When reading through peoples social media evaluations on the past year, bear in mind that the exercise were all to some extent partaking in is both an introspective and a performative act. While there is a degree of self-analysis and reflection, there is also a generous helping of egocentricity and some emotional photoshopping going on. People will tell you how they got healthy this year, got engaged, kept the job they love, checked a destination off their travel bucket list, but they wont tell you about all the nights they lay there staring at the ceiling feeling overwhelmed and ill-equipped to deal with the vicissitudes of life. They wont tell you that they live in fear for their loved ones and their health. They wont tell you theyre concerned about how the world is ugly, and has always been ugly and now it is ugly every hour of every day in every feed in the palm of our hands. No one will tell you theyre terrified and theyre just happy they made it to the end of another year in one piece. No one will tell you that some days in 2014 were colorless, dark, pitch black. The public account of our lives is self-censored. Smoothed out. Insincere. Sitting on your couch in your sweatpants looking at the color-adjusted-cropped-filtered-and-hashtaged exploits of your peers can make you feel like shit sometimes. Remember: Plenty of people had a shit year, they just wont tell you about it. I hope youve had a sincere, beautiful, terrifying, fulfilling, exhausting, exciting and dreadful year, like the rest of us.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 15:48:56 +0000