Blessings and Curses

Or how Patti Smith made me love the internet

Ah the internet: angel and devil; blessing and curse. Like so many, I have a love/hate relationship with being online, and more specifically, with my phone; and more specifically than that, with social media. I can’t count the number of times I’ve imposed a ban on myself, deleted a bunch of apps, and attempted to focus on other things, before crumbling and reinstalling them all a week later, with a half-hearted promise to myself to do better. I try to avoid social media entirely, as it’s like crack for my over-thinking brain, but as things have hotted up with the house sale and my anxiety has increased, I’ve found myself going online more and more. I try to keep it to a few Instagram accounts that inspire me, and I use Facebook to check in on the property groups I follow, but it’s easier said than done to stick to these designated rules, and I often find myself falling down the endless rabbit hole of doom. Even Substack can get its claws into me on occasion, and I’ll burn myself out on reading - despite the content being inspiring. When I’m on social media platforms, I’ll also, inevitably, catch sight of posts from people I know in real life, but because I went through a long phase when I actually didn’t go online, I now seem to have lost the ability to interact with them in the digital space, and instead just lurk around in the background like a weird creep.

Overall, I find that when I stick to the restrictions I place on my social media use, I feel much better: more grounded with less static in my brain. And I find I have more inclination to be curious and read and explore - all of my favourite things. The trouble I find is actually sticking to my rules (which I know are in my best interests), and like a lot of things in my life, I seem to swing between feast and famine. This is hardly headline news - we’re all in the same boat - but a couple of things happened this weekend that really highlighted the blessing/curse polarity of the digital world we live in for me.

On Friday I was delighted to see a Substack post from Patti Smith, on the anniversary of Robert Mapplethorpe’s passing. I love Patti so much - she has been a heroine of mine for years, and Just Kids is probably in my top 5 favourite books of all time. We saw her speak a couple of times when we lived in the States, and these shows are among some of my best memories of that time. Something about knowing that Patti spent so much time in Michigan, and reading about her experiences there in M Train made me connect to that book, in particular, all the more deeply. Her Substack is also one of my favourites, and I especially love her videos. Recently, she treated viewers to a seven-plus strong series of her reading aloud from the children’s book Uncle Wiggly, to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Rabbit. I mean….. it’s pretty special stuff.

I watched the aforementioned video about Robert Mapplethorpe, on the edge of tears the entire time; as she spoke about the importance of the date (March 9th - also the date she met her husband), and then read aloud from Just Kids and her experience in the aftermath of Robert’s death. She’s there: Patti Smith, a legendary artist, musician, and writer; a pioneer, trailblazer, badass, someone I have admired forever, just sitting at the end of her bed, as the New York sirens scream outside, jet-lagged, with her little grey plaits, and her cat on her lap, reading so beautifully about life and death and grief. And at the end, she dispensed some wisdom that winded me, and then wrapped it up as if she was my grandmother, “I’ll be seeing you.” It gave me all the feels. And there is the blessing.

Then, on Sunday, Karl and I were packing up our big bookshelf in the lounge. We were attempting to downsize, and we managed to part ways with maybe a box of books, but it was mainly a very pleasant hour going down memory lane and looking at all the books we’ve acquired over the years. I realised I have so many great books about all sorts of crafts: from knitting and crochet to paper cutting, quilting, and origami I started knitting in my late twenties and did pretty well learning various stitches before I moved on to crochet, but I’ve never managed to graduate from the granny-square blankets that have become my staple. I think my inability to stay focused enough to learn something new directly correlates with the increase in my phone use, which is a depressing thought.

We also discovered that we have an unholy amount of books about herbs and vegetables and flowers and potions. Again, I’ve dabbled in this area a bit in the past few years, but I inevitably turn to blogs on my phone for advice and guidance, rather than mining the treasure trove of knowledge we have on our shelves. As we bemoaned how wonderful the books were and how little we used them, Karl made the excellent point that 10 or 15 years ago, when we were bored, we would have gone to the shelf and picked up a book and actually done something cool, whereas now we just drift aimlessly onto our phones, watching other people do cool things with their lives, all the while the books sit here gathering dust. And here is the curse.

I don’t know what the point of this all is, really, other than me finding it interesting that these two things popped up side by side, showing me the best and the worst of the digital world we live in. I wish I could walk more of a middle path with it all. I don’t want to avoid going online completely, because there is so much gold to be mined, but equally, I’m depressed about how easy it is to slide onto the relentless merry-go-round of scrolling that saps my creativity and curiosity.

For now, I’m telling myself it's enough to notice, and I’m going to see if I can limit my Instagram activity to once a day. Baby steps.

And I’ll just say it again: I love Patti Smith.

“All the things that happen to us, if we step back and let them unfold in front of us, even the saddest memories have their beauty.”