the human condition

Being haunted by desire of authenticity I take stealthy photos sometimes. I am interested to discern how people read when they think nobody’s looking. The world surely does not exist for them at that moment.

Continuing my stroll around downtown Santa Fe, I met the most adorable Native American young man. He was homeless and living on the street. He approached me as I passed a café with, "French fries sure sound good right now. You spare a smoke?" What impressed me was his positivity and reserved knowledge of the deeper meanings of life from one as young as he. A mind not cluttered with consumerism or tweeting every thought which crossed his mind in a vain attempt of approval from phantom peers. I awarded him with both a smoke and french fries where he traded it with a thirty minute discussion of such surprising intelligence and candor.
“You can’t let people scare you. You can’t go your whole life trying to please everyone else. You can’t go through life worried about what everyone else is going to think … You can’t let the judgment of others stop you from being you.”