Unfiltered Presence
‘No matter what tools you use to create,
the true instrument is you.
And through you,
the universe that surrounds us all comes into focus.’
– Rick Rubin
The drums beat a stirring rhythm, creating a surge of energy amongst the crowd, an echo of nature’s heartbeat brought to life on the stage. Irish dancers skillfully weave their bodies to the melody of the fiddle and I am entranced by this hypnotic performance. The show was Riverdance and I was taken back to the songs I heard so often as a child, now watching live, with a lump in my throat and pure joy in my heart.
Then came the moment I had been waiting for, where the crescendo intensified, the line of dancers came together, holding hands, stepping in synchronicity to the front of the stage. I was mesmerised, in awe of this moment. That was until, the lady sitting in front of me lifted her phone and started filming, completely obscuring my view.
Woah hang on, where are the stewards with their placard saying ‘no phones?’
Filled with frustration, I considered tapping her shoulder, asking her to put her phone away. But then I saw how much she was smiling, enjoying the moment too and I paused. Perhaps she was recording this for someone who couldn’t make it, or as a memento to save and re-live again and again for herself. Making her stop would just make me feel guilty, so, I chose not to say anything and peered around her, now overly conscious of not blocking the people behind me.
At times I glanced at the image through her phone and I realised, watching through the lens really did seem to filter out the magic, the energy of the theatre could not be replicated through a screen. This got me thinking…
How much of life do we view through the filtered lens?
And how much of the magic are we missing?
I am one of those people who, with my phone armed in my back-pocket often stops to take pictures of the beauty around me, a sunrise, a sunset, raindrops on leaves that glisten in the forest, the beauty of people around me, however, am I truly capturing the essence of that moment? Or is the real magic found in how the moment makes us feel? Perhaps that is at the core of what we are trying to capture.
Part of our obsession to record moments may lie in our fear that we will forget how we felt, trying to hold onto that feeling of wonder or delight and as a helpful remedy to lift our mood on darker days.
Is there a way to capture the moment, without the need for technology? An unfiltered kind of presence.
Now I am not trying to say we stop taking photographs, because I believe that is an artform in itself, but what if when we get ready to take that picture, we pause a little longer, breathing in the full experience, not through the lens of our device, but through the lens of how the moment feels. Letting our senses guide us, fully aware in the moment of sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, sensing the energy in our bodies and building a full, immersive experience in our mind.
Mindfulness teaches us to practice tuning into our senses for this very reason. Scientific research has shown that intentionally having a multisensory focus activates multiple parts of our brain, resulting in stronger memory engrams – physical traces of memory in our brains (Budson, 2024). So awakening our senses in the moment helps us to remember the feeling of events more clearly.
After we have enjoyed this sensory immersion, perhaps having our photo albums or videos to look back on, serve as a beautiful window for us to connect to powerful memories, felt in our heart.
A memory filled with emotion, that can feel just as powerful as the initial experience.
It’s widely known that Coldplay actively encourage their fans to have at least one song where everyone puts down their devices. I still get tingles now listening to ‘Sky Full of Stars’, remembering when we stood in the darkness, our white wristbands lighting up like stars and with hands in the air we all began jumping as the main chorus kicked in and fireworks exploded. For me, this was the most memorable song of the concert.
Fully present, living the moment with thousands of others in the same space, senses awakened, no devices, now that was powerful.
So that’s exactly what I did in the theatre. I actually closed my eyes, heightening my other senses, and felt the moment, not through sight, but through sound, vibrations and energy. And even as I write this blog, listening to the soundtrack in the background, I am smiling ear to ear, because whilst my view may have been blurred, I was there, fully present, immersed in the moment, and that memory along with the energy felt in my heart, is still as clear as the moment itself.
Perhaps there is something in capturing moments through the lens of our own senses first, having an unfiltered presence, because as Rick Rubin wrote; ‘through you, the universe that surrounds us, all comes into focus.’
With love
Sarah x