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This Little Camera

This little camera is nothing fantastic. It is your everyday point-and-shoot camera which is, I think, not even as great as the camera on my phone. People have asked me why I would carry this camera with me everywhere I go since I have more than 1 'camera' with me already considering the fact that I carry 2 phones and 1 tab along with me most of the time.

The reason is simple. The internet.

I am not as intrigued with the Internet as I used to be, it used to be my everything....but that was before EVERYONE was in it. I love people, I do, but I just don't think we human beings are meant to click with everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME under the critical gaze of only THE REST OF THE WORLD.

It might seem odd for a blogger or someone who has been on the Internet for as long as I have but once you are 'out in the digital world', it doesn't make you a celebrity (there is no such thing as celebrity blogger or celebrity youtuber because...you know...a loooooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOt of people have access to similar privileges too) but it does make things that you post accessible to everyone else. By 'everyone else', I mean people who love you AND people who want to see you end up in a pit of fire.

So, every once in a while, I will disconnect from everything. Sometimes I switch off the modem. I live on 1GB data plan on the phone (can you believe it?! LOL)

On the same note, that is what my camera is to me. The phone is connected to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest...you name it, it is there.

It is different with an offline camera. Everyday, I force myself to take 1 picture of something. It could be my meal (which I ain't gonna share on Instagram), my face, my kids, my surroundings, something interesting, something absolutely boring or something inane like my laptop keyboard.

It's interesting because I find myself all caught up with the news, friends' updates, people's opinions, pictures of people having a holiday, people posting about their sickness amidst people also trying to put out positive vibes. But it frazzles me.

So, when I pull out my non-fancy smancy camera and take a look around me, my mind is taken OFF the internet and all that noise in my brain stops. It is funny because it is THEN that you start to notice things you take for granted.

For instance, we were out walking around the neighborhood and I didn't notice that there were so many homeless dogs around here. I didn't notice that my plants were dying (because the cleaner's stopped watering them for me, yes, I took it for granted) until I pointed my camera their way. I didn't notice that I have 2 printers now (I forgot I had a printer and bought a new one, duh).

Stuff like that.

Yes, I do take a lot of selfies (I intentionally bought a selfie-efficient camera) on the camera because I want to leave behind a lot of pictures of myself....for my kids, not the rest of the world. They are ugly, by the way and it is not on Instagram.

So, yes, that is the reason why I bring a small camera along with me everywhere I go. There are 'moments' I need to capture and I don't need a DSLR to do that. All I need is this uncomplicated dumbed-down version of a digital camera. All wrapped up in a precious little white-dotted pink bone-like carry case that my friend bought for me when we were in South Korea.

It looks like it meant so much less, doesn't it?


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