It is not you it's me
Reflections On a Content Detox
I have not written this for anything or anyone in particular. Or rather I have written this for myself. In approaching social media (especially Instagram) again after a hiatus of about three weeks I realised I was really struggling to put everything in one post. So I've decided to adapt the journal I've kept during this period and publish it. For anyone interested in the long version.
13th April 2023 — Lisbon 9 am
Today is going to be a full day and I already feel overstimulated.
I am late and I am mad at myself for not organising this better, for leaving everything I need at the studio, and, ultimately, for just being always late — with my own schedule and then everything else.
I try to get an Uber but Lisbon is not working with me today. Ok. I tell myself it is obviously not about me, and especially not against me. I just have to accept that I am going to be late. I text my mentor to tell her that, cancel my Uber that got stuck in the Lisbon madness, and walk toward the bus stop.
Finally on the bus, I can relax for 15 minutes. I hold my phone cracked on both sides in front of me and for the 20th time this morning I scroll the screens all the way to the last and open IT.
Yet I can feel, somewhere between my stomach and my throat, that I am tired of this. So, as sometimes happens when one really had enough of the old way, I simply take a different turn. I say to myself "what if” I don’t need to feel small. Today, I actually need to get my shit together and do some work, come up with some ideas.
So fanculo this. I don’t need this. And just like that, I am deleting Instagram from my phone. At least until I figure out a better way of using it, instead of feeling consumed by it.
I instantly wish I could have the same attitude towards other things in my life.
This is, if nothing else, a start.
14th April 2023 — Lisbon 11 am
A day after. I realise that: One. Life is going on about the same. Two. This is "good stuff”… this struggle, these reflections, and I need to ride with this. After weeks of inner silence this, is exactly what I was looking for. So I decide to do the only thing that helps me think. Write it all down. Record and commit to record, which is also helping me think.
And ok, yes, I post about it:
"I’ve finally remembered the importance of silence.
And I deleted Instagram from my phone — again.
I’ve decided I am not going to use it for at least a week, except to post this from my laptop. Not that I usually post a lot, nor I think this is important news for anyone… Yet this sudden decision simply prompted a reflection about my relationship not so much to social media, but to approval, and about my need to consume content to quiet my internal chatter … until it gets too quiet in here.
So it just seemed worth writing about, and recording, that’s all.
Looking back at how I got here: these last two months have been intense. I watched myself falling again into procrastination, obsessive thoughts — about all the things that have made my day to day intense. In the evening, exhausted by my own internal chatter, I watched myself scrolling before, or sometimes whilst watching silly tv shows. Until I drop unconscious on the sofa and finally crawl to bed really late only to discover my brain has switched on again… It’s 4am.
When I am like this I stop writing, I stop reading. My mind gets clattered.
So here’s a simple (renewed) commitment: to take one different decision, and then one by one the necessary steps to being present. Remember the importance of silence.
16th April 2023 — Lisbon 10 am
I am noticing when I pick up my phone, check my emails, my messages and then scroll all the way to the 5th screen where IT used to be – and pity myself for a minute.
When I really think back, I have to admit that lately IT has been more about being bored and wanting to check on things, rather than looking for connection. The way I’ve consumed IT, has been passive. Few likes, a few comments, just a couple of stories to say “I am here, I am also doing things, I am still an artist”. As if the confirmation of being one would come from a place like this.
The list of things I want to post has gotten longer each week but then I ended up not posting anything and just mindlessly scrolling and watching, switching from one profile to another to find content. And I realise now that what I was looking for really was something "familiar", something that feels like THEY get me, or rather I get them, I get “what art is”, I am part of this.
I have been looking for permission.
When the likes and comments felt like becoming less and less — or maybe I just got numbed to them, the dissatisfaction it left me with has made the cost of the whole game evident: a waste of energies and time, a constant comparison game that just makes me feel smaller rather than inspires me. Ultimately IT all not only takes an enormous amount of my day to day away from the things I could do that are actually inspiring, but IT also clutters my head with repetition, pollutes my visual daily intake with things that I haven’t chosen, makes the average familiar and therefore IT elevates it to some kind of authoritative “example” of successful.
More than this, it makes the otherwise fertile ground of my mind bear. It takes sunlight and water from the plant of my own creativity. It numbs my mind in a way that actually makes way for more obsessive thoughts and more anxiety, because I don’t have time to process anything, or to take time to discuss things with myself. On some level this is what I wanted right? But the reality of it reminds me that it is just not.
Of course IT is also a great way of getting to know fellow artists … but if there is not a more in depth work of research, they just get lost in the ocean of redundant imagery repeated and copied and replicated over and over, until it becomes yours, even if you did not ask for its property.
17th April 2023 — Lisbon 9 am
The temptation is still strong. Rather than a temptation is a reflex. I find it still unclear what the reflex is about, is there a trigger?
I could not say whether it is just approval. I feel it has become part of my obsessive need for assessment. It is almost as if I am checking what’s going on.
About 10 hours reclaimed from scrolling.
18th April 2023 — Lisbon 6.30am
Last night it would have been quite easy to slip into binge watching. I was upset and worried. Yet I know this kind of behaviour does not help me, and seems comforting right then but in the end it makes me feel tired and disappointed at myself and again it clutters my head.
I am not saying all my content intake needs to be 100% Russian cinema and philosophy readings, I just mean why don't I just do the things that I like and that also make me feel actually relaxed? So I read. I’ve finally started that book by Patti Smith that I have been carrying around for weeks, "The Year of the Monkey".
I liked it. It felt like I was doing something for me. And she writes beautifully. And I just love her.
I also think that there is a quite subtle difference between denial or distortion of reality and taking distance from a situation in order to take care of ourselves. And when we are able to take distance we are also able to reassess agency, to admit that something makes us suffer without feeling like we have no other choice, without falling into the victim pit.
All I am saying is that having made the decision to reclaim my time at the expense of IT, has made it easier — or rather clearer — where else I need to reclaim my time and my energies.
Yesterday whilst having lunch with a friend, she diverted an invective of mine (against the government in Italy and fear of a possible turn to make abortion illegal). She simply made me aware she was being careful as to what she listens and pays attention to. Yet for a second I felt told off. I thought, "well this is what is going on with the world, should we just put our head in the sand?!”
Yet it is all the opposite. The best thing we can do to save the world is choosing intentionally where to put our energies. Getting angry with politicians and crying about wars is not really going to help anyone unless it is followed by something more practical. A much more altruistic choice would be putting our mind and time in something that pushes us really towards making better choices so that from that solid place we have a real chance of making good to others.
It takes work to do that. It takes will power and self-awareness. Self-awareness – having not one but two parents living in denial has taught me – is not easy. I would even go so far and say that self-awareness is a radical and revolutionary choice.
19th April 2023 — 8 am
Woke up sleepy but rested. Even if João (my cat) did not want to sleep with me last night I am content with this renewed friendship with myself. It’s funny it all started with taking distance but it turned out to be really about finding closeness, with myself.
I also realised that, despite my natural tendency to be introspective and constantly examine my feelings and actions, I am only now starting to appreciate the ability to carry oneself through a feeling. And how emotional responses that would seem justified or even necessary before, seem now avoidable and simply not preferable.
I still have not reinstalled Instagram on my phone, and still looking for ways to make it more sustainable for me.
I intend to keep it as a tool to discover and connect with people in the creative world and of course as a platform to show my work.
I am also planning on investing more time and resources in my newsletter, my website, and of course my work. I am still in the process of sewing and binding my book which will be available soon for purchase!
These three weeks – two of which I've spent in Venice, my hometown – have felt like quite a long time. Being home always brings me to a certain depth, which brings insights. Although at times it feels like there I am further away from the person I am now here, I recognise I am indeed all these persons.
Being away from Instagram, mindless scrolling and binge watching has helped me greatly to reconnect to myself and my creativity. It's giving me more time and space to listen to my own thoughts, daydream, read and write.