Superficial

I have a friend, almost as old as I am, who is terrified of getting old. Her Facebook posts are a constant stream of individual selfies. Recently she started using AI to transform pics of herself into perfectly rendered portraits of someone who looks like her but isn’t real. The images are seldom accompanied by text. When they are, the post is usually a cryptic bit of drama designed to solicit questions and/or sympathy. I never respond.

Another friend—considerably younger—(so I’m cutting her slack and hope she grows out of it) also posts lots of pictures of herself. Some of them are elaborately staged and taken by professional photographers. Others are selfies tweaked by Photoshop in dreamy tones of black and white.

Every time their FB pages end up in my feed, I shake my head in that “how shallow” judgmental gesture I perfected decades ago. I was a little surprised this morning then when my FB post contained a very large head shot of me posing in my Arizona house a couple of years ago.

I fumble with technology and meant to post the content of an essay that I had published on an online platform devoted to writers. The post contained the essay but was highlighted by a large headshot of me. I was excited to see the essay published, but I wasn’t trying to call attention to myself. I wanted people to read the article. The essay was about my belief that life stories can connect generations when they are written with candor. That belief is the reason I teach a Life Stories class every winter in Arizona at a local community college. I’ve watched the students share with each other, feel seen and heard in a deep way. I’ve watched them discover things about themselves through our assignments and make sense of their paths of their lives with fresh insight.

I’m a fanatic about the power of stories and thought my article might convert a few believers. I got a slew of likes and a rash of congratulations. I appreciated the kudos, but wondered how many of my well-intended friends looked past the picture of me and the fact that I published and took the time to read the article. Out of the few who read it, I wonder how many took the message to heart.

I thought about my impulsive post this morning, slapped online without a clear context or intent. I wonder how many posts on social media are launched without much thought, leaving a record of who we are left to the casual interpretation of others who scroll quickly through their feed. All the more reason, I think, for us to tell each other authentic stories about who we are instead of feeding each other fake snapshots of our lives.