Part 3: A Snapshot in Time (the past is inescapable)

September 30, 2009 in Conversations in Public,discourse,writing

feeling anonymous

The city’s asleep and I’m aimlessly noodling around the bungalow. I’m tired. I need sleep but my mind is reeling. I’m feeling placeless, lost in space and time.

I notice a few dusty photo albums on the shelf that haven’t been opened since before they were unpacked nearly a year and a half ago. I pull them down and begin perusing the contents of mostly old photos from senior year of college.

Real celluloid photos – remember those?

Hmm, most were taken at social events and all prominently acknowledge the subject matter. It’s almost as if we were hyperaware of presenting ourselves within a certain context for those who would see that photo in the future.

Me with my little outfit and makeup on. Posing just “so”.

Say “cheeese”!

Who was I then? There are so many memories buried deep in the back of my brain of the best laughs and the biggest heartbreaks. It’s like those memories don’t even exist now. Where does all that stuff live? Where is that reality? Did it all go away?

Certainly not within the context of these photos.

Maybe a picture isn’t worth a thousand words.

Online, we document more. We can create a daily stream of data detailing where we are, what we’re into, how we’re feeling – and this stuff lives on over time. Contextually, it can be considered to be deeper documentation, like a diary of sorts.

The big question is, Is this the Truth?

A different so-called snapshot of ourselves that is real and for the world to acknowledge.

Or is it a forgery too?

Sometimes one of the most difficult things about growing into who one is meant to be as a person is not letting go or forgetting the past but remembering it and embracing it for what it was.

When old friends, classmates, and even neighbors first surfaced on Facebook I was somewhat remiss in acknowledging the possibility that these relationships might be rekindled, or shared experiences relived.

Sometimes I think about that when I’m leaving a status update. Who’s going to see this? How will they think of me?

We can vet our online presence to our little heart’s content, but at the end of the day, it is a snapshot of you.

Now.

However you choose to take it.