I'm in the second half of my life which means that I'm in my 50s. This is a strange time to be alive- no longer young and nubile and not officially a geriatric either. As the body ages, the thought of mortality is ever present on our minds. There is a sense that time is running out and all those things that we would like to still do, well, we may never be able to.
The luscious ripeness which women, in particular, display in their child-making years, disappears completely after the menopause. By your 50s you have grown into your face and body and if you don't like what you see, that says more about what's in your head than on your face.
I wondered what had become of my classmates from my primary school and secondary school years and how they looked today so I spent several hours one weekend trawling Facebook. To be fair, everyone looks pretty good and without wanting to sound like a snob, I think a lot of that has to do with upbringing- our families tended to be middle class professionals and our mothers or housekeepers cooked the evening meal every day. Families ate together and as I recall from spending numerous sleepovers at the homes of my schoolmates, all of our families lived pretty much the same way and certainly a shop bought ready-made meal was never served at the dinner table. It would appear that our diets have kept us looking passable in our latter years.
Judging from the happy family snaps, and umpteen
selfies, I can only assume that the subliminal message behind sharing these photos on a regular basis, is 'Aren't I lucky'? and 'Aren't I beautiful?' Naturally, every posted photo receives the desired approbation that yes, 'Aren't you lucky!' and 'Aren't you beautiful!'. After several hours spent seeing a pattern of 'Look at me!' and the resulting seal of approval over and over again, I suddenly began to feel, a) queasy and b) uncomfortable with my own life.
'Cogito ergo sum.', barked my hound as he took yet another selfie, slowing down our walk considerably. Photo copyright SvD.
What about Miss Frump who has a genuinely engaging and interesting personality? Why isn't she on Facebook? Remember the girl at school that no one found attractive- she was too fat, smelled and had greasy hair? Chances are she looks like an older version of herself now but you can be sure she's not on Facebook. Why would she post a
selfie in her size 20 dress? How would we make her feel to know she never married or had children, never had more than the occasional badly paying job and is essentially so nondescript she could be invisible. Miss Frump might never have the courage to admit her averageness because guess what, not a whole lot of pats on the back will come her way. Like the virgin who watches porn, Miss Frump probably surfs Facebook longingly wishing she could be a part of the action, desperate to join any reality apart from her own.
From a philosophical perspective, Facebook takes the non-participant on a toxic journey which can only result in self-loathing. The message is that we are the sum of someone else's view of ourselves. If we're attractive, if we can display the smiling-family-with-adoring-spouse photo, we've won the lottery in life and somehow we are better. The snapshot of smugness seems to be our only accomplishment. Out of the dozens of profiles I viewed on Facebook, no one made mention of what was going on in their heads and what they had learned from life. After all, we're in our 50s with more than half a century of experiences to brag about, yet is the end game of life a photograph of our perfect
irreality? And the idea that we are 'better' than others which is why we are willing to shout about it in a public domain, creates a dangerous precedent: remember 'some animals are more equal than others'? An undercurrent of narcissism pervaded more or less every Facebook profile I visited. Co-operation, community, solidarity, empathy, an interest in other people, the human condition, the soul life, all of these are alien territory to the narcissist. And if you hadn't realised, it's all about me.
Photo copyright SvD.
