I got a late start this morning after a party last night, even though it wasn't even a late party. For some reason, I was utterly exhausted afterward. I did have some leftovers of the eggplant and tomato relish and crostini I brought, since there was just too much food, so I may have my own little cocktail party tonight. I haven't had my "office party" yet.
It feels weird today not to have a deadline or any place I have to go or thing I have to do. Maybe that means I'll actually get some work done. I do have to do some laundry, but that can happen while writing.
I saw an ad on TV during the noon news today that really disturbed me. There's this company that does photo sessions with green screen, so you can have pictures of yourself doing all kinds of amazing things that you never actually did. The ad shows people posing on a surfboard in front of a green screen, then the final image of the person riding a wave, or lying on a platform in a weird pose, that in the final image is sliding into a base. That may be taking the virtual fantasy thing too far. Why bother taking any steps to live your fantasy and actually doing something when you can have a photograph faked and pretend you did it? The fact that someone can apparently sustain a business doing this says something sad about our society. The one thing they showed that actually was a fun-looking idea was what appeared to be a family Christmas card photo with the family flying Santa's sleigh. I think I could even deal with pictures inserting yourself into something like Star Wars. But when you're faking photos of yourself doing things that it is possible to actually do instead of doing them, that's getting weird. Why would you want to have a poster-sized picture of yourself surfing if you don't surf? What would you say when people asked you about it? Lie? Is this bringing the things you say about yourself on the Internet into the real world? Is this going to be a tool for people meeting in person their online dating matches? "Oops, I told her I won an Olympic medal. I'd better get a medal ceremony photo done for when she comes to my place." You don't have to do anything to create your fantasy life other than show up in the right outfit at the photo studio. That's sad. I wonder if they also Photoshop you into looking like you could possibly do those things you're pretending to do. With this sort of thing, we can just live in our little pods, never getting off the sofa, and still have souvenirs of the lives we have in our videogames.
They must have taken it literally when the self-help guru said to picture your ideal life and visualize yourself living it. But the point of that is that you then go on to do the things it would take in order to have that life. You don't just fake a picture of yourself having that life, unless maybe you're using it as motivation to encourage yourself to do those things.
I wonder if they can fake a photo of me getting some writing done. That would count, wouldn't it?
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