Loving Normal
My fascination with my own world started deteriorating slowly after downloading Instagram. Scrolling through my feed, I saw people posting pictures of their colorful meal spreads, grand sights while traveling, and crowded parties with friends. I saw what seemed like a lifestyle reserved for celebrities being lived by the girl I sit next to in history class.
Unfortunately, the platform I downloaded to create connections with my peers made me grow to become disconnected from my own environment. I felt like I needed to compete with the image my peers were creating, hiding what my real everyday sights were and replacing them with curated images.
Throughout the year in my AP Lang class, my teacher has always emphasized the importance of observing the things that happen in your everyday life. At the beginning of the year, every day at the beginning of class we had to jot down observations from the day. Although we did this activity every day for about a month, I still didn’t get it. I didn’t quite understand what I was supposed to be looking at. And I didn’t get why I never had anything to say, while everyone else at my table was deciding which of their six funny quotes they should use.
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While watching a short documentary on Ed Ruscha’s art process, I was fascinated by the way he shined a spotlight on everyday sights, and the way he pointed out the obvious beauty in the structures like gas stations and apartment buildings, in his paintings and photographs. I envied his ability to appreciate simple sights that otherwise might seem boring.
The way he documented these everyday photos reminded me to appreciate my real life. I remembered how my friends began to create “photo dump” accounts on Instagram, where they posted large carousels of pictures throughout their week, and decided to try using the thing that caused my blurred point of view to clear it all up.
As Instagram has gotten more and more professional,– where the cleanliness of our feeds determines how people perceive us– glamorized pictures of our lives have completely washed out any casualty in sharing photos on social media. These non-posed imperfect pictures are now tucked away in private accounts and close-friends stories for 40 friends to see.
But this practice of observing and appreciating my surroundings has grown me out of trying to achieve that perfect, curated image. These pictures on my photo dump account are never perfect, as most are candid pictures of friends during class or lunch. In a way, these accounts have become a way of showing the beauty in their everyday, normal lives. The way Ed Ruscha photographed regular gas stations and simple boxy apartments reminds me of the photos of food on the floor of the cafeteria post lunch and the hallways filled with students during passing periods. All of these are things we see every day, but until we take a second to pause and look at them, we might get used to ignoring them without appreciating their normal charm.
My class’ emphasis on grounding myself, on taking a break from trying to find something and just observing what is around me, has brought me out of that earlier state of boredom with everything around me.
Now, I take the time to appreciate what I see daily. I stop and take pictures of everyday places and sights I like , and while doing this doesn’t match the “loss of living in the moment” criticisms of the newer generations, it lets me pause for a moment and really look at what is in front of me. I’m glad I can now find these images of normality so pretty now!
