In capturing it, you missed it.

photo credit/courtesy of Pixabay.com

In this new age, where everyone has a camera in their pocket at all times, I have been noticing the habits of many of us. I have come to realize, at least in my opinion, that In capturing it on “film", we have actually missed it. We have missed the depth of the moment.

Now more than ever before we are, perhaps, spending more time filming and photographing our lives than we are experiencing them. The act of archiving and documenting the events and moments of our lives just might be causing us to miss the true depths our lives might otherwise experience. Instead of being in the moment which includes the original sound of the band, the sounds of original audience, 360 degree HD views with our own eyes, the smells of the venue, the buzz of being globally “there” in person, the true depth of the original moment is lost. In the reasonable act of capturing the moment forever on our phones, I think perhaps we are fooling ourselves into thinking we are saving the memory. When in fact, perhaps the truth is that in the act of capturing the moments we hope to forever treasure, a digital memory we can replay at any time we want, we are actually downgrading the moment, we lessen it, we miss it. The small screen we replay it on is not the same view, it is a few inches in size, the sound is pitiful, there is no broad spectrum of sound, no bass to shake your bones, no jarring of the audience seating stands as everyone jumps for joy after the winning goal, no smell of popcorn, beer or mind altering psychedelically smoke in the air. Missing are the smiles of joy and excitement of the stranger beside you that you only would have seen had your phone been in your pocket instead of at arms length out in front of you archiving the moment. Sadly, you have watched this amazing moment in your life through the screen on your phone even though the full spectrum event is right there in front of you, on the other side of your phone/camera. You missed it. You missed the full, true, HD, moment. We are all missing it. The brain assimilates all of the sensory components and logs the full spectrum moment in our brains. But by attempting to capture it all, forever, even though we were right there, we have actually missed it. The potential for a full spectrum, full sensory overload input moment and memory was lost as the event played out. We think we captured it, but the truth is, we missed it and the true deep rich memory of that moment.

So maybe, instead of photographing or filming these events in our lives, we should go back to capturing that singular spectacular moment, that goal, that perfect vault, that winning point, by truly “being” there. We could take one photo to spark the recall of the event, and then spend the rest of the time fully engaged and wrapped up in the moment, letting the smells, the original in-stereo sounds, the laughs and cheers, the full monster screen HD view courtesy of our eyeballs, breathe their way into a singular all encompassing moment, and trust that our brains will remember it if we take it all in. Instead, if we took just a few seconds during that amazing moment and said to ourselves, “this is an amazing moment, I am looking all around me at the venue, the happiness of the people around me, the smells, the sounds, the colors, the rich view, and I am going to mark this moment and never forget it”. That multi-sensory experience will be far better than anything our smart phones can ever capture. And besides, lets be honest, we are only going to look at the video once or twice and then forget about it, perhaps because what we captured on the human made technology, at this point, cannot match the collective sensory rich event of being there in the moment, fully engaged. Perhaps, if we just close our eyes, and trust our brain, we can go right back to that moment and still feel the tingle of the moment once again. Just close our eyes.

We call these things “smart phones”, but they are not that smart. Just my 2 cents, for what it is worth.

After all, the problem is, we just think we have time.

-Shawn