Beautiful!
I completely understand! I also started taking photos just to have photos for my posts here. At least one photo is pretty much required.
Do I remember to take my phone with me when I head out to the garden? No, I like to be free of electronics out there, also when I take a walk or do almost anything outside of the house. I do not want that influence, the influence of various radiations, I believe the exposure affects our bodies and minds, pollutes our experiences by altering them, just as posing for a picture does.
yet I see the moment as though it was today.
My hubby took the pictures. When he died, 16 years ago, the photographs stopped being taken. I have very few! But, as you say, the memories are very clear, and precious to me. I don't feel a need to have captured the moments any other way.
However, old photos can jumpstart memories of events and places I had not thought of in a very long time, so a few of them hanging around can be a very good thing, sommething to be grateful for.
I loved reading this post.
Thank you very much!
No, the garden is not the place for the phone. Maybe if you go deliberately to catch some photos of a flower in bloom, but not your time with the flowers. That's personal. I agree.
I am so sorry for your losses. I know they have been profound. And yet, you go on. What is our choice? Very hard.
Yes photos are valuable. I love to see my children in the kiddie pool. Watch my mother baking with my son. Precious. The picture helps to evoke the memory, the experience. There is no doubt that I love the pictures I posted today, of long ago.
Pictures have their place. It's just, I think we have given them a place of prominence and it is distorting our experience.
I hope you have a glorious day with your garden. If not today, then tomorrow.
Precious life. :)
'Distoring our experience' describes something that has been nagging me about my online activity; my focus/energy/connection is often with something that is absent. We are systematically deadening our own senses via various media, all taking us farther from knowing what we truly feel or think. We look to external sources, instead of internal. Photographs could draw us away from a true memory, perhaps give the event a whole new story. I think you're right that memories we produce ourselves, without external aid, are the truer memories. I blather on here because I can't find the words to say the very same thing you said in this post!
I've been trying to go electronics free for a few hours of my non-sleep hours. Turn off the wifi and phones. No electronics of any kind. I start jonesing. It's very hard to do! But I definitely experience fuller states of relaxation and enjoyment.
Not blather. When I write a post like this, kind of reflective and personal, I wonder if anyone will 'get it'. Thank you for responding to it in such a personal way.
It's funny about our electronic connection to the world. I don't do the usual social media...Facebook, Meta, whatever. This is my social media and I don't consider it that. I regard Hive almost the way people regarded note-writing in the 19th century. Back then, they'd send notes back and forth with messengers. Make arrangements for dinner, etc.
Hive for me has that same utility. I'm speaking to you. It's a social engagement but not social media.
I'm no good with people. I have no people skills. Feel awkward and ill at ease. Hive, the Internet, is a gift for someone like me. I have my life, here at home, and then I have my 'connections', mostly through Hive.
Heavens, if something happens to Hive I will be very upset :)))
I feel similarly about Hive. Meaningful conversations, not mere repetition of slogans and the things we are 'supposed' to believe, say or do. Those spaces I do not do well in, they all sicken me. Who needs that?! Talk about not having people skills, I have no social media skills, and I don't want any.
Hive will always be here, isn't that what a blockchain is? There will likely always be a front end we can use to access it, as long as the internet is working.
That's a really nice thought 🌹