Selfie

An epiphany had me seriously thinking about all the 'selfies' popping up on my Facebook News Feed every few minutes when I ever log on. I've always wondered about self-indulgence, but never so intensely as I had just a moment ago, so I decided to write it down despite an exam in a few hours' time and a long thesis paper due today. I remember reading an article regarding the obsession with 'selfies', but hardly took it seriously. Now I'm starting to wonder if it's really an issue of concern, whether it has developed into a phenomenon worthy of being termed a 'complex'. 

All the time that one spends trying to painstakingly paint a spiffy-looking image of themselves - and themselves only, has it something to do with an unspoken existential angst (or at best, an insecurity) stemming from the incapability of truly 'living' - or as Thoreau had so long ago described as 'to live deliberately'? I mean, is it not rather unthinkable to place oneself - and a blatantly superficial self, so unabashedly at the center of one's puny existence? Does doing this serve to scream something like, "Hey, I exist!" in a sea of seven billion other clueless souls (myself included)? Had one articulated an individualistic, but intellectual thought, I would perhaps be that much less critical. But that unrelenting charade in front of the poor camera lens, often manifested through unnatural contortions that conform to the certain inconsequential standards, never fails to make me cringe. And captions of 'selfies', never fail to have the neurons all fired up in my brain trying to make sense of why they were even humanly possible to be conceived - in relation to their adjacent pictures, that is.

Alright. Now I'm satisfied that I said it.

Recently I embarked on a mini photo project to document the people of my hometown by means of street shots. It was profoundly fulfilling to relive a place that I have, for the past decade or so, lost touch with. The experience opened up new domains to understand all the time, activities and people that we so often take for granted. The project focused on people engaging in their trades - cultural and traditional ones. Throughout the entire journey, I rediscovered the town and the language that I had long since cast to the back of my mind. The language surfaced surprisingly easy, and that got me through to everyone that I wanted to properly communicate with. The results I received were astonishing - too amazing to describe. ((Will have the prints up soon!))

You could perhaps argue that through those environmental portraits, I sought to propose a selfie, to paint a pretty image of myself (For which I wouldn't deny because I'm happy with the shots). But I can safely say that I made a deliberate attempt to avert the fate where my existence is defined by a pile of forgotten old pictures uniformly depicting a single face in multiple facades. 

Those encounters and experiences with all the speechlessly awesome strangers from all walks of life, top it off. I learned that much more about humanity, to pay the kindness forward and to treat people the way I was so beautifully treated, and not just the best color of lipstick that will earn me more 'likes' on my trivial little post in my tiny microcosm of existence.