Don’t Get Lost in the Chaos

July was interesting. I’ve learned a great deal in this particular month. A lot of change has occurred in my life recently. Well, really everything changed. In a good way, but also a little surreal and sad, as loss always is. Well unless you lose cancer or any other deadly aliment, or a stalker, or a wart, etc, so I guess not all loss is sad, just sometimes. This loss though was.

Here’s some back story. I moved to New York City in May of 1999, which by the way doesn’t seem that long ago. I think that may be because I rarely remember the bad times. Meaning time seems much shorter than reality. No harm there. :] I also like to go on tangents as you see. Okay, I left Chicago in ’99 as it was time for me to leave (quite a fascinating story for another time), and I have now lived in NYC for eleven years and some change. For about ten of those years I was in a total of two long term relationships, with really no time in between. This, if you knew me before in Chicago, is a crazy concept. This phenomenon occurred after my first year here which consisted of a string of women, friends up for anything and a lot of sleepless nights. NYC and I had a torrid affair that first year and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Now suddenly and ironically on the anniversary of my 11th year in this crazy town I call home I am on my own again. It been almost three months now (in three days on the third…threes follow me everywhere), and I am still in this hazy fog that’s just beginning to thin out. Things are changing faster than usual. I don’t mind that. I would hate to stay the same or become someone I once was. I am just curious to how this is going to play out in the next few months…year…years…, not scared, but excited. I like to be interested in things, especially when it is my life.

I was thinking of ideas to help me clear out of the rest of this haze. I need a focus of some sort so I don’t get lost in the chaos. Something new to do. Here is what I came up with, starting August 1st, 2010 I will publish a picture I take that day everyday for a year (well to be exact I will do this everyday until July 31st, 2011). It won’t be my only posts of course, just a continuous one. I like/need things like this. I’m also interested to what the culmination of all these pictures will say after that year.

That’s all.

-Cara

TenByTen

I was trying to think of another work for truth today and stumbled upon this site called 10X10. I think it has a great concept, look, and feel to it.

It is super fresh!!! I love the visual, with the information. I love how they say, “100 words and pictures that define the time.“. Watch out people I might start to pay attention to what is going on in this world and get involved…

Here is the concept:

10×10™ (‘ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.10×10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10×10 takes note and remembers.Each hour is presented as a picture postcard window, composed of 100 different frames, each of which holds the image of a single moment in time. Clicking on a single frame allows us to peer a bit deeper into the story that lies behind the image. In this way, we can dart in and out of the news, understanding both the individual stories and the ways in which they relate to each other.

10×10 runs with no human intervention, autonomously observing what a handful of leading international news sources are saying and showing. 10×10 makes no comment on news media bias, or lack thereof. It has no politics, nor any secret agenda; it simply shows what it finds.

With no human editors and no regulation, 10×10 is open and free, raw and fresh, and consequently a unique way of following world events. In 10×10, we respond instinctively to patterns in the grid, visual indicators of relevance. When we see a frequently repeated image, we know it’s important. When we see a picture of a movie star next to a picture of dead bodies, we understand the extremes that exist in our world. Scanning a grid of pictures can be more intuitive than reading headlines, for it lets the news come to life, and everything feels a bit less distant, a bit closer to heart, and maybe, if we’re lucky, gives us pause to think. If you’d like to learn more about 10×10, you can read how it works.