There’s something that is innate in all of us, some of us probably more than others, which is to kind of bare witness—to be physically there—not to look at a picture, not to look at a film, but to go and to physically be there. I think it’s one of the most amazing things you can experience as a human being- to experience something that no one has experienced. We all have experiences in our lives that are earth shaking when they happen—for good or for bad: the first time we make love, when we see a baby being born, when we have a close friend or relative die. These are all earth shaking things to us, but billions of people have had this happen to them. When you’re something that no one’s done before, I find you have to almost stop yourself and say “Wow, something really really important is happening here,” and you become like a human recorder. You feel privileged just be able to witness it. I think you also have a responsibility to come back and tell the story… Because it’s not enough to just bare witness, you have to come back and tell everyone else what it was like, and that’s why we can’t just send robots.
—James Cameron
