacity — instant, digital, and 35mm film, the whole shebang.
Every second I spend shooting is time I walk away from feeling happy, constructive, and maybe a little “zen.” But I can only spend so much time with my camera — I need something else to ruminate on.
This is my Rumination Station — a diary, a blog. But I need to answer: who and what is this blog for?”. Well, I enjoy posting my photography now, but I also DON’T like using Instagram. I still post there, but I’ve admittedly muted 99% of the people I follow, so Instagram shows me mostly advertisements now. I’ve even deleted the app from my phone entirely. My intentions for this blog are to share my hobby photography and post small personal introspections or poetry. I don’t really care if anyone reads it or not, but at least for me, it will ideally feel like an outlet — and perhaps something I can focus on for 20 minutes or more.
I’ve always liked writing, but the time it takes to sit and construct something remotely coherent has turned me off to the idea. My goal here is that I’m choosing to accept the fact that sometimes I suck at it or am just mediocre. And that’s okay! I no longer want perfection to get in the way of greatness, good, mediocre, literal trash, or anything in between.
I want this to be the first step in un-frying my egg brain.
-Wyatt H.
Wyatts Hobby Photos 