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Ive been reading a lot of stuff about ego and validation recently. And Ive also been spending less time on uploading and looking at my Instagram accounts. I also recently got accused of ‘showing off’ about something (which horrified me as I haven’t/didn’t intentionally).  And all this has led me to start thinking about how the world has changed and for me to take a really honest look at what I actually think/perceive/project.

Its tricky isn’t it.

You can’t really win in this world. If you work hard you get the opportunity to do things out of the ordinary and then they become the ordinary to you. If you share that then you can be seen as being cocky, showing off, getting ‘too big for your boots’. If you share things –  why do you? Personal gratification? Showing off? Pride? Over indulgent ego?

But if you do these things and you don’t share them why did you do them? Personal gratification? fear of showing off? shame for your skill/culture? or to smother your over indulgent ego?

For me its really simple. I genuinely do the things I do because I love taking photographs and I love a challenge. I get a HUGE personal satisfaction from my photography and from the adventures I have or have had. I don’t think I am an awesome photographer or an expert on any subject, but I just enjoy what I do and I work at it.

The photo above was, however, a genuine moment when even I got carried away with the ‘love of the likes’. It felt amazing seeing thousands of people like a photograph I had taken. Absolutely amazing. It was like an adrenalin rush. I think I actually felt something which I can hand on heart say I rarely feel about myself – pride. But like all mad rushes they don’t last long and even though I was grateful for all the likes the thought of ‘I wish I had had a quid for every one of those likes’ hit me hahahaha. To be honest even fifty pence a like would have been ace. Hahahahaha. Ok – I would have gone to 20p if pushed…….

But with my weak moment above aside – I feel a genuine appreciation if I get a like on a photo. But to me its like someone saying ‘ah thats pretty’ or ‘thanks for letting me see that’ its not that Im not grateful – I am. But I think Im grateful in the genuine old fashioned polite way. That its nice of someone to be nice. I don’t get an adrenaline rush feeding my ego and giving me a super power which could then lead to that terminal condition called ‘bulshyness’. But of course we are now in a world where people are convinced that vanity is at the base of every move you make. Maybe we have all become narcissists. But we are all to caught up in way the world is to admit it. Or deny it.

I often think Im not a right fit for this world. I think that we are setting ourselves up for a huge fall and fail. And I wish, many days, that we would all sometimes just stop and remember that actually its nice to be nice and good things should just be celebrated and shared for the love of it not for the like of it. If people like something thats ace, but likes are not a measure of your validity and value.

 

Photo : Mef – Birmingham 2013 taken by LittleWing

Published : Instagram on Instagrafite account, 2013

 

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