Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Getting Philosophical

To experience or capture - that is the question.

Yesterday was a rare cloudless day in Seattle. I treated myself on such a day with a run as reward for putting in 10 hour day on my thesis survey. Without exaggeration, it was the most breath-taking run I've ever taken.

I traversed over 14 miles on sidewalks, side streets, and mulched paths. I encounter boardwalks & blueberry farms, forests & fields, old-timey windmills & waterfalls, 3 lakes, each bigger than the one before, two birds of prey that I'm going to call golden eagles (because they were huge), a navy seal tearing up hill sprints on a ridiculous incline, and such scenery that I cannot paint with words.

And yet in the midst of such wonder, I couldn't help but lament not having brought my phone or camera that I could pull off some Zooey Deschanel running-photography from Yes Man! A feast for my senses, and all I have to show you of it is a picture of the sunset from my apartment (where I sat and iced my knee).


Today's technology of instant capture and instant share frequently results in us experiencing our lives through the filter of our camera phones or glowing screens. We take pictures of our food before we eat it (like I did with my dinner last night!) We have this incessant urge to document every fleeing moment. But at what cost? Do we miss living the moment because we're so busy trying to capture it? 

And why must we capture it? Are we so afraid that we'll never have another moment, another run, another meal as good as the one we didn't fully experience in the first place?

So I have no pictures for you from my run. The only remnants of the day lie in my faulty memory and in my tender knee, but I'm going to keep running and keeping living, to experience all the more that life has to offer, not settling for even the best of today - because tomorrow is full of its own opportunity (and hope) for awesome.

Stay tuned though! I have some sweet pictures of the dinner I made.

No comments:

Post a Comment