Time With Dad (Part 2)
I did not take any photos with my dad when I was visiting him. The initial reason was that I have an old phone with a broken camera. That constraint made me think a lot about how I wanted to preserve these moments. But is a photo the optimal way? A photo captures and transmits only a small amount of information. The photographer is responsible for capturing the right data to convey the right information. But I am not a photographer. There are skills for accomplishing this that I don't have, and I really want to remember the experiences, not one instant in time within those experiences. So what other tools do I have at my disposal to process, distill and express my memories of those experiences? Language. Art. Poetry. Music. But am I relaying these experiences to others, or am I documenting them for myself so that I can recall them later? Ideally both. I guess great art is marked by it's ability to convey the emotional impact of an experience for those who did not have the opportunity to actually experience it.