When still a toddler, the world only took photos to keep
memories that are treasured if not valued and wrote letters to express love and
share life. There existed professional camera men who, at first sight, would
make the whole homestead busy with each person up and about trying to get
“ready” for that photo session. Then, chicken, flowers and cats came in handy
for they ruled the photo scenes as spices into the shoot. Letters on the other
hand were scribbled artistically to shout out love to the addressed and share
life with friends and family.
Today, we are just but a world of likes and double taps for
we’ve allowed ourselves to have less ties with friends and family in the
pretense that Facebook, Instagram and twitter will just play the role of
getting us together to share life as a whole. Each smartphone owner and admirer
in equal measure has become a photographer whereas the editing role has been
taken up by applications that boast of thousands on filter and edit options. We
continue to wallow in the thoughts that they work best when used to transform
photos from being “unlikable” to one that will be double-tapped, liked and most
of all shared. Social media on the other hand has turned into family photo
galleries as well as historical evidence of how irresponsible we have become in
regards to relationships, one’s past is just a click away. The number of times we
upload photos on the internet triply exceeds the instances we call on family
and friends just to know how they are doing. These gadgets have turned us into
merciless people who, instead of lending a hand, gracefully take pictures and
videos of devastating moments with the goal of sharing the same so that the
world gets to know that you were there when “it” happened instead of rolling up
our sleeves to help that person who is in dire need of a hand. How many times
do we see guys getting overboard and taking risks just to snap away that
admirable and eye catchy selfie full of “made” faces? Each time I log onto my
social world, I bump into photos that have less of clothing and more of flesh,
angles taken to bring out the curvy bodies and others taken to flaunt daily
life endeavors’, gadgets, cribs and hangouts all in the race for likes and
double taps. How many times to we extend a hand to say hi to that stranger in
that matatu instead of keeping in the
know through liking and double tapping? How many times do we share pics that
are less of us and more of instances where life is shared?
I am left wondering what comes of that soul that, even after
posting a pic in his/her Sunday best, no one hits the like button, let alone a
single double tap if not a retweet. By the way, don’t get it twisted that I do
not appreciate life and blessings that needs be put out there for the world to
be inspired of how working smarty hard pays off. My whistle blows to that
direction of pride, showing off and living double lives. The world yearns for relationships that are
founded on love, where accountability matters in the same measure as minding
our own businesses.
Don’t go for the likes, be inspired by the unseen, the
unrecognized for surely, one day, you will make sense, we will make sense.
At the end of the day, all is vanity…………………………………….
