This Month’s Seven Per Cent
aka Making a Case for You to Email Me
You’ve caught me pretending to have authority over my own attention.
I’ve diverted most of my time/self away from social media apps. I’m exerting whatever minuscule agency I can.
I am perhaps 93% off instagram, bluesky, substack, and anywhere else that offers a whitewater current of endless scrolling to drown in.
I had a relationship to this place before I was forced to use it for work. This place was in a different geopolitical location before it forced me to use it for work. This place used to not make me compete for the attention of those I might offer a tattoo, who I might offer my spirit to.
This place used to not make me question my own integrity, nor the worthiness of my creative efforts.
Being absent on these apps remind me that there is another different way my brain can work around memory and around relating to the people I love.
When I’m not on here, I remember my friends. I’m not forced to consume the parasocial representations of friends that the app feeds me- the more you post, the more you are remembered, the more you are relevant without us ever building a relationship.
The less I post, the more I learn about who thinks of me when I’m not forced on anyone.
The less I open instagram dot com on my desktop web browser [it’s the most millennial thing I’ve done outside of experiencing real-time 9/11 propaganda and its ramifications], the more I learn about who my mind and heart and spirit choose to tend to.
If you reached out to me on my birthday, thank you. If you called me just because you had free time and were thinking of me, thank you. If you’ve decided to visit from out of town, thank you. If you came over to watch movies, pet Hima, and eat candy, thank you. If you went for a walk with me outside, thank you.
If you’ve heard from me, I probably cherish you. If you haven’t heard from me, honestly, I likely cherish you too but decided I needed to do a dish, read a page, zone out on a video game, or take a step on concrete somewhere. And it doesn’t mean I love you less.
The 93-7 split numbers will fluctuate based on how anxious I get over resource and making my “career” “work”.
I know well that Instagram will never give me basic universal income and the healthcare that we all seemed to think it could [without ever saying so]. Somehow, for those of us that had to rely on instagram for work, instagram became another iteration of the falsehood of the American Dream.
If the split dips below 80-20, then I am probably in a weird place thinking that going into an even weirder place will help me.
In the 7% of my time that I spend browsing instagram via my desktop computer [the app is not on my phone], I will open the reels you send me that made you laugh and thought would make me laugh too. I can’t promise to finish watching them, [and I cant promise I will laugh], but it will remind me that you’re thinking of me and I’ll think of you back.
In that 7%, I’ll see your newest creative project or your fundraiser, and I’ll text you about it or Venmo you about it when I remember again.
If you want to talk to me on the computer or on your phone, you can email me.
I’ll email you back as a delightful alternative. There’s something about the ugly portal of Mail, Outlook, and Gmail that makes that email worth the actual substance of the message, and not some-flashy-something-else.
For the small price of sharing how your fall season went, how you’re summiting an emotional mountain, or telling me about what food spot you hit up this week, I will exchange you more of my attention. I’ll give you the validation of knowing that you’ll be in my thoughts when I shower or do whatever mundane, non instagram activity I am doing. I’ll give you the validation of knowing that your message gives me satisfaction too.
My response will be slow. [Expect a response no sooner than 2.5 business weeks from your original inquiry.]
What you shared with me will ferment in my mind [and I love fermented things]. It will remind me of a thing I wanted to share back with you. When I remember to respond, I will tell you about the things that reminded me of you and you’ll know how important to me you are.
If I forget to email you back, forgive me my shortcomings as I forgive those whose shortcomings trespass against me too.
