Articles / Glamour / Personal news

Living in the highlight reel

Steven Furtick, a Christian cleric who has publicly condemned homosexuality, has nevertheless come up with a great metaphor to help us understand insecurity.

Building on Furtick’s metaphor, it occurred to me recently that glamour, as described by Virginia Postrel, is the desire to escape from our behind-the-scenes into someone else’s highlight reel.

Headshot

After taking this picture of myself last week, I’m thinking that narcissism is the desire to escape from our behind-the-scenes into our own highlight reel.

2 Comments

  1. Came here while checking footnotes in my book. What a cute picture! You look great.

    On the highlight reel, one thing that didn’t make it into my book is the way people go crazy staging their weddings essentially to that end. I even came across a groom (not Bridezilla) who insisted on having everyone show up and re-enact the wedding when something went wrong with the recording.

  2. Thanks for the compliment! Now I’m thinking maybe I should make a behind-the-scenes post.

    I’m also genuinely pleased that I’m going to have a footnote in your book!

    Although I like having a pretty picture on my site, it makes me sad to see it sometimes, because it’s so far from my normal look. I think I’d feel the same way about a carefully choreographed wedding video. (My actual wedding pictures just look like normal people having a good time.)

    And that of course makes me think about what I’m trying to escape from in my own behind-the-scenes…

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