A little over a month ago, I somehow stumbled across this TED talk by Cesar Kuriyama, who spent an entire year filming one second every day of his life (and plans to continue doing so for the rest of his life). I thought it was such a cool idea, and turns out: there’s an app for that.
I’ve been doing this for about a month now, and it’s made me realize a couple of things. First of all, when my days seem to consist of the same thing over and over again, waking up and going to work and coming home and making dinner and watching TV and reading a book, it seems hard to come up with something to film. But the challenge of this, of finding something unique about every day, helps me to pay attention to life a bit more sometimes.
And then on days when there is so much going on, when we are out hiking or are spending time with family or are on the road, it seems like there are so many one seconds to choose from.
But the things it has made me think about the most is the value of a second, and how the second or minute or hour I spent at work or cooking dinner or writing or reading or taking a nap has the same time value as the second or minute or hour I spent tailgating with friends or watching football or standing on top of Lookout Mountain watching the hang gliders taking off.
Some days seems to run together like a race, and some days seems to drag out, but so far this project is helping me to be mindful of each second.