Nothing to Prove

Travel and tell no one. Live a true love story and tell no one. Live happily and tell no one. People ruin beautiful things. – Kahlil Gibran

When I ask someone about an experience, the first thing they do is pull out the photos. They’ve attended a festival, a cookout, or a party. They’ve gotten their vaccine, their dinner, or their new shoes. They are standing next to a child, a lover or Barack Obama.

Out comes the phone and I’m compelled to look at people holding poses I’ve seen thousands of times. If I feel like it, I’ll ask questions to get a better picture of the thing, no pun intended.

Nice, sure. I especially like the pictures of pure joy I see on the faces of people who are with people (or animals) they love.

And they tell me nothing of the experience and how they felt about it.

Recording is not the same thing as experiencing. Are you experiencing or merely recording? And, additionally, are you planning experiences with an eye to the optics? Click, click, click. But what did you DO? What did you SAY? What did you change because you lived that particular moment in that particular way?

People say I’m too serious. I think too much. Yeah, I get that. Maybe I’m just a grump. After all, I am the child of a photojournalist and was once a photo bug myself. But among the things that my physical disability no longer allows is taking pictures. I’m not ruling out that I might unknowingly be jealous of your many photogenic experiences. I ain’t gonna dig too deep into that possibility.

However, I want to challenge you to pocket your phone so that you can live your life. See it, smell it, breathe it in.

You have nothing to prove.