I think we all know that the photos we see on social media are deceiving, in that they, at the very least, do not depict the entire story, and the parts so often left out are the worst parts, the hardest parts of our individual narratives. Not to mention, the narratives are only as reliable as their human narrators to begin with, and we are, in many ways, slaves to the narrative--the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Anything that doesn't fit within this box is so often omitted or edited for the sake of clarity and coherence.
Travel, on social media, is of no exception. Travel is shot in the same favorable light, giving way to some unimaginable-from-your-kitchen-window type of view. Even the desert has been known to look glamorous. I had no business riding a camel before Instagram. I had no business doing a great many impractical, yet novel, things before one could prove to the world that they had done them.
I have yet to ride a camel, but I can't deny that if the opportunity arose, I would mount the desert horse without so much as a second thought so long as I could document it.
Writing has filled that void for me long before the dawn of social media, but social media ensures that someone will see you and not just at some point in the future but right away. Much in the way that writers depend on readers, someone to acknowledge them and assign value to their words, I understand the fear that Instagram feeds, the fear of insignificance, even the fear of not having existed, lived--done a damn thing at all.
Social media staves off other fears too (much in the same way that guzzling a diet coke quenches your thirst), but I think there is something about the fear that I just mentioned that is especially poignant when reflecting on my own relationship with social media.
And perhaps, it is, in part, due to its being able to ply one with immediate gratification that it has at times stolen me from the more painful but ultimately more rewarding work of writing.
As someone who has always had a desire to travel and has always been able to find value in it, I am thankful to social media in some regards for popularizing travel and instilling a sense of longing and curiosity for places and people far from the comforts of one's own home.
But, I think, the discomfort I have felt in putting off writing about my experience in Prague has been because the form social media has given us to talk about our lives and reality is not only limited and inadequate, but even dishonest, and, maybe it's just me, but I don't feel that we are reminded of this enough nor is this archetype challenged as often as it probably should be.
For some people, it becomes their job to make things and themselves look good, and they get the luxury to be themselves, to be real, only once they have been accepted by others--that is, if they ever are.
How is it that we accept ourselves? Give ourselves permission to be vulnerable? Or inconsistent, uncertain, off-brand in our narratives?
I'm not really sure.
Except that I must write for myself again. I must write with no hope of editing and every hope of deaf ears.