You’re not going to hear any snarky comments from me on this even though the photo is obviously begging for one. There’s no context here so it’s a bit unfair to for me to shake my fist and yell for these kids to put down their telephoney-machines and get off my lawn.
Maybe they were asked to do some quick research by their teacher about Rembrandt and his masterpiece, The Night Watch, the painting shown in this photo from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I don’t really know.
But it does provide a stark example of how we often forget to experience the here and now, how we fail to calmly sit back and just take in our surroundings. Often, our present moment and place holds something remarkable and real.
I can’t say that we are better or worse off for being so tethered to technology. A case can definitely be made for either. But we should not lose our ability to look and listen, to engage and absorb the world directly around us. Without that ability there will be no more epic paintings made for future generations to ignore.
Redtree Times 