A few weeks ago, I went to see one of my favourite bands, The Black Keys, and I noticed a strange phenomenon: people glued to their phones, Twitter, Instagram, selfies, taking pictures, recording video. People were living this concert through their phones and the Internet. This seems to be what has become normal, and I’m just as guilty of doing this as much as anyone else. We live in a world where social media has a huge influence on our lives, we connect with people through it, and it adds to the experience of what we’re doing — or does it take away from the experience?
To me, especially with live events, it takes away from the experience. The last time I went to a concert and spent the majority of it connected to my phone was the last show ever for Alexisonfire back in December of 2012. I took photos, videos of my favorite songs, scrambling over people to get closer to get better vantage points. This is significant to me because this was one of the concerts I HAD to attend because Alexis was one of the first bands I ever saw live. My first introduction to attending live music shows started way back in 2002 with these guys. So when I think back to the last time anyone would ever see these guys perform, what was I doing? Taking pictures and videos on my cell phone. Grainy pictures and inaudible videos that I looked at once after the concert and realized it wasn’t worth watching again because the quality was so bad.
I took myself out of the experience of live music for a “like,” no gratification. Ultimately, I just wasn’t really thinking about what I really wanted to get out the experience, just sort of back to floating along.
When people talk about living deliberately, it isn’t about marching towards a goal or spreading a message, it’s about making conscious decisions about the things that are important to you, about being present in the moment rather than just being there. This isn’t to say that everything has to count 100 per cent of the time, or that you always have to be “on,” but just something to keep in mind when it comes how you’re living your life. Ask yourself, “Is this something I can float with, or should I be actively involved?”
I’m looking forward to continuing to say “yes” to the latter.
(NB: This is not Gerrad’s video; you can always count on someone else to post one!)
