I've Been Thinking About What You're Like IRL

 

This is of those scatterbrained, thinking out loud type post.

It has been a strange experience ending up in certain pockets of social media, finding beautiful visuals and falling in strong-like with people through the screen. Of course it's all one-sided and not real - we all know we are uploading the best, most glossy version of our lives, but that doesn't not add to the existential crisis and disheartening feeling of not being successful enough amongst other things.

At one point I even deleted all my social media accounts under my ID name and started using a nickname handle years later when I decided to create social media accounts again. The break was good for my psyche and I didn't go back into the madness because I felt like I was missing out. I had realised it is not all bad and that I needed some time to deal with some of the crap I was going through offline. And I have been wanting to be a photographer or at the very least learn basic photography skills for quite some time and it made sense to be in a space where I could learn from the people whose work inspires me and to build some kind of virtual community.

Fast forward to a few years later of trying not to follow pages I know push one from inspiration to a black hole of not feeling useful as a person in a millisecond. Thinking I have a better handle on things and not keeping up with so and so and instead focusing on the beautiful creations and stories created by my favourite humans/their minds - I've got this…And it has been good, for the most part.

About a month ago I decided to join another blackhole which rhymes with time and soon realised that screen addiction is a thing and how easy it is to slip back into the depressing space of feeling like you aren't doing enough, not successful enough etc.

As life would have it, I also decided to visit (Margaret Zhang’s) one of my favourite creatives' websites a few minutes ago and  found this article and had a deja vu moment about what's been on my mind lately. 'I wonder what they are like IRL', they being some of the beautiful strangers whose virtual and edited presentation of themselves has become my favourite pastime. It is a natural curiosity but something about it feels weird - perhaps it’s the lack of real connections…

Anyways, it’s Friday tomorrow - wishing you a lovely weekend.