Going through pics and it hits you hard

It was such a strange experience browsing through photos of the previous Winter, from January onwards. The time before Cesar passed away. Not just remembering that cool dog and everything that time entailed but then the of course start contrast of the city directly there afterwards. While of course sounds do not really come through in photographs for me seeing a lot of the old photos really brings back a lot of the memories of the sounds of that place, or in the case of these wintertime photos, lack of silence... The wintertime is such a distinct contrast not just visually but as well audibly when everything is sleeping... occasionally you will see a few squirrels and maybe the odd bird and of course ... wind, when it's there, but beyond that, everything is just silent ans sleeping in the wintertime out in nature, at least in Northern Ontario. It's not the most amazing of nature in the world for sure but it will always have a special place in my heart. And connected to the internet or not, spending time out there alone really does something to you... I truly think I am not the same ... but alas, can the truth be said about anyone, from passing moment to moment? I mean, there is the appearance of being the same, one moment sliding effortlessly into the next in a seemingly endless sequence of moments making up our lives, but from moment to moment... is it really still the exact same us? I think at the core there is an eternal unchanging element that is shared between each and every person but anything else in this world is just ephemral, transitory, and I guess that is what makes life beautiful, and maybe tragic if we are not careful. I remembered also getting pretty upset with that dog once, not hitting him or anything but it was the end of a long day and really the last thing I had wanted was to walk in and find this old dog laying in a puddle of his own poo, I mean he was getting to be super old at that point but I kind of lost it a bit and yelled at him to get him out, I think it must have been freaky for him for sure and afterwards I felt bad about it like it wasn't his fault he had had a poo-splosion it's not like he wanted to at his age he just couldn't help it. Well yeah a few short months after that he was no more, there are no more like him... we have new german shepherds but my father went back to poland in order to bring back more like him and what my dad came back with was just not the same type of dog, that exremely long hair was something truly something else. The breeder which my dad originally got Cesar from said that lineage had passed on, there were no more like him left. The even bleaker reality of people living on missing their loved ones who have passed on, what a life this is huh... treat your friends and family well, god is in heaven and you are here on earth so let your words be few.

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This is coming back in contrast to the city and it's screeching of trains, tires, engines, people, construction. Of course there are some nature sounds too but they are mostly drowned out, especially during the busy hours of the day.

Going back to the city was always a bit of a shocking experience with the newfound sensation overload. I remember when we didn't have internet out there and that was indeed the full on sensory isolation experience, where you were living completely disconnected from the outside world. An alien invasion could have occurred in all the major cities and we could have never known it until coming back but that all changed when we got the internet and the advent of notifications in the forest, but I still miss those true days of disconnected freedom out there with zero distractions other than your own purpose. And remember the distinct feeling of actual anxiety when it came time to "re-connect" to the cellular/wifi networks with the incoming text messages and social media notifications, I think that people can get used to such low-levels of 'background anxiety' one could call it it sorts of becomes the norm and people don't even realize that's what they are living in, particularly in the Western world we seem to be the most preoccupied with living "online" where each moment of our 'free attention' is siphoned off by some sort of social media algorithm presenting you the latest craziest shenanigans of the latest and craziest people doing the latest and craziest things in an effort to capture your... eyeballs your attention the most valuable currency of the modern day world the most precious gift we have and which can be 'stolen' away from us if we are not constantly vigilant is our attention, for it only takes 'an instant' to get sucked into some sort of social media or youtube wormhole because we just 'clicked on' out of habit and bam there goes another hour out of our already short lives. Anyways we all know the way it works right we are the smart ones 😜 keep it real my bronies and bronettes

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^{What it all feels like take me back to the forest}

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