I was just looking through the recovered database of old photos for the past 10 years.  There are some moments that are just so nostalgic and beautiful and I’m so happy that someone (usually not me) captured them.  It’s rarely me who captured them. 

That means the moments that were most important to others when I happened to be there were captured, but the moments that were more important to me than to others were generally not captured. The things I want to show friends and myself in the future. 

I have so many stories and so little imagery to bring you there. 

I had and have a perfectly good reason for not taking many photos. I don’t want to disturb the holiness of a moment with a photo. I want to be as present in that moment as possible and not worry about how it will look on social media.  I also don’t always feel comfortable when someone takes random pictures of me (depending on who and how) and so I don’t want to make others feel uncomfortable. So I’ve been in the moment a lot and I haven’t been rude to others, but it’s come at a heavy cost. 

It’s kind of fun to piece my life together through photos that others took, but I have a fair number of friends who also never take photos and so now the image of us together is lost forever. That makes me realize it’s worth taking an extra moment, it’s worth sometimes forgetting about whether they feel comfortable or not, because 5 years later they will probably be happy to receive the picture, even if they weren’t in the mood for it at the time. I don’t have to post it to social media without their permission, I can just send it to them and I’m sure they won’t mind. 

I’m still not a big fan of taking photos for the pure purpose of social media but I shouldn’t be embarrassed to want to keep a special moment in my view forever. We have this technology so readily available after all. 

I spent the last 3 hours looking through my computer for whatever I could gather and organizing it.

Hopefully I can pull together a nice collection through my friends and their social media. 
And I mourn those moments that I couldn’t capture but they will never leave my mind.

Still feel uneasy sharing pictures of other people without their permission (especially on blockchain), except for a little girl who is unrecognizable already 5 years later, a guy who is photographed all the time, and a dog who was photographed all the time.


![IMG_7596.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/whatamidoing/qcvFgUnz-IMG_7596.JPG)
Me (?) and my buddy Dudu.  We had just come from the beach and I had a bathingsuit underneath so it looked like I peed my pants.  My house was next door to this friends hostel so I wasn't too worried about it.  I must have gone home to shower shortly after.


![IMG_8363.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/whatamidoing/arImWjHM-IMG_8363.JPG)
Trying to teach my friends daughter to keep a beat at an event where the audience played together with one of my favorite folk/experimental artists, Xiaohe.  It was an awesome weekend and got to chill with friends from different circles and one of my favorite artists.

![IMG_8367.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/whatamidoing/MInEMYoL-IMG_8367.JPG)

This is Xiaohe, waving to a plane.  He went around the country jamming his songs with friends and strangers, and this time happened to be near the airport.  His best songs and performances are really hard to find because his name just means little river and it's rather common, and he seems very indifferent to how well-known he is and does very little promotion.  Some of his best songs are only available for streaming, not to buy or download.  You can find him if you scroll for a while on youtube but not usually his best stuff.  If you type "Xiao he 2018" into youtube you can find one of his 3 solo albums but he's best live with a loop pedal.  You can also find his band if you search "Glorious pharmacy"


![IMG_7490.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/whatamidoing/DmioHUs6-IMG_7490.JPG)
The empty pedestrian road in Jinmen, where I used to go for a day or two when I needed a break from crowded transportation and too many tourist blues.  I'd just walk and walk for an afternoon near the beach or through farms.  Made friends with a cow once who followed me for a few blocks.

![IMG_8085.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/whatamidoing/oyOGtwVn-IMG_8085.JPG)
The beach 10 minutes on foot from where I lived for 3 years.  It was super crowded in the summer but pretty quiet in the winter.  We used to go there at night and drink and eat BBQ and jam on guitar and djembe for a little while.  There was an old abandoned framework for a resort that never got built that had a great view of the water, maybe I can find a picture of that too.

![IMG_7943.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/whatamidoing/PIm8z8tj-IMG_7943.JPG)
This guy again.  We packed into an uber to go see our friend DJ.  He was the coolest dog in the world and we had a funeral with 15 people when he passed and stayed up all night crying and telling stories.  He had more friends than his "owner" (a pretty popular guy) who never saw himself as an owner and was the best friend a dog could ever have. He was a true friend to me too, I didn't even think of him as another species, nobody did. <3  


These were all 2015-2018.  I wonder if 2012-2014 is lost forever.  I'll do my best to find more!  I'll have to ask around, and ask some permission to post some faces.