Harry Potter and moving pictures

I’m not sure whether this post will be more of an advertisement for phone privacy screens or a critique of our current culture. 

(Or how absolutely creepy I am.)

Yesterday I made my all too familiar trip back from Hillsdale. This is a stupidly long travel day for me, and the 5-hour flight feels like something the US government calls an “enhanced interrogation”.  I was seated next to a couple who I assumed to be about mid to late 60’s. I set up my phone and settled in to rewatch La-La Land because I needed a feel-good sing-along. 

I normally do my best NOT to pay attention to much of anything going on around me on a plane, detachment is my coping mechanism while flying, otherwise I might storm the cockpit and take the plane down myself as I usually lose all hope for humanity after about 15 minutes.

I guess La La Land does not have the same pull as it did in 2016, because I started side-eyeing what the gentleman next to me was doing on his phone, as he was so very, very intensely doing it. 

First, he had photos loaded on his iCloud from 1986. Completely jealous, who has time for such a thing… He just held his finger down and scrolled back DECADES. He landed on a photo of two men standing in front of a Cessna-type plane. He zoomed in scrutinized it, then headed over to CHATGPT. I will admit, this is when I got curious and knew I was in it for the long haul. 

(hours of weirdly stalking the older gentleman on his phone)

I am not sure what happened to the Cessna photo, but after a while, I looked over, and he had moved onto a picture of what I am assuming was his younger self, shirtless, leaning up against something, a rather good-looking young man in his day. He really scrutinized this image, and I felt a sadness come over me as the man sitting next to me had aged quite significantly.

Then again, he heads over to CHAT, but now I need to see what he is typing in.

“Enhance image, but leave facial features.”

I can’t see what chat responds with

“Enhance the image more, but leave facial features, add me standing in an office.”

(Ok, weird choice to be shirtless in your office, but you go on with your bad self)

Now I have to look away because he might be on to me, so I can’t see the next image. But he must be pleased with his picture. Now we need to make it look more realistic.

“Place me standing in a gym.”

I never saw the final picture. 

Next up. A school picture, like Kindergarten or 1st grade. He likes this picture, and this is the one he shows his wife. She smiles and returns to a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie.

At this point, we have beverage service, and I resume my interest in Emma & Ryan’s dancing around L.A., so we lose some time, but this man is at it for HOURS.

When I resume my stalking, I find that he has taken his elementary school picture and what I am assuming is his brother’s (oh and I think the guy standing in front of the Cessna with him) elementary school picture, enhanced them to include both of them standing up from their posed school picture and hugging each other as little boys. 

My heart broke a bit as he watched this on repeat… like over and over and over again. And then he uploaded it to Facebook of course, because who among us does not have a boomer uploading AI images onto Facebook on our friend list.

I've been thinking about this all night and I am not sure how to clarify my feelings. Is this good for us? Should nostalgia just live in our minds, or do we put legs on it like pictures in the Harry Potter movies. 

As someone who lost a parent young, I am conflicted, but I also feel strongly that we should not meddle with the order of life, do we let dead men lie?

There are days when I physically ache thinking about my children as babies, the years I so naively wished would rush by are gone. It makes my throat constrict a bit thinking about a house full of the sounds of toddler Strehle’s again. Do I create that so I may revisit, should I live there instead of moving forward?

What I would NOT want to revisit during those times were the many sleepless nights, the lack of resources, the insecurities of young parenting, the potty training, the temper tantrums, and the hard teen moments. For every one moment of “happiness,” there is an equal amount of moments that were character-building, and that part of my character has now been formed. (I am OLD) 

So is it really real? Do we only revisit the good parts? Is that the truth? What does that do to our brains? To have it always be Christmas but never winter. How does this serve my family now, my Maker now, my SOUL for eternity? 

I will tell you, as we all move rapidly towards this new world order, I find it increasingly harder to actually tell the difference between some of these videos and images that I see. Right now as I am typing this, I am tempted to run it through CHAT, because well, I have not written in a while and I am sorta shitty at it. For all my 20 people who read this, will you judge me, will you think I am dumb, and this poorly written?

To run it through chat and erase my insecurities feels a little bit like lying, a bit like not living in the beauty of the here and now, and ever so slowly, an erosion of what God has gifted me with right this very moment.

While I believe and know not all tech is bad, I just don't know where that line is. 

In our perfected plastic world I think back to one of the OG internet memes... 

"The cracks are where the light gets in" or something along those lines..

THIS is how we will be able to tell the difference. If it's a little ugly... it has spelling and syntax errors, and every Christmas is not postcard-worthy. 

No enhancement. 

At the end of the flight, his wife looked over and said, “Wow, I can see how someone could spend a lot of time doing that.”

God have mercy on our souls.

(Amazon.com for screen protectors)