Out of the Bubble

Life off Instagram

I was sipping a Saint Arnold’s beer while talking to a friend, J, at an art show when one of the artists came up and talked to my other friend, C, who was part of the team hosting the art show. It quickly became a conversation about whether they knew any of the other artists here and the small bubble that the art world could be. I didn't have anything to add to this conversation as I had absolutely no idea who any of the artists were, nor did I particularly care to find out, so I just nodded along. It was relaxing to be so far removed from “knowing” who anyone was. It wasn’t until earlier this year when I stepped away from my “influencer” “bookstagram” (Why do these words always sound so silly to type?) page on IG that I started noticing the bubbles we place ourselves in. 

The months without IG have been an unfolding of ideas I decided were true at one point. I realized I didn't have to read anything I didn't want to. I realized I didn't have to care about literary jargon. I was reading Summer by Karl Ove Knausgård a few months ago. It was strange to read him outside of the literary bubble. He is so clearly in the bubble, that reading his work is a bitter taste until you get used to it. He is so deeply entrenched in the literary world, that his entire world is only those in the literary world as well: agents, publishers, other writers or creatives, etc, it translates through his work. He feels so out of touch with the real world. I realized I used to love this type of work when I was in the bubble, and would sneer at others who weren't in this world. A fantasy world it now seems. One with only ideas and thinking, but nothing to ground the thinker. No practical way to apply it to someone’s life. No grit to make it make sense. 

I made my world digital and once I turned it off it didn't exist. When I was online I thought I had community. I realize now that the only thing I did was completely isolate myself from the real world. I felt a little lost without the online presence at first. It has been a re-learning of what matters to me, what art and creation mean to me, and what it means without the burden of an algorithm or “likes.”

It’s strange too, that I am returning to my digital camera to take photos. I will return to film again (when I have money) but there’s a point in my life I always think of when I think of the height of my creativity. It was when I was 20 living in Boston. Hayden was living in the Berklee dorms and I shared an apartment with a couple. My bedroom with the 3 bay windows was my entire world. I would go to my florist job and return with fresh flowers from the day, putting them in some jar I found at Goodwill, taking photos of them as the sun slid in, with my old Canon 30D, the one Hayden gave me at the start of our relationship. There is a photo I took of a book I stole off of Hayden’s bookshelf (later to become one of my coveted books) placed on my little Ikea coffee table with the flowers from my job that I took the T to. For some reason, it’s that photo that ties everything neatly together for me. Everything then was so pure and innocent and true. Content creation was not yet formalized. I was off IG and only sharing my photos on Flickr and WordPress. I was writing and reading, and maybe I was in my own little bubble then too, but I was so alive. My brain wasn’t inundated with thousands of other’s opinions and thoughts. Inspiration swam more easily to me because there wasn’t a clutter of anxiety, of doing something “right”, of gaining attention, of of of—

The other day I took a photo of my book outside, with my digital, simply because I liked the crisp of the light. That’s all. The why of creation has returned to a smaller answer after all these years. It went from small to big, to complicated, to bitter, and back down to small and simple. I have quoted this before but I’ve never been able to forget it, it is an old well-known kōan:

“Before I began to practice, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers. After I began to practice, mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers. Now, I have practiced for some time, and mountains are again mountains and rivers are again rivers.” 

Of course, bubbles always exist. Maybe I am in one now and don’t even realize it. But I was wrapped so tightly in that bubble. Now when someone talks to me about books, I nod vacantly. My eyes gloss over to our surroundings instead of making eye contact. I don’t have a whole lot to say. There are only a few people who I actually enjoy talking about books with, a few who I get to talk about writers in depth but mostly I enjoy talking to readers who are not in the literary bubble. I like hearing about the ease of it, the simplicity of their reading. Wonder replaces knowing. Funny, I used to strive so hard toward knowing, as a fixed state. As a final goal, a trophy to stack on my shelf. But now I long for wonder again, that meandering mist that covers everything, poking and prodding at it, but letting it be too. 

My sister got invited to an influencer event from her TikTok page. She brought me as a plus one. My sister was nervous it would be like those classic “influencer events” where the girls are obnoxious and unkind. I said no way, this is Houston! I was wrong. All the influencers were cliqued off, sipping their rosé or the non-alcoholic drink they were featuring, staring everyone up and down. I recognized some people whose videos I’ve seen pop up on my FYP on TikTok. We ended up talking to one girl who was nice enough. She was a 27-year-old photographer with a 4-year-old living in Galveston. She introduced us to another influencer, who was the classic “mean girl influencer.” She asked us what we did, and I said I was a realtor. “Oh. How did you get in here then??” To which I said I also did some content creation on the side. “What kind of content do you make?” “I do vintage/thrifting and she does books” my sister answered for us. “BOOKS!?” She said in a shock/scoff/wtf tone. Yes, books, I said.  I tried asking her what she does, and all the usual questions one asks to get to know someone. She said everything with a sigh and her eyes averted, eating her cheese and crackers on her plate. I was running out of questions, the air was getting stiff, and it was obvious neither of us cared to continue the conversation. “I’m going to get a drink, I’m parched” were her departing words. I realized how out of the bubble I was, or maybe how much of a bubble these influencers lived in. I couldn’t connect with anyone, other than the workers hosting the event. Everyone was so inside the influencer world, I couldn’t reach them, nothing was tethering them to earth.

For a long time, I forgot how to create without sharing it online or creating for the online world. Lately, I’ve been stumbling on a question: Is it joyous to share or am I being robbed of the thing I love by sharing? It reminds me of the other dance I’ve been doing for a long time: the embrace vs the push away. I am a long-time push-away kind of individual, but I am trying to embrace the things that I want to push away. For example, being vulnerable, letting others see me be vulnerable. The bubble was also a way of protecting myself. Everything was somehow less vulnerable because there was a world of people who understood me. Until I no longer found that to be true. No one can know you fully, that used to bother me, but now it doesn't really. It's sort of nice. But to show the soul is to create art. You must expose yourself to create. And to get better at your craft you must step outside of your bubble. Embrace fear to dissolve yourself from it. 

I went to see Richard Powers talk at the Alley Theatre in Houston the other day with Hayden. Leslie Jamison was interviewing him. I listened to them from the very top row of the freezing theater and thought about the bubbles they were in. What their jobs afforded them, what their grants and awards lent them, and how it all drove them to a bubble. Which isn’t inherently bad. I think the main difference I found between the two was one was chronically online, and the other wasn’t. Leslie asked about hope, and Robert said it was meaning we needed not hope. He felt grounded to me, sturdy in his answers. I felt I could hold his answers, I wasn’t in a bubble observing this. I was here, feet on the theatre steps, arm against Hayden’s for warmth. I was here, not online. Disconnecting makes me feel more connected.  

I am simultaneously inspired and disgusted by online overconsumption. I worry the Substack app will also turn into another bubble. Which is why I try to limit my interaction on the notes tab. Maybe we all feel the same way, and maybe we will always feel the juxtaposition of the things our society creates. I go to bookshops now and stare at all the names I recognize from being online and I wonder how much content is being made by all the releases, and all the discourse happening. I keep browsing and stumble upon books I know nothing of. I bask in their unfamiliarity. I feel seen by their anonymity. I can expand again, outside the limits of the bubble.

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In my quest to find inspiration and return to my roots, I have uploaded my first (or maybe second depending on when you read this) “diaries” video on YouTube. If this interests you check it out here.