How would you live if no one found out?

How would you live if no one found out what you did? Would you exercise if you couldn’t post photos of your progress? Would you eat healthy if it meant you couldn’t document every meal on your Instagram? And would you travel if you couldn’t upload an album with some cheesy phrase about life?

I grew up in the digital age. The technology wasn’t the best when I was a kid, but we had gameboys and basic computers and cheap Nokias that only worked when the antenna was extended an extra five inches. But I was a healthy middle-class kid when Blackberry started making smartphones for the everyday consumer. I used my slow Compaq computer to research the Palm Treos that I ended up deciding on for my Motorola Q (a much slimmer and more aesthetically appealing phone). And I lived through the transition from MySpace to Facebook, and the age of the iPhone (say what you want about the iPhone, without it, phones wouldn’t be where they are today).

Now we all live in a time where to keep up with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, SnapChat, Vine and every other social network that gives you thumb cramps, you need to take time out of your real life to keep up. with your cyber life. You literally have to limit your opportunities to experience life to update people on your life experiences. You don’t even need to live an exciting life to appear exciting anymore. You need the right filters, the right lighting for your body, a sunny day and a great date, and only doing certain statuses to give the illusion that your life is worth talking about. You can literally sit in your room and make your 2000 Facebook friends envy you and try to figure out how they can make their Facebook and Instagram look better to the ever ignorant eye.

I’m no saint and I’m no better than social media. I have Instagram and Facebook and, as much as I hate to admit it, I like my profile photo and cover photo to look as cool as possible. I grew up and live in the era of sharing everything and imagining little. I still struggle with not wanting to share at least a few images of what I’m doing because I’m content to experience them for the art of experiencing them (more on my use of the word art later), and not update people about my life and have them forget about me while I’m gone for two years. I’m not so naive as to say that I don’t care how many friends I have. I’d love to not worry about having too many people in my life, but doing so shrinks my world. The fewer people I keep in touch with or who read about my life and see my photos, the less I almost feel like I exist. I have childish envy for the people I meet without Facebook, who don’t share their photos with anyone but themselves on their 14-hour flights to the next country on their wish list. But deep down that’s not me and never will be. But I’m fine with it and I’ve accepted it because neither of us is more right or more real. We have different lives.

With all this inner struggle and self-doubt, I’ve realized that it’s okay to update Facebook and Instagram and send a picture of a historic statue to SnapChat with a hilariously inappropriate caption. I still do that and always will (with the exception of SnapChat because that shit got taken down since those hackers shared a bunch of people’s phone numbers. Well that and I got sick of the same selfie every day for half of my friends).

But we have to draw the line between doing something and taking pictures and doing something to take pictures. Would you remember something if you never took a picture of it? Are you kidding me? Of course you would. People have been doing it for years. We are not the first generation of people who travel and want to remember something. We have brains and the ability to remember much more than a camera would. My Droid, which is slowly becoming obsolete as more technology is packed into cell phones (which doesn’t do justice to calling it a phone anymore because it’s probably one of the least used features in your portable digital life) only captures an image of what I see, not how I feel when I see it. My knees still tremble thinking about what it’s like to look over the edge of a huge rock that I passed 40 sweaty old women climbing. My photos look good, but they don’t contain my slight fear of heights that I will never admit I have because it has never limited me. However, I always take pictures of where I am, but I don’t do it to make my life seem better than it is, to make my friends jealous, or to add to my cyber life. Hell, I’ll go months without updating my Facebook or Instagram, and unfortunately my blog. But I still update them. And thank goodness I do because they’ve all led to so many conversations I never would have had otherwise. I won’t stray too far because this will probably be another post one day, but the effect of sharing your thoughts and feelings with other people is insane. I don’t care how many people read my blog or see my photos, but I do keep track of how many people share with me what they feel and what they want in life, and why they are not doing what they want in life. life and what they plan to do to change that. I’ve had conversations with best friends in the six months I’ve been here that have been deeper than any conversation I’ve had with them, simply because I shared my feelings and they opened up. I’ve had deep conversations with people I’ve only ever played beer pong with in a musty old basement 5 years ago when I was applying to colleges. But keep going.

My original thought though: how would you live your life if no one found out what you were doing? I honestly don’t know. I think I would experience it the same way, but I don’t think I really don’t care that no one knows. I don’t do anything because I want people to think of me in a better light, but what I do leads to so many great conversations and thoughts that I would never want to save it all. As for sharing photos? I’m not sure either. I’m still trying to shake off the urge to share photos of what I’m doing. No matter which path I take, I’m still a victim of the digital age; like many people. But it makes me proud to know that I never do any of this for the purpose of sharing it, but I do it, I absorb it, then I share maybe a photo of each place on my Instagram and find a cool photo for my Facebook. because I like to change things as much as possible (my room, clothes, living situation, etc.) and Facebook happens to be one of those things. I have to keep things cool, you know? I like to apply the feeling of a newly rearranged room to my life.

Now, before I wrap this up, I want to address my use of the word art. Sadly, it’s becoming an art to experience life the right way. It should be there naturally in everyone, but due to society and the world we are raised in, it isn’t. I had trouble coming here and I’m still struggling with it. It takes practice to find things that make you happy and do them for you, not what you think other people would find awesome. Really doing things yourself often comes with criticism and difficulties that are enough to keep people from ever going after it. But having those 20 seconds of insane value (stolen from We Bought a Zoo) leads to amazing rewards that could never be shared on Instagram, Facebook, or even in a blog post that’s probably too long. Unfortunately, to do this, you have to stop taking a photo because you know you’re going to get a lot of likes on Instagram. You should either delete Instagram or just upload a picture on the way home when you have absolutely nothing else to do and it’s too dark to look out your window at all the trees. Taking pictures and capturing memories in a holdable form is great and necessary in life in my opinion. But to distance yourself from real life and the art of experiencing life for your photos or to share your photos is ridiculous. Wait until your Saturday morning hangover to update everything. Regardless, your friends should be living their lives as much as possible to see how good your face looks with wherever you are behind you. Live now, live for yourself, technology and social media are secondary to everything else.