Heroes Not Zombies

I was framing my shot to take a photo of this fountain (even though there was no water flowing) when I noticed the jet plane high in the sky above. I waited a couple of seconds then pressed the shutter.

So when I look at the image now I see what seems to be fish out of water, held by a child. The fish seems focused on the plane and it’s mouth is wide open as if it is gasping in amazement.

Well, it’s just a little fun of course but it does get me thinking about how different our lives are in relation to the environments in which we live.

There’s a French TV programme where they take a celebrity to a remote civilisation somewhere for a couple of weeks and film the experience. It’s actually very touching and usually by the end of the fortnight you can already see the intensity of emotional connection which has been made. One time they filmed themselves showing three different groups the programmes from each of them. One group lived in huts on stilts in the sea, one high in mountains and a third lived in snow covered lands. The reactions of each group to the programmes about the lives of the other two groups was really something .

They were utterly amazed, and you could see that, like ourselves, watching from Europe, it was really astonishing to see such different environments and the way people lived in them.

What always touched me most about that programme was that it seemed for all of us there was a mix of just not knowing what on Earth it would be like to live in such a different way and the deep sense of rapport and empathy we felt.

I think it’s great to be amazed. And I think it’s great to be reminded that we all live in different ways, in different ecosystems, but that we are all sharing this one small planet together.