I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.
— Frida Kahlo
One of the reasons I don’t share more on social media is because I have this paralyzing fear of appearing self-absorbed. Millennials are cursed with the reputation of vanity. I say cursed because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: when your generation is given this label, you can’t help but wonder how you come across to other people, which makes you even more preoccupied with yourself.
Being “self-centered” has a negative connotation. But when you break it down into its components, it’s a neutral term, maybe even positive. Why wouldn’t you want to be centered in yourself? We conflate “self-centeredness” with being vain and selfish. Take, for instance, posting selfies or pictures of yourself on social media. Some people post a high ratio of pictures of themselves to pictures not of themselves, and we silently judge them and maybe even look down on them.
I was thinking about this while visiting the Casa Azul in Mexico City last week. It’s Frida Kahlo’s former home and a museum in honor of her life and legacy. Frida painted 66 self-portraits in her lifetime. That’s 1.4 self-portraits per year she lived. You could say she was the ultimate selfie-taker of her day. But no one would accuse her of being vain or selfish.
One could even say that every work of art is a self-portrait. I truly believe that to be an artist, you have to be self-obsessed because you are the lens through which everything is filtered onto the blank canvas. You are the curiosity. The more art you create, the deeper you’re able to look into your own mind.
We blame social media for corroding the mental health of kids and teenagers, but I don’t think it’s as black-and-white as critics make it out to be. Envy comes in different shades. Sometimes you look at someone’s pictures and feel envious and inspired. Other times, you feel envious and shitty about yourself. What makes the difference?
I think to feel inspired, you need to see something as both desirable and attainable. Desire without a sense of achievability makes you envious without an accompanying feeling of excitement or motivation. If I have an overwhelming desire to live like a Kardashian, there’s no way I would feel good scrolling through Kim K’s Instagram because her lifestyle is a pipe dream for most, if not everyone. But when I look at the Instagram account of one of my favorite fantasy authors, I feel a sense of wonder and joy: wonder because her life looks so charming (writing on her couch with her cats asleep at her feet, lounging on her colorful deck in the summertime) and joy because I feel like I could have that in the future or something close to it.
Subject matter does make a difference. When the camera’s focus is on a perfect body or flawless face, you feel bad because that’s not something you can easily change about yourself whereas when the focus is on someone’s outfit or how they’ve decorated their home, you might feel inspired because it’s art, and anyone can create art. It’s much more attainable. In other words, art is in the how, not the what. Art is not a watermelon, it’s the way the watermelon is portrayed. Art is not a body, but the way the body is dressed or the way it moves through space.
Envy is also felt when you think someone achieved something with very little work: it was easy for them, whereas for you or anyone else, it would take an incredible amount of time and effort. So I think the ingredients of negative envy are: desire plus a sense of unattainability or unfairness. The ingredients of positive envy or inspiration are desire plus attainability.
I admire Frida not just for the body of work she produced but the body she inhabited and adorned. She played with her style to hide what could’ve been seen as physical defects: a thinner right leg due to polio, a limp from a traffic accident that resulted in a metal bar piercing her groin. Wearing the big, embroidered blouses and long, ruffled skirts of the women of Tehuantepec, she hid the parts of her body she felt uncomfortable showing. She didn’t allow her imperfections or injuries to define her. Out of these limitations, she created a style that is uniquely hers and would remain iconic more than half a century after her death.
Everyone has something they don’t like about their physical appearance. I have short legs so wearing low-rise jeans or mid-length dresses makes me look even shorter and stubbier. I can wear them anyway and worry about my appearance forever (“does this make me look [fill in the blank]?”) or I can choose to only wear what makes me look and feel good. No matter what our flaws are, with a bit of creativity, we can all curate a look that is uniquely ours. Frida didn’t let her “defects” mar her beauty. She was a painter and a curator of her image both on and off the canvas. And I find that very inspiring.