presence in the performance generation
I suppose I am a product of my generation. I get a dopamine hit from seeing a notification on my phone, receiving a comment on a photo, or garnering responses to instagram stories. It’s almost addicting isn’t it? Gratification at our fingertips? The thought that a post can be an immediate antidote to the feeling of loneliness or exclusion or self-doubt. But like any addiction, there is a crash after a high, and we come back wanting more and more, consistently and dangerously unsatisfied.
I like to write. That is the whole purpose of having this blog, that I may be held accountable to writing, keeping a live, online log of what’s going on in these seasons, figuring out what my style and tone and voice even is. I suppose it’s expanding to become my wanting to share what I am learning, and it hope that you, reader, are maybe comforted or encouraged in some way - I do believe in purposeful presentation. But in all this I am learning to watch carefully where I place a delicate possession of mine, called Value.
Because while it isn’t necessarily wrong to feel good about posting a photo, or sharing a written anecdote about what you are going through, we slip into dangerous territory when our value finds its source from these things. Because if my value comes from likes and comments (and even, dare I say it - emojis - eep), then it is as easily taken away as it is given. That same rush that comes from the flood of likes, is just as easily a spiral into self doubt when that flood doesn’t come. People who love and praise you one day can be the ones to shame and destroy you the next (see: Jesus).
A value house built on the sand of popularity is not one I feel safe living in.
This weekend I went on a school trip to Lyon, a beautiful, historic city in France. I was asked to run social media for the weekend, and spent the majority of my time looking at the city from the screen of my phone, incessantly editing and posting and writing captions. When we boarded the train home, I looked at my camera roll to see that I had h u n d r e d s of photos from the weekend, but very little image in my memory of what the city looked and felt like beyond the phone.
“Stay present” whispers the voice of God to me, more times than I’d like to admit. “Stay present” as I ride the bus in the morning with an unreal view of the Paris streets. “Stay present” as I adventure with new friends, as I FaceTime old ones, as I sip coffee at cafes and walk along the Seine. I am not good at not thinking ten steps ahead, figuring out my next move. But there will always be a next move, and there won’t always be a now.
Staying present is difficult. It means looking up to see what is around me, despite feeling like I don’t quite know my place. It means being okay to let my eyes capture the memory instead of the IOS. It means asking a real live human for directions instead of google maps, it means headphones out - siren sounds and street music in. It goes against the grain of what we know and how we operate in today’s world, but I am beginning to think that our technological advancements have slowed down our relational advancements. We can see the world on Instagram, we can stay updated on our friendships by remaining on the couch - and maybe this makes us altogether less likely to get up and go to these places and to this people.
Social media can and should be used for good. With [gather], our little women’s organization, we love to chat about how we can use social media to put good out into the world. To maybe change the course of someone’s moment or day by having them scroll across an inspiring story or encouraging word. We all have that power. Christine Caine said once this past summer to never confuse marketing with being marked by God, and that has stuck with me since.
So what now? What does presence look like in the performance generation? I think maybe it looks like keeping our eyes up. Looking around at who and what and where we are, soaking in this time and this place and beauty of where you and I are at. I don’t want to look back on life only able to remember thanks to instagram. I want to remember how things felt and looked in my own heart and brain.
The over-stimulation of media today can push us to act, or numb us to inaction. I want to be a more empathetic product of my generation, thanks to all the human stories I have access to at my fingertips, not a desensitized one.
I will fight not to let my value and identity take root in things that are so, utterly transient. I will ask myself “am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ"(Galatians 1:10), and make necessary change when the answer isn’t what it should be. I will root my confidence in a God who speaks unchanging value over my life. I will fight to not have to post - though I still will - but I will strive not to let the postings take priority over people. I want good and rich conversations with my friends, not just pictures of us having them. I will fight to value presence over performance, and choose to speak words of life, rather than words of destruction.
I will still feel a rush at getting likes, but I will fight not to let this replace love.
