From the Darkroom to Our iPhones
A glimpse into our obsession with comfort and ease
Have you ever been in a darkroom, developing your own pictures? Have you held a Nikon or Canon in your hand, fumbling with the camera’s shutter release and aperture? Or, like many young people today, have you only taken pictures on your beloved iPhone?
I have great memories of learning about photography in my teenage years. There was something about going into the darkroom and waiting to see what kind of image I captured on my camera. Did I let in too much light? Will I need to adjust the shutter speed next time? Did I capture a cool, candid glimpse of everyday life?
Waiting in the dimly-lit, red-colored room, carefully holding a light-sensitive piece of film was exciting. The anticipation combined with the necessity for patience made the results that much more meaningful.
Flash forward four decades since I was a teen. My iPhone with a built-in camera is on me throughout the majority of the day. I don’t have to think ahead to prepare to capture moments. I don’t have to pack up my camera, load film and make sure my battery is charged. Without much thought today, I can chronicle moments, share experiences and record history. But something therein is lost …
Convenient Culture
Everything today is convenient. We have cameras on us at all times (which is arguably a good thing, as well). When we’re hungry, we have food delivered within minutes. If we run out of paper towels, we just head to our Amazon app and have it here within a day. The packages piling up by our front doors tells us everything about our patterns and our expectations.
This instant gratification model is one that we have come to expect, and it stretches far beyond material consumption. When we are sick, we want an antibiotic to cure us within 24 hours. When we can’t sleep, we want a pill to stop our racing minds. When we need dog food, we just order it (like I’m guilty of doing this morning) and wait for it to arrive the next day. When we want the answer to a complex problem, we get it in seconds without using our minds. (I can’t help but to wonder what my beloved Grandma Flo would think about the state of our learning and discovery. Whenever I asked her what a word meant, she would reply: “Look it up in the unabridged dictionary … If you can’t find it or understand its meaning, then I will help you.”)
Our nation’s addiction to comfort and ease seems to be skyrocketing. We have groceries delivered instead of driving three miles to get them ourselves. We order books through Amazon (how the online retail giant began) instead of browsing around our local bookstore. With drones and other advances, I know this is just the beginning.
It’s just too easy. We don’t even need to connect with a store owner, cashier, librarian or treasured grandma. We can just hold our phones and access all that “we need.”
But, what do we really need? It’s certainly not all of this stuff. Even if you argue that it is, then what is lost when we acquire so much from afar? What about our neighbor who owns a local gift shop? What about our friend who has a small business outside of her home? Has our laziness caused us to forget about the hustle that so many of our peers exhibit each day?
I think we have become a bit numb to the plight of business owners in our own neighborhoods. Similarly, we may not be aware of how much our online shopping discourages entrepreneurs and makes their businesses less likely to survive.
At What Cost?
In addition to not supporting small business owners and connecting less with humans, we are also hurting ourselves. With an overwhelming access to everything, that passion and creativity we once utilized or could be utilizing are not being tapped into as much or at all.
“Technology has eliminated the basement darkroom and the whole notion of photography as an intense labor of love for obsessives and replaced them with a sense of immediacy and instant gratification.” — Joe McNally, photographer
We miss out on those darkroom emotions. We miss out on seeing other pups at the pet store and hearing the cashier’s recommendations about the newest dental toy. We miss out on human connection.
Into the Wild
This concept of being addicted to comfort and instant gratification is one that I have considered for many years. When I was in my early 20s, the book “Into the Wild” was released. It told the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man who felt at odds with society and set off to live an authentic life fueled by nature, freedom and truth. He sold all his possessions and set out to experience new challenges, adventures and meaning each day.
While McCandless did not survive his adventure, his journey and the surrounding philosophical debates certainly have lived on for decades. Some people still argue today that he was brave to seek a life away from possessions, from people and from societal pressures. Others argue he was selfish to worry his loved ones and to disconnect from the safe life he had.
I wonder what McCandless would think of our society today. Decades after his death, we are now even more consumed with comfort and with accumulating things. We expect everything to happen instantly. We stockpile goods and garbage.
If we have a question, Siri or AI gives us the answer before the thoughts even bounce around in our minds. If we want milk, we often don’t even drive to the store to get it. It appears at our door thanks to numerous apps. If we want a good picture, we can snap one haphazardly and then edit it to near perfection. Everything is so easy and often done almost robotically.
Awareness is a Massive Game Changer
I’m certainly a fan of technology and I’m obviously a consumer of it. So many of us benefit from new technologies and conveniences. That is not going to change for most of us. What I’m suggesting is that we are aware of our habits, our consumption patterns and the indirect losses we are accruing from those habits and patterns.
We need to think before we click. Maybe we plan to watch the sunrise instead of stumbling upon it. The effort and consideration will make the image we capture or even just the experience we have that much more rewarding.
Maybe we need to consider going to the store for toilet paper instead of ordering it online. Not only will we save delivery and packaging costs (and the strains they put on our planet), but we will be opening ourselves to the possibility of connecting with someone. We will be helping a local business.
Small Changes, Big Results
We will get ourselves outside of our comfort zones, on a very simple level. Conceptually, this is much greater than the physical comfort of staying in our homes and ordering groceries. I’m suggesting we push ourselves outside of our comfort zones to take risks and adventures in life — in a small nod to McCandless perhaps.
I’m suggesting we remember the importance of connecting with others and helping others. I’m also suggesting we even simply connect with ourselves … with our planet.
If reading this makes even just one of you click on Amazon one less time this week, then I am grateful … I am grateful we can all grow and learn and push ourselves to be aware and to be less disconnected.
We can have an extra chat with a cashier. We can take an extra drive to the store and notice the flowers blooming along the way. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even plan ahead and time our drive with the sunset.
Looking at our daily habits directly, we can easily see the impact of our actions. But, when we strip it down and look at what our patterns say about how we live our lives, how we connect with others and how we challenge ourselves, we may be surprised.
So, let’s all remember: We have one time to go around. There is little excess time to disconnect, yet there are endless opportunities for discovering meaning and beauty along the way.