🌀 Escaping the Social Media Bazaar: How Creatives Can Stop Losing Themselves Online
Society’s meeting places narrow our vision — here’s how to find the hidden doorway back to your soul.
Social media is a meeting place for society
And I was naive enough to think that I was immune to its mind moulding effects.
Society is not something you ever realise that you’re really IN until you start to feel its negative effects. Like a bad relationship. Going along in the beginning, you don’t even think about it, but after you hear yourself spitting out that half baked second hand opinion, you know it’s time to wise up.
I didn’t realise it for years but I was fully submerged in the money making, soul denying, duality confliction machine of society.
“Don’t listen to your intuition — that’s completely irrational!!!!”
“Don’t you know that science and rationality are the only way!”
“Get into debt to prove yourself with a degree!”
“You’re only worthy if you’re in a relationship!!!”
“There’s only one life script to follow!”
We are all in layers deep into this thing. Society has got a firm grip on our minds and it yells all sorts of ridiculous ideas at us. Society – the ‘faceless whole’ – controls where we look as well as it primes the type of attention we will pay to whatever it is we are looking at.
What is Society?
It’s not just a group of people ‘out there’ somewhere in a tall building that make dubious decisions. Society is a layer of our mindset. It’s a representation of those ‘outside’ people ‘inside’ us.
It is a piece of the collective unconscious that all of our friends, parents, teachers and the stranger in the store have about the way in which is best to behave so that social cohesion is kept.
Social cohesion is important.
Humans need humans. Out of that need comes a certain list of rules in order to keep the food on the table and the opportunities rolling in. We couldn’t cut this piece of ourselves out and still have any chance of thriving.
We just are not well equipped to deal with a society so large and inter-connected as that of modern social media — especially not creatives. Society holds things we need but it also gives us a very narrow lens to look through and the artist craves to break free of that.
“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world”
— Stephen R. Covey
The Ancient Path of the Artist
“The function of the artist is to make the invisible visible.”
— Paul Klee
You know, back in ancient times, it was understood that the artist needed to develop under isolated conditions — taken away from normal society. Talent, perspective and wisdom were known to come through an individual through their own deeply private and personal connection to the earth and divine forces.
A place as loud as Instagram or the Bazaar would have been thought of as a distraction to the artist, a place to only go very rarely or have others go in their stead.
So, how can we still be in society but not feel its ill effects?
How does a young artist in the Instagram age find inspiration rather than comparison when they peer into societies meeting places? How can a developing mind not be immediately discouraged by the loud banging and crashing around of this noisy market?
The Bazaar as a Metaphor for Social Media.
Society and all of its meeting places will keep your perspective narrow so that they can cram in as much information to throw out at as large a group of people as possible.
I have a framed image in my house of an old Middle Eastern market place with the sellers lined up down a narrow alleyway to remind me what social media really is.
Everyone jam packed in, each vendor with as much fervour as their neighbour, demanding your attention, selling you their wares.
Bazaar at Constantinople by J. F. Lewis
Take Only What You Need
Think of yourself in this physical space every time you’re scrolling, not knowing what will be thrown at you next. People (with mainly good intentions) there for the purpose of grabbing your attention. It’s overstimulating.
But there are absolute gems to be found here.
You’ll find it by listening to that same voice that directs your hand while you’re painting, editing or writing. It’s what you find interesting but in the deeper sense, i.e. meaningful.
“Interest is a spirit beckoning from the unknown – a spirit calling from outside the “walls” of society. Pursuit of individual interest means hearkening to this spirit’s call”
— Jordan B. Peterson
You may have found this article through the loud banging and crashing of the Instagram algorithm, but the fact that you followed my little trail is a rare thing.
I’m not a loud person. In fact, my wounds of not being heard make spaces like this rather triggering for me. I’m there, but I would rather you just come through into the back room where it’s much quieter and we can have a good conversation one on one.
The Hall of Mirrors
“The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.”
— William Makepeace Thackeray
The symbolic layer above this metaphor of the marketplace is that social media and society are a narrow hall of mirrors, reflecting your own confusion, messy thoughts, doubtful directions, back at you.
But there is always a partially hidden doorway out into the wider landscape, the wider perspective where creativity abounds.
Wild Poppies, near Argenteuil by Claude Monet
Some may find the buzzing of the marketplace exciting.
They may relish the bellydancers — or relish being the bellydancer — taking the attention of the alleyway for a minute or two. Eventually it gets boring. The soul craves something more substantial. The ego’s desire for more, more, more finally loses any credibility when none of its wares or attention produce true satisfaction.
“Ego says, “Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace.”
Spirit says, “Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.”
― Marianne Williamson
Our soul that is connected to deeper desire and meaning within us directs us out through the hidden doorway into the wide open field where we can sit down, take a breath, look up at the clouds and daydream.
Take the Hidden Doorway
If you have been called to create, to deeply explore creativity — go to the Bazaar as rarely as possible. Find what you need and go through that hidden doorway where you can exit into the wide open fields where you will find true connection and creativity.