Snapshots

Several people on my Facebook friends list have posted their professional pictures from weddings, births, parties, etc.  And it occurred to me, as I grew increasingly jealous of their projected happiness, that we, as a culture, don't take photos of the sad times in our lives.  We take photos on vacation, at birthday parties, social gatherings, and life's milestones.  But I don't know that I've ever seen someone take a photo at a Funeral. 

My dad tells me that his father's family would line up in front of their deceased relative's coffin and take a kind of final family photo.  I have been told that this was a common practice in the 30's and 40's, but I haven't really heard of this as a current one.  When my paternal grandmother died all photos were taken after the funeral, at the luncheon that followed.  But my point is that we don't hire professional photographers to document these moments in our lives.

Realistically, not many people want to remember those times in our lives.  We would rather look back at the photos that make us beautiful and bring warm and fuzzy memories.  We only want to share those moments that will make others pay attention.  Which brings me to this article I read about Facebook and how it makes us all a little more depressed.  The Anti-Social Network, by Libby Copeland, really speaks to me at the moment.  The idea is that, in a study performed at Standford, Facebook only projects the best part of our lives for others to see and this, in turn, makes us feel more isolated in our less than perfect realities. 

It's kind of like the sitcom versions of our own lives; we get the funny, ridiculous, and Kodak moments.  I have often lamented that life cannot be like a movie (or television show or book) and we can't montage through the boring and difficult parts.  By viewing people's activities on Facebook we don't have to experience these in between parts that others certainly go through and it can make it seem like they don't exist for these friends and relatives.  It can make life seem easier than it is.

I personally enjoy the posts my friend, G, puts up about her children.  She's always honest about when they do something amazing and when they are driving her crazy.  Even though I am not there every day, I know that parenting is quite the struggle.  Whereas, former classmate, C, seems to have no end of joyous moments with her children and the five or six others she has in her daycare.  Do they ever fall down? Cry? Repeatedly ask for something they can't have?  Throw a temper tantrum?  I sincerely doubt that C has this perfect existence but I don't have any evidence to the contrary and I would believe that she and her adorable husband have a marriage akin to the Cleavers'.

I talk to my sister every day and I know the struggles that she is currently going through.  But if I were to judge her life based solely on the content she puts up on Facebook, I would think that she was perfectly happy and only a little stressed from time to time.  It's not her fault, she doesn't intentionally put only the good content up because she's afraid of what other's would think.  It's just that there are certain things you just don't share with an online community.  Facebook creates this false intimacy with people.  We imagine that we know everything happening in their lives even though we haven't called them to ask how they are or even seen them since high school.

I do know that the difficult times I've had recently seemed that much worse when I would see how happy other people were on Facebook.  It increased that feeling that perhaps something was wrong with me, some important life lesson I never learned, or a turn right when I should have turned left.  I've come out of that a little bit and I'm trying to focus more on the reality of life around me.  I think that Facebook creates a false plumb line for our lives.  We think about what content we'll post, how many people will like it, and how many hits we'll get on x, y, or z post.  We censor ourselves and project a modified version in an attempt to court the favor of people who are doing exactly the same thing. 

So, lately I've been trying not to over think situations and create imagined problems and concerns for myself.  I'm trying to stop asking if this is what other people would do or if this would be acceptable by someone else's standards.  Because I know my own mind better than anyone else.  I guess the point is that I'm trying to enjoy my life as it is and not as a snapshot for someone else's approval.

Philosophy of Language

I took a class in college, a 400 level course, about the philosophy of language.  It was, without a doubt, the most difficult English class I've ever had to take, but it is the one that I reference most often when talking about literature and society.  The biggest problem for me was simply getting outside of my own head.  The teacher told us that "you don't think language, language thinks you."  Our language is the sum of years of social development and it changes all the time.  There are connotations to words that we simply know because we were taught them; spoon fed to us with our Gerber's every second of every day of our lives. 

The best example the professor gave was the phrase "you throw like a girl."  It's an insult, we all know it's an insult, but how do we know it?  There's only one word in that whole phrase that makes it an insult.  The connotations around the word, "girl," were already built in when we learned it.  Do a little word association with yourself and list the top-ten things that come to mind when someone says, "woman."  Now with the word, "man."  I can almost guarantee that you have two very different lists.  Take a look at those top-ten words, what connotations do they have?  Is this because every woman, or every man, you've ever met has exhibited those exact ten characteristics?  Probably not.  It will be based on your own personal history as well as that of our society.

The same goes for any word in our language.  Have you ever asked yourself why a curse word is bad?  Why is it a curse word in the first place?  Why isn't "hand" or "bottle" a bad word?  Because of the meaning that has been assigned to them.  To borrow from Shakespeare, and an overused example, does calling a rose by any other name change what it physically is?  No, but one could not put a different word in that sentence and have it mean exactly the same thing.  The point will be the same, but there will be a whole different set of images and experience called to mind.  Try the word, "foot," for example.  Now that sentence may not be as pleasant.

Which brings me to this Huckleberry Finn issue I overheard on the radio at lunch.  I've already written about it on my book blog and won't repeat myself too much on this one.  But consider the different connotations with the words and ask yourself which one you'd use.  Certainly one of them is nicer in current society, but the other conveys a certain message that is important to the book as a whole.  It helps the reader to immediately understand what kind of person a character is, simply by their use of this word.  Can that be achieved to the same effectiveness with the replacement word?

I am still working all of this out in my head and may add to this entry even after it's posted because I feel that my thoughts are only half-formed.