It’s in all those songs and movies and TV shows. It’s in books and magazines and little girls’ dreams. You know, the talk about “that feeling,” that sensation you get whenever you’re around that one person. The “I can’t stop spinning even though I’m sitting, even though I’m laying down, even though I’m sleeping,” feeling. Or the “It’s four in the afternoon and I haven’t eaten since breakfast but I feel like I’ll throw up if you walk into the room,” sensation. Maybe you’ve “felt” It too. However you want to describe It, however many times you’ve sworn you’ve “never felt this way before about anyone,” no matter how staunchly you promise that “no one could ever make me this happy,” there’s always that one flaw, that one mishap that ends it all, or stops what never even had a chance to start in the first place.

I’ve always thought that feeling, the bug, that – thing – was completely ridiculous, a lie fabricated to give love a good name, to show people that maybe there really is something to look forward to. If I were to believe this feeling existed in the exact dimensions and had the identical descriptions that all those great stories explained It to have, why would It cause so much agony and strife, hurt so much and crush you from the inside-out, yet at the same time bring a smile to your face when no one’s around, put a feather inside your stomach and make every scummy problem seem like it’s going to be okay? How could such a thing exist as to make one’s head, soul, heart, feelings, cease to function, bogged down by such a heavy weight of emotion, one is certain to be unsure of the origin, let alone a solution? As if there could be a solution. Life, in the cold-real-world-hard-knock-terms-of-society sense, hardly allows such earthly pleasures to unfold, to grow, to prosper.

But somehow, something decided to “go my way,” in a such a manner that suggested after years of writing the “glass half full” check, my hopeful efforts finally cashed in. In keeping tradition with the optimism, I shouldn’t have questioned the situation. Therefore, it was the first thing I did; I let second-guesses and uncertainties shower over me. Maybe things didn’t go my way. Maybe everything fell into place the way it was “supposed” to but it just wasn’t in a way in which anyone would have thought would turn out okay. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the possibility that things had a certain way of happening, that none of this was up to fate or providence or whatever. Would it be too much to say that the situations that have presented themselves are results of my decision to wake up every morning and make what I will of the day given to me? I knew it wasn’t a matter of someone else looking out for me, making sure I turned the right direction, walked the correct steps, named the petals of the flower in the right order and ended up with the right one in my hand, made a wish on the exact dandelion or wished at a special time on the clock. Could I have messed up somewhere along the way, and this was my mistake, these moments now my responsibility?

Whatever it was, for whatever reason that I exist here, now, in this moment, the fact I have come this far, or the thought that I will go no further, I know that I was perfectly fine, that everything was working out, that I was alright on my own.

But then...

It’s in the face of a stranger, the face that breaks into a smile as gentle and welcome and inviting as the feeling of going back home. It’s that face that dances in and out of your day, the one that leaves and decides to return at will. It keeps you on your toes, catches you staring, waiting, wishing…It’s the dream you can’t remember upon waking up, the one you’d give anything just to catch another glimpse of, the one that you try to snatch up in your hands, all the while knowing the harder you try to visualize It, the more you struggle to put It in a cage, the farther It slips away. Yet you continue to pursue It. It’s in the eyes; yes…it’s in his eyes. The whole world could be staring at you but all you see is a blanket of white, a sea of nothing but faceless nobodies, save the face of the stranger. Yes, that’s the one. It was his eyes that started this game; they were the ones that distracted me in the first place, after all.

But no matter the beginnings, no matter the feelings you thought you knew before, it is in this moment that you force yourself to let everything go. It is the realization that something, anything, It, exists in those first shared words, in the moment the two of you are caught in one another’s gaze, alive in every aspect of the word. It is in that one flash, which seems to dangle on a string of time, teasing you to reach out and take it, to keep it frozen, a moment available for eternity, yet at the same time it is moment that is inevitably going to fall, to end. It is in this instant that you realize every other moment that led up to this point was real, that two people truly did connect for a moment or two, a moment that seemed so surreal that it would never happen again, a moment that surely couldn’t have actually happened because we don’t live in a movie. It’s the split second that two people realize and deeply and intimately know, at the exact same moment, that nothing could possibly be better than this, than the eternal now. It exists in every second, every moment, every thought or memory or action or word you could desire to put It in. Something as strong as this, with the ability to be housed in anything, able to be taken out and examined, turned over and over, tumbling in hands shaking with nerve, and touched and pondered over until the edges are worn and the surfaces rubbed smooth, surely exists. I guess It just comes when you least expect it.

But this way, at least you shall know It is coming.

1) What is your purpose?

My purpose in this life is to capture the beauty existent in every moment in hopes of connecting the world’s people in a cultural unity.

2) What do you love, and how do (or will) your actions demonstrate this?

It is more than a juvenile hobby or mere interest. Photography is a passion of mine. More than a “love” or  “adoration,” I believe in photography. I believe it is not only a genuine form of art, but also a medium that tells the truth from a pure and unbiased perspective. The ability to capture in an instant a being who has spent years growing, literally and figuratively, into the person he or she is at the sound of a shutter, or freezing nature in all its indescribable and illustrious glory, truly is a gift. I want to utilize this gift to capture human feeling, the heart’s emotion, to give an instant a sense of timelessness. I often find myself on adventures in my hometown searching for a moment, an object, a few seconds to take hold of and look at through the perspective of a lens. I am always able to find a worthy portrait candidate because I sincerely know that beauty and perfection are alive all around us. I am certain that going out into the world and combining my faith in photography, culture, and people would yield nothing less than what I have found thus far in my life.

3) Write your ideal job description. 

If I could get paid just to live, that is exactly what I would do: live. Yet I would live in such a manner that kept my soul young and gave me a deep and sincere appreciation for humankind. I would devote my days to traveling, immersing myself in foreign cultures and meeting as many new people as I could. If I could get paid just to live, I would journey to find what made people wake up in the mornings, what made one’s life worthwhile. I would want to know what “little things” in one’s life were actually the “big things;” I would crave to know what things meant the most to someone and what things didn’t mean a thing at all. I would want to help fellow human beings find the significance that is hidden in between the seconds of the days. I’d delve into strangers’ souls because I believe, that in a world so culturally diverse and tragically torn, one of the few things people share anymore is the fact that we are all human, and therefore have the ability to feel. It is solely this fact that keeps our world on a brink of safety, a world that is far too remarkable to be placed alongside unconnected countries, enduring hatred and misguided prejudices. If I could get paid just to live, I would literally go to the ends of the world in hopes of making a difference.