Beyond the Curtain

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t take this picture. It was done on a special camera used by our tour guide. Another spoiler alert: this picture is misleading. In person, the Northern Lights did not look even remotely as spectacular as advertised. Instead, they were quite mild, far less colorful, and to the untrained eye could have easily been mistaken for city lights.

Nine-out-of-ten times, the picture doesn’t do justice to the landscape and it’s often impossible to capture what we’re seeing, but this picture not only captures what your eyes can’t see, it also enhances it, makes it better. Granted, everyone’s experience with the Northern Lights is different (could’ve been the location, time of year, etc.) but the night of my viewing, they didn’t quite live up to the expectations.

The same is often true for our online presence. What we post is often just a small glimmer of the lives we’re living, a chance to offer up our best selves, not the ones full of insecurity that we keep safely hidden behind the curtain.

What’s better? Fake it to you make it or being authentic? Doctored or natural? Slightly misleading or brutally honest? I’m not sure. The lines are blurry, but if you want certainty, you’ll spend a lifetime searching far beyond the beauty of the Northern Lights.