Why a Camera is Bad for your Life

A wise person once told me, that the mind is a constantly oscillating pendulum between the past and the future. We are always thinking either about things that happened in the past, or we are worrying about the future. When we think about the past, it often comes with regret and pain. When we think about the future, it is often coupled with anxiety and worry.  "Now" is all that matters (to which he snapped his fingers repeatedly to reinforce us being there now). The Past is Dead. The Future is Unborn. The Present is all we have.

Live for the now.

I have no doubt that much of your past is happy. The point is, it is the past. Every moment you spend thinking about the past is a moment you stop seizing the present. Mind you, sometimes thinking about the past IS you enjoying your present. And thinking about the future has importance in planning. After all, I don’t want you spending all your money today and waking up tomorrow blaming me. I think the moral of the story here is don’t overdo it. Don’t lose out on now because you you are busy living in the past or future. Now is all you have. Quotes I love on living now:

“Yesterday is History. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a Gift. That’s why they call it the Present.”

“If you live everyday as if it were your last. One Day you will be right.”

(And my personal favorite) “You have enough time to sleep when you’re dead.” (Granted sometimes I do feel dead).

It took me this long to get to my point on purpose. I find I get a lot of heat on many of my ideologies, including this one, so I ensure to exercise great caution in making things clear before my brutal statements. Here goes.

Cameras in moments like vacations should be banned. “Spend less time capturing the moments and more time enjoying them” (I actually made that one up. Can you tell?)

I absolutely hate cameras on vacations. I find my companions to always be spending so much time capturing the moments for  future playback, than actually enjoying those moments fully. The most amazing thing could be occurring in front of me, and they are watching it through a digital lens, thinking about the angle of the shot. Most times, the playbacks don’t even occur as often as we think they will, neither can it provide the true multi-dimensional experience. Let your eyes be your camera, and your memories be your playback.  (Yes, I made that one up too.)

Damn I should write this down. Oh wait…