The Clumsy Interloper

It’s been two months since my last entry on The Clumsy Interloper. The time between posts isn’t notable in the grand march of time, but I felt the absence of activity warranted some explanation. Creativity flared up after my deep-dish dream fizzled which led to a foray into the Artist’s Way. I dove from one distraction to another, frantically cataloguing all my idle time on social media as if each minute was a referendum on my dueling passionate projects. Thoughts, feelings, whims – they all converged and needed to be addressed simultaneously. I wanted to take a creative writing class. I wanted to author a weekly ChatGPT-drawn cartoon panel. I wanted to create a short film in iMovie. Poetry and short stories… I used to love writing those… I wonder if I still have it in me?  My ambitions felt like a whack-a-mole game. These competing ideas jockeying for attention with constant, unceasing momentum forward.

June began and I blinked, closed the laptop, and hid. Now, after 9 weeks, the calm has finally arrived.

A couple things have occurred in the intervening months that are noteworthy. I have deactivated my remaining social media accounts – Instagram and Facebook. It started as a detox, one that I have undertaken before but this time with more intention. I felt a fundamental shift this time much like my journey toward an alcohol-free life. I started to examine social media and the happiness deficit that persisted – the cost of being engaged.

I did a thought experiment where I personified the algorithm that curated my Instagram Reel. He was an impish character that leaned against doorways and had a manic quality that was problematic but oddly appealing. He stayed nearby and weaved a web of amusement when my mind began to wander. He found me in moments of boredom, weakness and solitude and offered gently, as a friend would, a bespoke compendium of merriment. This content, a confluence of all my previous likes and dislikes, was his drug.

With each phone lift, I willingly opened the front door and was greeted by a chest deep current, rushing through me, frothing and churning, carrying me away until my frontal lobe was completely engulfed. The dark arts of social media. Over time, I felt this sway over me wane. I lost my appetite for the joy pellets that arrived with each swipe.

The other obstacle in my journey was the need for virtual feedback. When I was posting about Hawk City Pizza or :::insert New Age Woo-Woo Concept::: I was constantly aware of the metrics. I would post to Instagram and keep my phone screen in sight for the torrent of flickering notifications that would surely follow. If a post “underperformed” I would internalize this and think the topics I write about lack resonance. Only after I stepped away from this toxic dance did I slowly begin to gain perspective. My grasps for validation, specifically about my writing, appeared to shed an unnatural light on this project. Growing a readership online, even with earnest intent, is a nakedly shallow action. Going forward I will simply post to this site, without promotion, for the dozens of people who may or may not come across it. I began this blog 15 months ago as therapy – as a space to put my words – with the hope that one day my daughters, Eva and Sybbie, would happen upon these pages and learn something about their Dad. That’s a muse worth following 😊