SEEING THE REAL WORLD

An enormous crowd was on its feet cheering, waving, shouting, taking pictures.

The shouting, gyrating, jumping, wriggling, prancing performers -- the huge, ever-louder amplification -- amazing beams of lights, stunning visual effects -- when you look at your cell phone photo, is the sense of it, the feel of it there?

When you take a photo of a moment that moves you -- a picture of your kid, friends, yourself in your favorite outfit, a sunrise or sunset, pictures of the pictures that you see on your television, what you've got is pixels forever reminding you that what was (when you saw it) WAS INTENSELY REAL

I have a 2 ft by 4 ft box of photos -- snapshots of our son at various stages, friends, relatives, informal and professional pictures of us taken by famous photographers. I need a tall ladder to get to the box, and my husband would have to lift the heavy box off the ladder and put it on the floor. Then, I could look at a few photos -- there are too many -- a day, an hour of looking, or two days -- a few hours of looking at old photos would wear me out.

How many photos do you have? When -- how often --do you re-see and re-feel them?

The greedy billionaire phone manufacturer guys have given us a way to look at life through our photos -- a wonderful way to grab a feeling, pause it, freeze it, retain a millisecond of what thrilled-excited-delighted us.

I think the photos distance you from the feeling, the experience. Yes, it's in the memory of your phone that you can hold in your hand. But the ecstasy of the moment is gone.

It's a birds' eye view.

I don't want a birds' eye view of my life.