Selfies - The Latest Obsession

     Have you noticed all the people with smart phones taking selfies?  I'm sure you have you may even taken a few of yourself as I have.  What's amazing is that many young people are becoming obsessed with selfies.  We just came back from vacation and we saw a surprising number of people taking selfies many with extendable poles that allow them to get a better photo, I suppose.

     What I found extremely interesting was that people would visit these ancient churches, palaces, monuments or gardens and the 400 year architectural marvel would just become the insignificant background for their selfie.  I know we all take pictures of ourselves to document our travels and celebrations but it seems in today's society it is done to the extreme, most likely because we all have phones with cameras, which makes it easy.

     I guess this is the "me" generation but is that something new?  At first I thought it was but maybe not, think about all these ancient monuments and palaces, what do you see hanging on the wall or pedestal?  Paintings and sculptures of kings, queens and higher echelon of society, well aren't these just selfies of ancient times.  They didn't have smart phones to take pictures  of themselves so they hired an artist or sculpture to do this and there are  many, many paintings and statues so it appears the ancient rulers of our time were also obsessed with selfies just in a different format. The rich were the only ones that could afford this at the time now all of us have that capability.

     Sometimes we learn from the past, and sometimes we just mimic the past.  I'm not so sure mimicking the past in this way is worthwhile.  "Just Saying..."