When casual scrolling becomes an outright attack on yourself.
An ordinary day can be such a rollercoaster of emotions. It still surprises me.
After a cup of coffee, I am full of beans (no pun intended). The world feels bright and everything is possible. I am bubbling with ideas, which I share with my partner while pretending to be a dragon, or wolf, or whatever my son’s request is today. I can’t wait to get cracking, with everything. But, it’s summer vacation, so project plans will have to wait. My son leaps on my back for a ride downstairs. Breakfast is a game; the day is full of bounce.
This feeling continues through the morning. And I’m aware of all that is good. I feel grateful. Mid-morning, my son and I get on our bikes and make a fietstochtje through the woods to a café that has trampolines.
“Now you copy me!”
We make up routines of silly jumps and runs – not too complex, it’s no competition. It’s play. Jump, bounce, roll. Then onto other play equipment. I am the train driver, he is the sheep. He is the chef, I am the eater. We take turns being the expert and the amateur, leading and following. It’s a blast, and the air is fresh and warm, and on the way back through the woods we surprise a young deer. It calmly hops into the undergrowth beside the dirt road and turns to watch us. A refined, red-brown face, with fledgling horns. Glorious.
The afternoon begins to turn. Our flow starts to stutter. Running a few errands in a local town involves many stops and starts.
“Come, please keep walking. No, you definitely can’t slide down that bank into the water. No, I’m not buying you that sparkly hairband. No, no, no, you definitely can’t have a chocolate.”
By the time I get home, I’m grateful that it’s late afternoon and I can settle my child in front of a much-loved dragon movie. I tidy up and make dinner. We eat and I put him to bed. It’s lovely-normal. Normal-lovely.
After I emerge from the bedroom, I have a few precious hours before I too must sleep. I can do what I want. The world is my oyster. But it’s a long time since the strength of the morning and I don’t have energy to crack open a sketchbook or a clean word document, let alone shuck an oyster. Instead, I recline on the couch and scroll Instagram.
I feel fine in the beginning. My feed is full of interesting interviews with writers, comedy clips, news, satire and occasional Buddhist wisdom. I scroll and scroll. Then I am struck by a video of a lithe pixie woman dancing with a hoop. But this is not a backyard composition. Behind her, an immense green mountain rises up, and in the foreground are unfamiliar buildings of red stone. I read that it is Chile – rural, mountainous, far from anywhere I have ever been. Then I’m looking at her profile, scrolling through reel after reel of her young body twisting and twirling, around and through and over and under her hoop. Her posts give a backstory. She writes about years of cheerleading training and martial arts. How her super competitive nature was reared and thrived under those disciplines. But now she’s found freedom. Now it’s about expression and flow.
I watch her with admiration. Her skill, her body, her confidence, her exotic locations. She arouses in me that peculiar mix, of envy and inspiration. A voice in my head begins to whisper to me.
‘You like to flow too, don’t you? So why aren’t you practising your skills, instead of watching some girl’s Insta videos?’
I drag myself away from her profile, but I don’t get up and go to my desk.
‘Ag, it’s harmless, it’s fine. I’ll just look at my phone a bit longer and then head to bed.’
So, I make a cup of tea and look at more ‘content’. (What a weird word, cooked up by capitalist chefs and served to us. Bland, neutral, probably ultra-processed.) That’s when I see a post by someone I used to know, whose career has skyrocketed over the last five years. They’ve won prizes, been a visiting professor in New York, published books. We used to be close. Now, not so much.
‘Yeah, and in those five years you’ve … had a child. Worked a bit, it’s true, but let’s be real, you’re basically a failure.’
Failure? I’ve gone from casual scrolling to an outright attack on myself. How the hell did I get here? I feel empty and useless. It takes that much for me to put away my phone. But it’s too late, the voice continues.
‘Well, it’s your fault. You could have used this evening to work on one of your projects. You’re never going to get anywhere if you waste your time like this. You should have –’
And here I have to interject, to get the voice to stop haranguing me. It’s mean and chiding and I don’t like it. It was just an hour of idle screen time, but I’m shocked by how quickly it spiralled.
The next day, I do a bit of research, figuring I am not the only one who has experienced this kind of crazy slide into self-castigation. And, of course, there are many people studying the effects of social media.
They differentiate two kinds of envy – benign and malignant. (Comparisons to that suspicious mole on your suntanned back are apt. Keep an eye on it – a harmless beauty spot can quickly turn ugly.) Benign envy is aspirational. It can be mildly beneficial, helping you to feel into what you desire, and take steps to get there.
Malignant envy, on the other hand, is nasty and hurtful. It produces anger that, in my case, isn’t turned on the object of envy, but on myself. Self-esteem plummets, the achievements of my own life shrivel up until they’re unrecognisable. It’s humiliating.
My envy is mostly success-centred. Sure, I can roll my eyes at the wasp-waist of South Africa’s global singing-doll export, Tyla, even while applauding her fame – but comparing my life and body to international superstars doesn’t really affect me. It’s the people I know, who are doing just better than me, that really get under my skin. And I’m not alone with that either. It’s a verifiable fact, a quirk of our human psychology, that we compare ourselves to those who are similar to us, but just that bit richer, more successful, smarter, more beautiful – whatever button you’ve got to press. Those far ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ than us, on whatever value scale you choose to measure things by, hardly register. But a neighbour with a shinier car, or an old friend with an incredible job in New York. That hurts.
My friend’s success pushes my buttons. I am happy for him, delighted at his achievements and the recognition he deserves. But I really wish it didn’t also leave me feeling like shit. It’s not his fault. Of course not, it has nothing to do with him. But I’m vulnerable to comparison and envy. My very human, ancient, unevolved brain finds it pretty damn difficult to deal with the disjointed flood of images, stories, people and places that I see on Instagram. Some inspire and provoke thought. Others stimulate feelings of fear, anxiety, some kind of reflexive gut twist. I’m not that. I’m not enough. I’m nothing at all, nothing at all.
How to deal with this?
The experts say that gratitude plays a role. Being able to stay in touch with the things that are working in your favour. All that I had been thrilled by, drunk on, most of the day. The lovely, loving life that I have. My capacity to play, care, think and relate. Keep those feelings alive.
And, I should give myself a break. No one ever suggested that summer vacation with a four-year-old would be the ideal time to paint that ambitious painting, or learn to dance with a hula hoop in the mountains of Chile.
But also, it’s time for me to take action. If I really want to get that voice in my head to shut up, then tomorrow night I will sit at my desk, dip my pen into the inkpot, and make some marks. If I’m lucky, I’ll lose myself in flow. And who knows what will result.
Will I share the pics on Instagram? Probably. (Don’t be jealous.)
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