She was eighteen years old when she took her first selfie. She does not remember how she felt exactly. But she remembers it was in her grandma's house in the hills, during then rainy months.
It was in the bathroom, under dim lights, with the chill and gloom from outside seeping in. Probably.

It is hard to say why she has always had this slight feeling of uneasiness, or even guilt, about selfies.
Was it because society made her think that way? Was it because of her upbringing which was a shade more conservative than usual? She didn't know. But a selfie, as alluring and enticing as it was, always
made her feel like a part of her privacy had been slightly violated.

Even talking about it seemed like a taboo to her. She got herself to open up about it to her friends for the first time when she was twnty-five. And she was fully thirty-seven before, in a faraway
land and among strangers, she had the courage to walk into a sex store and buy her first actual
selfie-taker.

So this is what it is. a boulder to drag around. ball and chains. ever dream of returning to childhood? that web of dreams spun by the lies of nostalgia? have you forgotten the pain, the insecurity, the lack of freedom, the tyranny of adults, the suffocation of stone age education?

where do you go now? art? literature? they make it worse. they expose your soul so you can see the maggots eat their way right through to the rotten core of human nature.

politics? social movements? you better shut your ryes tight. or else the ruthless, relentless violence and bigotry of political hubris will wear you down in no time.

there used to be a little imaginary island of detached contemplation, of intellectual meditation  far removed from the mess of human filth. they used to call it natural philosophy. but i can see it being cut into pieces, wrapped into packages and being sold to the highest bidder in the marketplace of global capitalism. where do we go now?