#Blessed or #Boastful
I recently made a new friend. I would see her and her family every afternoon on the beach; they seemed to be on the same schedule as us, and eventually her charming two-year-old befriended us, as he did everyone on the beach. Soon enough, Lona and I were spending afternoons sitting side by side as our children played in the sand by our feet. We talked about all sorts of things, from careers to finding a long-term home. One day, our conversation turned to social media. I told her that I didn’t post very much, and she echoed my sentiment emphatically.
“I don’t post pictures of my life,” she said, gesturing towards the sleeping baby in her arms and her toddler son playing in the waves a few feet away. “I wouldn’t want to attract the Evil Eye.”
A few days later, I asked her to elaborate on her comment about the Evil Eye. As it turns out, it’s a concept that she learned about while studying the Kabbalah. The Evil Eye is the harmful, negative energy that emanates from a person’s gaze when they look enviously upon something or someone. In Lona’s understanding, social media breeds this kind of behavior and it’s not something that she wants to bring into her life. As a matter of fact, she feels as though the Evil Eye has already visited her family; hence her caution with summoning it again.
Lona told me about a time a few years ago when she and her husband were spending most of their time in picturesque Tulum, Mexico, pursuing influencer fame. It was all fun and games, but then her husband’s father died unexpectedly and he had to rush back to Albania. Perhaps there’s no connection between the two, Lona acknowledges, but maybe there is. Either way, she hasn’t used social media very much ever since.
Lona is no newbie to social media. In fact, she was in Silicon Valley during the early 2000’s when companies like Facebook and Twitter were just getting started. From the get-go, she understood that the user was the product. Still, like so many of us, she has been known to get carried away with the possibilities that social media holds.
Lona’s explanation of the Evil Eye makes me think of the last of the Ten Commandments:
You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant,
his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
— Exodus 20:17
While the tenth commandment implores us not to covet, the concept of the Evil Eye in the Talmud presupposes what happens when someone does covet what you have. According to what I’ve read, the Evil Eye also negatively affects the person doing the envious gazing, because judgement and scrutiny is visited upon both the person gazing with envy and the person being gazed upon.
Lona’s connection between social media and the Evil Eye makes sense to me. I have certainly gazed upon other’s lives with envy, and while I hope that I have not caused anyone pain in doing so, I believe that I have wounded myself somehow. You could even say—spiritually.
As I think back to my relationship with social media, I see a big shift over the past few years. For one thing, I went on a year-long social media sabbatical in 2017. Although I went back on social media after that year, my behavior on social media platforms was forever altered.
I used to post daily—photos and updates about travel, feelings, silliness, friends, career, life, etc. I was indiscriminate about what I posted, sharing a full range of emotions with my 1,500 “friends.” When I traveled, I posted albums packed with pictures. When I got an award, I posted about it with all caps and exclamation points.
My posts are not personal anymore. I don’t share news about my life or musings about my feelings. Over the last few years, I have rarely posted pictures to my Facebook—not of my breakfast, my wedding, my baby, my travels. Nada. I’ve been thinking about why that is. Why did I feel comfortable posting 200 pictures of my trip to Costa Rica when I was 25 and now I don’t even feel comfortable posting a mini life update?
Perhaps I felt I could be indiscriminate about what I shared on Facebook because I had nothing to lose. Yes, I traveled a lot in my twenties, but I was doing it solo and on a shoestring. Who was going to envy that? In the last few years, I have become self-conscious about my presence on social media, mainly out of concern about to whom I am revealing myself and my life.
The Talmud goes on to advise that the Evil Eye can be avoided by acting in a modest manner and not flaunting wealth or gifts. “Blessing only rests on that which is hidden from the eye.” In a lot of ways, I think social media bolsters this ethos of blasting out your #blessings to your followers on the daily. Although, to be fair, social media can be used for a lot more than just flexing. Certain corners of social media are about being boastful, while others are about meaningful conversations and social change. Like any tool, it’s all about how you use it…
In the end, Lona left me this message: WHY am I posting what I post. Underneath the superficiality of it, really consider why we feel the desire to post whatever it is. Is there something in particular that we'd like others to think about us? What is it we're seeking?
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