Earlier this week we went to the Zoo. I haven't been in years, and it is something we never did together, so it was a great experience. At some point we saw otters. Now let me pause for a moment here. I love otters. Otters are my patronus. They are my spirit animal. They are my reincarnation goal. So naturally, as my boyfriend started taking pictures of them, he looked at me and, with great surprise on his face, asked me why I wasn't taking any pictures.
And my answer to that question is this: because whenever possible I choose to be in the moment with my own eyes, instead of filtering and limiting my experience through some form of lens.
Yes, there are many moments when I absolutely love taking pictures for posterity, especially the goofy kind. But think about this for a moment: your eye can surpass any lens there is (by a lot!), so unless you really want to take that picture, why would you? Not to mention that when you look at your camera you are shutting off from literally everything else around you. And you worry about your shot, the light, the framing, the zoom, that person what is not moving away fast enough for you to take a picture without them in it. And all of this is keeping you from actually experiencing and savouring the moment you are in.
Another little nugget: how often do you go back on your pictures anyway? If you spend an entire concert looking at it through your phone (because you are recording it), are you really experiencing it? And at what cost? Do you really do anything with the video after more than two days have passed? Because I had this particular experience and let me tell you that I never - ever! - watched the videos I made of that concert (to a point that I don't remember where they are or - most shockingly of all - what concert it was, because I wasn't truly living it).
I am not a world renowned photographer and I don't think I could take a picture of an otter that would be worth printing and hanging on my living room wall. There are professionals that do a great job at this, so I don't bother much myself. Instead I chose to drink in the moment for all its worth. I looked at the otters, from the pups to the adults and back to the pups again, from their tiny paws to their adorable expressions. I heard the cute little noises they made. I noticed the shadows of overhead trees on their fur. I felt the odd breeze that made the hairs on my arms stand on end, and how the muscles in my legs seemed to enjoy not walking for that little break. And I watched the otters so so closely.
Please don't get me wrong, I still take A LOT of pictures, I really, really do. And not just the goofy kind, sometimes I go properly artistic. But I ponder on the cost involved in taking every single one of them. Because life goes by so fast that if you don't pay attention, you might miss it altogether. Slow is the new happy. And remembering to be in the moment may just save your life.
And just as I kept revisiting the otter moment in the Zoo, I came across this little piece of Leon Logothetis' book, The Kindness Diaries (highly recommended, the documentary is also available on Netflix worldwide):
As I drove out of Utah and into Colorado, I looked up to find a double rainbow stretching across the towering Rocky Mountain skyline. Maybe because I slightly feared what was ahead, all I could do was appreciate the present moment. I had no iPhone to distract me. No Internet to take away my Zen. In that moment, surrounded by nature's extreme beauty, I realized that in this time of endless calls and texts and Insta-everything, we think we are connected. But it's a false connectivity. What we often lose is that relationship with the deeper fiber of life. As I drove through the crisp Rockies, the summer morning expanding before me, I knew that this was the real network. This was connection.
Leon Logothetis
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