What does love mean in the social media age? Maybe it means putting down your phone, resisting the temptation to Instagram, and learning all over again to live and love life in the fleeting moment
It’s February, and all around me folks are doe-eyed and professing their love for one another. Brands are painting their shop windows vermillion and rebranding their social media pages in bright red to secure your Valentine Rands.
Sadly, I’m no hopeless romantic waiting for Mr. Right to sweep me off my feet, so mostly I think you can all miss me with the whole February falling in love shebang.
Except maybe…well, let me tell you a little story about big changes, quiet moments and powerful epiphanies and how I fell in love with…but wait, let me not spoil the ending.
In October last year, I packed up my life and moved to Dubai. Big change. New job, new home, new country. Same old me.
Same old me shares everything on social media. I couldn’t wait to get to Dubai and start posting stories, thoughts, experiences and pictures of this city.
As a kid, I dreamed about living in New York with its towering skyscrapers. And then along comes Dubai and shrinks those NY behemoths, building not only the impossibly tall Burj Khalifa, but an entire fantasy world of curved and twisting slivers arcing into the sky.
Everything about Dubai is like this. From the decadent food, cascading water fountains and over the top luxury super cars, Dubai pushes the boundaries.
So naturally, I had to share everything on my social media platforms. Every day I had my phone out, snapping, recording, posting, sharing – as if millions of visitors before me haven’t already done that.
I’d cut my runs short to take overhead shots of the architecture, stop everyone from tucking in at dinner so that I could get just the right shot of their sea green matcha miso soup for Instagram. I didn’t see how this compulsive need to record every moment was taking over everything I did.
Suddenly there were Instagram stories from my business meetings, time lapse videos of train rides, stop motion animation of cloudscapes – all of it filtered, cropped, clipped and given a soundtrack. Life had become a social media production.
One evening on my daily run, wading through the crowd on the bridge at Souk Al Bahar, the musical fountain started up. Instantly a forest of hands went up, each m clutching a mobile phone to record the sight – and BAM! – I suddenly realised that I was living through my mobile phone’s camera.
In the months I’ve been living here, I’ve been so desperate to share everything I see with my Facebook friends, that I’ve forgotten to just sit back and experience the magic of the moment.
So, hugely aware of the irony , I raised my phone high into the sky and snapped a shot of the myriad hands all holding phones in the air – my inception moment. This image is to remind me to forget about the camera, eschew the likes and the shares and the RTs.
My life changed in that moment. Go for a run? Sure. Without my phone. Get lost in a miasma of exotic flavours on the plate in front of me. Feel the electric chill of the fountain’s spray as it wafts down around me, before the Burj Khalifa lights up in an explosion of bright neon graphics and thunderous sounds.
I want to get dizzy staring up at the superstructures rising into the gulf air. Life is right there in front of me, and I want to see it up close and personal. There will still be the occasional post, but the relentless recording of thousands of images and videos each day is done.
The result is that I’ve fallen in love with just being present again. I like this change. It feels deeper and more authentic.
I guess this is not your usual Valentine’s love story, but a love story it is. I’m in love with this moment of real life right here, and I’m just going to sit back and enjoy it, without adding a mobile phone camera to it. Give it a bash. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a quiet moment of pure bliss, too.
Oh, and please RT for awareness.
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