“Pride lurks even in good work” Augustine
A
perfect summer day with my kids. I took photos as we moved from hiking to
exploring to playground playing. I took these photos and put them on Facebook.
Then
I thought about what I had done.
Did
I do these activities for joy, play, and love for my kids? Or were they done so
I could photograph them and show off a falsely typical day in my life?
I
couldn’t separate the two issues. I loved these activities, but by broadcasting
them on Facebook, I killed their self-sufficiency, their wholesomeness and
purity. They became an advertising banner for my life.
I
made a decision.
I
had gotten dragged into the ego satisfying, self-promotional lifestyle that has
been around forever and then supercharged by social media. I decided I
would no longer put up these photo montages and crawl under a rock. Sometimes I
come out of the rock but not too often. I made this decision in 2007, one year after joining Facebook.
We
also don’t own a TV or Netflix. Life under the rock seems highly
productive and easier for my simple mental and emotional abilities to handle.
Ego can’t be contained. Augustine
and Orwell openly shared this truth. When George Orwell shared his reasons for
writing, he had them in this order:
1)
Sheer
egoism. The desire to seem clever and to get talked about.
2)
Aesthetic
enthusiasm.
3)
Historical
impulse, desire for understanding.
4)
Political
purpose. To push the world in certain directions.
Of
course by writing this and putting it on the web, I forfeit a claim of humility
and hiding under a rock. I’m still not sure how interconnected I want to be.
