A Look on the Lighter Side: The un-curated life is what’s for me

Judy Epstein

Just when you think you’ve heard all the foolishness in the world, along comes someone with more.

This time, it’s an envelope of coupons.  No, not the coupons themselves, I’m used to dealing with those. (They don’t fool me — I throw them right out before they can do me any damage).

It’s the print on the front, promising “highly curated offerings” within.

“Curated”?  Do I run a museum?  Do they?  No, and no — and yet, everyone has become a “curator,” nowadays.

Just the other day, someone was talking on the radio, all about how she had started “curating my Instagram feed.”

“I bet you don’t even know what that is,” said my husband, listening with me.

“Of course I do,” I replied indignantly.  “I’m not an idiot!

Instagram is where everybody posts pictures of their breakfast on the web, for everyone else to see.”

Except no one looks, I wanted to add, because they’re all too busy putting up breakfast photos of their own.

Honestly, what good can possibly come from seeing what someone else ate for breakfast?

Unless you’re their dentist, or their nutritionist?

What will you do with that information?  If it isn’t an ad for a  restaurant I can go to, or an illustration for a recipe I can make — why would I want to see it?

And if you want to make me jealous … well, that’s a lousy thing to want anyway.

What does it take, to be a “curator” of coupons, anyway?

Being a curator used to mean you had acquired a lot of knowledge, about a field, or a culture, or a part of the world.

Now all it means is that you’re a snob.

Maybe there’s somebody sitting at a big desk, somewhere, sorting things into piles:  “Hmm.  Fuzzy sheets for a dorm bed? Nope! Dog food that cats won’t eat? Ixnay.  Men’s underwear that won’t ride up?  Bingo! Another one for the ‘curated’ collection. I sure am glad I went to college for this!”

And you have to wonder, what happens to all the poor coupons that don’t make the cut?

Somewhere, I assume, there’s a giant warehouse for all the rejected coupons…and another, for all the deleted pictures of peoples’ breakfasts.

I can see them now: rows and rows of metal shelving, stretching farther than you can see, with here a kit to “crochet your own toilet seat cover,” there some pictures of runny eggs and burnt toast.  (“Why even take that one, let alone post it?” the curators must be asking each other. “Wait, you have to see this one — it’s breakfast for the goldfish aquarium!”)

As for Facebook — I was going to say, “Don’t get me started,” but it’s too late now!

Expert after expert stresses that the more time people spend looking at Facebook, the more depressed they get.  They think they’re depressed because they aren’t “connected” with friends or family, and so they put even more time into “connecting” …on Facebook … growing sadder than ever, because it’s not the connecting that does the damage, it’s comparing yourself to every one and every thing you see.

At least, that’s what Facebook does to me.

But now I know there’s a fix for that — a “cure,” if you will.

I can “curate” too — and for starters, it means throwing out, or ignoring, or deleting,  anything that anybody else has “curated.”

I’m not very good at throwing out things, as anyone who reads this column or has met me for ten minutes, will know…but by golly, I will throw out anything and everything that somebody else has “curated.”

Unless they are an actual curator, in an actual, existing bricks-and-mortar museum.  And they’d better be “curating” something that goes back a lot longer ago than “look at my gorgeous breakfast.”

Lots of things need “curating,” if you want to get right down to it.

Doesn’t everyone have a few friends who don’t quite “make the grade”?  Relatives, even?  Now, you can “curate” them all right out of your life!

Of course, If you haven’t heard from them lately, perhaps they’ve already “curated” you.

Whatever works!

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