Perception versus reality in the age of social media- a paradigm crisis

I've been suffering from imposter syndrome for years now. Not in my jobs, though, those are at best temporary and at worst meaningless- I've been suffering from the Instagram version, a host of complicated feelings such as, but not limited to:

1. Complicated relationship to the body (ex 1. my body is weird because it doesn't look like it does on Instagram. ex 2. my body is a meat cage and I am a little blob living inside of my brain.)

2. Fomo, but on life, in general

3. Chronic comparison, to past me, future me, and of course, others

4. Constant feeling of the "performance" of life, even if I am trying to be genuine

It's relentless. I feel weird posting on socials, I feel weird in real life because of socials, I am too afraid to post on socials because I feel weird in real life- it spirals.

I've been thinking about this a lot, because I've found myself trapped in the classic post-grad conundrum: how do I fit into capitalist society? and then further, society in general? and a little tangential but still related, digital society?

And then to answer, I said, do what you do best! Write! Put yourself out there and something will come to you. It's simple: be online, post some content, this will be a breeze. But it isn't.

I don't really have a solid excuse for feeling so out of place. I feel about social media how I feel about braiding hair: I can't do it because I tried to learn after everyone else already knew how, and now every time I try, my arms get tired half way through and I just lay on the ground wondering why everyone else already knows how to do it and isn't afraid of it.

But that is very presumptuous of me, considering I've only ever been me and can't really speak for everyone else.

desolation wilderness (photo from Jordan Shea)

Occasionally I feel the urge to try again. It's for the dopamine rush, really, the validation that other people see me how I want to be seen. That I am associated with the things society values in the way I want to be. And so I try, and I point the camera at my face. It doesn't look the way I think it looks, the way it looks in the mirror. Of course, I can't really know how other people see me but I learned recently that when the phone camera is inverted I look better. Other people I ask can't tell the difference.

I wish I could be like the other people I see on socials. They're cool, a part of a group I wan't invited to join. That isn't the point, I know I'm not obligated to an invitation and no one is obligated to invite me. And it also seems like open invite, so the only issue here is that I don't feel included, a creation entirely of my own making.

I do not know what people see when they look at me, because I do not understand what kind of paradigms they work under. Any other's gaze can be clouded by whatever experiences have guided them- separate than those that have guided me. We've created entirely different universes, others and I.

Shouldn't then, I place more emphasis on my selfhood? The perspective I know best, and the only one that is possible to know. The truest gaze I have access to. I don't know if it is inherent or not, but I do feel a pressure to post pictures of myself, and then we are back to the issue of gaze, seeing myself through the camera instead of my own eyes, which feels like an entirely unnatural position.

And I also can't help but wonder if this is just the classic quandary of our time. We've never been required to look at ourselves this much, or in this way. Imagine 200 years ago, before the invention of photography- how much attention did people pay to their faces? how much attachment did they have to their appearance? And did it cripple them the way it does for me now? Did it truly get worse after the birth of social media? or is it just me?

Here is the thing that I always forget to tell myself, and is truly the key to releasing all of this insecurity: if this is my own universe, only the things I want to be true are true. I am not God, but I can have boundaries. And those boundaries can protect me from spiraling into existential crisis for the rest of my life because really, nothing matters.

Especially an entire society made up on arbitrary rules that don't necessarily jive with me.

Anyways: this marks my admittance of insecurity and overthinking surrounding social media. This marks my commitment to overcoming those things. I'm about to be online- and I only say that to continue to hold myself accountable.

(me, everytime I stop to think about instagram)