What could be more perfect? Did I add the music? Is the music too basic? Is it trendy? Are the photos aesthetic? Could the layout be better?

With every attempt I make at posting stories on Instagram comes a tide of incessant doubts. Stinging paranoia. Dissatisfaction. The pernicious fear of imperfection. Yet there isn’t much of an escape.

With every scroll comes a frenzy of envy and admiration. It isn’t easy to contend with a sixteenth birthday party in the Eiffel Tower or “glassy” skin that screams of utter perfection or being the star of a fashion show or hosting your own charity concert. And so on. It really isn’t easy.

While it’s become a cliche to reiterate social media’s inexorable propagation and clout, I can’t help. I am a product of a generation moulded and shaped by it. We occupy nearly 30% of our lives (not including sleep) absorbing and learning and growing from the slew of content on TikTok or Instagram. My friends speak about avoiding TikTok like they’re recovering from anorexia.

So here I am, on the brink of dispersing a fragment of my world into its fine, visceral tendrils clawing into our lives.

But I’m just so overwhelmed by a flurry of self-doubt. In a 16:9 ratio frame, I upload images of my memories from my trip back to where I was born, Singapore. It’s almost claustrophobic that the beauty of such an experience is condensed into mere pixels. My story on Instagram doesn’t reveal the tranquillity of returning to a home. The ephemeral waves of nostalgia. The evanescence of clinging to friends I haven’t seen in ages. The perfection of a moment.

You can’t see the furnace of the sun that radiates warmth. You can’t see the diaphanous folds of clouds swirling in a pallid blue. You can’t watch the world spin to a halt, sweeping you into the millions of memories that pulsate through a flickering existence. You can’t hear the cacophony of people and sights that conjure a kaleidoscope of colours. A diorama of the life you once had.

Within hardly 6.0 inches, there is nothing that a post reveals. Apart from the glossy sheen of a phone that reflects your own reflection, morphing into pixels of judgment.

What could be more perfect? I ask myself again. Maybe a world where I wouldn’t have to distil and compress a memory into a lie. Maybe a world where the music doesn’t matter, the photos are honest, and the layout isn’t limited by a minuscule screen.

But the moment was real, unlike the one on Instagram. And that’s what makes it flawless. Perfect.