Day 014. Breaking the Scroll: 91 Days Off Social Media & Rediscovering Life IRL
A Millennial's Digital Detox Diaries. Entertaining thoughts that wondered in.
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This October, I am writing a daily series (Mondays through Fridays) chronicling my eighth time on an Instagram sabbatical. I’ve welcomed this annual ritual since 2016, but this year, I am doing my longest departure and documenting my daily insights for you.
I can’t promise what each day will bring ;)
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Stay tuned—for a little while—to see what I’ll create.
Access previous editions here.
Today I am offering a few thoughts that wondered around.
The image below felt apt before I take a little break for the weekend ahead.
I am on the move today.
On my flight home, I sat next to an anxious lady.
It’s funny how a person’s energy can radiate, even without a conversation.
She looked at me, wide-eye, eye brows raised sky high, with caution, she looked intently into my eyes; looking through her boxy rimless silver glasses like a spy looking through her binoculars.
Glaring with suspicion. Did I do something wrong? “I think that’s my seat,” I said, as I slowly made my way to my seat.
Carefully maneuvering myself between the narrow gap, with magazines, a book, and my phone in hand; she pulled and cradled her iPad closer to her chest, like a mother caressing her newborn.
She was fidgety the entire flight, her movements sharp and jerky, like a woman guarding herself against a robbery. Am I that scary, I wondered?
She hurriedly ate the meal that was served, eagerly shoving each bite, as if she feared someone will steal a morsel of food.
Without Instagram I find myself looking through old pictures more.
I realise, my brain wants the visual stimulation.
Without the endless scrolling, looking through old images—snapshots of moments I once chose to capture—every swipe becomes a pleasant way to give my brain its visual fix, away from the dopamine, more for the novelty, I reminisce old moments fondly.
I am a woman of the world.
I no longer feel at home when I am ‘home.’
The ‘home’ I return to is my parents home. But it’s a place I neither lived or grew up in. Although it’s always familiar, it’s never been my actual home.
When I am at my home, the place where I spend most nights, in the comforts of my lovely bed, I also know that it’s a for now home, as I am a tenant, and not an owner.
That home is where more of my belongings are. It is the only place that feels most like home. Partly because I’ve made it a home. Filled with my belongings, the small comforts and memorabilia that makes a home, home.
The questions of what makes a home a home lingers.
What is home? Where or when do you feel most at home?
I dream of owning a home.
A home I can grow old in.
A home I can create memories in.
A home to enjoy and to reminice.
A home I can leave my forever things in.
I look forward to growing old with a home. Along with the many creeks, cracks, things and stains that’s bound to join.
I can’t wait for a permanent home.
A home to store a permanent record collection in of old disco vinyls and every Khruangbin release.
I am neither this, neither am I that.
I realise, that my sense of myself has completely changed.
Do you still identify with the country you grew up in? Or do you associate more with the country you live in or have lived in? Or perhaps, you’re most acquainted with the country you were born in?
I am one of those people, those third culture kids, that finds it hard to answer the questions above.
Even more so as I spend more time in my adopted home, where I still struggle to feel at home in.
I no longer identify with my sense of nationalism.
I am no longer a citizen to my ‘home’ country. Neither was I born in that country, I once was a citizen of. Yet neither does it feel authentic to take full ownership of my claim to my adopted country.
I wonder, does identity have to always be tied to a sense of nationalism?
What is identity?
My assumption is, there are more and more people in this world, like me, who find it difficult to identify with a country.
The world is globalized, more and more each year.
More of us live abroad, away from our home cities. Sometimes in multiple cities, and others between two, three or more.
It’s more common to introduce ourselves by our country of origin, but I think that’ll become less and less common as the world unfolds.
There’s a sense of identifying ourselves with the places we were born in or the citizenships we hold.
But what happens when neither of these places quite accurately explains the entirety of who we are anymore?
What if we never truly identified with either?
What will become the new labels for our emerging identities? I wonder.
As to say I am one and not the other, feels like an oversimplification of the layers of myself that’s never easily explainable in a single sentence.
I am sure I am not the only one who feels this.
I came across an old poetry booklet I made when I was a student in school.
Invitational Poem — Living Poetry
Dive into this world of mine,
Feelings, thoughts, dreams
Expressed in this book of life.
Reasons, problems, pain
Is part of me
The young poet,
So come in,
And discover
This endless life.
Memory Poem — Beats of Hoofs
Galloping across the field,
Smiles and laughter,
Expressed on every face,
As I race across the large open space,
With reigns holding tightly onto my palms.
Fresh, clean, air blowing against my face,
Listening to an elegant beat of a trot,
Creating a tune to my ears.
But that is not my story, my story is,
Galloping across the field,
Fear and tears,
Haunting by me,
Crashing noise of loud gallop
Slamming onto the ground,
Dragged across the rough, rocky earth,
Laying silently helpless
Amongst the silent crowd.
As a child, I spent some weekends with my family escaping urban dwellings to ride horses in the cooler climates of the mountains.
An hour away from the capital, amongst lush rows of bright green, tea bushes and trees, we— my cousins, my siblings, and I—all rode wildly, to greet the picturesque and uneven rocky terrains.
Happy to exchange our plastic toys and play dough for the small framed, barely trained, domesticated wild horses that carried us, we trot along gleefully amongst the change of scenery.
Upon sight of the flat stretch of open field—the main destination we’ve been eager to reach—our cheeky grins grow wide, we look at one another swiftly—, then smile, as we signal each other silently to tighten our reigns.
Ready to lose ourselves to the horizon beyond, we tighten our clutch of our horses, lift our heels for a few quick nudges on their flanks, before we gallop across the open inviting expanse, with a dash of fervour that has long awaited release.
I wrote that poem to recount the year I fell. With one leg caught in the stirrup, I was dragged on my head and back across grass, pebbles, and twigs, just meters from the edge of the field—crying, screaming and calling out for safety— freshly marked with bruises and wounds.
Pain Poem — Unseen World
The drop in me, endless
Like the ocean stretching across the earth.
Smiles and laughter,
Stolen away,
As my heart sinks.
Tears draining onto me,
With darkness creeping by my side.
Meaning of breath and life,
Gone, never to be found again.
To read the things I once wrote as a child is always an interesting experience.
In the absence of Instagram and the doom scrolls, I’ve been spending more time entertaining many thoughts.
Mainly, about identity.
Day 013. Breaking the Scroll: 91 Days Off Social Media & Rediscovering Life IRL
If you’re new here or just dropping by, welcome!
Day 012. Breaking the Scroll: 91 Days Off Social Media & Rediscovering Life IRL
If you’re new here or just dropping by, welcome!
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Thank you for spending some of your day with me.