I Am Not a Camera

 Plans and dreams and schemes can be like clothes in a closet: 
if they don't fit or you don't like them anymore, maybe they're just a waste of space.

This week I gave away my high-end video camera, tripod, and microphones I'd so carefully researched and bought two years ago when I was going to start a videography business (and maybe make more personal films too). 

I realized business wasn't for me, and, further, I'd never liked the audio-visual part of film making. I never used the equipment.

I've been keeping it around though, like keeping clothes that'd fit if I lost a few pounds.
(Does this ever work?)

Maybe if you have lots of closets it doesn't matter, but in my case, the camera stuff took up precious space.

I'm relieved it's gone. Looking at the empty shelf, I realize the camera was taking up psychic space too, expensive and good equipment that should be put to use, niggling at me, suggesting failure.

It was a failure––as a business idea, anyway––but I don't know that any effort is very often entirely wasted. I've lived long enough to  salvage bits and pieces of my past failures, often and unexpectedly. Their usefulness has surprised me; it's as if my efforts were, unknown to the younger me, preparation for what I'd need years later. 

That's looking through the wrong end of the telescope, of course. 
It's more the case that I do things I'm already equipped for, even if the mental equipment is leftover from failure.

And the physical equipment--in this case--good riddance! I'm happy someone else can use it.