---
title: 'Vibe Check #20'
date: 2024-04-20T21:06:28.408Z
slug: 2024-04-20-vibe-check-19
author: Thomas Wilson
tags: 
    - vibe-check

---
I think I left this Vibe Check too late into April and I sort of forgot what happened in March. 

Luckily: my blog, my rules.  I declare bankruptcy for March 2024, and find myself acquitted of all charges.  

These last six weeks have been Classic British Spring: there have been thirty minute periods where the weather has cycled between blistering sun, pouring rain, and unwieldy gusts.  Several times recently the weather has looked completely different in the time it takes me to rise from my desk and walk to the kitchen.  

It's only in the last couple of weeks that I've managed to get out on my bike for more than an hour, more than once a week.  We've been consistently hitting 40+ mph winds in Oxfordshire, which make cycling persuasively not-fun and dangerous. Frustrating after an hospitable January. 

All is forgiven with how many more hours of daylight we get now.  The sun is up when I get up, and stays up while I'm eating supper.  

I hit two number milestones recently.  First, I managed to break past my previous streak on Todoist (my task-management app of choice), surpassing the 150 day record that ended in September 2019.

Secondly, we're past the 100-day countdown for the wedding.  I'm starting to worry that the wedding day might actually happen.

I've managed to break through my reading slump, with Cal Newport's *Slow Productivity* ([link](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454746/slow-productivity-by-newport-cal/9780241652916)).  My feelings on this book were positive, and I'd like to put them together properly.  The book reminded me that the sustainability and longevity of a practice should be thought about like we think about productivity and effectiveness.  

It is nice (and scary) to remember how few good things one can truly make in the time that we have.  Said another way: it takes a lot of effort to build something meaningful, and we only get so much effort to give.  

I've been thinking somewhat about how and why I take photos.  Earlier this year I discovered the *Walkie Talkie* series on YouTube, which are walking interviews with Street Photographers in New York.  [This interview with a photographer called Laura Fuchs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DulRNiQf0w) ([her instagram](https://www.instagram.com/laurasfuchs/)) hit me nicely.

Aside from a pragmatic, earnest work ethic - she spoke about how glad she was that she has so many photos of her friends and family.  About how she's glad she got the camera out at every opportunity, even when the people around her couldn't understand why.  The taking/making of photographs is obviously a pleasing action for her in itself, but now she has ways to remember each person in her life, at different points in theirs.

Something in that attitude sat well with me, and has encouraged me to maybe take my camera a few more places, and to ask for a few more photos.

Since last year, 2023, I have made a conscious effort to take an instant camera (the [Instax Square SQ1](https://instax.co.uk/cameras/square-sq1/)) to various events.  I've gone through about 200-250 photos since then, which, allowing for duds and give-aways, has still been enough to fill a couple of hung photo fames ([like this one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1228774146/instax-square-multi-aperture-wooden)) as well as a bunch of pages in my personal notebook.  

I don't think I need to explain this, but photos are good.  I like having photos, and I'm starting to enjoy *taking* them too.  It is so lovely to have any moment recorded.  Yes, you can take photos on your phone.  But I think having a smart phone in a social setting changes how that social setting feels to me.  

More pragmatically, I just don't *look* at the photos I've taken on my phone.  I don't know why.  Probably because there are *thousands* of them, and so many of them are just gubbins.  So many pictures of street cats, and expense receipts, but very few records of times with family and friends.

I don't know if it feels different because the photos cost *money* and are far more finite, or if omitting the ever-present and multipurpose smartphone makes it _feel_ different. But I think there's something in the monopurpose-ness of it.  It's a bit like Ezra Klein [recently said of emails](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/07/opinion/gmail-email-digital-shame.html) (paywall):

> I am looking now for software that insists I make choices rather than whispers that none are needed
