One shouldn't rant against what one is unfamiliar with. . . and so, I have been experimenting with Facebook more lately, opening up the focal lens a bit and befriending acquaintances, posting photographs, and looking a little into others'. Now I find myself brimming with thoughts about how we hang onto certain images of ourselves, especially after seeing the profile picture of a woman who's several years older than I, and it's a sixties photo of a beautiful teenager with poofy, smooth blond hair. This is little different from the obituary photographs in the local paper that feature the 92-year-old deceased as a twenty-year-old.
Of course, all of us have difficulty at some point coming to terms with our aging looks----the greying hair, the wrinkles and spots----so much so that at first when we catch a glimpse of ourselves in a mirror out in public, we may not recognize ourselves. But why do some wish to live a constant lie rather than come to terms with the inevitability of decline and death? Do they believe that "fighting" the inevitable actually staves it off?
On this wheel of life, some apparently feel they can miraculously step off and do all they can to stand in that place, still, watching pridefully, perhaps, as everyone else continues to spin. In our youth, especially, we feel exempt as long days and nights seem to stretch eternally, and we feel change comes too slowly. As a young person, in fact, I never imagined I'd live this long. Does that mean I lacked imagination? More than that, I think, it meant that no one in my circle talked of death and decline as a natural part of life; it remained an aberration to the young, and set in the dim, mostly unreal "future."
I suppose this is the part of Facebook I don't admire----the aspect that causes others to continually compare their lives with others' lives. One friend listed 100 "classic" books and asked others to join her in bolding those they'd read, which I did, but then I simply deleted the list. Why should I care whether others know how many books I've read? Wouldn't it only serve to make someone feel "less well-read" or "more well-read"? What is the point? To feel "different" and more "special"?
A real-live friend of mine once told me that our insistence on these three things----judgment, comparisons, and understanding----are best let go of, and I've found I agree; however, Facebook tends to cause us to strive for all of them.
