“Would you do it if nobody were watching?” is a question often posed to encourage independent thinking and individuality. While this is an important principle, perhaps it is worth considering the question from another perspective: is the desire to be seen really so wrong?
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Must there truly be a lack of community in pursuing what one may want to do? Why must one dance like no one is watching when dancing with someone else is a much better feeling?
The matter of influence
Dawn Thandeka King’s daughter, Jayda King, posed this question a while ago. Her conversation was mainly about the standards one builds for their lives.
She asked: Would you have the standards you have now if social media didn’t exist? Although she doesn’t see the influence of social media on one’s standards as a bad thing, she highlighted that it has improved people’s standards.
However, everyone is influenced by everything and everyone else. Life is not lived in a way that excludes others’ approval and judgment.
Granted, your wants, needs, and desires should make you happy; however, what makes your sister happy can also make you happy.
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Life is not lived in a vacuum
The rhetoric of living in a way that promotes self-centeredness has been prominent on the internet in recent years. Cut-off culture, constantly working on yourself, or disappearing for a while and coming back better are rhetorics pushed and condensed into roughly one-minute video clips that don’t expand on their views or, rather, promote one side of the argument and never the other.
When, in actuality, they are doing the same thing they are critiquing.
People are not projects; in as much as it is important to heal, it is important to exist. What does it mean to be seen if not to be acknowledged that you exist?
Feature image: iStock/Yulia Kaveshnikova
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