All shots this week taken on Berwick Street in Soho. There is very little of old Soho left and yet still the last remnants are still being dismantled, removed and built over. The only smidgen of a glimpse of its former sleazy and seductive past are boardings (see shot below) which cover building work designed to eradicate it, oh the twisted irony.
I am done mourning the past version of this city. My grief has reached a level of acceptance which means I can exist in this new version and no longer lament the past. This is not because I am happy with the transformation. I find new Soho boring by comparison to its previous counterpart but because to stay locked to a former incarnation of the world around us is not healthy.
We must live in the now. We must be fluid with change and not be constantly looking backwards, hoping a world we grew up in and are familiar with will return. It won’t.
If you keep your gaze on what has gone you will fail to see what is front of you. Recently I caught myself saying ‘in my day’ when referring to the past but I realised that I am here right now, today is ‘my day’ as is every day I live on this planet. To identify with a previous period rather than the one you are in means you become a fixed moment in time. A full stop.
Maybe we feel the era we were raised in shaped us and defines us but we are as much a part of now as we were a part of then, if we want to be. If we engage. If we stop ourselves from being rooted in an ex-existence. We did those years, we lived them, they happened, do we need to keep living them? Why continue to dwell on previous experiences when you can continuously have new ones? If your focus is on another time, you will most definitely not be entirely present in this one…