Self-awareness is so hard to achieve. Like when people wax poetic about their divine qualities, but don't quite realize that they have been guilty of hypocrisy in more than one instance.
"I am so nice. What is up with your hair?"
I thought of this as I read about runners, and their own cross to bear (so to speak). Running, while made glamorous by sneaker ads, doesn't look that pretty in real life. Those partaking of that grueling exercise may feel fabulous, but when they see photos of themselves in action they can't quite believe that energy translates as an image of an unfashionable dying buffalo.
Sadly — horribly — the list of ways these photos can and almost always do go wrong is wide and deep: Muffin top. Earthquake quads. Wind in the shorts, making it look as if you’re wearing your derrière backward. Front wedgies. Let’s not even get started on facial expressions . . .
My husband describes looking at his triathlon images as “soul destroying.” “I am their most willing customer, I am so ready to spend big,” he said of Brightroom, which charges $39.99 for four 5-by-7 prints, or $59.99 to download your entire photo gallery from a race. “But then you start clicking through the pictures, and the mortification just builds and builds. The camera pretty consistently fails to capture my own sense of speed. I feel like a gazelle and yet I look like a hippo.”
Since I try to avoid strenuous exercise, I have not opened myself for that particular brand of torture. But that same premise is applicable in so many other cases.
I try to be self-aware. But I, too, have failed, as I realize the very thing I mocked I do.
Tolerance can help; if one permits their vision to be blurred when it comes to others' vices, than one will not be held accountable for such harsh judgement. Then there is always silence; shutting up about one's own virtues.
That, however, is not permissible in the dating scene; one is pushed and shoved into crowing their own achievements to make oneself more sellable. Since I refuse to view the sacred alliance of marriage as being based on a market economy (the premise of bridal price and dowries has been defunct for quite some time) then I shall stay quiet for as long as possible about my assets.
That, however, is not permissible in the dating scene; one is pushed and shoved into crowing their own achievements to make oneself more sellable. Since I refuse to view the sacred alliance of marriage as being based on a market economy (the premise of bridal price and dowries has been defunct for quite some time) then I shall stay quiet for as long as possible about my assets.
4 comments:
http://thepartialview.blogspot.com/2013/01/frum-blogs-and-websites-can-get-sued.html
Great post. Self-awareness is definitely a quality to strive for. I like the metaphors you used too.
LOL. I have had so many bad pictures taken of me that the idea of me running (laughable) and also having a picture of me taken while doing so is absolutely repugnant to me.
Haha. I thought you were going to say that for more money, they could get their pictures photoshopped.
TPV: You mean being aware not to write loshon hara?
Tovah: Since I have yet to nail a reliable photo-face, most of the pictures snapped of me leave much to be desired.
In the end, one cannot feel good about themselves knowing a photo was "shopped." Being able to proudly place it on the mantlepiece, "This is what I look like! In real life!"
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