Each a glimpse and gone forever

This quote that I came across while leafing through a stack of magazines as one does:

“I love the idea that once you capture that moment, nobody will ever capture it again.”

winner for the Mobile in National Wildlife’s 2022 Photo Contest

The last bit of a poem that I read this week:


And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Robert Louis Stevenson (From a Railway Carriage)

E and I played a game of Go over the weekend. Not on OGS like we have of late, but with wiggly melamine stones on my prized etched bamboo board like we used to way back when.

There was no digital system present to record each move as it flits from my phone to his tablet and back. No, every physical stone placement mutates the state of the board, overwriting the preceding game states. The clues to “How did we get here?” erode rapidly with each new move.

When the game has concluded, we tally the points, shake hands and sweep the stones back to their respective bowls. Leaving behind a clear board – as if the game never happened, if not for the photo we take at the end.

It made me wonder if experiences are more cherished when we forgo objective means of recording them, relegating instead to our recollections—fickle and desperate.