No one ever sets out to take a bad selfie.*

Which isn’t to say that there are not a metaphorical crap ton of bad selfies clogging the tubes of the Internutz out there. Because there most certainly are. A lot. Of bad — really bad — selfies.

Think about that a minute. People don’t want to look bad. They will take a bad selfie, though. Usually it’s not because they mean to take a bad selfie, only that. . . Well. . . Stuff happens. And it’s usually stinky.

The strange thing is, rather than discretely dispose of a bad selfie, lots of folks will publish it on the Intranutz for everyone to look at.

Even stranger? If you google something like bad selfie and great selfie, you’ll find plenty of the same pics on both lists.

Sometimes, the difference between a good selfie and a bad selfie is all in the perspective. If you’re the person in the selfie, it’s horrifying. If you’re someone else seeing the selfie from far away in space and time, it’s fantastic.

I suppose at this point, some of you are wondering why a blog dedicated to personal storytelling and memoiring is going on and on about selfies. If you’re not, you should be. Go on. Say you are. You are, aren’t you?

Yes, I thought so.

I’m going on and on about selfies because what is a memoir but a written example of the selfie. It’s a snapshot of a time in your life, taken by you and then shown to others. Excepting the fact that you’re not using a camera, it’s exactly the same thing.

Sort of.

In a way.

Approximately.

In a manner of– I think you get the point.

Getting To The Point

And, like a selfie, there’s something important to understand about getting metaphorically naked (See? Told you it was a metaphor.) in front of the mirror and then telling everyone who’ll listen about what you see.

Personal's not the same as important. People just think it is. -- Sir Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

Just because it happens to you, that doesn’t mean it will be important or interesting to anyone else. It’s up to you to not only make that decision, but also make sure that when you trot out your prose version of a selfie, it’s something that people will want to read.

The best way to do that is to make sure that what you write isn’t focused only on the naked parts of yourself you’re exposing to the world, but also shows why other people should be interested in what you’re saying.

Take a look at the selfie I took of me yesterday. There is, as you might expect, a story that goes along with that picture. It’s a sad story, full of head shakes and wonders about how I could have made it to my current age, much less have been able to successfully breed and rear three children.

In The Beginning. . . 

The story starts with my middle son — a recent college graduate — going upstairs and then shrieking, followed by a lot of cursing. None of which really made me look up from my work.

I told you. . . I reared three children — three boys — so I’ve heard a lot of shrieking and cursing and large thumps and loud bangs in the last decade plus. There’s not much that really bothers me any more.

“Holy crap, Dad! There’s a huge snake up here!” is definitely one of those things that will bother me.

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