Future vs. Present, GLOVES OFF.

Last night I had the privilege of going to a live concert performed by one of my favorite artists, The Tallest Man Earth. He's a master of tone, verbal inflection, lyricism, finger-picking. His music is the kind that speaks directly to your heart. It's simple and soulful. I've posted one of my favorite songs, Love Is All, here so that you, too, can relish the depth of feeling in this track.

When he started plucking the intro during the concert, I was thrilled. Not Beiber-fever thrilled, but excited, at least. So I jockeyed for a line of sight in my twenty first standing row in the back. You know how you can weasel in-between tall people to get a peek of the attraction, looking over their shoulder but under the earlobe? I did that. I squirmed my way into a respectable sight line. This was hands-down my favorite track and I just felt so lucky to hear it from his mouth, live. Not surprisingly, though, I wasn't the only one. Just as I braced myself to freeze ideal peeking position for four minutes, a hand shot up through the crowd. Muting my hard-earned view. It looked like this:


See, through the glory of the inter-webs, I was able to use Youtube to share with you what I was missing during the actual experience. So, that's what The Tallest Man On Earth is like live. If you're close enough. Otherwise, if you're in the back, you're gonna get my view. It's precisely because I could share that video with you, that I couldn't see it when I was there. Is that a worthy trade?

While I refrained from yelling expletives, this time, I thought about the raging battle between future and present. I understand why this D-BAG was filming our favorite song with his iPhone. He: is sending it to someone who couldn't BE there, wants to show his friends or watch it LATER, wants to post it on YOUTUBE. There are a lot of reasons, but it sure as hell wasn't because he likes to stick his arm up and hold it perfectly still while listening to live music. It's not like he better understands the performance by receiving vibrations through his forearm.

When my LIVE experience gets shafted because of some non-existent FUTURE BENEFIT, I gotta say, enough. I go to concerts so I can enjoy an experience that will never happen again. An experience that is impossible to re-live or re-create. Sure, you can see what it was like online, but it will never be that. Why would you watch an artist on Youtube anyways? Probably to get a sense about whether you want to see them live. This moment just too perfectly framed how we are, in fact, losing the power of the moment. I think that we're so in love with it, we're afraid to let it go. But, to quote the Tao te Ching, "Grasp, and it will slip through your fingers." We keep grabbing and pulling, trying to keep it all. Trying to make it last when, really, we're just denying the inevitable. The concert will end and you will have to work, work to find another artist you like. Or wait, wait, to see The Tallest Man on Earth again. These are the physical properties of the world that you cannot deny. We're compromising the joy of the moment so that we may live a little of it over again in the future.

Sure, I've been guilty of filming or photographing an event instead of raptly watching. And, when I'm done, I find myself trying to remember what just happened. It's like reading a book while you're thinking about something else. You have to go back and re-read the pages you turned absent-mindedly. It's like thinking about your own issues while a friend is talking to you. "What? I'm sorry, say that again?" You're missing the point of the interaction.

I love taking pictures and video. I'm a sentimentalist. In middle school, I made scrapbooks like nobody's business, don't get me wrong. Keeping parts of an experience is incredibly romantic. But when it gets in the way of being there, get over it. Put the camera down. Live a little. Live for today because tomorrow might never come. Now if you've read through this rant, run the ringer with me, come full circle, and you say, "But Rachel, why are you freaking out, you can just watch it on Youtube." Then you, my friend, have a problem. And I don't feel bad snapping that ONE picture because it was a crappy moment I didn't need to be fully present for. Hypocritical? I'm only a human being.


[If you think this future-oriented idea is interesting, check out this animated lecture by RSA. It talks about the differences of time orientation between cultures and is very insightful.]