Dear ones,
I’m not particularly interested in making declarative statements about social media, but by way of anecdote, being off of Instagram since July 1st* has been very good for me. I have spent the days of this month in deep focus on book writing, book-related reading, and unfortunately a number of doctor’s appointments. Anytime I had downtime with my phone (in many waiting rooms), I opened the Substack app to read all thoughtful, funny, smart writers I’ve come to love on here. It’s been great. Still, there’s enough I find beneficial about Instagram that I plan to return in August with a bit more commitment to playing the game of it as a tool for growing my audience (I really wasn’t playing the game before).**
The best thing the break has given me, though, is space. People who take breaks or leave social media often talk about this, the spaciousness, how your brain has room to think of things other than what you’re scrolling. This feels really true for me because I’ve had these thoughts lately that feel like they came from somewhere deep, like a corner in your living room where a lodged couch sat, until one day you move it to vacuum and there’s that book you loved so much that you thought was gone forever.
One example of a thought that was like an old, beloved lost book is that I’ve decided with some certainty that I’m going to take a screenwriting class. As most of you know, movies and television shows are a big part of my life — as a fan, as someone whose family love-language is dissecting them together, as someone who technically has a PhD in the critical studies of them. To be even clearer: I unironically enjoy the Nicole Kidman commercial about the magic of the movies.
Being in a writer’s room or writing my own screenplay has been a dream that’s been building snowball-like for about six years (about the time I realized academia was not going to give me the life security I had so desperately hoped for.) Speaking of midlife crises, I’ve really been letting myself envision possible chapters of adventure I have ahead, and why couldn’t that include a brief stint in LA? Or perhaps a slightly more ethical route of making an indie right here in Ohio. (Admittedly, I always hoped my memoir would get optioned, but I did negative work to make that happen, so of course it didn’t happen. Maybe still someday though!)
I feel both excited and guilty about this growing desire, partly because a number of my friends who are also taking up new skills are pivoting to fields far more practical than writing class — I have one friend who is completing an accelerated EMT program, another starting nursing school. I am so fuckin’ inspired by them. I also wonder why, with all my radical convictions, I’m not trying to do something more like that.
Because Instagram is not cluttering my brain, I have time to spiral like this: Why am I averse to actually-important fields like medical care? Wait, wait, teaching is really valuable, that’s not useless. But I teach in a *university* and I want to *abolish* universities! But okay, art! Obviously we will all be fed by art in the midst of collapse (see: “will there be singing in the dark times/yes there will be singing about the dark times”; Station 11; workers needing poetry more than bread/needing that their life be a poem, and so on). Also, I actually do have body skills, as a yoga and fitness instructor, and someone’s gonna need to remind people to draw their belly button to their spine to protect their low back when we’re stacking the barricades (or, more likely, working in the communal garden).***
So I go through this back and forth about the value of art and why I’m such a bullshit intellectual with no practical skills in the end times and then I finish the day with a book or a movie or a tv show and I feel, sometimes, the reflection of the human experience so singularly and magnificently that all of that guilt washes away. Of course I dream of storytelling in a time that is, as adrienne maree brown says, “an imagination battle.” Of course I want to keep paying attention. Keep telling about it.
I’ve also been feeling the urge to get back into podcasting, make more zines, and maybe write some fiction. (I’m not saying Instagram totally destroys creativity, but these imaginings all feel more vibrant in my mind since I’ve been off!)
***
I’ve had a lot more mental stimulation and/or delight from smart and joyful things I’ve engaged with and you can find a bunch of those links and reflections below. This week that includes: more on The Bear (with input from some service industry friends), takeaways from a writing workshop I attended, some unpopular opinions about Chappell Roan, and more!
As a reminder, through the end of summer it is only $30 to support my writing and get access to all the paywalled curated roundups and the more vulnerable/personal writings. If you look forward to radical love letters maybe now is the time to say thanks with a paid sub! (As always though, if the cost is prohibitive, just shoot me an email and I”ll comp you, no questions asked.)
I love you, thank you for being here. <3
love & solidarity,
raechel
*I went on the desktop twice to check some things on a health-related account that’s been helpful for the issue I’ve been dealing with, and also opened a link that took me to the app and while I was there I checked a couple messages. Just for transparency.
**This idea kind of makes me want to throw up in my mouth, but not as much as being economically precarious for the rest of my life makes me want to cry! :)
***I also plan to take some medic trainings. And get better at growing food. And I have two friends (Margaret and Binya) who are prepper pros, and I’m ~listening and learning.~
Reading.
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