1/6 Of A Second

I have been told that a film has thirty frames per second! Imagine that.

Now imagine watching a movie. Hundreds, thousands of frames flicking past my eyes in a never ending array of pictures.

I wonder how my eyes manage to translate all those pictures into rushing rivers and trees swaying in the wind, but somehow the illusion of continuous movement flows smoothly from the screen, through my eyes and right to my brain.

And then, like Alice down a rabbit hole, I see something I don’t expect to see. Something that pops in and out so quickly I almost imagine that I am imagining it. Only I don’t think I have slipped so far over the edge that my imagination is producing hallucinogenic pictures of my thoughts on prime time videos.

Yet, I know what I thought I saw and I know it is something I might like to see and I find myself rewinding to watch it all again. Yes! It is there! I have not lost my grip on reality and I am so tickled.

Now I need to go back and try to move my pause button as carefully as possible. Makes me wonder what kind of person I am who will count the blows of a hammer pounding a nail in just to pause in the right place, but that’s me.

Sometimes that one sixth of a second is the absolute icing on the cake.