A Picture of a Picture

I was standing in front of this beautiful photograph of a buffalo today in Colorado. He was covered in snow, with that thick coat and enormous head, standing there looking as though he belonged to a world that was completely untouched by ours.

And I loved it. So much so that I started thinking that would be a great picture to have. So naturally, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the picture.

And that’s when I had this thought.

Here I was, looking at a photograph of something that was once alive and standing in the wild. Someone had been there to experience that moment. Someone had felt the cold air, heard the sounds around them, and stood close enough to this incredible animal to capture its beauty.

And now I was standing here, outside this store, looking at that experience through glass, taking another picture through another piece of glass.

I started wondering to myself after taking the picture, how much gets lost along the way.

Standing there, I could almost imagine what it would’ve been like to see that buffalo out in the wild. Standing in the snow, with his footprints and mine all around us. To hear him breathing in the cold air. To see the snow resting on his back. I wonder if I would have just stood there for a while, taking it all in. I think I would have. There's something about being that close to something so beautiful that reminds us how much wonder there still is in this world. And how often we walk right past it.

And then I looked down at the picture I’d taken on my phone. It was beautiful, too. But it wasn’t quite the same. And that made me think… how much of our lives we spend doing exactly this. 

Looking at pictures of pictures.

Watching videos of people having experiences.

Watching people take pictures of themselves having experiences.

Watching someone else’s sunset, someone else’s vacation, someone else’s beautiful dinner, someone else’s life.

And I wonder what all of that’s doing to us.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not suggesting there’s anything wrong with photographs. I love photographs. I love looking back at the people I’ve loved, the places I’ve been, and the little moments I might have otherwise forgotten. And I think it’s a wonderful thing that we can see parts of this beautiful world we may never have the opportunity to visit. There’s a lot of good in that, and I wouldn’t want to lose it.

But I do wonder if, somewhere along the way, we’ve begun spending more time looking at other people’s experiences than making time to have our own.

Our minds are taking in more beauty, more information, more people, and more places than perhaps any generation before us. And yet I wonder if our souls are actually experiencing less of it.

There’s something different about standing in the snow and feeling the cold on your face than watching someone else stand in the snow. There’s something different about seeing a buffalo in the wild than seeing him behind glass. And there’s something different about looking into someone’s eyes than looking at their face on a screen.

I think our minds can recognize the beauty in a picture. We can appreciate it, even imagine what it might feel like to be there. But our bodies know the difference. And I believe our souls do, too. There's something about actually being there, experiencing life for ourselves, that a picture simply can’t give us.

We were made to experience life.

To touch things.

To hear things.

To smell the rain.

To feel the warmth of another person’s hand.

To be surprised by something beautiful that we weren’t expecting to see.

And I wonder if all this looking through glass is quietly changing the way we experience the world.

Psychologists talk about how our attention, our memory, and even our sense of connection can be tremendously affected when we’re constantly moving between images and screens. We can become so accustomed to observing life that we forget what it feels like to participate in life.

And maybe that’s what I’m trying to say here.

I don’t think we’ve lost our ability to recognize beauty. I think we still see it all around us. But I wonder if we’ve gotten so accustomed to moving from one thing to the next that we’re forgetting what it feels like to really experience it.

To slow down long enough to take it all in. 

To let it stir something in us. 

To give it enough of our time and attention that it becomes more than something we’ve seen. 

It becomes something we’ve felt. Something we get to carry with us in the days ahead.

I could have stood in front of that buffalo for another five minutes. I could have studied every little detail. I could have let myself imagine the world he lived in and the wonder of being there.

But instead, I took a picture and moved on. 

And if we're being honest for a minute, isn't that something we do all the time? We see something beautiful, something that catches our attention, maybe even something that stirs joy in us. But before we've really had a chance to take it in, we're already moving on to the next thing.

We save things to enjoy later. We photograph moments so we can remember them. We collect little pieces of life in our phones, and sometimes we never return to them.

Meanwhile, the actual moment has passed. And I wonder how often we're so busy trying to capture a moment that we miss the experience of actually living it.

Think about how many concerts we attend where we're watching the performance through our phones instead of looking up at the person standing right in front of us. Or how often we're out on a beautiful walk, surrounded by things worth noticing, but we're more focused on getting the perfect picture than enjoying where we are.

And I'm guilty of it, too.

We want to remember these moments. I understand that. But I wonder how many memories we're missing while we're so busy trying to preserve them. 

I don't know that I have some grand conclusion to all of this. I'm certainly not giving up my camera, and I'm guessing you aren't either. But I do think I want to pay a little more attention to how I'm spending my time. How much of it am I actually experiencing life, and how much of it am I spending looking at someone else's experiences?

Maybe I want to spend a little less time collecting pictures of beautiful things and a little more time being present for those beautiful things.

And maybe the next time I find myself standing in front of something that takes my breath away, I'll give myself a few minutes before I reach for my phone. 

A few minutes to look around. To notice what I hear, what I feel, what I smell, and what it is about that moment that makes me want to remember it in the first place.

Because I don't want to get to the end of this extraordinary life God has given me and realize that I spent so much of it looking through glass. That I was so busy trying to remember my life that I forgot to fully live it.

I want to feel the snow beneath my feet.

I want to hear the buffalo breathe.

I want to stand in the middle of this beautiful world and allow myself to be moved by it.

And I suppose that's what that picture of a buffalo reminded me of. There’s a whole world out there waiting for us to experience it. And sometimes the most beautiful moments of our lives won't be the ones we have pictures of.

They'll be the ones we were fully present for.