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Nishant, I so appreciate everything you do! Thank you for your posts and your podcasts and especially your art and your generosity in sharing it!

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You're most welcome, Gayle. Thank you for your support!

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Aaah I can really relate to this. I call Instagram the “angel of death” for my art. The minute a thought of likes or follows enters my brain, true creativity flies out the window. And thanks for that bit of Bowie at the end!

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💯

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Nishant, you touched a nerve with this post. I'm in the middle of a deep dive into Panopticon prison design, a concept theorized in the 1780s, originally for prisoners yes, but also conceptualized to effectively manage workers and children. Your post hits the newest version of this old concept, in that the whole buy-in is just that- the buy-in. Now with social media, we've all gone all-in. I'd love to refer to this post in my upcoming piece.

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Absolutely, go ahead, Ric. I'll expand on it further next week too.

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Sep 4, 2023Liked by Nishant Jain

Lots of wisdom in that David Bowie clip. The same truth is expressed in Van Morrison's, "I'm Not Feeling It Anymore." Both artists warn not to wait till you are older to stay true to yourself.

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I think it’s hard enough being your 💯 true self offline, let alone, online.

As human beings, it’s a constant battle to know who we truly are, and to accept that, whatever that is. With social media, it just adds fuel to the fire in that battle.

So, I hear you when you say, you struggle with it every day.

My measure when I write for HopeMail or create content for social media is: “Is this b.s.? Am I b.s.ing myself and others?” When the outside noise is so loud (to conform, be accepted, to pander to the audience, be more than who I am), sometimes, I think I sway from 💯 true to some b.s. mixed in. It’s a regular course correction to answer the question: am I being true to self?

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I have to have my BS-antenna ready when I write. But I have never felt its need when I am drawing. I wonder why the two are so different...

And you are right it really is a regular course correction. As Simone de Beauvoir said, "Morality lies in the painfulness of an indefinite questioning."

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🤔 more thinking follows...

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This is something that’s been on my mind a lot too lately, Nishant. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandfather, who lived his whole life in a small South Carolina town, and I bet he only visited three states in his entire life. He was a car salesman and later an insurance salesman, never went to college, never did anything extraordinary, certainly never anything that would’ve earned him likes on social media. Yet he lived a life rich with friendships, family and a web of connections in that small town, a life that seems more and more well-lived to me as I get older.

At some point, what is “enough” when it comes to social media and what it incentivizes us to do? It’s something I’m becoming more and more aware that I need to be honest with myself about, because this stuff can just swallow us up if we’re not conscious of it. Great post! 👍

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It is crazy to think so much of this is less than 15 years old.

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Great post and indeed learned a new word!! Will try and swing by on Thursday :) thank you!!

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