by Kathryn Jezer-Morton
“The stories told on social media are all, in one way or another, stories that support … a regime of neoliberal selfhood: a way of accounting for oneself that emphasizes resilience & individuality… Individuals seek to improve their access to opportunities through the demonstration of various types of fitness. In telling stories like this, we disenchant our lives. We suck all the shading & feeling out of our own experiences.”
I’ve been looking for ways to verbalize this for a long time. The myth of self-improvement. Fooling ourselves that we’re getting better all the time, when really we haven’t fundamentally changed one iota since age 4. “Believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip-sliding away” (Paul Simon).
“It felt ironic to be looking for a redemptive chord on which to conclude a book all about the limitations of telling one’s life story as a series of victories.” To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, “Life is not a victory march.”
Tytania 