Then and Now
As I walked the streets of Dublin, I snapped a picture from the corner at The Temple Bar and sent it to my old Ireland buddies. It was one of hundreds I would take in just the few days I would be in the city. As I reminisced and shared stories of my time back then, I wondered if any of my pictures were still on Facebook and so I pulled up the app and looked through the old albums. I found one from Ireland and laughed when it only contained 50 pictures. 50 photos taken from six months living in the country, and most of them were from one hike I did the first weekend I was there.
It's interesting to compare then and now. Facebook itself had only come out the year before, and so if it weren't for the application I doubt I would be able to find any photos. Back then, we had to bring the camera with us. You only had a certain amount of photos you could take per film, and so you took your shots sparingly. You waited for a good one, as opposed to now, when we snap everything and find the good one later after cropping and applying filters.
It is harder now, I think, with the constant camera in your hands to be able to really enjoy the moment you are in instead of trying to capture it. At the same time though, capturing the moment can be part of the fun; being able to share the feeling you had as you got to the top of the cliff and saw nothing but ocean - a site so beautiful and unexpected that an explitive involuntarily rolls off your toungue. It is a gift to be abe to capture a feeling like that, to solidify it into your memory. I wonder how many moments I had like that 17 years ago that are forever lost.
It is fun now, to have all the pictures. I enjoy making Reels from my trips just like I used to enjoy going to the store, printing my photos, spreading them across my bedroom floor and making a scrapbook. It's very different and yet very similar. The process has changed but it's still a way to re-live the trip, to enjoy and remember each moment from it. Years later it is something I will be able to look back on and smile as it takes me back to that corner at Temple Bar or to the top of the cliffs of Balleycastle. I'm sure though, many don't look at it through that lens. They see this generation with their technology and are quick to judge, failing to see the similarities between the way it was then and the way it is now.
There seems to be a lot of comparison on social media these days between generations. Baby boomers calling us younger people lazy, like we don't know hard work. Then of course we throw it back with memes about our older managers making more money than us but not being able to open a PDF. It's the never-ending need to compare Gen X to Gen Z, old to young, then to now. The truth of it all is that we love what we know, and we will always know our story better than anyone elses, but that doesn’t make one story better than another.
As I think about Ireland then, and Ireland now, I'm grateful for the different experiences because there is good in both. I'm grateful for the technology of today to be able to capture and share my experience with more people, and I'm also grateful for the lack of it then, forcing me to just be and enjoy it. The truth of it all is that the world is changing and lamenting on any of it won't stop it. We need to learn how to appreciate how connected we are now without it stopping us from disconnecting like we could then.
Or at least those are my rambling thoughts on this rainy Saturday afternoon…
