The should-haves of living drift ever deeper. The more time I’ve devoted to nature photography, the greater my regret that I once dropped out of a college class on tree and shrub identification. If I had fully endured this class, I wouldn’t have taken three days to identify the flowering tree I spotted on Saturday. It is a pink horse chestnut.
Back then, the crystal-meth grade energy of my 72-year-old biology professor exhausted me. The thought of him waking daily at 4 am to inventory the velutinous or toothed leaves within 100 paces of his home intimated that my life was one of utter dissipation in comparison. To achieve his level of dedication to anything and then sustain it for 52 additional years was a possibility I could not countenance.
While I wish I hadn’t taken his example as an indictment of my opposite inertia (I was to stay at rest for quite some time after that), I do relish the process of finding out the names of various flowers and trees I’ve photographed. Maybe the reason I withdrew was far more simple. Revelation bit by bit suits me best.
Intensity Without Mastery 