This topic sufficiently piqued my interest. I wanted to explore the idea of things that should be valued in the moment, or valued as a record, and realized we could consider the following matrix:

	Not valuable in the moment	Valuable in the moment
Not valuable as a record	Cutting my toenails	Fireworks
Valuable as a record	?	Wedding

It was hard to identify something for “Not valuable in the moment” but “valuable as a record”. Of course, these are subjective judgements, but I think I tended to lean towards valuing most things in the moment, regardless of how mundane they are. I wanted to put something like “meal times”, or “journaling”, or “practicing piano”, since making records of all these things could be more valuable that the act of doing that thing once, in the moment. But, the possibility that something could be more valuable as a record is more of a creative endeavor. If someone with a sharp eye recorded every firework they’ve ever seen and created some kind of shocking art piece with these records – that could be very valuable. I classify this as “overthinking” it.

I think even if the intention is to amalgamate records, one should seek to value the moment. I hope to explore whats going on here more in future blogs.

We went to the Holiday Boat Parade at the Wharf today. It was packed with people. We fought our way through the crowds to catch a few glimpses of some dressed up boats, but what really stole the show was the fireworks. The finale was just phenomenal; it felt like a kid had been given an unlimited budget and did what any kid would do – see how many fireworks they can make go off at once. It was briefly daytime at 8pm on December 6th.

But what baffles me to this day is all the people recording videos of the fireworks. Sure, I get the urge, “this is really cool, let me immortalize it”. But who has ever gone back and watched a video they took of fireworks? Seriously, leave a comment below if you have, I am dying to hear about it. In this day and age, enough of these people have had phones long enough to have learned this lesson. Just enjoy the moment for what it is, a fleeting spectacular.

I suppose this ties into our “need” in this day and age to record everything. Of course, recording things is a great habit. Just look at me with this dang blog. Look at our wedding photo album. I wonder if there’s a heuristic we can use to determine “fireworks” or “wedding”. I.e. something worth more in the moment than it ever could be as a record, and something that is too important to not be a record.