Photoshopped

When I was in college (many years ago), I learned how to use Adobe Photoshop (software that let's you edit your photos) the hard way - I took a class. These days, however, anyone can learn the tricks of Photoshop simply by trying it out. In fact, using Photoshop has become so commonplace that we've even turned it into an adjective and a verb; for example, a photo that has been distorted or enhanced in any way through any digital means is "photoshopped."  "To photoshop" is to manipulate any photo with any kind of software, the most common being Adobe Photoshop.

It's a fun skill. I can cut out photos of myself and put them next to celebrities. If anyone is missing at a reunion, I can make him appear in all the photographs. Or if I'm really bored, I can make memes or create a thought-provoking new photo to prove a point.

Of course, those are just some of its less useful applications. The program is really great for enhancing pictures. And I'm not just talking about the way photographers use it for adjusting the light or cropping the photos. I'm talking about removing unwanted pimples and sunspots, enhancing color, removing flab, or in the case of one infamous celebrity, creating a thigh gap. And this is what's got me a little worried. The thing is, we only feel the need to edit our photos when we intend to publish them. Otherwise, we wouldn't really care.

And it's not just photos we're photoshopping either. We are, in fact, photoshopping our own lives too. There exist our true selves. There also exists the self that we project to others - the people we love or work with or relate with. And then there is our digital self - the one whose image we hope people will "like" and will "follow." We create pressure on ourselves to make our lives appear more interesting or less ordinary than they actually are.

 With so many selves to keep track of, we might find that we are gradually losing our real self. We are tempted to gloss over the difficult and unpleasant parts of our lives and highlight the good stuff - like those quick edits that videographers and photographers do at weddings and baptisms and parties. In five minutes, they can create a story out several ten second shots or hundreds of photos. The best parts of our lives crammed into a music video or a 140-character tweet or a hashtagged phrase or an instagram photo.

Our digital life makes it seem as though our real life is a series of one fabulous event after another, of crowning achievements, of newsworthy outfits of the day, of overseas trips and witty conversations punctuated by highly exaggerated accounts of small annoyances.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we should pull the plug on our digital lives. I have social media accounts of my own. It's great for keeping in touch with people and for expressing myself. I just think it's good for us to ask questions every once in a while just to keep ourselves in check: Do I post things to make myself look better in front of others? Do I care too much about how others perceive me? Do I uplift others or add negativity? How worthwhile is it to tell the world what I'm feeling right this moment?  Do I relate with someone based on how he treats me or on what I perceive his online personality to be? How close is my online identity to who I really am?

With the limited time we have in this world, maybe we shouldn't really be putting too much effort on photoshopping our digital selves; maybe, what we really should be working on is improving our real selves - becoming better human beings, being more generous and patient, more compassionate and helpful, more genuine and trustworthy - you know, all the things that don't always end up on a Twitter post, or a Facebook feed.

Is death the end?

According to our former Chemistry teacher in Christ the King Mission Seminary in Quezon City, way back in the 1950’s, there are three things that we get for free in this word: noise, pollution (in both water and air), dust. And there are two things that nobody can evade; namely, taxes and death. Our “Pambansang Kamao” Manny Pacquiao is in hot water with the BIR and everyone is aware of what our national leaders have done with the “Kaban ng Bayan,” the depository of the taxes we pay.

All Saints’ Day, November 1, reminds us that after our inevitable death we too will hopefully join the blessed in heaven. Today, November 2, All Souls’ Day, we go to the cemetery in order to pray for the eternal repose of our dear dead ones. Both feasts are on our Christian calendar lest we forget the other thing (beside taxes) that we cannot escape while on earth – death.

Philosophers are divided on the question whether death is the end or the last moment of our life. Corliss Lamont (1902) and Anthony Garrard (1923) give an affirmative answer. According to them, death leads to annihilations. On the other side of the table, Curt John Ducasse (1881-1969) and Peter Thomas Geach (1916) wrote that “death is like a journey or a transition because humans survive the death of their bodies.”

Being a Roman Catholic, I believe in and accept one of the articles in the Apostles’ Creed, “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” It is very difficult to prove this because some drunkard would say, “Tuo man ka nga wala ma’y naka-adto ug walay naka-anhi gikan didto.” Why believe in the next life when nobody from our plane has gone there and nobody has come back? The answer to that question is another article in the Apostles’ Creed that our Lord Jesus Christ “on the third day after He was buried rose from the dead.”

Even some non-Christians accept that there is life after death. Egypt’s pyramids and India’s Taj Majal, among so many works of art, point to man’s belief in the next life. If I remember right, the Roman poet Ovid wrote, “Non omnis moriar, multaque pars  mei vitablit Levitin (a) usqu(e) ego postera…” – I shall not die for part of me will survive death.

As a matter of fact, the arts are man’s means of perpetuating himself – man, who according to a writer whose name I forgot, “is doomed to oblivion.” I was telling my students in Humanities at CNU, the descriptive title of which is “Art Appreciation,” that if you have no artistic talent at all which is not true because you surely can write (Literature), you better get married because your children will perpetuate the memory of you when are no longer in this world.

Perhaps to ease up the inevitability of death, some say the following: 1) “Die today, die tomorrow, same die,” when their physicians tell them to refrain from eating certain foods. 2) “Kaon baboy, patay; dili kaon, patay. Maayo pa kaon, unya patay gihapon.” 3) “Whether we think about it or not, death will come anyway. So why fear it?”

This reminds me of a lecturer who asked the audience: “Who would like to go to heaven?” Everybody raised their hands. The next question was, “Who wants to die?” Nobody raised a hand! If St. Francis of Assisi were in the audience, he would raise his hand because he is known to have considered everything as “brother or sister.” It is recorded that when this “Poverello” (little poor man) was about to die, people at his deathbed heard him murmur, “Welcome, Sister Death, for you open the door to my God and my All!”

A final thought when we visit the cemetery today: If those in their graves or niches could talk to us, they would tell us: “What you are now (so beautiful or handsome), we were; what we are now (rotting, stinking bones or flesh; skulls) you will be.” According to the Book of Wisdom in the Bible, “Remember your last end and you will never sin.” The problem is that while we are in “these mortal coils,” we are so forgetful!