Swami Vivekananda complained ages ago that written books don’t mean as much as meeting a person, especially a person with a personality, a charm. I believe, he said there is something to be said for the aura which we can only experience on meeting people.
I think I have come to terms with the books; they give you time and space to absorb ideas at your own pace. Since I cannot meet Swami Vivekananda, and the very few who were/are his likes, I am glad enough to get the books.
But one thing I cannot stand much is photographs, especially portraits of people – for any purpose other than identification. For the moment I’ll leave identification aside, it has its limited use – you will probably identify the person if they are wearing a similar shirt. But how and why to capture so fluid a creation as someone’s face? Frozen on a computer screen, amplified to the n-th degree, all we see is disproportional features, expressions that seem Botox® induced. To add insult to injury, 99% of the photographs that I will view will be ads. Paint brushed and unnaturally good looking people, they will make everyone else look rather ugly.
In contrast, when so many muscles and so many million of years of genetics and so many decades of habits and so many visits to the hair-dresser and the gym combine to reflect like a mirror, for a fleeting moment, the experience of a mind; what technology can match that?
If any, I wouldn’t think pixilation will have much to do with it.
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