Selfies

There is something unnerving about our reliance on presenting ourselves to “the world” through the use of ‘selfies.’ It is as if our ability to capture an image of ourselves with the use of a phone’s camera indicates something about our inherent power as humans. How many people are out there explaining to us that all we need to do is X, Y, and Z, and we will somehow achieve our dreams? Must our dreams be quantifiable to the masses? Must we curate ourselves for an audience that for the most part really does not truly care for our struggles at all, but rather the image of “perfection” we instead project? Is anyone else exhausted from the hordes of individuals peddling their senseless ‘wares’ to the masses, as if they have the answers alone? Must we suffer through one more pointless podcast that we immediately forget when we put down our phones and return to our real lives? Let me qualify the above statement, as not all podcasts are pointless. There are incredible podcasts out there, but there are also a plethora of podcasts that reinforce our brokenness as a society. The term, power, does not merely connote an idea of strength; rather, it also speaks of our fragility. We are born, we grow, we live, and we die. This universe is so vast that the word itself is empty, as worlds within worlds spin inside our molecules, while something we name dark matter is thought to make up nearly one-third of the matter-energy composition of the universe. Maybe ‘power’ can be reframed as a feeling of self. For instance, perhaps power is something we feel by ourselves in the woods on a hike at a moment in which we simply feel “okay” for a moment to be our fragile selves. Maybe power is an emotion we feel as we watch our kids grow up only to realize (later) we must let them go – literally and figuratively. Maybe power is recognizing that nothing we do matters in a universe that is so vast that it is still beginning 13.5 billion light years away. Maybe power is the recognition that everything matters. When we stop our lives to take pictures and tell the world how strong we are at that very moment, it is a wonderful sentiment, but perhaps it is misguided. Perhaps the energy we spend investing in our idea of the world might be best spent embracing ourselves so we may literally and figuratively embrace others. There is nothing necessarily wrong with ‘selfies’ at all. It could be viewed as an invitation. I suppose the question here is what do we wish to project through the use of a ‘selfie?’ Are we projecting our very selves, or are we projecting a passing interpretation of what we think we might be? But for whom is this projection? Why? Perhaps, a ‘selfie’ does not just refer to photography, but rather an intent to present parts of ourselves we feel comfortable sharing while omitting what we may consider ‘dark.’ What if we shared our darkness? What if we allowed others inside our brokenness? A wise woman said to me recently that our brokenness is what makes us whole. As a man, I have always run away from my brokenness. Perhaps many of us run from it. Perhaps Smokey Robinson says it best in Tears of a Clown…