Content With Trash And Treasure

Occasionally I get asked about the pictures I use in my posts, which are about 99.9% my own, as I get personal satisfaction creating as much content collateral as I can for my posts. It would would be more suitable to the post to grab a picture from the internet instead as there is an absolute mass of images that could be freely used, but I still prefer to have even my own lower quality images on my posts, even if irrelevant.

I have a decent camera and I am not the crappiest photographer in the world, but it isn't always handy to carry it around, which means that I have to rely on my phone to grab images at times. And generally, even the shots from my Olympus are edited on my Lightroom mobile.

However, one thing I really enjoy is finding photographic "content" in my daily world, which is absolutely everywhere. One of the benefits of not relying solely on images to attract an audience (as most people come for the words), is that the quality can be a little lower and still add value to the post itself. This should be impossible for a photography post though, as quality of the photo matters, especially since many think their images are standalone content itself - which is true, but photos don't tend to engage the audience very much, even if they like the images.

But, this post isn't about photographs specifically, it is about "finding content" which some people seemingly struggle to do. Sure, there are interest areas and preferences on what people are willing to post about, but a lot of people seemingly do not have enough inspiration in their lives to support a post. Well, more likely, people don't pay attention and think that much about what they actually experience, instead moving through their world on autopilot as consumers of information, not creators of thought.

It is an interesting thing to consider in my opinion and if people observed their thought patterns often, I think they would discover they think, far less than they think. The reason is that a lot of us consume content in our world that is already made for consumption, meaning that the majority of the ideas are not only already fleshed out, they are presented in a way that guides the viewer down the path. If you imagine a watching a movie, it is a timeline of events that moves in some kind of logical order and brings in the information the audience needs to see, when they need to see it. The execution of this varies, but generally the movies that are disjointed or require "too much thought" are not well received by the average audience member. Essentially, people want to sit down and switch off their brains, yet still feel that they have done something of value personally, even though they did nothing at all.

When we carry this mindset into our generalized experience, we tend to walk through the world eyes closed to content potential. However, a person who is more creative will be able to take these experiences that others walk past and flesh them out into a story that those same people who walked past the same thing, will connect with, because it is familiar to them. The mundane turned into the extraordinary, not through embellishment and lies, but through bringing attention to the minutiae of our daily lives and how truly spectacular it can be.

The saddest thing I hear is when people say "I have nothing to write about2 because what it means is that they are literally sleepwalking through their lives and not living at all. The world is glorious, even the most difficult parts of it and perhaps, especially the most difficult parts because they affect us the most, change us, impact on us and strengthen us into superheroes, or crush our bones to dust.

But, most people spend their leisure time consuming that polished content that is pre-chewed, rather than the yet to be formed content that is inspired by their experience and could be bouncing around inside of their head. It is like people have forgotten that humans have the most advanced entertainment system that has ever been created, that is always available and is always free - our imagination. But the less we use it, the less we can use it and as such, the less creative we become. This doesn't just impact on our ability to create and earn on content, but our effectiveness and relevance in the world as a whole, as if we cannot create value as an owner our thoughts, we have to create value as a worker of other people's thoughts. I far prefer to be an owner and creator of and from my thoughts, than a consumer of other people's and an employee hired to construct their imaginations.

The pictures are of a trash can at the hospital. It is padlocked because it could contain identifying information - one's trash, really could be another's treasure.