October: Does it Picture Well?
We turned one! It’s been a year (and some days) since I published my first official medium article for Just a Glimpse :o
While my goal for this year isn’t over, it’s crazy to look at my account now versus when I first started and see how many words I’ve spewed out in the past year. What’s even crazier is how people have voluntarily joined and kept up with me on this creative journey. Cheers to you, friends :)
For this article, I want to dive into this idea of “picturing well” and the implications of it.
Maybe it’s because I’m on Zoom so many hours of the day or maybe it’s because so much of the world we live in now feels virtual but this thought has come across my mind often.
To be clear, “picturing well” pertains to how we portray life, how we portray who we are to others, and how we portray who we are to ourselves. This includes our conscious awareness of how we, our lives, and our outlook are also perceived by others.
In this day and age, I feel like it’s so easy to get caught up in the idea that life is a performance–that we are a culmination of all that we accomplish, experience, post, share, and emulate. There’s this inclination to curate our image to be associated with all that is good, when all the while we are aware of how what we seek to portray is oftentimes so far from the truth. Because the truth is, we aren’t comprised of solely good things. While I hope there is no renunciation in admitting that, perhaps acknowledging the danger of deception will allow us to speak more candidly about this idea of “picturing well.”
Even bad times can picture well if you frame it right
A clear illustration of this comes in reference to my time studying abroad. Before I go on, I want to recognize how that sentence can sound so obnoxious and privileged... Maybe it’s just me but I cringe at the slightest possibility that inserting this experience could come off as showy and pretentious. So to be frank, in no way do I intend my message to be conveyed as “life is so hard… now let’s talk about my time in Europe.” I recognize the immense luxury in being able to travel and study abroad–especially now considering the consequences of COVID-19. My main intention in drawing from this experience is that I think it could serve as a clear illustration of what I am trying to communicate.
Ok so studying abroad. It’s not surprising or unwarranted for people to assume that I probably enjoyed my trip. The classic “$tUdY AbR0aD cH4Ng3D mY L1fe!!” narrative would support this assumption, but my study abroad experience really didn’t come to fruition how I had envisioned when I first came into college. Truthfully my decision to go abroad–during the time that I did–was unplanned and a pretty last-minute decision. I was really struggling with my mental health during that time and I think I had thought of studying abroad as a kind of escape. But I was at odds with myself. When I had imagined myself preparing to go study abroad I never thought that my decision to go and when to go would come from a desire to flee, as opposed to a desire to explore. All things considered, I remember not wanting to compromise on how my trip looked externally despite how horrible I felt internally. In other words, even if I felt terrible on the inside, I didn’t want to look back on my pictures years later and have it be depicted that I in fact felt that way. I mean how often do you get to visit monumental destinations! I wanted to make the most of my trip (and of each photo opportunity lol). So for whatever it was worth, I wanted my experience to picture well.
While there are bittersweet feelings when I look back at my pictures now, those emotions are only really evident and personal to me. If others were to look at my pictures, I would imagine that they would just assume that these are snapshots from an incredibly lively time in my life. Sure, it looked glamorous but there was so much baggage that wasn’t being depicted. And while I don’t need to explain myself with everything that I share, it’s moments like these where I recognize the ways that social media can really seem like a highlight reel of our lives. Moreover, aside from the desire for my trip to picture well for my own sake, perhaps there were also underlying motives to uphold a standard of how I saw other people document their study abroad experiences.
Side note: Overall, I did enjoy my time abroad. Aside from these reflections, I learned a lot about myself, other cultures, and was able to experience and see a lot of really eye-opening and mind-refreshing things. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to travel, live abroad, meet different people, and be able to see the world beyond my scope of understanding and beyond the American outlook on life. The exposure to what felt like different worlds helped me grasp how other cultures approach and understand our life on Earth.
The point I’m trying to land here is that sometimes we compromise on feeling and working through uncomfortable, difficult, and negative emotions for the sake of whatever we’re doing, whoever we’re with, and wherever we’re at to “picture well.” We want to capture beauty, perhaps more than we want to acknowledge, document, and share what happens beyond what photos are taken–as if looking good in a picture is all that matters.
Now maybe that’s too dystopian of me. To be honest I don’t adhere to the understanding that this is always the case, but I seek to recognize and highlight that this hazard exists. I also want to clarify that it’s not that I don’t think more melancholy moments and feelings aren’t beautiful, because they definitely are in their own way.
Overall in dissecting and analyzing the idea of “picturing well” with this example, I want to remind both you and me that being overly concerned about how we or our circumstances are portrayed robs us of our ability to be present. We so easily–and sometimes so naturally–live in the past or whatever impending doom may come in the future.
But in all that we may conjure up in our minds, it’s important to recognize that there is a difference between being disappointed in the tangible present and being disappointed or fearful of what we imagine and envision. One is an active response that calls us to adapt in the face of reality and the other is a more self-induced pain when we lose sight of the present.
Studying abroad really forced me to see the world outside of my struggles and present burdens, awakening me to the present joys. It’s seriously such an amazing feeling to be momentarily freed from yourself as you’re awestruck by the architecture of the Sagrada Familia or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Don’t be fooled, we don’t need to be abroad to experience the world outside of ourselves. There is so much in the world around us that is worthy, and sometimes more worthy, of our attention than the thoughts that plague our minds. So give yourself mental relief and awaken yourself to today.
Warding off this pressure to “picture well” can be difficult in a time where it feels like there is a need to document everything. Considering that, I guess fundamentally it makes sense that “picturing well” would even be considered and felt as pressure given that there are unquestionably a lot of things about ourselves that don’t in fact picture well or that we would rather not have pictured. In a time where there is not only the pressure to “picture well” but also the pressure to document, period, the demand that we may feel is intensified. With the wide range of methods and mediums to document, it’s like there are endless means to record and remember every aspect of our days. No wonder it’s so difficult for us to be present.
Finding balance in this regard while also knowing how to stay connected with people can be hard to determine. But funny enough I think it’s the process of documenting that helps us begin valuing and appreciating mundane, normal things in a new way.
To extract further, and humor the Media Studies major in me, I wonder which comes first: do we document because we enjoy sharing or do we share the joy we find in documenting? Furthermore, how much does the accessibility and variety in the ways we can now document influence what moments we choose to preserve and how? Are we influenced by what medium we choose to document or are we influenced by how others document and share? How much of what we share and how we choose to share comes from our inner desires and motivations as opposed to sharing simply because it’s possible and something everyone else does?
In terms of what we share, the idea of “picturing well” in the age of social media can be so skewed and unhealthy. It’s almost as if the pains of puberty are prolonged as people learn how to best portray themselves catering to the trends of these platforms and beauty standards in general. Understanding beauty and finding it in yourself can be difficult when the standards of beauty that are propagated on social media are not only unattainable but also unrealistic. Beauty takes on endless forms and can’t fully be encapsulated in a photo; a picture can’t capture all the beauty that you behold. Social media can sometimes distort our understanding of that and limit our understanding of how beauty is portrayed.
I think how beauty has been depicted to the female audience in COVID times serves as a prime example. The general shift towards sweatsuits and athleisure is a great and logical move, but at the same time I think there were false images shared of what staying at home looked like. In March, when it felt like the world was upended, I can bet that how we saw staying at home being portrayed was not an accurate representation of how we felt nor how we looked. And when posing the question of why we then cater towards these curated versions of who we are and what life is, I think it’s motivated by a desire to “picture well.” And the thing is it’s not just about beauty, but “picturing well” also manifests in how we measure up with our careers, our athleticism, our humor, how all good parts of ourselves are presented. Social media often robs us of the realness of things; there is so much exposure and so much that can be exposed and yet we tend to hide all except that which pictures well.
I’m not saying that it’s inherently immoral to want to picture well or to be perceived a certain way, but I think the tough follow up question to ask behind these desires of ours is what we are trying to achieve. What value are we placing in how we are portrayed online when we know that it’s not a full representation of all we are. But more importantly, how are we tending to things and the parts of ourselves that aren’t being documented? How do we see ourselves in the quiet moments of solitude?
There is so much beauty in the things unseen. I hope that we all care for this world and ourselves as much as it may seem we do “on camera.”
I think another really good and important reminder that has been beneficial for me is how loving and celebrating parts of other people doesn’t take away from who you are.
Do you consider yourself as beautiful as you do other things and other people? Because you most definitely are!
As I’ve gone through the past 10 months of my goal for this year, I’ve had to preach these reminders to myself. Writing an article every month has been a challenge and has gotten progressively more difficult as I’ve come to realize that people actually read what I write. At various points throughout the month I wonder what and how much of this month’s thought-life I should share, and in what context it should be presented. There have definitely been moments this year when I felt like I was living my life and processing through each month in order to write a Medium article, which made me feel a little sick to my stomach. It then begged the question of whether I share because I enjoy it or because I want others to enjoy what I share, and in turn credit me.
As much as I may also be presenting a nicely packaged version of myself, and unintentionally perpetuating the culture that I just described in this article, I hope that my willingness to be candid and acknowledge my flaws in these writeups is refreshing to read and is a meaningful effort in counteracting that cause. Like you, I am definitely not how I may come off online. Though the pressure of picturing well sometimes thwarts my ability to depict my honest and complete self through these articles, I hope my intention to be as genuine as I can is not lost in the process.
It’s important to recognize that each month’s article is a “well-organized” recap of some of my thoughts. And because I’m not just straight-up word vomiting and then hitting “publish,” these articles are still curated to some extent. Even if I don’t actively mean to, the desire for this article to be readable robs you of the fullness of the messiness that I am haha.
I think hidden beneath this pressure to picture well is a fear of being misunderstood, and also a fear of oversharing in the process. But I’ve realized that in toiling over these concerns, I run the risk of withdrawing, retreating, and refraining from saying or creating anything at all. I will admit that I have gotten stuck in traps like this many times, and still do. But it’s freeing to cherish your authenticity over how your authenticity is being perceived. It’s a lifelong process to love who you are and love all that makes you, you.
I guess if there were to be a closing point to this month’s article it would be to once again reiterate the value and importance of empathy. I hope that understanding the pressure of our own experience to picture well allows us to be empathetic and understanding towards others when consuming content online.
For believers and those interested in the Christian faith, the added connection and eternal freedom found here is that we don’t have to picture well or put on a show in any capacity for God. Our worst selves don’t need to be masked or hidden in order to be accepted and loved by God; we can come as we are. He invites and seeks all parts of ourselves–whether we are proud of them or not–and He welcomes us fully and completely. There is mercy, grace, and comfort in Christ and the great gift of knowing that He loved us first before we even could begin to comprehend how we could love ourselves. In the God who made us in His own image, there is all the self-care and self-love that you could ever want and could ever find.
With all of that said, you are not defined by the picture you portray and you are not merited by the perception others have of you.
So what are your thoughts on this topic? Does this idea of “picturing well” seem relevant to you at all? I’m actually really curious to know how other people navigate their experiences and sense of self as they engage online. Feel free to leave a comment or message me to let me know your thoughts! Would love to hear from you :)
