Seeking Chaos in a Curated World

Immersed in a world of carefully curated aesthetics and constant romanticization, it's easy to feel lost. While scrolling through endless feeds, we are captivated by picture-perfect moments, flawless filters, and perfectly staged scenes. In this paradoxical dance of admiration and resentment, the lines between reality and illusion become blurred. In our quest for digital gratification, we often lose sight of who we really are.

Our pursuit of the latter is diminishing now that people's reactions are equated with life's meaning. My point is not another rant about how social media affects our sanity, reality, or beliefs, and it certainly isn't about "iPad Babies." It is, for the most part, a realization.

We’ve started to romanticize ordinary life. Feeds nowadays are filled with reels on reels of how something as simple as buying flowers and cooking a meal is a source of content and inevitably a medium of influence. And as comforting as it sounds, I can’t help but wonder, is it the simplicity of it all that makes it so wonderfully rewarding to watch? Is it an influencer’s way of boosting engagement off simplicity? or is it the absence of pleasure derived from doing something mundane that makes us want to enjoy what we do? After all, how can someone truly enjoy something if they’re too busy capturing it? At times, tranquility calls for something beyond flowers and a leisurely trip to the bookstore, it calls for imperfection and chaos.

There is nothing more gratifying than existing in a messy and uncurated reality. To live outside filtered frames carelessly yet consciously. To be left with our thoughts in a world quieter than the one we scroll through. And as strange as this sounds, these disorderly experiences make the most profound, well-crafted, and filterless memories. It makes life worth living.