“Mind if I ask you a question?”, posed the older gentleman who was standing nearer to the edge and staring out into the valley. Brandon had noticed him there, unmoving, as he had approached and thought nothing of it. Now the old man’s unwelcome query might slow him down.

“Yeah, sure, what?”

“I see you walking very quickly and taking a lot – a lot – of photographs, almost in rapid fire, like a machine gun. Why?”

Brandon decided to engage: “I am a Nanogrammer and this is just what I do. It’s how I make a living.”

He assumed this would suffice and that the interruption would be short-lived, but the old man continued: “I’ve heard of that. Nanogram. I don’t get it, though. Seems kind of crazy to me.”

“It’s a generational thing.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Of course, I always thought Instagram back in the day was crazy… looking at something on a screen and then liking or not liking it and moving on quickly. But this Nanogram. Don’t they show you an image for just one second and you have to immediately like it or not before it disappears forever. Is that how it works?”

“Yeah, that’s the gist of it. Believe me, you get used to it and eventually, looking at a picture for more than a second will bore you to tears and drive you nuts. You get used to it.”

Without hesitating, the man offered: “I was a film professor before I retired and always enjoyed telling my students the story about the short film clip from the late 1800s of a train pulling into a station in La Ciotat, France. People who saw the film had, to that point in their lives, no frame of reference for a visual experience like that. Of seeing a train moving slowly toward them as they sat still in front of a screen. People panicked, became ill, ran from the theater. But now, we all fly through space on X-Wings and see through the eyes of superheroes as they zoom across planets and think nothing at all of it.”

“How does that relate to Nanogram and what I do?”

“Well, I think we’ve all adjusted, acclimated. People used to look at images on a wall, stare at them, see the small details, appreciate them, experience nuance, wonder. Now they believe they can see all that they need to see in a mere second. I don’t think that’s a good thing. Take for example this view here in front of us…”

The two men stared out at Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point. The professor took in the scene, saying nothing. The Nanogrammer scanned the landscape and then looked back at the old man. “And so?”

“I see Half Dome. It’s right there. Stunning. What happened to the other half of the giant rock? And look at the falls right across there. If you look closely, you can see people hiking on trails. Tiny specks moving slowly. The mist from the water rises up, creating small…”

“Ok yeah, I saw all that on my way up here. I was busy taking pictures so I’ll include all that, everything you just mentioned, on my Nanopage. I saw it.”

”But did you really? Did you actually experience it? How did it make you feel? And why are you in such a rush? Did you notice the tiny streams running to the side of the trail, the polka dot shadows falling across your path, the gangly tree roots criss-crossing in front of you like giant old fingers? Did you see any animals along the way? They were there.”

“I got pictures of some of those things, yes.”

“But did you see them?”

Brandon looked down at his watch and muttered: “I’m never going to make it over to the trail to head down in time before the good light is gone. I had better get moving. Uhm, thanks for talking to me. Good luck.”

And with that, he waved to the professor, tugged on the straps on his backpack and prepared to move on.”

“Try to retrain yourself if you still can. Allow yourself to be wowed by a slow train coming into a station and not need to be sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship to feel alive. In life, you’re more likely to see a train than a spaceship. Enjoy what’s in this life. See the details. Listen. Feel. Experience wonder. Pause.”

Brandon again looked at his watch. He spotted the trailhead for the descent back down to the valley below. And he looked back up at the man staring out into the scene. He looked more intently at him. Saw the deep wrinkles on his forehead and running toward the edges of his mouth. The gray and black stubble scattered across his chin and cheeks. And his eyes… the deep, unmoving dark brown eyes that stared out into whatever it was he was seeing, experiencing. The young man asked himself: “Is this what wonder looks like?”

He then placed his camera into the side pocket of his bag and remained still. It felt strange. Uncomfortable.

The professor concluded his lecture: “Give it time. It’s going to take time. It always does. But you’ll be glad. Trust me.”

And so, the Nanogrammer paused.