We often encounter the above sign in our day to day lives while entering shopping stores or other public spaces and reading this we almost always end up smiling. Only later we realize that the message is in fact placed to deter potential shoplifters, who are being cautioned against any mischief. But if even a small message in relation to Cameras can inadvertently lead to smiles one may wonder if the Title for this piece is appropriate or was it a clickbait. Read on to conclude yourself if it is a well thought title.

Happiness and Cameras:

The impact that photography / videography had in the 50 years ago was huge, especially with images from space and moon rover etc. but it was not large enough to influence large populations and entire generations. In the past two decades the penetration of cameras has increased immensely after first being compact size and now being embedded within mobile devices. The generation today is often born on a camera and spends a large amount of the nascent years posing or performing for a camera or getting recorded secretly for pleasure of parents or grandparents or doing tricks / living life on a camera, unfortunately, for merely likes from strangers on Social Media platforms like YouTube etc. or at best helping their parents earn their livelihood. Photos and Videos are a large part of lives for billions of humans from the time of Birth till their last breath – but is same true for Happiness?

Smiles, laughter and happiness in general has been often associated with the videography and photography in our minds. This has been made possible mainly as it is the underlying theme of what appears to be a very long and well-funded marketing campaign. We have been groomed to believe that capturing our moments on the film or memory chips would make them last forever and we would thus be able to relive and enjoy those experiences repeatedly. Though it is true that now memories last longer captured in digital hardware, how often does one get to see them again and enjoy these is a different story.

Who Promises and What gets Promised?

The marketing team for Cameras industry is making bulk of the promises, but they are not alone. Be it Camera’s within the phones or the tiny hand held or adventure cameras or the big movie making machines – each manufacturer ties up with one or more industries to sell an experience, as these days all commodities are marketed as experiences. Thus, many interlinked industries or corporate institutions like tourism, hospitality, adventure sports, Hollywood, Cinemas etc. have promised happiness in multiple ways to its consumers highlighting only the best possible moments to an audience which seeks happiness, unaware of being sold pleasure under guise of pure Happiness. I will list a few common examples of the promises that are made by these corporates / industries-

• Moments are captured forever!
• Your next trip would too be all smiles and fun
• You would get the same life as the person on screen in the movie / Advertisement
• You are going to be next YouTuber / Camera star
• Whatever is not captured on Camera does not matter

What has been positive use of the Camera Technology?

Camera Technology has been immensely beneficial, to list down everything here. But I am including this section to just highlight that not everything is bad about it and if used properly they are a great asset to our societies. This section is not just an attempt to deter the people from saying this was just someone complaining endlessly but a sincere recognition of the fact that technologies are for our betterment at some level.

In today’s pandemic hit world – Enabling remote video conferencing for work; education via remote online learning; enabling pictures of brain (MRI), capturing numerous inspiring moments that continue to help push forward our limits are to cite but a few examples. These are enough to justify that technology of Cameras did a great deal of good for the humans in the last couple of centuries.

What has been negative use of the Camera Technology?

Ok back to beating down on the technology! This list too, unfortunately, is too big to list down here but I will just give some common examples. Use of Camera technology for blackmailing, viewing / distributing adult content as part of a billion-dollar industry, propaganda creation and its propagation are just a few examples that showcase the largely acceptable misuse to which humans have put this technology.

The most ignorant harm that is being done is the lie about - Happiness. Here I concede that it is a collective industrialization narrative and not just camera technology which sells promises that celebrate consumerism. The subject of such consumerism has only recently shifted from products to experiences, thus making cameras an important technology to capture those experiences. This is probably the most damaging aspect for humans and nature of the way we are using technology, let’s use the example again of Camera to understand about it better.

Why Happiness did not increase?

Many of us have ended up with Gigabytes or even terabytes of recordings. We do realize that we simply watch them again is a huge investment of time. But we are unable to delete them and hold on to them dearly as if they add value to our life. But do we feel enriched?

Using three reasons I will try to explain on why we are not happier like we were promised: - 

• We are not fully experiencing the present -

Without going into too much philosophy around happiness – we can understand that we are almost always distracted by the technology of cameras. While it is nice to capture some moments; especially when done via a third party designated for that job and not part of the experience itself it is important not to have individuals live a life to be captured for viewing at a later stage, which often never comes. We are humans must be fully engaged in the experience itself and not having to deal with nuances that would arise due to the need to capture it for a later viewing.

Often when we are in a situation where we wish to capture the same and revisit the same later or to share with others who are not in the moment, as we have been asked by marketing team of cameras – our Minds move away from the experience and get involved in the task of capturing the moment. From an experiencer of the event, we become a person who is capturing the experience – an altogether different experiencer of the event. We are no longer the main subject of the experience as much as we should be, especially considering it is a supposedly happy experience which we wish to preserve forever but a large part of us gets divested into preserving it for later consumption. Just like the food when served fresh tastes the best and is most healthy compared to frozen food for later – same is true for all our other experiences. When presented with a good meal if we only focus on taking a slice of it freezing it for later (most likely never consumption) we are not doing justice to the meal; just like we are not doing justice to the happy experiences we are blessed with wherein we let ourselves get busy capturing them for later consumption.

Now if you are someone who wish to disprove this point by an argument which goes like: - “well capturing experiences itself is now part of the experience! A true Hiking experience is embedded with the process of taking 5 pictures and 1 video every few steps. It is not just about the summit shot”

• Our own Memory fails us for Happy memories-

Since part of our experience is about only capturing the events, we have a diminished experience, we therefore have a lack of formation of strong happy memories in our brain (instead of the storage devices on computer). The happy moments we should be fully immersed in get only our partial attention as our focus quickly shifts to making sure we are preserving it perfectly in a camera (like we learnt from numerous Ad campaigns) and many times this act itself destroys the moment. Sometimes due to mere accidents whose probability increase due to a new variable, and sometimes due to emotional distancing from the others who are part of the experience (many of it also happens due to SM addiction but that is a different discussion though that too is result of the same industrialization).

On the other hand, we are fully immersed in the not so happy moments as we never imagine having a diversion in our minds to grab a camera in those times of our lives. Thus, we end up experiencing less of the happy moments and more of the not so happy moments. We therefore remember longer the moments we must forget easily and hardly remember our most precious moments of life. Of course, we faintly do recall their occurrence if we ever get a chance to see whatever we managed to capture of that moment.

Now if you are like “well that is life; it is a Yin/Yang; I would rather capture both”, then

• The nature of experiencing pleasure in context of worldly desires - 

Even when we are experiencing something very trivial in the world perhaps say our favorite dish or a candy, the amount of pleasure it gives us reduces considerably each time it is experienced in the quick succession. The first bite or the first candy increases our cravings for more and gives us immense pleasure. With each candy eaten or bite of the dish consumed our pleasure achieved with that action reduces. Eventually, say half a dozen candies or stomach full of the favorite dish, we simply do not desire that experience anymore. Does that imply we don’t want happiness at that point in time? Of course not, we always desire happiness. It is simply the fact that those commodities do not provide us the pleasure which we had mistaken as happiness. It is because the pleasure that experience gives is limited our mind does want something different at that time. That is the nature of mind.

Our mind is the tool that helps us feel emotions. Pleasure and sadness just like other emotions like anger, greed etc. are also felt within the mind. Whenever our mind consumes an experience, it relates that experience to an emotion using an association made to reference in our CHITTA (a library of experiences). If the experience is completely new and not easily relatable to our deepest desires of love or fears of death, we look outwards to understand how to react to that experience. Just like the kids are conditioned to link experiences with set feelings, adults are continuously taught how to associate some experiences and even experiences should they desire! We are sold endless happiness through various campaigns, however all that is available are mere experiences that we may link to Pleasure or Sadness or any other emotion!

Happiness should be understood as pure bliss (ANANDA). It is not something that can be bought as an experience from the outside world being sold in a telemarketing show! Pure bliss or happiness is our true self and that this is the sole reason why we seek to experience the same! One can only experience it internally and by spreading it through our lives but due to the illusions of the world in a delusionary act we look for this happiness outwards. After all the advances in the developed world happiness has only decreased and our minds are being overtaken with serious complexities like depression / anxiety due to unfulfillment of the simple natural and organic desire of Happiness. To put it in a brutally honest way, not many have experienced pure bliss (ANANDA) and are merely mistaking pleasure / fun for being Happiness.

How could the happiness in our life increase or even be experienced, when we are not looking in the right direction? Thus, we know why we are not content with what we are achieving. Now if you are like

– “well I just desire pleasures” – then let’s be honest to ourselves.

Ok then honestly is there such technology or cameras available that could turn our minds inwards and help us experience happiness? Yes, Yoga done properly under guidance of a Dharmic teacher is the technology.

Why did I write this and what I hope you have gained reading this item?

This is not a research paper that outlines with data and stats the facts around Camera technology and tables the pros and cons to hand out a judgement on the technology of capturing images / videos. I used Camera as just an example for all technologies; frankly because I can recognize cameras as a product of industrialization and technology that has greatly influenced my lifestyle.

I wrote this piece to put forward the same idea that has been iterated before - Any technology by itself is not great unless it is used for a great purpose. However, I reiterate this idea because growing up this idea was only read in context of nuclear fission / fusion technology which was used by mankind to make super destructive bombs and not developed to replace fossil fuels for electricity requirement or any other positive use to sustain industrialization expansion without destroying the planet. The destructive nuclear technology use did not impact a large percentage of the living population of the world at that time. Contrast to that, today the technologies, as explained via example of Camera, are touching lives of a large percentage of people. There are billions of people using camera / mobiles/ internet / E-mail. Almost certainly all the readers of this article are part of that population. Further, the large percentage of people currently living have not experienced first-hand the ill effects of the destructive use of nuclear technology.