Sabbaticals and Hiatuses

So often people -- myself included -- just work on autopilot. How many of us ever get a change to sit down and stop and think about where we are, who we are, and what we are doing? Intentionally, I mean.

All of my camera gear is boxed to some degree. I have lost taste for it, lost hope for it, lost interest. I know I have the abilities but the passion, the heart, the desire, the drive, it's all gone. Some might chalk this up to a fit of depression, but it's more akin to a fit of being lost. Right now, everything is in flux, and if I don't know who I am or where I am going or why, how can I create? How can I tell others a story that I myself do not know? When a person has been so strongly confident, and then loses confidence, it is very difficult to get it back.

It is coming though. I can feel it returning, like strength coming back after a long illness. Things are beginning to clear, and at times I have been tempted to reach down for the camera. But this is madness, this is out of habit, and nothing more. I set aside my cameras objectively and purposefully. I may return to them -- at this moment I'm leaning towards the "will" rather than the "may" -- but it must be after a long pause, a long time to get away and clear my head.

I refuse any longer to live a life without meaning.