Memories.

Hi Readers,

Here's hoping that everything is well with you all and that the next week leading up to Christmas is as peaceful and stress free as possible. As much as it is a happy time for so many, I still can't help but feel sorry for those who find this time as sad and miserable for their own personal situations and reasons. My heart goes out to them all.

So, about the background to this post, which many of you will most likely disagree with. Even I question myself on many aspects of what I'm going to bang on about as I still don't know exactly where I stand on some of the points I'll raise. Nonetheless, I'm still going to put my thoughts out there and i'd love some of your feedback if you feel strongly either way. There's a comments tab at the bottom of the post, you can be as anonymous as you want to be!!

I was watching the news the other night and it showed a basketballer from the USA doing an amazing piece of play. For the life of me I can't really remember what he did, but what struck me was that in the background was just a sea of phones being held up in front of the faces of each spectator. Each of them was seeing this amazing piece of play through their screens rather than in 'real life'. 

I know that we all like to record things, me too, as it is the world we live in right now where just about everything gets recorded in some form.

And this is the guts of today's post. Where do we draw the line between seeing things in real time as compared to trying to get everything recorded as video or photos?

Straight away I can sense the hair standing up on the back of some necks right now!

"How dare you critcise me for recording things on my phone!!"

Look Readers, I do it too, probably just as much as some of you, but sometimes I just like to hold on to the memory of an event rather than stressing about getting it recorded. Just scrolling through my photos today I saw so many that I now disregard as they don't seem that special or meaningful anymore. Also, so many that I hardly think I've ever gone back to look at since they were taken. So why did I put so much effort into taking them? And so many that I'm so glad I took, so please don't start identifying me as the photo Grinch!!

This is the photo that speaks so much to me about this, and prompted this post.

This was taken earlier this year I think and shows Tiger Woods teeing off in one of the majors. As you can guess, I'm talking about how much we witness through our screens, and I don't begrudge any of these spectators for recording the experience of watching one of golf's finest ever players teeing off. It may have been their one and only opportunity to do so. I might have done the same.

However, focus on the guy in the cream shorts holding the can of drink. He is just living the moment, and I'm guessing that he'll take this memory to the grave. I know the guy in the green shirt is watching too, but it is the purpose and intent that Mr cream shorts is displaying that really stood out for me. He ie experiencing the moment so much more realistically rather than worrying about the correct angle, focus etc of the device in one's hand. How many times have we stuffed up a recording and missed the moment altogether??

The ironic thing about this photo is that the makers of the drink he has in his hand tracked him down for the very reason I've touched on, and he ended up with a short term sponsorship of their product. Yes, I know this is commercialism going wild, but that's how things are now.

What do you think he remembers most about this day - getting the financial rewards or being up so close and personal to witness the swing of one of the best golfers ever?

There is just so much to take in watching things in the moment that a screen just doesn't capture. The real sounds, the smells, the tension in the air and so on. I'm sure that any of these recordings wouldn't have captured the eerie silence that descends upon a gallery pre-shot, and the subsequent sounds from the player, caddy and spectators immediately afterwards that our devices just don't catch.

Her's another example that many of you may have already seen that explains this further.

Little needs to be said about this. I know those way up the back would feel the need to hold up their phones and collect some sort of formal recognition that they were at this or other events. But with the world we live in now, could it be possible instead to get a quick snap and then just soak up the event? And if we wanted to, we could easily find footage of the event online, as just about everything is recorded in some form nowadays.

I hear you all from my couch right now..."But I want MY own copy!!" 

I hear you. I get it. But what will you remember most about the event??

I'm not sure at all what each of these events are, but for me I think i'd rather be watching the live version in front of me rather than watching it through a little screen. It would be the myriad of other things going on around me that would ad to the experience- memories of how I got there, who was around me, what others were saying, the build up to the event occurring and so on. I'd also be guessing that in the bottom photo those up the back would be recording a large screen above the stage portraying what was actually happening on stage. Filming a screen through another screen.

When I talk about things like this with people my age, it often gets brought up "Aren't we lucky that phones like today weren't around when we were growing up?!!"

YEP!!!!

I know as well as you do Readers that it's all due to progress and change, something that I embrace and am glad for. I'm not being critical of it, I'm just suggesting that it needn't dominate us.

 I look back to my days training as a teacher and am eternally grateful that we didn't carry around instant recording devices with us 24/7 like we do today!!

There were things we did then that would just about preclude us from getting jobs nowadays if people were able to look into our background like we can now. I challenge many employers who say that they don't check out the social media profiles of prospective employees!

For example, (and don't bother searching for any of these as there is no photographical evidence!! ) in the house of 7 guys that I lived in for a year, we got a bit bored one night and thought we'd go out and scare some fellow students. This involved driving across town to a house where a number of girls in our year lived, putting on balaclavas and knocking on the door. When one of them answered the door we quickly grabbed them, bundled them into our car and took off around the block. It seemed funny beforehand, but as soon as we did it we quickly realised how DUMB we were!! The poor girl was absolutely, and rightfully terrified, and no amount of apologies or smooth talking was going to get even a morsel of forgiveness from her, or her housemates when we delivered her home a few minutes later. Myself and 1 or 2 others quickly went home with our tails between our legs, but a few others did another raid or two, only succeeding in more of the same response. The next few days we needed to keep our heads down as the bosses at the teaching college tried to track down the culprits. I'm sure everyone knew who did it, and the resultant reactions from our peers was very effective punishment!!

No phones then to record the event, but if we tried it today there would be police on our tails immediately and everything would be online as it was happening. I didn't need the evidence, but this was one moment where the memories are crystal clear and I don't need a photo to remind me of it!!!

That was the harsh experience, but there were others where we didn't get a photo, but the memory lives on forever, for the reasons which I elaborated on earlier.

In this case, with the same house of the same 7 guys. One of our housemates had a fear/phobia of animals, in particular large ones. It just so happened that in the paddock next door to our house lived a horse, which we called Nellie. I'm not sure of her name, that's just what we called her.

Anyway, one night when we should have been studying (at least this great friend was) we hatched the idea to bring Nellie into the house. We knew this would make him panic, what great friends we must have been!! We got Nellie from the paddock, then into the kitchen, and that was when she decided that was as far as she was going. She just would not budge. Our friend was in his room when he heard the commotion, and upon poking his head out the door and up the hallway, he just froze. He was back in his room in a flash and all we could hear was swearing and cries of "You guys have gone too far this time!!" 

And we tended to agree, as none of us had any horse experience and had no idea what to do next. Nellie stayed there patiently for a while, then sauntered down the hallway and out the door and was back in her paddock the next day.

If done today, this would have attracted hundreds of photos, videos, probably streamed live online. But the memories of this event remain so so strong to this day and I don't need recordings of it to remember it by. 

These are just two rather extreme examples of times when phones may have spoilt the sense of occasion had we focussed so much on recording them. I know the 'sense of occasion' when we went kidnapping evaporated immediately, but with Nellie it lasted forever. Poor Nellie, I doubt that she would agree. Or our friend, who to this day remains as one of my closest mates.

Jen's first car, and possibly the only photo I have of it. Jen and I bought cars as soon as we graduated from teacher's college from the same dealership in Bendigo. I really liked her car, but one of my brothers had one exactly the same, same colour, everything, so I couldn't buy it. So she did, and I bought something else.

I know this sounds dumb, but the real kicker that stopped me from buying this car was the hub caps!! I thought they were just so ugly, there was no way I could drive around with them on the car. We teased Jen relentlessly about the 'woks' on her wheels, something that she just ignored. She, and we went to so many places in this car, and it is those memories that I'll cherish forever. I don't need multitudes of photos of this car, just this one is enough to generate memories of the different places we went in it.

And, as it tuned out, it proved to be a much better car than the one I bought!!

My first car. Similarly, I have only 1-2 photos of my 1st car, but just this one photo evokes years of funny memories and stories that happened during the 4 years that I had it. I don't need reams of photos, just this one photo does it. Nowadays an event might have dozens of photos to record it. Think about when you hand over your phone to someone and ask them to take a photo for you. I'll bet that they'll take more than one photo "just to be sure"!!

This photo doesn't show the fact that there was no covering around the gearstick, and that I could see the road underneath. Rather problematic on wet days, but good to laugh about now.

It doesn't reveal that the air vents were all stuck on 'open' and that the heater never worked. Rather annoying during 3 winters in Ballarat!

Or that the driver window didn't wind up via the handle ( no electric windows in the 120Y!) and I had to hold it from the inside and outside and lift it up.

Or that I was always broke at teacher's college and that I'd turn the engine off at the top of my street and roll down the hill just to save petrol.

And finally, that I'd put in petrol with whatever money I had on me. If I had 75cents in the car, I'd get 75 cents of petrol! I still remember Jen begging me to put in at least $2.00 and that she'd pay the extra just to avoid feeling so embarrassed!!

One photo, endless memories☺️

And this totally unremarkable photo I hear you thinking?

As regular readers would know, Jen and I travelled extensively before she passed away earlier this year, and weren't we lucky to have done so.

Yes, we have taken so many photos of our travels, but not as many as we thought we would have. We tended to focus on photos that we would treasure, ones that would relive the moment/s for us rather than 50 photos of the same thing.

This was taken in Paris on a rainy walk around the city. We did the Eiffel tower and other attractions, but which one takes pride of place in our home? This one.

This is because whenever we look at it, it evokes all our memories of Paris. This captures all that we felt about Paris, what we did, where we went, how we felt and so on. A photo of the major attractions wouldn't have achieved the same result. As I look through photos of other places I notice we have done similar things. One or two photos in a city brings back all the memories, rather than us having to sift through so many photos to remind us.

As my dementia kicks in maybe I'll need those photos down the track!!!!

So Readers, what I'm trying to get you thinking about is do we sometimes lose the authenticity of the moment in our quest to record it? Is some of the spontaneity and originality lost as we endeavour to get that photo, or to re-enact something?

For sure, photos do capture these moments forever, but I'm suggesting that the memory of the event can serve the same purpose.

When remembering a moment we can put a different spin on it each time. There could be a different aspect about it that resonates more each time., whereas a photo captures that moment at that time. The memories bring back the build up, the context, the follow up. I look at a photo and remember that moment, but then so many memories will flood back about that time, memories that I don't need a photo of.

Readers, I'm sounding about as clear as mud right now. Please don't think I'm saying NOT to take photos or record events. It's not bad to do this, I'm just suggesting that sometimes the need to record becomes the focus, not the moment itself.

Just watch when something is happening over the next few weeks. Some people are quicker to draw their phones than some of the best gunslingers could draw their Colt 45's back in the Wild West!

Please, please take photos, the images are everlasting. But also consider being in the moment to witness things as they happen and to be grateful for treasuring these memories for as long as you can.

Maybe I've been sitting on the couch for too long (over 3 weeks now, 4 more to go😜) and I'm starting to lose it, but I won't need a photo to remind me of it, even though I must confess I've taken a few. I'll remember this time forever!!!!!

Have a great lead up to Christmas, and I look forward to banging out a few more posts in the coming weeks.

Until my next post...

Cheers 😀