unclouded by the digital haze
on taking a month away from social as an artist and entrepreneur
If you read my previous post, I dove into my obsession with self-excavation and the bit of trouble it’s gotten me into. Think analysis-paralysis. I think we’re all digging for the truth out there, somewhere, hoping it’s still inside all of us. Let this be your reminder that you will never come close to finding it on a social app designed to make us hate ourselves, and one another.
The new age of social media makes it feel nearly impossible to feel and know my truth. Consumption clouds all possibility of thought, and more importantly— boredom— where all relevant things are eventually born. How am I going to develop new perspective when all I’m doing is filling my head with more noise?
There are a million reasons why I “cannot” delete Instagram. I need to make my living as an artist; to share my work, my pieces, showcase for opportunity, cultivate a sense of community. But it’s past those fear points in my mind. I feel as though I’m endlessly sprinting in place, never fully able to pause and correctly train for the long and grueling uphill sections — that ultimately, mean the most in the quality of your performance. (and if you’re even able to keep running, at all…)
I’m depleted long before I ever sit down in front of the canvas. How can I ever develop a stage of deep work if I’m unable to hold my attention with it? How can I push my concepts further if my thought process is inadequate?
So I hold down the little app under my finger until it shakes ferociously with rage, as if to say, don’t do it! wait! you’re about to make a mistake! I don’t believe that’s a coincidental design on apple’s part.
The moment it was gone, I quite literally never thought about it again. Unless of course, it was during that first adjustment week— where we’re laying in bed and my boyfriend is scrolling twitter, or waiting for our order at the restaurant and everyone naturally picks up their phone— you have to almost remind yourself how to hold your body in these moments. It feels awkward. You have nowhere to go as everyone else slowly drifts off, and you don’t know what to do with your hands or your face. I must have opened my gmail app 100 times in those first two days, just out of sheer panic that I was alone in sitting with myself.
Now, I feel more confident than ever about being back in the world. I don’t have to rely on an alternate universe to tether me. I always wondered why social interaction has felt more and more unnatural as I grow older. I actually think it has nothing to do with growing older, and everything to do with relying on my phone to hold me during those silent, transitional moments. I’m out of practice. I need to be back with people and the world.
As a self-employed person with multiple businesses, the words ‘free time’ rarely occur in my vocabulary. The to-do lists quite literally, never end. The first things removed in my life are my simple joys, because I only have the capacity for so much. I lay in bed at night, absolutely fried, outraged and lonely….and soul-crushed by the lack of substance I feel in my daily life. Where are the things I can truly sink my teeth into? The reason I left my structured career to be an artist was to avoid this exact feeling.
In a world where many of our needs are not being met, Energy and Attention can be our greatest form currency. To know that my greatest currency is currently being thrown at Meta, for their benefit— rather than my life’s work, leaves me feeling like the ultimate failure. It’s truly everything that art works to stand against. All it does is promote conformity and devalue the work itself. I’ve tried to see the new platform and it’s algorithm in a positive light, but I’m tired of going against the feeling I know in my body to be true.
I left my teaching career because my currency was unappreciated and depleted. My worth was non-existent, and the system took all joy and passion straight out of me. When I turned back to art in my early 20’s, it was a refuge for all I had been fighting against. A place to dig my hands into without fear of surface-level living. Without my childlike curiosities, the deep, black well inside of me grows wider and deeper; threatening to swallow me hole.
I lay in bed at night, with two successful businesses and wonder, Will it ever be enough for you Sam? What will be enough? And then the well in my chest reminds me, boxing ourselves in feels more like the cage we just fought so incredibly hard to leave.
My attention and energy have been in the wrong place for far too long, and in such a slippery-unconscious-slope. As my business and well-being and art career and life path enmesh with the world of Meta, I look up nearly ten years later and wonder how I could ever untether the cords. Will I survive without it? If I back away slowly to save myself, will everything I’ve ever worked for fall with it?
In the month I’ve been away from Instagram, I’ve realized how valuable my currency truly is. In the time I usually spend scrolling for trending audio, clipping reels, creating content or whatever-else-the-fuck I have to do to stay above water on there— I’m thinking actual thoughts again. I’m dreaming in vivid color and waking to open my notes app to record the new idea for a painting.
I found myself taking pictures of branches on my walk because I noticed the light was hitting them just how I envisioned a painting once, I observe the way the muscles in my friend’s hand grip the glass or the space where the collarbone meets the shoulder— eager to properly portray the liveliness of anatomy back in my studio.
I’ve painted four new pieces and have seven concepts for new larger ones, a goal of 20 new works being set for the end of the year.
I’ve read six books and fallen into stories from all over the world. I’ve started refinishing a new piece of furniture that I found at goodwill for 3 dollars, and began sitting down in the early morning to work on my book again. I look at strangers when they pass me on the street, I look up at the sky or at the birds chirping away on the branches when there’s no one else to smile at.
I’ve began an Auto Immune Protocol diet two weeks ago, to narrow down what my food triggers are. I spend several hours a week cutting, prepping and eating only fresh vegetables and fish. I feel like I’m supporting my body for the first time in a long while. I take two walks a day without the heavy weight of my phone in my pocket, no longer needing a grim reminder of my 24/7 availability and no rest for my nervous system.
My morning pages are being written again, I’m waking and sleeping without an alarm, because I’m not doom scrolling on TikTok until the 3am hour. When a friend sits in front of me, I’m looking at their face the entire time they’re talking, appreciating the little flecks of gold in their eyes or the way their dimples deepen when they laugh. I remember that one day I’ll miss being this young, and I’m glad I’m not scrolling on a page that makes me feel like I’m too old to feel that way. I’ve started learning the history of Tarot and pull a new card for myself each week to remember all I’ve learned and deepen my practice. I’ve been learning the in’s and out’s of homesteading on YouTube while I cook; certain that one day I’ll have 100 acres with goats, cows and sheep; and remember how to till soil and plant potatoes just like my grandmother taught me. I don’t feel this utter panic in my chest in the morning that I haven’t made a reel today yet, that I haven’t caught up on promoting my new work release or haven’t recorded enough of my process while in the studio this week.
I don’t know what this means for the future of Instagram and the life I have built and linked within it. Right now, I’m enjoying not feeling the panic of feeling behind on content creation, on where I am in my life, on needing more and trying to grab more because of it.
I was worried taking a break from social would ruin my business and my life, ultimately making me anxious with the sense of overwhelming loss looming overhead; the idea of shrinking in this life just to preserve a little part of my soul and truth.
In actuality, I feel the opposite of all of that. My life feels bigger, more expansive. I look to the horizon of the ocean as I watch the sunset over Folly, and for the first time in years—- I can visualize my life stretching endlessly in front of me, with no worry of what’s to come. The world holds endless possibilities of new challenges, new perspectives, and ceaseless possibilities to remember your truth. The little screen we’ve become tethered to only hinders the probability of noticing those things.
Remember to put it down. x