Dispatch #032021: Compartmentalizing on Social Media
Alternatively: a case for the metaphoric twinset
Hello! Today is March 20th, 2021 although to be honest, I’m writing this from March 19th. Does writing from a perspective in the future jinx my chance of getting there? It appears I am inclined to think more superstitiously than I would have liked to believe.
I should mention I’m on an airplane, which possibly amplified the passing suggestion of jinx for reasons both related to the effect of high altitude on the human brain and because, you know, what goes up must come down! Are we ever more aware of this fact than when we descend while enveloped by an aircraft? I suppose I could be more aware while standing in an elevator, but this digression is taking me into a direction I’m not particularly interested in pursuing.
I’m on my way home from a climate that is warmer than New York and therefore facilitated my wearing this shoe (just the one) with no pants (over either leg).
I did also affix a bracelet to my ankle if you must know (though even if not, I sure feel I must tell you!).
In any event, I traveled away by myself for 3 days to stay with my friend. What transpired was a sequence of delightfully uninterrupted days full of talking and thinking and reading and talking even some more.
I barely spent time online, which I would venture to guess is an equally salient reason (when compared to the matter of having two toddler children) that all the other stuff seemed uninterrupted (and dare I say, liberating). I logged on occasionally and consumed exactly four pieces of good content, which I am defining for the purpose of this sentence as (1) equal parts stimulating and progressive:
(2) Existentially funny (is that the same as clever?):
(3) Inspiring to the extent that my eyes were seduced:
(4) Tender and remarkably human, an experience of photos shown through the telling of an outsider’s experience within another’s culture. It reinforced a personal opinion of mine that while we are infinitely different, there is an underlying striking sameness about us.
To be honest, assembling this collection of shares has propelled a sort of guilt about the high and low nature of the content in question. On the one hand, I was intrigued by an opinion related to the uptick in hate crimes directed towards the Asian community, intensified only by last week’s atrocity in Atlanta (8 people — 6 of whom of Asian descent — were murdered at three different spas in the metropolitan area). This part of the opinion particularly caught my interest:
It got me thinking a bit harder about the negotiations we make when we commit to pursuing acts for social progress (equality, and just as importantly, safety for all). Are we pursuing a commitment to eradicate racism towards any marginalized group (systemic anti-Semitism notwithstanding) or towards the ones that experience what is potentially perceived as bearing a greater-sized grievance? If forced to rank by order of importance, how do we? Do we do it at all? I’m genuinely asking.
I left Instagram to write it down.
When I returned and my feed was refreshed, I laughed at the leg picture. I went on to experience the indulgent sensation of looking at something personally appealing (I don’t even know who the guy in the Justjared photo is but I’ll be dammed if jeans don’t look best with bare feet, a shrunken beanie with sunglasses), and then sought out the video. The final, heart-warming feeling of an aperture widening — finding likeness in unlikeness, cementing within me this almost utopic and most definitely idealistic longing towards absolute unity.
Now I’m wondering if part of what provoked the sense of guilt I mentioned earlier is the speed with which my disposition could turn, in one moment assessing the nuances of the dark depth of internalized bias and in the next, wanting to laugh, which isn’t to say this is the banner problem with social media (though it’s probably related), or that comedic relief or a desire towards inspiration is evil (it is not).
I did however think to myself how easy it would have been to suppress the uncomfortable feeling and to indulge in the lift — a heavy heart turning light at the tap of a finger. To move on just as easily and to never look back.
This, I think, is the other thing, about integrity. No one can force you to embody it — they can try (and they do) but ultimately, it’s your twin set. Does the cardigan (your outer-self) match the shell tank (inner-self)? No one can answer this for you either, or force you, even, to answer it for yourself.
So you can indulge in the lift and forget the heavy heart, or lock into a sort of gentle self-awareness that allows you to ask: where am I doing good, and then without shaming yourself into self-loathing, where are there still gaps?
This question will come up over and over again and that is kind of the point. For as long as we live, if we’re doing it honestly, there are always gaps to fill.
You know, social media, for all of its faults and profound flaws, has delivered a constant reminder of the infinite realities that exist outside of our own and we get to choose how to interpret this. By admonishing it for reminding us of what we don’t have. By getting enraged for displaying the differences. By using it simply as a platform for entertainment. By choosing to tap into the potential to be derived: information that can serve as a baseline reminder that feeling good starts with doing good, and doing good starts with helping our fellow people. How you make sense of this and act in accordance is up to you and your twinset.
It seems rather poetic now that I’m being asked to put my computer away because we’re about to land.
By the time you get this, I’ll have been home long enough to think that life really is a park of choose-your-own-adventures.
Have you thought much lately about which ones call to you?
Signed yours truly,
Leandra