If you are a Pinterest user, you’re probably aware of how addicting it is to create new boards. A new obsession calls for a new board, so does a desire, an aesthetic and sometimes just the want to save something.
For those unfamiliar with Pinterest, if I had to describe the application in a sentence, it would be “social media without the social pressure.” You can post photos and videos, chat with users and save the said photos and videos in folders called boards — they being either public or private, whatever be your liking.
As I said, once you begin to use it, creating a new board is like starting afresh, opening a new chapter, and just recently I have been making an excessive amount of new boards. Most of the boards I create are usually aesthetics or desires. I’ve come to realize that segregating the photos I come across into different boards makes me feel organized; it makes me feel like I have my life together. For the little time that I am on Pinterest, the reins of my life are in my hands.
Motivated to make my life ‘Pinterest-like,’ I scroll some more, after which I (you guessed it) make a new board, and then shut the app with a buzz flowing through my veins. A buzz to make it big, achieve all that I want, be the ideal version of myself. But then, just like every other motivation video, my zeal sets like the sun, bringing back the darkness of the confusion. Sounds poetic doesn’t it? Yeah, I got it off Pinterest.
From noticing the pattern of my behavior towards creating Pinterest boards, I came to a revelation — the human tendency to achieve the picturesque. We want everything to be perfect; if not perfect, pretty enough to hide the imperfections. Maybe it’s a part of romanticizing life; but who said that romanticizing life meant creating an aesthetic out of it.
Dark academia, light academia, cottage core, chaotic academia, classic academia, the list is ENDLESS.
We find a few pictures hiding behind filters classified under the foresaid aesthetics, and suddenly we want our life to look like that.
It’s totally fine for you to want that, like I said, it’s a human tendency. The problem lies in the need for humans to possess aesthetics instead of simply appreciating them.
If we could draw a line between the picturesque and us, life would be simpler. We would find beauty in every little thing, realizing that everything we do is our own aesthetic. Maybe our days in themselves are a Pinterest board, one for each day. But we’re so busy finding the beauty we saw behind filters, we forget what our lens sees.
So maybe this time I won’t make a Pinterest board because I want my life to look like the aesthetics posted, but because I simply want to appreciate the beauty of what’s posted. Maybe this time I make a Pinterest board, it would not be because it makes me feel like I am in control, but because it is a reminder for me to appreciate how far I’ve gotten.
