Something Interesting Happened, But No One Was Paying Attention
I was taking a walk in the busiest section of my city.
Oslo, the capital of Norway. Sounds and smells of traffic all around, and people wandering this way and that in the dark of evening. Never would anyone imagine that a wild animal would stray to this part of town.
Then I spotted a fox.
It was running along a stretch of grass beside the main road. It jumped about and chased a mouse, and it glided quietly between the trees in the park. At first, only I and one other person took notice of the wild fox.
But then more and more people spotted it, and I wished they hadn’t.
Everyone took out their phones. They pressed close to the fox, shining their bright camera lights on it as it was attempting to secure its dinner. It looked eerie to me, like a swarm of paparazzi gathered around their victim, staring down at their own screens rather than at the wonder before them.
They must have been thinking, “Look at this amazing thing that is happening”, but none of them did so themselves.
I was on the other side of the street, and my phone was in my bag. I didn’t take it out. I wanted to properly see the fox, to experience the moment as it was with the calm night air and the sounds of the city around me.
So I recorded the event to my memory, and when the fox departed, I left.
It’s not about the fox, not really.
I understand that people want to take pictures and videos of something so rare and exciting. They want to show it to their friends, tell them the story of when they saw that fox hunting its prey in the middle of the city. Maybe they want to look back on it someday, to remember the time long after.
But in doing so, they tarnish the actual moment as it occurs.
I don’t like how normal it has become to intervene with such artificial, unnatural tools in natural settings. To interrupt a beautiful experience with a device that only captures a sliver of that beauty on screen. To make such little room for the fox to hunt, such little room for the thing that is actually happening, that our connection to nature is neglected.
As Beth Kempton explores in her book Wabi Sabi, the present moment becomes beautiful when you are present within it.
To pull out your phone in that present moment is to distract yourself. It is to prioritize the superficial replication of reality that a camera can produce over the actual sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that the moment uniquely offers. No, taking a picture of the cake you baked or capturing a snippet of your trip to Italy are not horrible, inhuman things in themselves to do.
But they are a distraction once they become a habit.
It is not the event with the crowd and the cameras that upsets me so. It is our current tendency to remove ourselves from a place and time in nature, in favor of a meaningless pursuit of superficial credit and clout. In reality, I just want the night to be uninterrupted and the fox to continue its hunt.
I want people to look up and see.
The very next day, I saw the fox again.
It scampered across the street past a café. Some people raised their voices and pointed. Many took out their phones. Again, I didn’t. I am glad I didn’t.
I think I caught the fox best of all before it disappeared.
