Instagram, Oatmeal, & Absurdity: My Transformation fron Cynicism to Gratitude

I’ll admit it, when it comes to social media I’m more than a little bit cynical. In fact when it comes to most things I’m more than a little bit cynical. When I heard about instagram I thought it was trivial and a bit narcissistic. My impression was that there were thousands of people out there taking pictures of their food or themselves, and that they thought there was nothing in the world more important than what they were consuming or what they looked like. I thought what an absurd world we live in where we spend our time looking at other people’s food or lives constantly through our phones.
Rather than sit on the sidelines and watch the absurdity I thought I could become a part of it. I wanted to prove how absurd the whole concept of instagram was by gaining as many followers as possible with the dullest possible topic. I decided to consistently document what could arguably be the least interesting and most monotonous part of my day. A bowl of oatmeal. A plain bowl of brown oats is not the most interesting subject in the world to photograph, but I was determined to gain an audience.
Every day I would photograph my oatmeal, add a caption, and like some pictures of oats. Slowly I began gaining popularity. People began liking (hearting?), following and anticipating my morning bowl of plain oatmeal. But gradually through this routine I began to change. I began to look at my oatmeal artistically. Having to pause and look at my meal, instead of scarfing it down without a second thought, actually led me to enjoy eating it more. I appreciated the warm meal I had. I suddenly was surrounded by a group of people who were actually excited about oatmeal, and it started making me more excited about it. Although I’m kind of a negative person in reality, I was aboundingly positive in all my instagram posts. The online persona began to influence the reality. I grew more positive, thankful, and excited for the little, mundane, the ordinary, and the consistent things in my life. And I realized a secret, that all an ordinary thing needs to become something extraordinary is to be appreciated, to be enjoyed, to be delighted in.
What had began as an act of cynicism had become an exercise of gratitude. I had originally thought it absurdly indulgent that people people would delight and document their meals. I then realized life is much better when we delight in even the most trivial or mundane aspects of our lives, because life and everything in it is a gift.

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“Work Hard and Be Nice”

I’ve been sitting here listening to music from Andytown’s blog trying to think of something to write about. Recently I’ve written several blogs, but I decided to delete them because I realized they were too pretentious or cynical. And I don’t want the blog to merely devolve into my complaints or ego support. Lately I’ve been trying really hard to be less cynical. Cynicism comes naturally to most people who think critically and have a little bit of pessimism. I definitely have both, the end result being that I am cynical far too often. And to be honest I was just fine with that, until the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien ended. I like Conando, he has an amazing sense of humor, he was a writer for the Simpsons when the Simpsons was at its peak, and he was also an excellent tv show host. His humor poked fun of himself, he treated people with respect, and he truly enjoyed what he was doing. When his stint as the tonight show was tragically cut short, he handled the situation with class (his letter addressing the situation). Personally I thought the last few episodes of the show were among his best. In the end of his show he advised his audience to avoid cynicism saying it was unattractive and leads nowhere. To be honest this caught me off guard and convicted me. Here’s a guy who has just lost his job and position with a company with whom he has been working for 20 years, because of the incompetence of his superiors. If anyone has a right to be cynical, it’s him. I was cynical about the whole Conan fiasco and I’m pretty sure it affected him a lot more than me. So, because it came from an unexpected source at an unexpected time, this plea has encouraged me to quit being a cynic. The second piece of advice given by Conando was to “work hard and be nice.” I’m good at half or this. I’m working on the other half. So now I would just like to say thank you to Conan for putting on a great show, and for motivating one cynic to “work hard and be nice.” If you haven’t seen it watch Conan’s last show it was truly amazing show featuring Neil Diamond, Tom Hanks, and Steve Carrel. It also had an amazing performance at the end with Beck, Elvis Costello, a guy from ZZ Top and Conan himself, which was unfortunately tainted by patently unfunny performance by Will Ferrell (if you’re bringing out such excellent musicians why ruin it with Will singing?). Where ever Conan ends up I’m sure he will continue to entertain and inspire.

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