Pack Rat resolves to be 42% more righteous in 2009
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Boy oh boy, where has the time gone? 2009? Really? Does anyone else feel like Y2k was just yesterday? Maybe I’m just starting to get old. Perhaps I’ll start questioning my own mortality. Am I mortal? There, done.
I thought it might be fitting, what with everyone reflecting on the year past and looking forward to what’s next, for us to visit Before IDie I Want To… This Polaroid photo project by Nicole Kenney and ks rives is both an homage to the dying medium of Polaroid photography (apparently Polaroid has announced that it will discontinue making its cameras and film. Can you imagine? In ten years, the new generation won’t even know what a Polariod looks like! Or a walk man!), as well as a motivational tool, of sorts.
The concept is pretty straight forward. Polaroid photos are taken of people in six major American cities. Once the photos come out, the subject writes down one thing he/she wants to accomplish before death in that little margin at the bottom of the photo. What is interesting is the spectrum on which these people’s response fall. Some people take the question extremely seriously, other people…not so much.
For instance, looking through the photos that hail from NYC you come across the grinning, jovial face of a young man in a vest and green tie. He looks a little michevious, and more than a little playful. But the caption of his photo reads “I want to find my birth mother.” In another, there is a pair of sunglasses and a smile dominating most of the photo, with stacks of bracelets in the background, and the woman in the image writes “I want to be able to wear every piece of clothing in my closet.”
Kenney and rives are most interested in the questions this project raises. They write on the website, ”Hearing hundreds of different answers to this question from hundreds of different people makes one wonder: What make some people more aware of their own mortality than others? What motivates people to take action in their lives? What values do we hold as a society? And what values do other societies around the world find important?” While they might find no definitive answers, the search itself seems to be rewarding enough.
As we move into a brand new year, why not go ahead and ask yourself what is it that you really want to do with your life? And then, hell’s bells, get out there and do it! You never know what tomorrow will bring, so don’t put your dreams off.
