8:36pm and slicing life

I've been taking a picture of whatever I'm doing at 8:36pm every day now for almost 2 months now, and I'm still just as excited about it as ever.  Actually, a few things that'll be happening soon with a new iPhone app called Air Me will take this project to the next level.

When I was taking a picture at 8:36pm last night while having a catch-up-with-everything dinner with Kindra, she asked how long I plan on doing this project.  FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  Which is a pretty ambitious goal, considering that there are very few things we plan on doing for the rest of our lives, and most of them are pretty serious habits, like eating, drinking, sleeping.  Things that aren't required for survival include brushing teeth, getting dressed, hygenic things.  Getting married is a promise to do something every day for the rest of your life too, and therefore carries a huge weight of importance with it.

I love the 8:36pm project because it has constraints.  It's one picture a day.  It's at the same time every day.  It's a slice of life that I don't have much editorial control over.  Sure I could try to do something interesting at 8:36pm every day, but that's gonna require more energy than I have.  It's the every day that I want to capture, anyway, the act of living rather than the act of projecting a cool or interesting life to the Internet.  And it's interesting because when I tell people about this project the first response is also, "I could never do that because I'm never doing anything interesting at 8:36pm."  Exactly.  Or, maybe once in a while you are.  But in any case, we of the Internet Age are so used to filtering our experiences and only expressing the highs and lows for the most part.  Of course, even our highs and lows will bore most people, since we have such a high bar for being interested in anything, but I think it's interesting to go the other route.  Capture the ordinary, the repetitive, the mundane, the fact that you eat the same thing every day or see the same people.  Because there's something beautiful about not editorializing everything. 

It's a relief of sorts to not worry about being interesting.  Since the constraint is forced by a particular minute of the day, it's also not necessarily "your fault" for not being interesting.  Instructions on how to play are here, if you feel like joining up.