conveniently troublesome
March 13, 2017 § 9 Comments
Our daughter’s school trip utilized social media for the purpose of sharing photographs with parents and permitted cell phones for communication, time (in place of a watch), and camera use. When they first outlined these details in the family pre-travel meeting, my daughter was uninterested in bringing a phone. My husband and I suggested she use her phone for photographs but resist the temptation to check in with us. To disconnect from her phone and connect with her environment.
In the same meeting we listened to humorous anecdotes of previous trips, parents calling the chaperones to ask questions based on social media snapshots of the trip. My husband and I laughed along with the collective amusement of the other parents at the obvious interference of helicopter parents and pledged not to disrupt our daughter’s exercise in independence.
Then, our daughter left home and early online images of her trip challenged our conviction. Looking at the social media snapshots of our daughter’s first day, I wondered such insignificant worries. Why are some chaperones so much more thoughtful in their documentation, while our’s appears lacking. Other times I would catch the corner of my daughter’s image and wonder if she were warm enough, tended to.
The pictures were inconsequential to my daughter’s experience and their value disproportionate to my doubts.
It is a strange disparity in pictures. The stories we tell ourselves and the meaning we infer. This age of hyper-connectivity invites unwelcome comparison and worry. These conveniences meant to lend comfort, invite opportunities for troublesome interference and undermine the illusion of independence our children need for maturity.
Modern conveniences let us meddle in a way that sabotages mindfulness with a distortion of truth. At the end of the second day it took every ounce of willpower not to pepper my daughter with reminders, to use the information I had been given to assume and infer, interrupt and instruct.
Today I’m celebrating the invitation to succeed with an imperfect practice of patience. Setting aside the stories I’ve created for my daughter’s photographs, to better fill in the space of her absence with the stories she tells face to face. Honoring the spirit of our first instructions with actions, disconnecting online to reconnect in realtime.
great intender
March 21, 2016 § 5 Comments
I’m a great intender of good intentions. If only my thoughts and actions would consistently align. This past week, in the quieter moments of reflective distraction, I returned to my wish for an online atmosphere of simplicity in anticipation of creating change that might realign my actions and intentions for a more genuine representation of self.
Authenticity and integrity are values I endeavor to model with my choices and my distraction online had begun to contradict my desire for a more streamlined consciousness for those individuals and experiences I was enjoying from the periphery of attentiveness. The ease of press, swipe, tap had overshadowed the work of greater connectivity.
Additionally, I was consuming images that fed a mindset of scarcity; homes arranged into personal advertisements for style and photographs that hinted at manically impossible family experiences. Online presences rarely capture the broken pieces of normal days, unless they have been intentionally filtered to counterbalance perfection as a qualification for the ever rising accomplishment of imperfection.
It all felt just a little manipulated and insincere. Add to this the obligation of elaborate chains of commentary and the entire process became a bit exhausting. Sifting through my social media feeds I felt lonely for conversation over coffee and intimate messages outside the public pool of uncertain interpretations.
As someone who naturally prefers a small company of close friends over an elaborate network of acquaintances, my online accounts felt disingenuous to my individuality. Last night I edited my accounts for a new experience; clicking out of relationships and interests until there were only a small number of family and old friends. Then, I logged off.
If limiting the available distractions was a first step, changing the rhythms of my communication is my next endeavor. This week I am practicing a hands-free approach to my days, walking away from those conveniences that promise connection for more mindful presence offline.
disconnected
November 18, 2012 § Leave a comment
Yesterday morning I found a voice of humor and gratitude missing from my social network feed. The absence of this personality created a hollow echo that rattled around bumping up against empty statements. What was once an opportunity to connect with friends and family conveniently in the busyness of everyday life had become a measuring stick defining moments of self.
From the beginning I was cautious to contain my friends to family, a handful of friends from my childhood and college, along with mothers whose serendipitous presence in my life grounds me in a community of nurturers; those who share memories and know the sound of my laugh. I loved catching glimpses of my cousin’s daughters or the discovery of a dear friend with whom I had lost touch, casting quick hellos across the miles.
There were other statements I could not unread, strategically coded declarations by friends at odds, extravagant oversharings, and unnecessary updates. I too had created a sense of self with irrelevant facts: what we eat, where we are, what we do and between the lines – who we are, wish we were, or used to be.
This was my weakness, discerning statements of self from word play. Contrasting my days against other’s images and accomplishments there was an element of insecurity for the absence of Rockwellian images in photographs and prose to narrate my story and a presumed pressure to respond to others’ statements leaving my words forced and false for the pretense.
In this light I have taken a step back. Stripped of my likes and status all that remains are a freckling of images and an abbreviated collection of family and friends with whom I am unprepared to say goodbye. Years of fragmented sharings have been set aside like pages in an unopened album. Instead, I am embracing this season of Thanksgiving to acknowledge those whose presence in my life are a blessing and transitioning from online exchanges to a more intimate practice of handwritten holiday greetings.
I am gathering addresses and weighing my words, attempting to let go of one experience for another. For now my account sits bare uncertain of the next step as I balance limiting my account to family or keeping the door open for a change of heart.
muddled memories
October 24, 2011 § 1 Comment
The passage of time creates pockets of memory loss in which embellishments flourish. First loves are lost loves, old friends become characters in stories more grand than the experience, and acquaintances infer connections. I am cautious of faded memories.
With the evolution of social media there exists a dangerous intersection of past and present. I myself am guilty of nostalgia misplaced; logic blurred with flattery and sentiment.
In moments of reflection, I have sent a memory or well-wish into the vast space of ungathered messages. Occasionally, the recipient would welcome the wish, sharing a memory of their own. More often an impersonal request for friendship would follow and I felt caught, uncomfortably in a new relationship with an old acquaintance; a friendship built on brief histories and void of futures.
I marvel at these broken connections; the known and unknown, fact and fiction creating mixed messages and miscommunication. Uncertain of the unspoken etiquette for friendships fostered so abstractly, I discretely excuse myself from a conversation cluttered with assumptions. Good-byes leave me wondering at the wisdom of merging moments in one lifetime with a casual hello.
scribblechic 