Late-April and May life. Working from home, more neighbourhood walks and noticing more nature. Dinosaurs 24/7 when kiddo is here. Getting my first shot of the vaccine! Doing a puzzle all by myself!
So back in late April I followed an urge to take another Instagram break. (Here is my last one from last fall.)
And as a result I’ve decided to stay off the app in general, except for one day a month - on the 22nd.
It is not a deactivation or a detox but instead a deceleration. “A reduction in speed or rate.” A slowwwwww down.
Instagram has given me so much, over the years since I started using it in … 2015? I can’t remember exactly when it was, but it has been a while, and I have shared so so much on there. I have made dear friends, and learned so much about queerness and BIPOC and climate issues, art and writing and local places. It is HARD to imagine not being on it daily, not interacting with my audience and not in turn being someone’s audience.
BUT.
And yet. And still.
I do not like what it does to my mind, to my creative spirit. I do not like it at all. The feeling of FOMO, of needing to check in at least once in a 24-hour period lest I miss a good Story. The feeling of daily considering what I will post. It sucks up my creative juices.
And I am in a busy, squeezed season of life, mothering a 3 year old, working full time, weathering a pandemic. I am yearning to write, to make art, to have TIME. To find time in the cracks and the spaces between “all the other things”.
I couldn’t really put it into words, it was moreso just a feeling that I was following, until I recently listened to this podcast episode: “Leaving Social Media and Returning to Center”.
In it, at one point, the guest, Marlee, says:
Really not thinking about other people's opinions has really been my favorite part. You open Instagram and you just look at so many people's thoughts every day! And I really don't like that. That's the thing I don't think I realized I was doing. Until now when I wake up and I'm like, "I'm only thinking my own thoughts! That's so cool." And then if I wanna like listen to a podcast of somebody else's thoughts, I can do that, if I wanna read an article, with somebody else's thoughts - I can just CHOOSE more of what I'm consuming. You're not really making deliberate choices, you don't really know what's going to pop up in your feed, that's scary. Like I don't wanna ever have that again. So I'm already like, 'what will it be like when I return?" I don’t think I ever wanna see the feed again, but I think I wanna know what people are up to. I don't know. There’s a lot that I don't know still.
And then Mara, the host, says:
Well and it's so interesting from a creative and creation perspective, because I think something that certainly catches me up, and you know I hear from other people who are creating art and writing, and creating in different capacities, that all of those people's opinions then take up residence in your head even when you're not on the app. And you start thinking like "oh I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna write this" and then what would Suzie Lou Hoo in Ontario think about that, because I'm thinking about them, because they're a part of my experience through this interface, and how... you know, I went a couple of years ago there was like a whole year of my life where I felt like I couldn't say anything, or write anything, because I was so stuck in that place of thinking about it from every different angle, or considering what you know, 500 people were gonna say about what I had said, and pick it apart, and it just hinders so much of that creativity. Having all of those voices, not just living in the app but living in your body with you.
YES - I thought when I heard this. “Living in your body with you.” I could FEEL that, so palpably. I could relate so much to what Marlee was talking about, too - that feeling of just thinking my own thoughts.
For a long, long time, you know, I thought the answer to being known, to being an influence on other people’s lives, to make a name for myself, was to try and cram it all in. To do it all. To take on everything.
Now I’m at a point where it’s clear the answer is the opposite - to make clear boundaries. To make sure the artist has time to make art, that the writer has time to write. To make sure her energy and inspiration and BODY is clear and free as possible.
So here we go. The 22 Project - checking in once a month to Instagram, and posting here on my blog whenever I feel like it.
Here’s to more creative freedom.
(PS - I do also realize that many businesses, especially of the small, local variety, use Instagram and Facebook and other social media platforms as a marketing method and that it is almost inseparable from their businesses. I know it is not easy to untangle oneself from the cords and strings of social media. I still use it for my day job and am grateful for the people who interact with my employer’s accounts, which I help to manage. I also realize some folks are using it to make space for marginalized voices + stories. And that some people find it invigorating and exciting, not that it depletes them. There is no simple answer for the whole beast, the whole conundrum of social media. Perhaps more thoughts on that to come in a future post!)