paying attention what it's worth

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This is an opinion post (as are all of them, because this is a blog). If you don't like it, that's okay. The great thing about opinions is that you don't have to give them a second thought. You don't have to react at all. Isn't it great?

Once upon a time not long ago at all, I love(d) Instagram. A little too much. I kept reaching for my phone even when it wasn't there (this is very embarrassing for me to admit). Any time I did some kind of "cool" activity, I thought about what my caption was going to be the entire time I was doing the thing. Sometimes I would get on Instagram to look up somebody specific, start scrolling, get completely distracted, forget why I was on, close it, then remember, open it up again...and the cycle continued.

I couldn't sit through any leisurely activity anymore without "looking something up" on my phone (IMDB--"What else has this actor been in?" Wikipedia--"What true story is this movie based on?" "Oh this totally reminds me of...." -Check Instagram again). I couldn't sit still, I couldn't wait in a doctor's office or at the mechanic's or anywhere for longer than 5 minutes without my phone. The only "safe" place was church, where I didn't open social media apps, but I still caught myself "scrolling" during any in-between-meetings time, looking at my photos, checking the news, the weather.

I was not paying attention to anything anymore.

When you want to become a writer, the first advice you'll get, whether it's from a published author or your second-grade teacher, is to write down everything. You don't have to know everything--you just have to pay attention. Your job is to observe. The words come later.

The first time I committed to this practice was in 10th grade. My journal was a tattered, purple college-ruled notebook full of playlists, angsty sonnets I wrote about the troubles of being 16 (oh what did I know?), and observations. I still remember one day sitting in the car outside Albertson's while my mom went to get milk; a woman sat in her own car adjacent to mine, and she looked distraught. She wasn't having a good day from what I could tell. No tears, but her eyebrows met in the middle like a half-hearted handshake and her hair was just...everywhere. Not on purpose.

She was also eating Tootsie Rolls at an alarming rate. I started to worry she was going to choke because of how fast she was shoveling them in, like she was on a deadline. I wrote about this in my journal and came up with a list of reasons she might be binging on Tootsie Rolls. The reason didn't really matter--I didn't need to know. It was just something out of the ordinary I happened to notice because I was not looking down at a screen.

Now, you could argue that people-watching, eavesdropping, all of that, is invasive.

Yeah, maybe it is. But I have no idea who that woman was. If I had, I wouldn't have written about her (without changing her name, of course). I didn't take a picture of her and send it to anyone saying "OMG LOOK AT HER WHAT IS SHE DOING." I did not post this hypothetical photo on a garbage-forum so that others could pick it apart and analyze why she was doing the unthinkable--EATING TOOTSIE ROLLS HOW DARE SHE (I am not very successfully alluding to Get Off My Internets, or GOMI, one of the worst websites in the known universe).

I felt a kind of empathy that comes when you take the time to look at a person--instead of judging them or comparing yourself to them, you ask yourself how is she/he like me? And then, instead of How can I be more like him/her, you say, How can I help that person? 

Instagram had/has its benefits: you can feel connected to friends you actually never talk to IRL, you can commiserate over similar day-to-day feelings and experiences with people you might not have before the invention of the internet, you can make your life look more interesting than it really is, you can receive validation for doing things you love. Most of those things, if not all, are good.

But man, every time I scrolled I felt like a robot. I felt zero connection to any of the squares on the screen. I pressed "like" not because I actually felt inspired by the person or the photo, but because I felt like I had to, because the person was my "friend."

Here is the real truth that you don't see on my Instagram account:

• I have virtually zero friends in Logan, save for my husband. On the weekends, we stay home and do laundry and watch movies. When we invite people over, they usually can't/don't come. Shoulder shrug emoji.
• My weight is perfectly healthy, but seeing all of those swimsuit pics on Instagram (which I can't seem to annihilate from my explore page no matter how hard I try), I feel kind of bad about it. 
• I cry at least once a week about what I'm doing with my liiiiiife I can't believe I still don't know
• I want to be a more spiritual person but I am not the best at cultivating this every day.
• I want to be able to speak my mind more often, but I usually keep my mouth shut.
• I get really jealous of everybody's else lives, their book collection, their never-ending travels, their wardrobes, their babies, their huge twitter following, their muscles, their drive, their testimonies, their stage of life, their budgeting skills, their houses, their massive skincare collection...and on and on it goes.

At the end of December, I began to feel these familiar feelings again, feelings of not having "enough," especially time to do what I really loved, which was create. I wasn't creating anything, except some "ideal persona" on the internet. Who was she? Did I really want to be her? 

I didn't. 

So I signed out, I deleted the app, and I got out my notebook again. The cover simply says "Write." All the inspiration I thought had been completely wiped off the face of Planet McKenzie in some plague of self-indulgence came back, and it was like, Oh yeah! I remember this. I remembered what I had to do. The words came back suddenly, like a flash flood, and I realized they hadn't left. They'd just been dammed up, stored up for later, and as soon as I cracked open the dam of distraction, out they came. 

I still love Instagram. And you should know, since deleting it, I have felt more alone than ever. *Universe whispers IRONY very loudly* 

But I'm taking walks again. I'm starting to see things plainly. And best of all, I see people more clearly now. They're just people. They're human, just like me. And humans deserve the kind of attention that comes from really looking at a person--and you can't do that through a screen.