The Art That Comes From All That
At some point recently, I decided something. I don’t remember when exactly this decision got made, it just showed up, clear and quiet: Stop posting and sharing things online that stress you out.
Maybe a way to look at it is that I set a boundary for myself. Maybe many of you have arrived at this place already.
Before this decision, when I would see something on the news or twitter that was tragic or dramatic or unjust or awful or enraging or offensive or heartbreaking or all of the above, I would immediately feel some way, usually stressed, angry, heartbroken, freaked out, overwhelmed, sometimes despondent. And often, before I had fully (or even partially) processed those feelings or checked in with myself about whether this was something I actually wanted or needed to share, or why, I would pay forward all that heightened feeling into other people’s feeds and nervous systems. It felt like doing something.
HELLO, FRIENDS, AHHHH, LOOK AT THIS TERRIBLE THING! IT’S TERRIBLE, ISN’T IT?! HAVE A GREAT DAY!
I would categorize myself as a very online person (although less so now than I have been in the past). Being online and on social media (and just being a caring, sensitive person paying attention to the world) can mean being exposed to and affected by images and stories of violence and cruelty of all kinds and an endless supply of other dispiriting and heart-punching things, over and over, again and again. We know this. And so many of us caring, sensitive, attentive people have experienced those or similar things not only as stories, but as real lived experiences in our actual, offline lives. We know this too.
Social media and how it makes us feel has been a common topic with my clients over the years. We all know, on a bodily level (and a soul level too), that after a certain point it’s not good for us.
We know. We know. We know.
And most of us willingly spend a lot of time there, exposing ourselves to, yes, its charms, but also its harms, which for some of us can jack up our cortisol levels. Being a person of a certain age with a family history of heart attacks and strokes, I increasingly worry for my actual heart. And yours.
So I decided to stop passing the stress along. Most of my social media gang doesn’t require reminders and alerts about what it’s like to be alive right now.
We know. We know. We know.
You don’t need me to be one of a hundred people from a dozen different angles to tell you there was another mass shooting or that another legislative body made it harder to exist in certain bodies or — insert the long list of terrible things you’re keeping tabs on.
We know. We know. We know.
Do I sound like someone who has just learned about the internet? I don’t mean to. And I don’t want to come across as finger-wagging scold about how you should comport yourself online. I’m not the boss of you and that’s not the tone I’m taking here. And I’m not talking about sticking your head in the sand either. But I’m asking, what are we doing here, in our online lives? Which, you know, is our actual life. As Annie Dillard put it, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” I understand the sharing our horror, the screaming into the void, sometimes it feels like all we can do, however hollow an action it may be in the grand scheme of things.
There’s a lot I still like about social media (for me that’s pretty much only Instagram these days) and I want to share and be exposed to what delights and enchants me— colors and shapes and visual dispatches from the natural world, art that makes my eyeballs grateful to be eyeballs and not, say, elbows, and things that crack me up and lots and lots of dog photos. I really want to see your pets and kiddos and art and gardens and hear your music and see how short you accidentally cut your bangs. I want to see photos of that hike you took, of the sunset where you are, I want to hear about that funny (or not funny at all) thing that happened to you. I think it’s important to share the soft and good things too, the hope and wonder, the ridiculous and silly, the sweet and bittersweet of offline life — the art that comes from all of that.
The tone I’m taking here is cheerleader. RAH! RAH! RAH! for the lovely, the fun, the joyful. SIS BOOM BAH for serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. HIP HIP HOORAY for a more regulated nervous system!
Increasingly I (and maybe you) need those things more than ever while we make our way through what can feel like increasingly chaotic chaos. Yes, it’s awful out there, and still plenty amazing, and I (and maybe you) need periodic reminding of that.
Take care of your hearts, friends. Send dog pics!
This originally appeared in my Spring 2023 email newsletter. To get on the list and receive this and other goodies in your inbox from time to time, sign up at the bottom of the home page pamdaghlian.com .