Real memories don't get saved in your phone's memory

When I walked into the stadium and saw an enormous moon hanging in the middle of the field, I headed straight for it. The Weeknd was about to play in Buenos Aires and that first look around was mesmerizing. We all got hypnotized by the moon, which was not only huge but had so much moon texture, right there, a few meters away. I realized what happened to us because we took millions of photos of it. And somewhere in my million, I realized something.

Audience at the Buenos Aires stadium during The Weeknd's show, 2025.

We were all watching through our phones something that needed to be watched with the naked eye, no intermediaries, absorbed fully, in an analog way. The only way the brain translates something as an experience and records it forever. We lost the present collecting images for the future.

Hey, let me tell you something: when you spend all day with your phone in your hand trying to immortalize everything you see, you're not doing either one. You disconnect, you lock yourself inside the little digital square, believing that reliving it later will feel the same as that moment. And let me tell you something else: not even close. When you watch it back, all that atmosphere won't be there with you, the concert air, the people around you, the enveloping sound of the stadium, and the artist you paid to perform live for you.

The thing is we're not making space for contemplation, for experiencing the present. As hippie as it sounds, we have it right in front of us and we dismiss it completely to relive it later. But it won't be the same, and that present moment train will already be gone.

We are social beings, yes. It makes complete sense to take a photo, to share a moment with someone who isn't physically there. That's real connection. The problem is something else: believing it's more important to capture everything all the time for later, than to live it. Talking to the one who isn't there, instead of the one who is. Wanting to be seen enjoying yourself more than actually enjoying yourself.

Is capturing things good? Obviously yes. I'm totally on board with taking photos and videos. I'm one of those people who documents everything. But just a moment, so I can then dive into what's real, into what gives me goosebumps, into what's going to stay stored in the matrix forever.

Inhabiting new places through experience opens up new sensations and triggers, generates inspiration, touches the soul, the interior, and stays forever. There are 360 experiences that are impossible to capture, and in those moments I surrender, because trying is pointless. And in that surrender something happens: everything comes in for real.

Real memories don't get saved in your phone's memory. They record themselves, inside, when you're truly present. From that place, you exist in an unmatched way. We are rich, those of us who store experiences in our little internal memory box.

Stop trying to tell everyone about it. Tell it to yourself. If you stop thinking about the moment later and surrender to what's happening right now, you're going to feel magic. For real.

J.