Understanding the Difference between Fog and Show

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I loved A Star Is Bored because it depicts life like nonfiction, but fills in the soul of moments as only fiction can. This book is not about Carrie Fisher, but it makes you love her more. It’s not an autobiography, but you love the author. In a world fueled by perpetually refreshed candid Instagram moments, recreated and replaced in seconds by the latest Facebook selfies, we learn it’s what’s behind the images that tells the real story, the truth we carry with us into the quiet moments of solitude and peace when we are free to be ourselves.

This book is about relationships, families, celebrities, coming to terms with how we define ourselves, healing past hurts, moving on, defining personal purpose and passion, making difficult choices, mental health, addiction, humor, modern life, and not being afraid to embrace our authentic self in an often hostile world. It’s about cherishing the people who matter most, and learning to let go enough to celebrate spontaneity and life’s most indelible moments.

One passage stands out to me most particularly, a metaphor in a “world as fiction” where we all become directors and cinematographers of the lives we present as ours in a series of uploaded photos, across multiple social media platforms, “There’s a strange thing about the northern lights. In person, they don’t exactly look like they do in photos. Those dreaded screen savers will have you believe the lights are always crystal clear and sharp, making a smooth zigzag across the sky in green and yellow and blue and purple. But in real life, it’s different. It’s a little more like a haze or a fog. You need the right perspective—through a camera, usually—for it to make sense, for it to fit into the image we’re fed in National Geographic...These mysterious lights, with their various viewpoints, are not unlike human beings, so many different colors and shades of living, all demanding perspective and focus to understand the difference between fog and show, between a movie priestess and a complex woman, what a father is supposed to be versus what a father is, what a life could be versus the life I’m living, the life she’s living.”

This book is a love letter to the self and others. Don’t be afraid to open the envelope.

(Please note the book contains profanity and graphic moments, mature life situations)

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