How would you live if nobody found out?
How would you live if no one found out what you did? Would you exercise if you couldn’t post photos of your progress? Would you eat healthy if it meant you couldn’t document every meal on your Instagram? And would you travel if you couldn’t upload an album with some cheesy quote about life?
I grew up in the digital age. Tech wasn’t the best when I was a kid, but we had basic computer and gaming guys and cheap Nokias that only worked when the antenna was extended five inches further. But I was a healthy middle-class kid when Blackberry started making smartphones for the everyday consumer. I used my slow Compaq computer to research the Palm Treos which I ended up deciding against my Motorola Q (a much slimmer and more aesthetically appealing phone). And I experienced the transition from MySpace to Facebook, and the era of the iPhone (say what you want about the iPhone, without it, phones would not be pushed to the level they are today).
Now that we all live in an age where in order to keep up with your Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, SnapChat, Vine, and all the other social media that are causing your thumb cramps, you need to take some time out of your real life to keep up with your cyber life. You literally have to limit your opportunities to experience life to update people on your life experiences. You don’t even need to live an exciting life to appear exciting anymore. You need the right filters, the right lighting for your body, a sunny day and a cool date, and only doing certain states to give off the illusion that your life is worth talking about. You can literally sit in your room and have the 2,000 Facebook friends envying you and trying to figure out how they can make their Facebook and Instagram look better to the ever ignorant eye.
I am not a saint and I am no better than social media. I have an Instagram and a Facebook and as much as I hate to admit it, I like that my profile photo and my cover photo look as cool as possible. I grew up and live in the era of sharing everything and imagining little. I still struggle with not wanting to share at least some images of what I am doing because I am content to experience them for the art of experiencing them (I will address my use of the word art later), and not update people on my life and make it happen. forget about me while I’m gone for two years. I’m not naive enough to say that I don’t care how many friends I have. I would love not to worry about having a lot of people in my life, but doing so shrinks my world. The fewer people I keep in touch with or read about my life and see my photos, the less I almost feel like I exist. I have childish envy for people I know without Facebook, who don’t share their photos with anyone but themselves on their 14-hour flights to the next country on their wish list. But deep down, that’s not me and it never will be. But I agree with that and I have accepted it because neither of us is more right or more real. We have different lives.
With all this infighting and my doubts, I’ve come to realize that it’s okay to update your Facebook and Instagram and SnapChat with a picture of a historic statue with a hilariously inappropriate caption. I keep doing that and always will (with the exception of SnapChat because that shit has been removed since those hackers shared a bunch of people’s phone numbers. Well that and I got tired of the same selfie every half day Of my friends).
But we need to draw the line between doing something and taking pictures versus doing something to take pictures. Would you remember something if you never took a picture of it? Are you kidding me? Of course you would. People have been doing it for years. We are not the first generation of people to travel and want to remember something. We have brains and the ability to remember much more than a camera would. My Droid which is slowly becoming obsolete as more technology is packed into cell phones (which no longer does it justice to call it a phone because that’s probably one of the least used features in your portable digital life) just captures an image of what I see, not how I feel when I see it. My knees are still weak as I think about what it feels like to look over the edge of a huge rock that I climbed over 40 sweaty old ladies. My photos look nice, but they do not keep my slight fear of heights, I will never admit that I have it because it has never limited me. However, I will always take pictures of where I am, but I don’t do it to make my life seem better than it is, to make my friends jealous, or to add something to my cyber life. Hell, I’ll go months without updating my Facebook or Instagram, and unfortunately my blog. But I still update them. And thank God I do because everyone has led to so many conversations that I would never have had otherwise. I’m not going to digress too much because this will probably be another post one day, but the effect of sharing your thoughts and feelings with other people is insane. I don’t care how many people read my blog or see my photos, but I keep track of how many people share with me what they feel and what they want in life, and why they are not doing what they want in life and what they plan to do to change that. I have had conversations with best friends in my six months of being here that have been deeper than any other conversation I have had with them, just because I shared my feelings and they opened up. I’ve had deep conversations with people I’d only played beer pong with before in a moldy old basement 5 years ago when I was applying to colleges. But keep going.
However, my original thought: how would you live your life if no one found out what you are doing? Sincerely I dont know. I think I would experience it the same way, but I don’t think I really don’t care if no one knows. I don’t do anything because I want people to think of me in a better way, but what I do leads to so many great conversations and thoughts that I would never want to put it all away. As for sharing images? I’m not sure either. I’m still trying to get rid of the need to share images of what I’m doing. No matter what ground I break, I am still a victim of the digital age; like many people. But it makes me proud to know that I never do any of this for the purpose of sharing, but rather to do it, dive in and then maybe share a photo of each place on my Instagram and find a cool photo for my Facebook. because I like to change things as much as possible – my room, clothes, living situation, etc. – and Facebook is one of those things. I have to keep things fresh, you know? I like to apply the feeling of a newly rearranged room to my life.
Now, before I finish with this, I want to address my use of the word art. Sadly, it is becoming an art to experience life the right way. It should come naturally to everyone, but because of society and the world we grew up in, it is not. I struggled with her coming here and I’m still struggling with it. It takes practice to find things that make you happy and do them for you, not what you think other people would find impressive. Doing things for yourself for real often brings criticism and difficulties that are enough to prevent people from ever chasing after them. But having those 20 seconds of insane guts (stolen from We Bought a Zoo) leads to incredible rewards that could never be shared on Instagram, Facebook, or even a blog post that’s probably too long. However, unfortunately, to do this, you have to stop taking a photo because you know that you will get a lot of likes on Instagram. You need to delete Instagram or just upload a picture on the way home when you have absolutely nothing else to do and it’s too dark to look out the window at all the trees. Taking photos and capturing memories in a sustainable way is great and, in my opinion, necessary in life. But stepping away from real life and the art of experiencing real life for your images or to share your images is ridiculous. Wait until your hangover on Saturday morning to update everything. Your friends should be living their lives as much as possible anyway to see how good your face looks with wherever you are behind you. Live now, live for yourself, technology and social media are above everything else.
