Pushing Forward Back

I went to the library over the weekend because who knows how much longer those will be around but also because I wanted to find some books about photography that I could bring home and flip through for inspiration.

I found a bunch and they’re great and I brought them home and can we just really quick acknowledge how incredible it is that we have libraries where you can just wander around and look at books and borrow the ones that look interesting and bring them back when you’re done with them?

Bonkers.

But what was even more bonkers wonderful to me was the giant collection of Blu-Rays and DVDs that they have available to borrow at will. Now this is nothing new or anything. But it used to be that the selection was always super random and never quite what you would call current or up to date.

But not anymore.

In fact, there were two Blu-Ray copies of a movie my wife and I enjoyed so much a few weeks ago that we watched it twice (it’s called Abigail, if you’re curious, and it was so completely batsh*t that we never wanted it to end - you definitely should check it out if you’re into ballerina vampires). And as I looked through the selections, I kept seeing current movies that I’ve really wanted to see but that have gotten lost in the endless streaming menus.

Speaking of endless streaming menus, I never thought I’d miss Blockbuster, but every time I spend an hour trying to find something to watch, I can’t help but miss walking into the video rental store and finding something great to watch and bringing it home and loading it into the DVD player - or VCR, if we’re really being honest about things - and then just watching it.

And that was the event. We knew what we were going to watch and we watched it.

I miss that.

In fact, I didn’t realize how much I missed that until I was browsing through the movie collection at the library. And it was then that I remembered that I still have my Blu-Ray player in the garage and I can easily hook it up to an HDMI port on my giant living room TV.

So after I do that this week, I’ll return to the library and pick out a few movies (probably Still Alice and The Graduate) and bring them back home and enjoy the ritual of placing the disc into the player and selecting from the menu and pressing play. And with the time I saved not having to scroll through the streaming menu to find something to watch, I can enjoy the photography books that I have on loan for a few more weeks.

There is comfort in nostalgia. But there is also comfort in doing what we can to get our heads out of the constant onslaught of information and news that is coming at us from every direction. Personally, I’m tired of it. It has become nothing less than exhausting. So I’m trying to figure out how to detach from it and fill my life with the things that really make me happy. Not just mindlessly happy.

I’m not always convinced that we’re on the right path. And just because something is the new and improved way doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to do it. Sometimes the way we were doing it before worked just fine.

If not better.