On June 1st, I deleted Instagram from my phone as an experiment, in part because it didn’t feel fun anymore; in part because I wanted to be more aware of what I was consuming; in part because I was feeling ungrounded and overly influenced by what other people were doing; and in part because I just wanted to see what would happen.
Observations and thoughts, in no particular order:
1. For the first two weeks, I compulsively read the news and refreshed my email while my brain tried very hard to replace one screen activity with another. With the help of timers and being really intentional about it, I set my phone down. Conditioning is real.
2. After that initial screen detox period was over, I suddenly felt inspired to start painting with actual paint again –not digitally– for the first time in ten years. I’ve been messing around in a sketchbook, not thinking “what can I use this for?" but instead, just as a practice of being with the process.
Sketchbook stuff. I'm excited to just keep practicing with no agenda. My rules are: do it every day, experiments are good, mistakes are inevitable, the priorities are fun and learning.
Give me all the painting tutorial videos!
3. I’m remembering how peaceful it feels to just keep my eyes on my own paper and make things, without comparing my work to what others are making or saying or doing.
4. I’m wondering how my creative work would be different if I hadn’t spent so many years creating things at the intersection of what I wanted to make and what I knew would do well on social. I now struggle to write long pieces because I’m trained to think in caption-length thoughts, and this freaks me out, both in terms of my own little personal brain and in its broader implications for humanity at large.