My soul to keep

or rather, the lies I tell myself to remain authentic.

I don't like taking videos of myself.

It’s something I'm trying to get over so I can be better at this whole social media thing but the truth is, it conflicts too much with who I think I am.

Pictures are like that, too.

Something about the camera capturing a moment where, more often than not, I am not at my best, allowing me to hyper fixate on issues I didn’t even know existed. Or at least, that I shoved so far into the recesses of my mind they might as well have not existed.

Professional photographers and videographers take hundreds of takes to get a single one worth using. Meanwhile, us amateurs, take a few because that’s really all we have time or patience for, and are left with subpar material that makes us feel less confident than we did before. And maybe that isn’t you, but it’s definitely me.

In my head though, I am at the peak of my game. I forever live in the singular moment of where I’ve felt the most at ease. And when my anxiety comes calling, without any proof otherwise, I can convince myself that it’s true.

Until I see a photo or a video.

Then I find myself wincing asking, is this what I really sound like? look like? act like? Every interaction I’ve had all of a sudden comes into focus and I’m ready with my red pen and answer sheet to slash and critique the work that is my life.

It’s exhausting.

Which is why, I tend to stay away. I don’t take a ton of pictures. I definitely don’t take videos.

That is until I see friends or people I follow post these amazing things of themselves throughout time and I think this is beautiful. I wish I had something like this. And I scurry to shuffle through my folders in my phone and realize it is dishearteningly empty.

Writing sort of feels that way, too.

You get into the groove of a draft, have fun, feel good and then you reread or you see something someone else has done and instantly all the confidence you had is up for debate. You dissect and question and pull apart what you’ve done. It doesn’t feel fun anymore. Instead, it feels like proof of your failures.

Which is why I think a lot of writers tune it all out when they write. Just how I don’t take the pictures or videos.

But what happens when you have to start letting people in? When you have to face your own critic as well as that of others?

I’ve known several writers who guarded their bubbles so fiercely that once they let people in they either 1. wouldn’t hear feedback, even when it was necessary/good or 2. quit sharing their writing altogether.

But then they started feeling that hollow emptiness of comparison when their friends were putting their own work out there and getting better or recognized or even just doing the damn thing.

Just how I feel when I see someone who’s documented their life in visuals when I haven’t.

So, how do we keep the lies we tell our judgmental selves so that we can continue to be authentic while being confronted with material that is easy to self-judge?

As much as I’d like to tell you, I actually don’t know the answer.

When it comes to writing, I have created a way that I accept criticism at every stage (yes, even my first draft) by detaching it from my self-worth. My stories are their own entities and I treat them as such. Even when I love them. Even when I put vulnerable parts of my soul into them. Once they’re out on paper, they’re no longer entirely mine.

I’ve also come to terms a bit more with taking photos. I’ve been taking a lot more and using it as an excuse to understand myself better. How do I like to look in photos? What’s my style? How do I want to come across? I take more than one or ten and I remind myself that a photo is a millisecond of a moment which means I can look a million different ways and that’s OK.

But for videos, I have no answers or tactics. My hope is that if I continue to do them, that I’ll get more comfortable and learn to distance myself from them, too. Just like with writing. That a video is a product—not my existence and my value is not wrapped up in it.

For now, I’m just trying to remind myself that who I am is not always what I do, look like, or produce and that I am more than a single moment in time (even if that moment is locked in a still-frame).