Rant Warning: Okay, it’s not exactly a rant. It’s not negative, nor is it really addressing anything that I feel should be changed. I’m simply thinking out loud trying to explain this aspect of my personal dialectic to myself. I figure it might do for a few seconds thought for someone else, as well.
There is a bit of a phenomenon that occurs daily in social media, and that is the want, the need, the inclination to put one’s personal life online in almost painstakingly raw detail. There is a line to this, though often times people think that I skirt or even cross that line. I’d like to address this. Not that anyone has accused me of this recently, it has simply been a topic that my brain has decided to keep me awake with this evening.
Contrary to popular belief, my need to be understood and accepted by my friends is not a very large one. By some, I am viewed as this unstoppable force, carving a swath of destruction and chaos wherever I go. To others, I am the nurturing teddy bear with a hug, an ear to listen and once in a while, a solution. Then there are those who see me as this weird kind of non-person; the floating, nebulous cloud of personality that never really decides what it wants to be.
The view that others have on me is more a reflection of their own prejudices or views, not the way I am. I tend to act the same in front of everyone, more or less.
The reality of what I’ve come to call my personal dialectic, is essentially someone who does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants with very little regard for the thoughts and feelings of those I don’t care about. On the opposite side, I’m hyper-sexual, hyper—affectionate and I care about way too many people. I tend to refer to my attachment to others as “love,” and for good reason. Everything good within me is colored by this world view.
Beauty, passion, knowledge, sexuality, sensuality, and warmth are the currencies of my life. They are the things within my life that I value. Passion is something I feel I need to have every single day I live. If I don’t feel passionate during any particular day, it’s a good indication that this particular day was wasted.
Just follow me, please. I know I’m ranting a bit, but I promise all of this comes to bear.
I have my shit days, my days where I really would have rather done absolutely nothing. I have the days that are filled with the greatest riches of the mind, and the days which are filled with the greatest lumps of bullshit that no human being should have to deal with.
After a period of personal emotional upheaval a few weeks ago, I decided to unplug from all social media for a little bit. I didn’t post and I didn’t read, save for a group message from work that we use to coordinate shift swaps and such. Aside from some coding I did for my webspace, I went into social media blackout. Something amazing happened.
The things that I did, which I would normally post on Facebook, became precious to me again. Because they were MINE. And no one else’s. The moment that I spent outside with my daughter Mara where I showed her how to dribble a soccer ball became a diamond moment, and the conversation I had with my wife about what her therapeutic practice would be like became a moment that was insanely special.
What do I share, and what DON’T I share? What should be shared, and with whom? I’ve always been a very public person, and I never realized the sacrifice of personal perspective that came with making those moments topics of discussion at other people’s water coolers. That’s not to say that they would have been any less special, but their meaning would have been lost in the shuffle of sharing it.
Before, I felt like the very act of sharing the moment, became the moment. Especially while it was happening. I suppose that the biggest issue with all of this is that instead of trying to have these moment with our families and enjoying them, we’re having them and the almost predefined notion that it was going to be shared with the world overshadowed by the spontaneity and immense preciousness of the moment itself. It’s the notion that somehow being seen reading a book in the park is somehow more noble or more fulfilling than actually sitting in the park and reading a book.
It’s this pseudo-meta-reality that I’m really acquiring a discomfort with tonight.
I think we really owe it to ourselves to sit and think about whether we’re living our lives to enjoy them, or living our lives for the social sharing.
I find myself, while hanging out with my family that my daughter will invariably say something hilarious (as toddlers are prone to do) and instead of finishing enjoying the moment, I reach for my phone and share that moment with everyone. Then I feel like that missed out on that second or two of joy, preoccupied with making that moment anything but what it was, a moment of three family members connecting in an insanely humorous way.
So, clearly, there are some things that should NOT be shared on social media. An argument that a married couple has about personal issues is usually something that should be kept in the bedroom away from the ears and eyes of the general population. It only serves to undermine the argument in the first place.
I have since scaled down my social media usage, but not intentionally for that reason. I simply was too emotional, and too busy with work and the rigors of moving to a new place. I post once in a while, I find I’m more of a link/video sharer than an actual content creator lately.
I suppose what I’m saying is that when you’re doing something and the urge hits you to share what you’re doing with Facebook, maybe it’s a time to reflect on why we’re doing that thing in the first place. Are we doing it to experience life? Or, are we doing it to be seen doing it, to provide entertainment for some kind of faux-captive audience?
After an especially hazy and trying period, I’m writing again, feeling things I haven’t felt in the better part of a year. I don’t know how much of this I’d like to share with the world.
But, then again, I’m a writer. It’s my job to present a kind of reality to people, or at least my version of it. It’s my lot to present my version of events and feelings in the way that speaks from and to my personal experience and viewpoints. So, how much of this should I share? I read a quote from Hemmingway that said, “There’s nothing to being a writer, all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
I consider myself an entertainer, writer, and artist and a lot of other highfalutin titles that are probably debatable. So, how much blood do I show? Where do I draw the line between the visible and the hidden? What moments are kept for myself, and which moments should be for the world?
After a period of my life where everything was so mercurial, plastic and hazy, I feel like every second of my life is now this exercise in restraint; restraining myself from shouting every aspect of my joy, passion and happiness to the rooftops instead of sitting quietly with my wife and enjoying those moments that take my breath away.
But, if I’m an entertainer, a writer, and an artist, isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?
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