Cate and I worked together when I was in my last semester at BYU. One day, for the sake of conversation, Cate asked me what inanimate object I was most fascinated by. After a little thinking I came up with two classes of things that I am fascinated by: paper & anything abandoned.
Paper
I think paper has fascinated me since I first learned about the repression of the masses before widespread printing. I remember hearing about how people started gaining access to printing tools and could share their ideas (even the revolutionary ones) quickly through an entire city. I also would sometimes find myself at the mall after school and would itch to go to Wilson Stationers (a Canadian paper supply company) to see all the paper products they had available. I think of blank paper as symbolic of potential. As such, I often have a hard time making the first mark on crisp, new pages.
Abandoned things
I use the term “abandoned things” loosely because I include people in this category. I am captivated by the idea of people abandoning things. These things often started out as highly-anticipated parts of someone’s life. They were synonymous with dreams and a hope of better things to come. But their stories had twists and turns that left them unappreciated and unwanted. Be they buildings, personal objects (going to the dump with dad was like going to the toy store for me), or lives, anything that is abandoned will probably fascinate me.
I want to spend a few days chronicling the stories of people who are homeless. I want to know those stories. I want to know how someone who probably started off in a home with rowdy Christmas mornings and toast before school decides that living on the street is his best option. I would want to make a book compiling the stories if I thought it would sell. Maybe others share my fascination. I would feel guilty about making a profit off the stories of people who were hard pressed to buy a decent meal so I would donate the money to a good place that I had researched.
8 years ago
4 Comments:
andrew i think that's a really great idea. maybe you could talk to people all over too, you know, start in salt lake, then d.c. then, maybe back to salt lake? just an idea.
p.s. i also LOVED going to the junk yard with my dad. i used to sit in what was left of cars and pretend to drive around.
i never went to the junk yard. i feel like there's a whole side to me that's under developed due to this lack. man, i could be far more . . . altruistic? creative? awesome? had i gone to the junk yard as a kid.
if i went now i'd probably just barf, huh?
Yeah my grandpa was also a junk-aholic. I LOVED going and looking through his stuff. Junk is awesome.
Renee, I think you are quite altruistic, creative and awesome even without having gone to the junk yard. If you did go you would become even more so and then all your friends would get jealous. It would be bad.
Also, you would probably get tetanus.
'Ryan' still lives at the street sign on University Ave in north Provo, next time you're back down here!
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