I paused to think about this idea while reading a biography of Dorothea Lange. Know of her? I didn't recognize her name either. I had seen her most famous photo, though. It's called Migrant Mother, captured at a camp in California during the Great Depression.
Dorothea was a girl from New Jersey. A girl with a passion. After high school, her mother persuaded her to study something more conventional than photography. She gave it a try, for her mother's sake. Then she dropped out. Her next move was to go on a trip around the world because, shoot, anyone knows that's better than doing something your heart isn't into. Dorothea and a friend pooled their money ($140 -- was that a lot of money in the early 1900s?) and headed west. They got as far as San Francisco before someone stole all their savings. They stayed in a hostel and found jobs the next day. On Dororthea's first day at photo counter in a department store, she met people who became her lifelong friends and introduced to the art scene that eventually gave way to her, not career, but life of photography.
What gets me about her story is that her life path happened because she was bold. She listened to her heart -- and the call of adventure. She took a risk. She didn't make it around the world, but taking that risk, leaving home, opened a new avenue for her.
What am I trying to say? (Not rhetorical, I'm seriously asking myself that.) Well, I think it's that we need to be aware of our dreams and desires and not put up blockades because it can get so tiresome to wade against the flow of our lives.
You can't deny what you must do, no matter what it costs. -Dorothea Lange
What are your thoughts on this? Do you have an example from your own life?
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