Most of us would have rather money than tangible wealth. And a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed. And to read about it the next day in the newspaper is oddly more fun for us than the original event.
Info & reflection: Three concrete, sharp examples of confusing the map with the territory: we prefer the symbol to the thing (money vs real wealth), the picture to the experience (photo vs moment), the news to the event. Photography saw this problem coming, and social media has made it even sharper.
Related in anthology
- A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions. By thoughts, I mean specifically, chatter in the skull. Perpetual and compulsive repetition of words, of reckoning and calculating. / Like everything else, it's useful in moderation. A good servant but a bad master. / And all so-called civilized peoples have increasingly become crazy and self-destructive because, through excessive thinking, they have lost touch with reality. That's to say, we confuse signs, words, numbers, symbols, and ideas with the real world. — The twin quote from the same post: the chatter in the skull that cuts us off from reality, and these examples are its symptoms