What a Pretty Picture

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” That expression has been around for eons. What does it mean? The original phrase is attributed to Tess Flanders talking about journalism and went like this; “Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words.” This is way back in 1911 when pictures were arduous to take. There is also some credit to Fred R. Barnard who used it on street cars. He said it was related to a Chinese proverb. The proverb actually stated, "Hearing something a hundred times isn't better than seeing it once" and it was debunked over time. I take multiple photos and there are times I believe I can get a thousand words from it but some of my sunrise or sunset photos I think might be hard. “Oh, look the sun is coming up.” Or maybe, “Ah, what a beautiful sunset.” I do believe the old expression from 1927 about a picture being worth a thousand words but I am also a bit confused. Most of us are completely lost in the blue rays of our modern technology and look through photo arrays daily. We look, stare, lose track of time, and somehow, we barely speak to one another anymore. If this expression is so valid, where the heck is the conversation to go with all the post we waste so much time staring at?

I deem myself a conversationalist. I like interacting with people I know and even people I don’t know. I think that comes from the fact that since I was a little kid I was around adults in big places. At racetracks, concerts, business meetings, competitions, and just plain old social settings, I was required to interact with people that made me uncomfortable. For twelve years I coached college tennis and had to meet parents of prospective players, speak to opposing coaches, and battle for what I thought was right. This has made speaking a second nature to me. I also taught for three years, volunteered to speak at schools in my spare time, and have spent many hours in hotel bars with strangers and random bartenders. This uncomfortable time has made me comfortable over a period of time. When most of this occurred, there wasn’t this crutch of an iPhone 10 with the most unbelievable distractions available. We had the USA Today. Still today, when I stay in a hotel, I grab the paper they have available and take it to my room. Usually, I throw it away because I too, fall in the trap of the blue light magic of technology. It is my opinion that the youth today are missing the opportunity to be uncomfortable and learn to look at the pictures in front of them and create the thousand-word responses. Think about it. We didn’t have a choice. If we looked out the hotel window from the bar what did we see? Blue sky, cars on the interstate, planes taking off or landing, or maybe a really hot air crew coming in for the night from their Lufthansa flight. There were conversation points because we had nothing else to look at but the world from our eyes. Now, we look through the world from the perspective of the app and what it wants to give us.

This curse has caused us to formulate our opinions only on what we are comfortable with. There is no discomfort anymore. If we don’t like it, we just block it. What happened to seeing things we don’t like, creating a solution, and then implementing it and then seeing what happens? I have seen so much and been in the middle of many things that made me uncomfortable. I lived on a college campus when I was 12 years old, I worked in the hot pits at Sebring when I was under age, I hung out in Green Park when the 80’s were the 80’s, I was lucky enough to be behind the ropes of multiple large concerts and Super Bowls before I ever could drive, and I know what a party really looks like. These are five thousand-word pictures that bounce around, but they are locked away so that when those situations present themselves now I know how to respond. I just don’t see that now. We are sad because someone has said something disparaging about us. Woah, that has never happened before. Of course, it has. Back in the day we beat their ass or got our ass beat. Now, we create a campaign online and we either get bullied or become the bully. Holy shit, hit the delete button. Why put up with it? If you don’t like it, aren’t going to kick their ass, or talk it out man to man, then just hit the delete button. We are so worried about what people think online it effects our lives. Those Instagram models we see are a splendid example of that. I had a player who was dating an Instagram star. Isn’t it weird that all these photos, that are worth a thousand words, are so perfect? How in the hell do you get a photo of you jogging? Oh yeah, your little minion is shooting the photos. Here is the funny thing about that. They are shot over, and over, and over, and over again. He would tell me that she would shoot a photo of her on a staircase looking out at the horizon 5 to 20 times. It was exhausting. Thousands of words just wasted.

Communication has been said to be 30 percent verbal and 70 percent nonverbal. I believe these numbers are skewed now since it is astonishing how many downturned heads you see each day. No one is looking around at the world around them. They are all looking at the world someone else is allowing them to see. Doesn’t this make us like the lemmings? What happened to seeing the world through our own thoughts, eyes, and dreams? We see it through the vision and perception of those who post it for us to look at. In each of those posts there are thousands of worlds that can be brought out for us to contemplate but before we can put the thoughts together our finger swipes up or to the right. We have lost our ability to dream our own dreams.

I love social media. I have found so many mentors that I garner information from on a daily basis. There are books I want to read, places I want to see, and ideas that are festering deep in my mind. I have also reconnected with friends from the past and am amazed at the success of some of the silent ones from our days in school. At other times, I am amazed at some of the vitriol and personal bullshit that others put out. The words say a lot, but the pictures are always worth a thousand words. Take your pictures and then contemplate them. Don’t just push them to your saved file. Remember, your memories are a lot better in your own mind than as a slide post on your friend’s timeline.

photo 1 -- me courtesy of Lou Holtz's bumper
Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash