{"id":4737,"date":"2015-06-30T04:10:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T04:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.cactusthemes.com\/newstube\/?p=4737"},"modified":"2016-04-21T07:57:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T07:57:42","slug":"5-places-that-make-a-great-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/?p=4737","title":{"rendered":"The 4th of July – My Journey to Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0I<\/span>nspiration takes many shapes and forms.<\/h1>\n

When we take photos, we\u00a0are often focusing on details in the scene that\u00a0speak to us – sometimes unconsciously.<\/p>\n

Last year’s Fourth of July was a pretty big turning point in my journey toward personal independence.<\/p>\n

It was, in fact, the first time I had ever played with fire-works. To me, this is an odd “first” to be crossing off at 22, but due to my childhood\u00a0fears of loud noises and my teenage disinterest in the 4th of July (never-mind most of LA’s strict firework control) I had never actually picked something up, set it on fire and\u00a0watched it explode.<\/p>\n

And so,\u00a0for the sake of our Founding Fathers and because I was partying in a part of LA that was more lax about such things, I decided to blow shit up.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, this was a monumental experience.<\/p>\n

But these photos, to me, represent more than what meets the eye. I was focused that night on my journey. By throwing cherry bombs in the street\u00a0I was, ironically, one step further from my child-hood, my past,\u00a0my community.\u00a0One step closer to full adult-hood and true independence.<\/p>\n

And so I think this sequence of\u00a0photos was taken as a manifestation of that.<\/p>\n

My\u00a0journey to independence.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"baby\"<\/p>\n

\"fourthtwo\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Derek<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 22, I had never actually picked something up, set it on fire and watched it explode…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287],"tags":[98,103],"class_list":["post-4737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography","tag-holiday","tag-ilist","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4737"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5647,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737\/revisions\/5647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reallifecontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}