Snapshot event

I arrived at the Macaulay building alone, dropped off by my father. My parents are not very happy with me for understandable reasons, and quite frankly I was feeling depressed and hopeless as I walked into the Macaulay building. I had a negative mindset from the get go.

I walked around the building with preconceived thoughts that these pictures were bland and had no real artistic significance. Tons of pictures of the Hudson river and the New York Sky line, Time Square and other bustling centers of the city. You could tell the difference between the people who put a lot of effort into their pictures and those who just snapped a quick photo. Of course We were going to have the people posting pictures of their fancy meals, but you never see the shot of the meal they eat after that. Tons of clouds, everywhere. Thank you for the picture of the Brooklyn Bridge, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it!

Now that I’ve gotten my Scrooge-attitude out of the way, I then began to simmer down and ignore the situation that had been stressing me out. I noticed all the people around me, working diligently at their laptops, speaking with their group members, and conversing with friends. I hadn’t approached anyone since I entered the building. I saw Kyle from Macaulay at Brooklyn and talked to him for a minute. He’s a cool guy and talking to him calmed me down more. He was so caught up in a paper he had to write, you could tell it was stressing him out, but he was trying to stay positive.

At this moment, I started to think a little differently then how I was when I entered the snapshot event. At first, I was cynical and angry, ridiculing the whole event to myself and hating without reason. Although, Kyle reminded me of something that is quite obvious, and might seem silly to bring up. That point was that I’m not the only one going through stress right now. It’s coming close to finals, and everyone is starting to hanker down for the long, arduous period of studying. We all need an escape from these processes, and sometimes the presence of others is all you need.

From then on, I didn’t look at the photos the same way as I had before. Instead, I thought about what that person was doing on the day they took that photo, and what they were feeling. Maybe they were having one of the most horrible days ever when they took that picture of the man creating gigantic bubbles. Maybe the man sitting on the subway that the student took a picture of reminds them of their uncle that they love, but who is a lost man. Maybe that letter to Banksy really made that student laugh, and brightened their day for at least a little while.

In the end, I walked out of the Macaulay building feeling much better then when I had entered. The photos had reminded me of the insignificance of the small things I had been worrying about, and at the end of the day everything will work itself out. We all live on this planet together, through happiness and hardship. Just sometimes we need to remind ourselves we’re not the only ones.