Social Media Lies

Even the briefest scan of social media shows amazing pictures of gorgeous sunsets, amazing animals, stunning food, clean and tidy homes and yards, etc. Simply put, social media tends to show beautiful people doing amazing things. 

We all know that it’s a lie, but we often spend hours wiling away our time and wondering why we can’t hike through 7 National Parks in a single summer, snorkel with sea turtles, take an image of Landscape Arch without anyone else in the picture, or find a bistro that serves food “that” amazing looking.

In fact, we can.

Influencers take hundreds and hundreds of images and edit them. And save them for later.

We are guilty of it to some degree. In the cold, dark months, I like to post pictures of birds or plants that I saw in the summer. Sometimes, it’s just because I am sorting though the images and culling the herd (I usually have about 8,000 images of nature on my phone and 30,000+ in storage), or I’m trying to be hopeful during an intense cold snap and I just need a little hope.

I would love to see the “real” scene, or know how many months apart the images are of a someone posting hiking shots from Maine and Utah in the same summer (I mean, don’t these people, actually work?)

Anyway, the image that I have at the top of this post is a sweet little shot of a bee harvesting pollen on a wildflower. Nice, right? Peaceful. Truth be told, it was a plant growing out of the sidewalk where I work. The skies were totally smokey from the intense wildfires that we are having, and – to top it off – there was fully automatic gunfire going on in the background. 

I don’t work all that far from an active Military base. It’s not unusual to hear gunfire, helicopters, C-130’s, and its also not that uncommon to see paratroopers jumping out the aircraft. 

So- peaceful? Not on a macro level, no. But at the micro? Totally! Dropping out of the noise and mayhem of work and focusing, even for 2 minutes, on a bee doing his job was a welcome break from the slightly scary life that wildfires, work and COVID have brought into our everyday world.

Slow down from time-to-time and find some nature. It’s nice.