We Don’t See It Anymore
The world is such a dynamic place that we visit only once but somehow, we all find a different version to live in. Since the conditions are different for each generation, we all have different priority values. But those values are more dependent on surroundings and resources rather than to individuals. For the previous generation, technology and complexity were luxuries while the experience and observation were available and easier to access. In today’s version of the world, technology became cheap and accessible. Hopefully the experience still matters for most of us, however, it is stuck in our technologic world and being shaped based on periodic standards. Each innovation in tech world allows us to change the world in front of our eyes. The issue is that the real world stays the same while we enter into another one which is created and then trapped in our technology.
Bare eyes could reach a higher resolution to capture the reality and time. rather than any smart devices.
Nowadays, when you travel to see new places, you are all about your Instagram pictures about them and YouTube videos which could tell so little about what those places can offer you as experience. Our truly valuable memories are stuck into USB drives with infinite storage but no feelings.
I’m sure that a great majority of the readers will now think me as a complaining middle-aged writer over 40’s. For the records, I wasn’t there when Microsoft released Windows, wasn’t there when Gameboy is released or wasn’t even about to be born when MJ recorded “Beat It”. Instead of what I am, what matters should be where I am currently standing. I’m in such a place where I can dream about the perfect combination of the innovative creativity of the future generations and the infinite wisdom and life experience of past generations.
Of course, I‘m never going to ignore the technological advance and quit from all social media platforms as someone who actually lives in 2018. However, nobody should have such an intention to live in an online prison which allows them to see the world partially, limit their experiences and shape their actions by controlling them. Here is the modernistic approach for what I’m saying:
Use the technology to improve your experience, but don’t let the technology become the experience.
Since we are less aware of our surroundings compared to the past times, the importance of what we have seen is extremely increased. We may have looked at a sunset like hundreds of times, but that is not a guarantee for that sunset to be imaginable or memorable for us. We may never know how beautiful the color of the sky was and how the clouds were shaped. This is the great difference between “look” and “see”. When we look at somebody we might even remember the physical appearance or not. However, when we are actually able to see, we can create our own story about that person without any talking. And how? Just keep looking and hit the start button of your imagination and enjoy your own show. We all have our unique editors and storytellers in our imagination.
Unfortunately, our perfect technology allows us to look at infinitely many places with less effort and time while we actually see only a few of them. Just keep swiping to the left or to the right and nothing special gonna happen since we won’t even see details. Seeing requires more effort which we all want to avoid since they are very obsessed with our flowing time. What actually matters should be how we used our time instead of how much we are using.
As mortal individuals, we value our time itself much more than what it is made of. We are just pushing the limits of the number of our experiences by leaving those experiences empty and meaningless. The quantity comes before quality in our lives. Basically, we are running and we don’t know what’s the purpose of running. It is like creating thousands of memories but never remembering any of them precisely since we only created them to get those memories created. However, we all know that the purpose of our memories is to be remembered. When our actions themselves become more important than the reasons behind them, it means that we are just existing but not living.
I’ll now give a hint for you about my age but this story is worth it. Back to the time when I was 20, I made a trip to Iguazu Falls in Brazil and I met a French photographer in his 30’s. I was a graduate of a French high-school in my country but still, we kept talking in English. He was a conceptual photographer who was there for his South American journey. I was interested in his camera album and luckily he led me to take a look at it for a short time. I was expecting for hundreds, maybe thousands of photos, since all I know about photographers was that they usually take millions of photos just to pick a perfect one later. But instead, I’ve found only 18 different photos which were all taken obviously in different places. All 18 of them were amazing photos, but still, I was wondering how could a professional photographer have a camera storage with less than 20 pictures. I asked him whether he saved the good ones and deleted the blurred ones, but he told that those were all the photos he has taken so far. His words about the pictures were amazingly inspiring:
“ Living beings inspire me with their interesting stories to discover. Each one of them has their unique stories. So, I usually capture the story rather than the picture itself, and in order for me to understand the story of someone, I have to observe my subject for hours without letting them know. My camera is the capturer but also the disturber of the moment. If my subject notices my camera, the unique story I want to capture will be altered and I won’t see the exact emotions and naturality anymore. That’s why I usually manage to succeed only 1 picture or 2 per place that I visit, but those pictures will tell me everything since I’ve waited and looked long enough to see. Our visual memory becomes stronger only when you cross the thin line between looking and actually seeing.”
It is a fact that every second matter in our life. In capitalized, money-centric societies, we all value our time when it turns into our reward. Our experiences and joyful moments are not going to put us in a higher position in the system. But still, they will be the only things that make us question our reason for living and judge the quality of our lives. Without them we would be robots completing their pre-determined missions task by task to achieve already predictable consequences. What makes our life experience unique is the amount of unpredictability that it contains.
