I’ve decided to unlearn Instagram. It’s been the only way i’ve shared my work over the last ten years, and I haven’t figured out how to go forward yet. But I do know that it’s taken my passion of being an artist away from me. I feel crippled and confused, I just don’t find anything beautiful anymore. It’s robbed me of my imagination, the one thing that kept me going in my own beautiful fantasy since I was a small child. When my life was filled with hardship, I always had my beautiful brain to reach into. It would take me to a beautiful exotic place I’ve never seen before, and then I would search and search just to find a way to get there. That’s what kept me going. In the beginning Instagram was just that, a beautiful far away land you’ve never seen before. And you’d see a glimpse of a distant enormous mountain, a rare bird you never knew existed, a primitive people making their beautiful craft somewhere. And it made you dream. Dream of all the unknown places and people.

But greed is a tale as old as time. It soon took over. The greed for attention. Greed for vanity. Greed for popularity. Greed for more, and more, and more. And now we find ourselves empty and exploited, scrolling to no end and not finding anything beautiful anymore as we unfold a slow decay of our creativity and wonder. As an artist, this is the dilemma of my lifetime. I can’t make art because I can’t find anyting beautiful. And when I sit down and make something, instagram shows me hundreds of people who make it much better. I’ve never had an ego, but any triumph as an artist has been so discouraged, I don’t think Im good at any of my art anymore. I know I’m not the only one. All my talented friends gave up on their art, closed their shops, disappeared. Live some basic existence just barely surviving.

See, the thing is that we were never supposed to see this much. We were never supposed to compare ourselves to the whole world. We were only supposed to be confined to our beautiful small community, town or city. Maybe if you were a famous artist, to your country, but not the world. We were only supposed to compare ourselves to that one pretty girl in high school, or that small group of popular guys, or that one sculptor in art school, or that one family down the street that just got the nicer car, or had an extra bedroom or got to go on vacation to Disneyland. We weren’t supposed to compare ourselves to the socioeconomic class we didn’t grow up in, celebrities, artist across the globe who can survive on a hundredth of our salary, the trust fund kids running cool businesses with such ease, stay at home wives with enough extra money they don’t know what to do with. We were only supposed to see who and what was close to us.

(I used to look out the window and dream)

We weren’t supposed to see that far away national park we’ve always wanted to go to, that we heard about, or seen on a post card, a billion times. We weren’t supposed to see that beautiful painting a billion times. We weren’t supposed to see a billion good looking models eveyday. We weren’t supposed to see peoples fancy lives and vacations a billion times a day. It’s left us confused about our own purpose. It took away our own beautiful imagination. Nothing is rare anymore, nothing is unseen, the beauty and charm has faded. Where are we to look for beauty now? Is there any left?

I don’t want to stop caring, imagining, or giving up on my dreams.But I need people that care with me, so we can lift each other from this lifeless soul-less state we are all sleeping in right now.

THE STRUGGLE OF FINDING BEAUTY

BOHEMIAN BEGINNINGS OF WILD MONDAY