"The Meaning of Life Is That It Is To Be Lived"

 Now there's always that one pressing question that people ask you, and it seems like your being put on the spot. It seems like no one can ever truly answer this question without thinking long and hard about it, so that's exactly what I did. One of my best friends Nina and I were walking outside in the park in late October close to her house and we just so happened to be talking about our futures. This was something we talked about alot with each other to the point where I could predict what she was going to say most of the time. After we walked around we sat down on the swing sets and as the conversation began to get dull I suddenly asked “What do you believe the meaning of life is?” She looked at me in dismay as if she were waiting for someone to ask her this question for a long time. She took a deep breath and as the analytical person she is, she said “why do ask”. I wanted a real response from her without her knowing it was for a project so that she didn't feel pressured to answer in a certain way.

She simply said life is all about how you're living in the moment. At first I didn't really understand what she meant, so I asked if she could elaborate on this more. She looked at me in my eyes with a smile and she said Layla you know that feeling that you get when you notice the small things in life, like when the hair on your skin rises when you're scared or when you're so excited that your stomach starts to hurt. Or even the moment right now where you question your very existence and the meaning of life? She said what I mean is, the moments that feel things and you feel a part of something and you just take the time out of your day to just feel something, that is living. “It's like pinching yourself to see if you're still alive”. Then I asked her what made her feel this way because most people would view life as just being in this world? She said she felt this way because she remembered at times where she thought life was that simple too, but when she was struggling with finding herself she always questioned is this really living, can I really be living my life when I'm so numb with the things around me? As she started to realize who she was she soon became aware of the feelings that she used to get and remembered that that was life was really about, finding yourself.

At this point she had gotten out of her seat like she was presenting a soapbox. I took this opportunity to ask her if I could take a picture of what she felt the meaning of life was. She got really excited and she said close your eyes and I'll move around and then you can just keep clicking the camera. I opened my eyes and I started looking at the pictures. She was wearing bright colors that were blinding to the eye, but her golden brown skin complexion warmed the picture up. She was standing in the grass near the sidewalk where you could see the nearby houses at around 1 oclock which you could probably tell by the way the sun was hitting her skin. Now because this photo was an action photo I had to have a fast shutter time which meant no flashlight. I took this photo on a vertical angle because I knew I wanted to include her whole body in the picture. Also because we had a good camera quality we were able to set the photo to a good focus point by just tapping the screen. In terms of aputure we used a phone so the camera is always open. There is also shadowing in the photo which makes it look more realistic and cool which is why I chose to leave that in the photo. I also put a filter on this photo to make it look more like you were in a dream state. When taking this picture I didn't even think about the rule of thirds because I didn't want the picture to be even and horizontal, I wanted it to actually be slightly angled as seen in the picture.

She said the reason why I think this photo shows my meaning of life is because you didn't get to experience it, she said that that's why she asked me to close my eyes when I was ready to snap the picture because it was for her to experience the way the sun made her feel. Nina said that this showed how even though the sun made her skin look good it always made her really hot to the point where she would just get these rushes of heat through her body. “That’s what it's all about the way you feel, you have to assess how you're feeling, because without feeling you can't have a meaningful life”.