From Marathon To Park-run

I confess that social media has me firmly in its claws, or is it soft seductive paws? I’m drawn in to clips of hysterical dogs, beautiful people making incredible art, shots of extreme daring feats and the latest ‘must learn’ dance. I’m mesmerized by it all, but I’m also feeling a creeping sense of SME (Social Media Exhaustion).
 
I’m like someone who has inadvertently been signed up for a marathon race. I have arrived late and I’m in the last cohort, in a pen a mile back from the start line.  The race has actually started, but I’m just walking with a great throng of others, with little hope of breaking into a trot for quite a while. I’m ill-equipped for the social media epic challenge that lies ahead. 
I look down at my feet, but there’s no sign of designer footwear and my throat is already dry and wonder, ‘Will I make it?’  And then I realise I don’t even know the route or how long it will take me.
 
We are all drawn to the race (except for the few brave souls who have exited the social media madness), and now we must decide how we will participate; what will we share with the world, what story will we shape and what voice will we use?
 
As an artist I’m drawn to the platform of Instagram, like millions of others. It offers me a delicious abundance of inspirational art 24/7 and there are times, late at night, when I drive my husband mad with the words, “Gosh, just look at this artists work!!”  And this is mingled in with a ton of the usual distractions of hysterical animals and their party tricks - all the stuff we love to linger on.
 
It’s hard not to become binge-consumers with little time to watch a bee dipping in and out of a foxglove, being still, just watching, without having to capture it and upload it to SM in 30 seconds.
 
As an artist I watch my own tightness around social media and wonder where it will lead.  Should I continue to be in this frantic race? How much time should I spend posting, responding and staying connected to followers etc? Do I stay in the race or dip out and regain all those wasted hours?
 
This morning I was reading an article about an up-and-coming exhibition at the RA, featuring the work of artist Milton Avery, the American Abstract Expressionist (1885-1965). He was said to be ‘a quiet man’, who would rather paint than talk and would often go a few days without saying a word. “Why talk when you can paint”, he would say. 
 
He didn’t have to make choices regarding social media, but he did choose how to spend the precious hours of each day of his life.
 
We all need solitude and silence. Are we getting enough? It is in the stillness that we reconnect with ourselves and re-discover what we truly love and hold dear.
 
I’m a natural introvert, but I’m hopelessly addicted to activity. It doesn’t matter what, I just need to feel I’m getting stuff done. But busyness doesn’t nourish my soul. Busyness keeps me disconnected from what gives me joy. Busyness burns up my creative juices, because busyness keeps me in my thinking brain.
 
When my creative right brain wants to explore the desires of my heart, my left-brain rushes in and states, with authority, ‘enough of that nonsense, there isn’t time’.
 
Yet we make time for the trivial and to gaze voyeuristically at others, while we run on fumes and feeling out of control.
 
When I know how to create authentic feelings of joy (in life and art), then I’m back in control. So, I need to know what lights me up, what gives me joy and what redresses my inner balance.
 
In my art practice I know it means staying curious and playful. Keeping my internal thinking focused and being very present to what is going on.
 
But all this goes out the window if I don’t have enough stillness and I refuse to make an investment in solitude, away from the noise and fuzziness of social media. 
 
I’m not ready to quit social media, but I think I’ll shift my image to a park run, not a marathon and be happy to pull off the track for more regular SM health breaks. 
 
David Brooks said, “We’re all drowning in unlimited freedom”. And that’s the truth. We have freedom for endless self-expression, freedom to post every aspect of our lives and every thought we have. And our challenge is to decide how to use that freedom, how to slow down, how to switch off and regain our creative heartbeat without distractions. 
 
And listen to our own inner beauty in the silence and solitude and take time to watch the bees and fall in love with their utter majesty and our place upon this earth.
J x