Stop Assuming The Future Will Be Better Than The Present.
No, you don't need to document everything you do.
I spent the weekend in DC, and a few days before my arrival to the city, I was delighted to discover that I would be blessed by peak cherry blossom bloom. It was perfect, coincidental timing. Understanding the gravity of the situation, I made the trek to see the cherry blossoms on Saturday—the day of peak bloom. A friend took me to THE spot for the best viewing experience—West Potomac Park on the shore of the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial.
We arrived after a long walk off the metro and slithered through the crowds. It was crawling with humans. People overflowed into the streets as the sidewalks could only hope to contain the masses. It was surreal. As we descended a slight hill to the basin, I noticed the emulating presence of the trees, but it was dirtied by phones everywhere. Everyone was taking pictures. I tried to dodge pictures like a bank robber crawling around the lasers in movies, but I guarantee I blessed a few backgrounds with my presence.
The cherry blossoms morphed into one big photo shoot, and hand up, I am somewhat guilty. I took a couple photos and a six second video to send to loved ones, but it became extreme when people took full photo shoots. Unbothered by the beauty of the trees and instead, worried about how people will perceive their cherry blossom experience.
Sure, capture those occasional moments. Take the photo of the cherry blossoms to say you have been, I sure did! Send a photo or two to your mom and say, “Just checking in!” because I know she will love that, but that is all for you. It is different when the moment shifts from yours to everyone else’s. If we are going to regret anything, it would be all the purposeless time expended documenting, filtering, and optimizing the precious moments. Oliver Burkeman’s quote from Four Thousand Weeks sits etched in my mind,
“In his book Back to Sanity, the psychologist Steve Taylor recalls watching tourists at the British Museum in London who weren’t really looking at the Rosetta Stone, the ancient Egyptian artifact on display in the front of them, so much as preparing to look at it later, by recording images and videos of it on their phones. So intently were they focused on using their time for a future benefit—for the ability to revisit or share the experience later on—that they were barely experiencing the exhibition itself at all. (And who ever watches most of those videos anyway?)”
All these actions and lost time implying the future will be better than the present. Is it right to assume we will get more fulfillment from viewing the photo later than relishing the moment? Does the importance lie in worrying about the best angles or the most Instagram worthy picture? I’d bet not. I don’t want to squander these moments by worrying about how to best use it in the future. The present moment is more than a vehicle to optimize for the future because although I never know when it could be the last time, it never hurts to treat it that way. The reality is sometimes, it could be the very last time. For me to see the cherry blossoms again at peak bloom seems close to zero. I had zero idea it was cherry blossom bloom to begin with.
It is easy to forget the purpose of doing things these days because everything is monetized for attention. I would bet those photos you look back on the fondest are those you snapped in a few seconds and didn’t fill your whole camera roll trying to optimize for the perfect moment. The photos with friends and family where you scurried together to snap a quick shot before resuming life’s activities. I doubt if we are savoring the moment the last thing people want to do is stop, pull out their phone, and cheapen the experience by recording it.
Maybe this is all just me doing my best impression of an old man yelling at the clouds, but I find it liberating to realize that I don’t need to snap photos or videos of everything I do. Yes, I am not a saint and might snap a few, but spending most of my time living and not performing is preferred. I realize to not assume the future will be better than the present moment.
I aspire to be the person who gets too caught up in the moment that I forget to share. The person who guards life’s fleeting experiences realizing they only get one shot at this. I aspire to be in tune with the freeness of not needing to document everything so everyone else can see. It is my moment, not anyone else’s.
Perhaps that’s the beauty of it all, letting the memories fade because we are so caught in the present building new memories that we can’t possibly remember them all. Some may say fear of missing out (FOMO) is the reason for our obsessive documentation, but I’d argue the biggest fear is convincing ourselves the future will be better than the present.
-Scantron
I appreciate you being here.
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