Energy

One day, when I’m three-quarters blind (I’m currently half-blind) and 65 years old, I will look back on my days of working on Hectic Nine-9 fondly. It’s a shame that only once we’re removed from a specific period or scenario in our lives, do we realize how fantastic some of those periods and scenarios actually were.

In-between looking for a place to live (outside of my parents’ abode), worrying about the price of petrol and getting so old in years that the mention of the word ‘club’ incites a feeling of penetrating nausea, comes a special moment or two that I am determined to bookmark in my memory bank.

Yesterday, I went on my second (of many more) shoots at Sahara Park, Newlands, to cover the Cape Cobras vs. Dolphins T20 cricket match. There is very little in that sentence that – under normal circumstances – wouldn’t usually put me to sleep, but as part of my new role as Online Content Producer for HN9, I am required to part with the free time I usually enjoy on weekends, forfeit those fabled naps and capture the best moments that events such as this cricket match has to offer.

The best (and worst) part of doing what I now do is that I am completely out of my element. As much as a desk-bound job saps at the staying power of my spinal cord, it also affords me the benefit of retreating into my own head, a place where I feel most comfortable. Walking around a noisy stadium, snapping pictures of crowds and not being able to listen to some Jimmy Nevis over a cup of black Rooibos tea is far from the norm for me. Far from the norm, until I shot this rather spontaneous video of JP and Lukho, two (awesome, talented, friendly) members of the hip hop group Purple Hearts…

We were outdoors, time was limited, a Hectic Nine-9 fan had to keep boisterous members of the Cape-coloured community out of shot and I had to maintain a steady hand with my newly-acquired iPhone. Sounds simple, perhaps. But when you’ve spent the last five years writing scripts in a corner of the office, such a scenario was as foreign and intimidating as polished, technologically-advanced Eva was to rusty, creaky little Wall-E.

But two minutes later, the seemingly simple video was done. It looked good. It had energy. And more importantly, I had energy.  I had belief that change – as daunting a prospect as it may be – is simply essential to your wellbeing. With the natural passing of time a phenomenon that we can reliably count upon, surely life itself should be transforming at a similar rate?

If it isn’t, it’s up to you to find that something – no matter how small, and even in the form of a 37” video clip – that will reignite that childhood energy you could once conjure up in an instant.

Find it.