We live in times when everything is happening way too fast. We are used to constant hustle and rush, although we often don’t really know what it is that we keep on chasing. And even if we do know, we don’t think about why we do it. Does it make sense to pursue our goals when we risk losing one of just a few things we’ve been given that we can’t recover once it is gone? This thing is… time.
For several years now, we have seen the awareness of the significance of the quality of life growing modestly. Step by step, we have been finding out that it is no longer just the material needs that we want to satisfy, but also our spiritual and mental needs along with our corporeality. The concept of slow life emerged in Poland a few years ago and that resulted in a healthy tendency to spend leisure time more thoughtfully. Initially, it was more often present among freelancers or artists, but now it has spread to include a wider group, which in fact includes me, too. No longer in our twenties, we are moving from the period of ‘whatever will be, will be’ to the time where we start planning our lives a little further than the two days of the upcoming weekend.
Nowadays, membership cards that give you unlimited access to gyms and sports clubs of all kinds have become a standard perk included in the employment contract. It is in fashion to attend crossfit, aerobics classes or do one of several versions of yoga. Thanks to social media, everyone wants to be fit. We look at our favourite personal trainer, who, from the screen of a smartphone, encourages us to move from the sofa and tv in order to sculpt our body in a local gym (and at the same time advertises his or her favourite product which will help you shape any part of your body you want to make a bit more impressive). It may just be a fad, but, regardless of the rate at which the daily number of photos with the hashtag #silownia, #gym or #fitgirl is increasing on Instagram, it’s good that so many people have started working out. The more of us will be healthy, the easier it will be to pay off the national debt caused by the social program that distributes money among us all so generously.
We get used to being able to plan our future. But what if something goes wrong? Random accidents or acquired chronic diseases disrupt our functioning effectively. Suddenly, we have to face a situation that we did not expect at all.
“The favourites of the gods die young” – Friedrich Nietzsche.
I once experienced something similar myself. Shortly before my thirtieth birthday, I suffered a serious spinal injury. The problem was that the muscles around my spinal cord put pressure on my vertebrae. To make a long story short, for two days I was in pain when moving, and even after taking a double dose of a strong pain killer I seriously considered going to the emergency room. My body decided for me – my muscles got really tight out of a sudden, and I ended up having the most painful car trip ever. A trip to the nearest hospital, of course. After six hours of lying down, strapped to a hard spinal board (at least I didn’t feel pain at the time), I was admitted to the neurosurgical ward. The doctor’s diagnosis after another examination wasn’t optimistic. I was told that if I wanted to walk and be fit in the future, it would be best to give up my beloved taekwondo, which I had been doing for over ten years. I was simply devastated. Suddenly, my whole life turned upside down. Yesterday I was a strong, young man, with plans for the future, now I’m simply infirm and in need of help.
My parents are doctors, and for all my childhood I thought that I was immune to what most people considered scary in medicine. I was used to sick people, the smell of medicine, gowns, or the issue of death. I was unimpressed by hospital hallways and treatment rooms. We even had two doctor’s offices in the house.
Everything changed, when I ended up in hospital. I suddenly understood how other people viewed doctors and illnesses. How vulnerable and alone they felt among other patients in the hospital.
In an unfamiliar building, cold from the light of fluorescent lamps, full of long corridors, empty at night, where you get to share a room with a few people who are just as frightened as you are and whose lives, so well-organised up until yesterday, have suddenly shrunk to the time between ward rounds. The moment when we suddenly realize that we know nothing and have no control over what is actually happening to us is truly scary.
The story doesn’t end particularly well. I’ve partially recovered and I do my sports, but I still have the thought at the back of my mind that one day I might go back to this terrible place as a patient. I will never look at the hospital the same way again. Certainly not like when, as a young boy, I used to drop by my dad’s ward after school and buy the world’s best doughnuts from the café on the first floor. I was greeted by young nurses asking how school was and if I had a girlfriend yet. In retrospect, I think these remain to be positive experiences, nonetheless. After being suddenly removed from the reality and losing control of your own body, it is much easier to appreciate the value of the time we have. This allows us to share it with those we care about the most.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monthy Python.
Piter Trojanowski
Born in 1984 in Łęczyca. Master of Arts at the Director of Photography & Television Production Faculty of the Leon Schiller National Film School in Łódź. He presented his work, among other places, in the Patio Art Centre, during the Pinhole Festival in Germany, at Art Takes Time Square (Time Square, New York), in the Łódź Film Museum and at OFF Piotrkowska, in the Gallery of the ZAMEK! Conference Centre, during the exhibition of students and graduates of photography of the Film School in Łódź during Fotofestiwal in Łódź (2015). In 2022, he made a series of portraits of Rafał Pacześ titled Walking with R.. The finale of the project was the sale of one of the photographs at The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity 2022 auction for over PLN 1500, and all the proceeds were donated to the foundation.