They say—and I am willing to believe it—that it is difficult to know yourself—
but it isn’t easy to paint yourself either.
Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, September 1889
but it isn’t easy to paint yourself either.
Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, September 1889
The self-portrait genre has been around from
the very beginning of art. It was used to identify the artist, when no
photography existed, or to tell one’s story in a visual manner or to
dive deep into one’s existential struggles. Some even used it for
obscure reasons like the one artist who portrayed himself after taking
different drugs. Don’t try that one at home!
Nowadays, the self portrait genre has
gone beyond its usage in the artistic realm into the world of social
media, giving birth to the Oxford dictionary word of 2013: the selfie!
As I type this, however, I can see it has not made it into my text
editor’s spelling dictionary, well, not yet, because the selfie is
everywhere. Social photography sites like Instagram have pushed this
phenomenon to the next level. Everyone takes selfies, including the
royal family and the president. We even have a selfie of a passenger
after being evacuated from a plane that crashed into the ocean.
So why is everyone into the selfie
craze? There is actually some interesting scientific research that
looked at this. One of the things they concluded was that “the very
raison d’être of a selfie is to be shared in social media, it is not
made for the maker’s own personal consumption and contemplation.” The
selfie is not really about the art of photography. A lot of them
actually are very poorly executed, but it is mostly about sharing
something with the world. “I was there in that interesting time and
place,” “I did that crazy thing,” “I was with such and such important
person,” and “I want all my friends to know right now.”
The selfie puts us on public record at
the right time and place. It is not concerned with who the person really
is but with the external self-promotion of our idealized self. We want
everyone to instantly recognize that we are indeed beautiful and
interesting, we have lots of friends who like us. The selfie is a joint
creation of our need to re-define our personal image and the social
media that provides the means for its distribution to our circles. Don’t
misunderstand me. Social media is great. I use it daily as a way to
stay in touch with my congregation, with my family and lifetime friends.
Misused or abused, it tends, however, to replace for many a missing
real social life and becomes a way to “sell” ourselves to the world.
Through the selfie, we offer a timely proof for our claims of
self-re-construct.
The Fathers of the Church teach about
the existence of both image and likeness in every person. The image is
given, we are all made in the image of God, but we are called to work on
the likeness, to fill the image with substance. An image that is void
of likeness is like a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1Corinthians
13:1) that makes a loud sound that one can hear far away, but it is void
of meaning. Our lives can only become full of meaning if they are
filled with Christ, the Word and Logos of God.
Being so worried about our external
appearance or perfect social belonging, we tend to forget about the
inner person, the unseen and true self. We can hide from the world
behind a carefully crafted selfie, but we can’t fool God, “for nothing
is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that
shall not be known and come abroad.” (Luke 8:17)
In a recent visit to Mount Athos, I
realized that in the monasteries, there were no mirrors. This underlines
that all that matters is not how we see our selves reflected in a
mirror, or in the opinion of others. What is important is how we are in
the eyes of God. Orthodox icons are a good place to start for
understanding this. In them we see a reversed perspective suggesting
that the icons are indeed how God sees the world, not how we see God. He
looks at each of us, sinners as we are, and He chooses to see us as
icons, potential saints.
This is the best selfie we can work on,
achieving the likeness of God, trying to be every day near Christ,
associating ourselves with his social circle, the Church, until, like
the Holy Apostle Paul, we can say: “I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Fr. Vasile Tudora
Sources: myocn.net/selfie
Pemptousia.com
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