Humankind
There is a strange knowing in not knowing. That's one of the first things the lens taught me. Ordinarily we overlook strangers, as if they are there though not really there, acceptable apparitions. But the lens teaches you to focus on not just the stranger, but the unknowing of that new person you just met. Call it promise. It must be the narrowing of focus, the tunneling of the lens through the distractions and clamor of life. Suddenly this enormous value of discovery of all that we don't know about this brand new person rushes forward and introduces itself to us energetically, like a thousand little characters from a thousand formative stories that collectively make up this stranger's journey and life and self and thusly this person with whom we are suddenly, if for a moment, seem like we’ve known.
I pondered this mass of thought all at once, as I gazed through the lens at the calming sincerity of the young woman at the coffee bar, this remarkable sameness of difference linking us all, linking me to them, them to me and us to each other.
Then she smiled so kindly, so effortlessly, so spontaneously and in moment I saw hope, I saw humanity, I saw her, myself, everyone I'd ever met. That's when I heard the shutter click. And with that humble metallic beat everything that often eludes me, stepped forward as one and I knew. I knew there were not innumerable mysteries to comprehend but just one. I suddenly, miraculously knew her, I knew everyone and I knew myself.
