Recording our life: May 26, 1997 issue of New Thinking

May 26, 1997 New Thinking:
Recording our life

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May 26, 1997

Recording our life

By Gerry McGovern

Mairead, my cousin, had her confirmation last Saturday. (Confirmation is a Catholic ceremony for 12-13 year olds.) Though I would classify myself as a non-believer, I must say that I enjoyed the occasion. The cathedral was beautiful, full of almost other-worldly airs. The choir was superb. The sight of 150 young people, well dressed and serious about their future, was impressive.

A thing that did strike me forcefully was that in one area at least, people were not listening to what the bishop was saying. He stated on two occasions that people should not use photography during the ceremony, as the sound of the clicks and flashes, and the hustle and bustle of people trying to get a good position as their children or relatives neared the altar, would be disturbing to the sense and occasion.

I thought what he was saying made a lot of sense. Obviously, those in the congregation who had video and photographic cameras either did not agree, or perhaps weren’t listening at the time the requests were made.

As the children made their way up to the altar through the central aisle, a string of what looked like undercover operatives moved swiftly up the side aisles. Some positioned themselves at a pillar for a moment, taking focus, only, dissatisfied, to move on to a more strategically appropriate point.

Cameras clicked, bulbs flashed, videos rolled, and happy faces came back down the side aisles, as if they had captured for themselves some rare game of footage. Indeed, such events are relatively rare. But what intrigued me was that people were willing to risk the wrath of their bishop so as to record for posterity those important images.

Video cameras and cameras of all sorts have become cheap and plentiful. And people the world over have taken to recording their lives and the life that ranges around them with great energy.

Social historians of the future will have no problem in figuring out how we lived in the later part of the Twentieth Century. One rich source for them will be family websites, with pictures and footage of the new baby dressed in a Power Ranger outfit.

The past surely influences the future. However, the past was a very distant land, seen through the words and images of a select few. When our present (the future past) becomes so recorded and available, my feeling is that it will certainly have the potential to influence the future in a more positive humanistic way.

For we will have the chance to understand and learn from ordinary people and ordinary events, rather than just gaining access to great people and major events. I do believe that there can be as much to learn by observing closely ordinary daily events as can often be gleaned from an examination of the larger picture.

At the same time, we might become so obsessed with recording the everyday event that we will have a diminished capacity to experience it properly when it is actually happening.

If we do not live in the moment and of the moment, will we not become historians of our own present, stripping the moment of its vitality and energy, withdrawing from it the reason we would want to record it in the first place?

Gerry McGovern

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We might become so obsessed with recording the everyday event that we will have a diminished capacity to experience it properly when it is actually happening.