Moments are for moving us, not for photographs
I’d like to see people put their phones down.
… Said everyone over the age of 30 for the past 20 years.
But really, it’s very important to me. I think people are not only missing out on some of the greatest moments of their lives, but they’re fundamentally seeing moments themselves incorrectly.
If you visit the Eiffel Tower and all you can think about is what angle to photograph it from, you might as well just pack your shit and go home. You’re there for the wrong reason. Grab one of the photos from the gift shops, which are better than the ones you were going to take anyway, and just go do something else.
If you’re standing in front of a beautiful waterfall, cascading down through a gorgeous landscape, and you’ve taken 22 photos and are trying to figure out which one makes your ass look best, then I’m sorry but you’re completely missing the point.
If you’re going to spend time and money going to places and seeing things, the goal should be to acquire something emotionally and spiritually that you didn’t have before. To engage with the past and the present. To let the world move you.
Walking through the streets of Athens, or Rome, or Paris or Prague or Barcelona, you should be walking with your chin up and your eyes open. Your hands should be empty and your mouth wide in awe. You should not be looking at these places through an iPhone 13 camera with 7 lenses. (What’s with those lenses, anyway? People don’t need that many lenses - most of the photos and videos we take suck even with high production quality. That’s the brilliant thing about Apple - they cater to people’s narcissistic needs to feel professional, special, and well-equipped.) If you’ve taken a trip through Europe and you come back with 1,100 new photos, you wasted two weeks of your life.
You came back with nothing more than tokens. Social proof that you were there. And reassurance to your future self that “see, I did some things worth doing on my 15 vacation days that year.”
Therein lies the issue - we focus so much on proving and commemorating what we’ve done through photos, that we end up tokenizing our memories instead of letting them be organic and abstract and emotional. We end up going around from place to place, day to day, collecting photographic merit badges like we’re trying to make it in the Cub Scouts. “See, I know how to do this pose too.” “See, I have seen the Colosseum too.” “See, I have been around fine art like Michelangelo da Vinci and Flaud Monet. I’m interesting and impressive. I am a traveled and cultured hyooman.”
And it’s like yea great, but did the experience move you? Did you actually become more interesting? Or did you just go to collect your silly memory token by taking 36 photos that you’ll look at twice the rest of your life, and show off to people who don’t care? Did you go there with a partner? Did you let the experience wash over you and affect the relationship you went there with? Did you let the artists and thinkers and builders of the past speak to you? Did you feel a spiritual connection to the architecture?
There is so much emotion and spirit and humanity in the moments of our lives. Just about every moment can be magical if you let it. But especially those moments where you’re looking into the past. At a museum, or an old city, or an ancient structure built by people you can’t even begin to understand. Or a walk through a beautiful piece of planet Earth where nature is quietly buzzing around you and you are as close to being an animal as you could ever feel. These are conversation points; reflection points; thinking points. These are connection points between you and your partner, or you and your friends, or just you and the world. These moments are the nexus of human movement - we move in those moments of storytelling and history and beauty.
If you’re on a trip with your partner and you’re in a place of stunning beauty and unfathomable creativity and relentless human genius, it’s a perfect time to let your relationship move and change. To reach a new level. These are the kinds of moments where the beauty without can bring beauty within. A slow, appreciative moment where you’re letting the world tell you “be grateful for your partner. Love them and cherish them. Speak to them about the world. Look back onto the past with them and use it to connect more deeply with each other. There is beauty in the world and it’s worthy of your attention.”
How wonderful would that be? To do things together, not just “together.” As one, not as two. As humans, not as tourists. To let real, magical moments, like those you find in Disney movies, actually sculpt who you are? To make you have a conversation with your partner or your friend that you’d never have anywhere else? To let the beauty before your eyes compel something inside you to be more grateful and vulnerable.
Imagine you’re visiting Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro (the giant state of Jesus with his arms extended at his sides). And instead of fighting with the other tourists to get the best photo opportunities and get arbitrarily closer, you sit down on a bench a few hundred feet away. And you hold hands with your partner and just quietly discuss what religion has meant in your life. And what it might have meant to someone who wanted to build such a thing. And then you discuss the weakness you felt as a young man when you felt like you lost religion and had nowhere else to turn. And your girlfriend or wife relates because she doesn’t quite connect with her parents’ version of religion and didn’t know how to form her own spiritual framework as a young woman. You’ve both come a long way since then, and grown up, and formed your own frameworks for what constitutes a divine life. And you understand each other quite a bit better now. And before you know it an hour has passed and you’ve just had one of the most important experiences of your entire life - holding hands with your girlfriend on a bench in Brazil. No photos, no camera, no competition with the world for the best tokenized memories.
Well wouldn’t that be lovely?
I think that would be lovely.
And as far as taking photos every day of mundane daily activities - well sure, if you’re a creative person, that can be a “get the juices flowing” exercise. Heath Ledger liked to document his daily life - but he was doing it for no reason other than for artistic outlet and his own personal desire to create. (Of course, he was more interesting than either of us anyway.) And that’s pretty cool. But if you’re just taking photos and videos for social media clout and entertainment, posing for the camera and trying to show the world what you’re up to… you are wasting profound amounts of time on nothingness. There is zero value in doing this. Read a book if you would, please. Or call your grandmother. You know she wants to hear from you.
Here’s the thing: if you spend your life taking photos, not only are you missing these wonderful opportunities for magic, and real growth; but you are also hoarding a collection of trinkets that you’ll never use or look at. I mean, think about it. If you take 500 photos a year for 40 years, when are you ever going to appreciate or look through them? What are they actually going to mean to you? You’re not ever going to sit down and look through 20,000 photographs. I promise, you’re not going to. Not in any sort of meaningful way.
[And on a side, but related, note: if you’re spending time with someone who means something to you, learn how to put the phone away and not even check your texts. I cannot tell you how important and meaningful this is. When I am spending time with family, or a girlfriend, or anyone really… I do not even check my phone. And I expect the same of them. When someone picks up their phone while I’m speaking, I just politely say “Ah, I’ll wait ‘til you’re done.” And, confused, they say why, I’m still listening. And I say “yes, but you’re distracted.” If I open my mouth, it’s because I want to connect with someone. Not to connect with a half-attentive version of them. I want us to see each other’s faces, feel each other’s words, and think through the conversation together. Just like with these special moments I’m describing, I want a conversation to move me and the people I’m talking to. Otherwise what’s the point of speaking.]
Be present for the moments that build a friendship and create growth and magic. Stop trying to artificially immortalize the moments of your life, and instead let them actually be memorable moments. There’s no point in photographing a moment where absolutely nothing happened. That’s like publishing a book with no story in it. That’s like trading real money for a hotel on a Monopoly game board. It’s like being so busy building a memorial that you forget to actually accomplish what you’re commemorating. And then it’s a memorial of nothing but missed opportunity.
Moments are what move us - but only if we actually have them, instead of trying to prove they happened. The changes that happen inside a person in a powerful moment are more than you could ever capture in a picture. Real moments are not collection points for tokens - they are connection points. For the emotional and spiritual interplay of people with each other and of people with the world. Let them really wash over you and change you. Make them worth remembering, and you will remember them. No picture needed.