There is a picture that is floating around the interwebs right now of St. Peter's square at the time that the name of the pope was announced in 2005, and again in 2013. (I would attempt to post the picture, credited to NBC news, but blogger is acting up and giving me fits today and locks me out every time I attempt to post a picture.) In 2013, everyone appears to be recording the event from behind their smartphone. My tremendously gifted friend Keith Anderson wrote a blog about this event, This is the world you live (and lead) in now.
I wonder if I would be doing the same thing if I was there, and I am awfully ashamed to admit that I probably would be. I default to living life from behind a screen. And it makes me wonder what I am missing when I set out with the intent of never missing anything at all. Because for all of these videos that I have taken, I have never really looked back at them. I wonder if this is merely a symptom of the discontent and impermanence that accompanies post-modernity. Everything feels unstable and impermanent and we try to cling to anything.
Do you agree?
What you have you missed in an attempt to never miss anything?
Why do you say that doing so would be "defaulting to living your life behind a screen"? it seems to me that taking pictures of events that you are present for is a way of evoking the memories more vividly later on. I suppose if you refuse to engage people in person, while there, it might be "behind a screen," but mostly I think people are trying to capture memory hooks for later remembering.
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