After a fourteen-month hiatus from Instagram, I returned to the platform a couple weeks ago. I was curious to be in that realm again, after a decent chunk of time becoming clear on my own energy.

I tried deleting it almost immediately. The app said I needed to wait seven days until I could deactivate it again. So, for that week, I teeter-tottered with who I am now, who I used to be, and who I want to become.

While this whole experiment is still fresh, I want to speak to it. I have so many pieces in the queue – on doshas, natal charts, herbs, and their relationships – and I truly want to honor them. I’m genuinely excited to share them. But this feels important, especially with the astrological weather afoot. More on this to close this piece.

As they say, you never step in the same river twice.

Here is what I noticed:

A Plexy Glass Veil Clouding the Present

One of the biggest things I felt creep in, after time away, was how much strategy immediately came back online in my mind. Who might react to a post or story? Who might I engage with? Who might see me and offer me their attention?

It was a game of curation. Branding. Rebranding. Inhibiting. Rebranding again. Choosing what would be public. Choosing what would not.

I hadn’t realized how much bandwidth this took up in my mind – even in the subtlest ways.

For example, I could be watching a beautiful sunset, and the faintest thought would arise: Should I take out my phone and photograph this so I can post it? What song will I use as background noise? Caption? No caption? Who is my audience?

So as I am watching the earth artistically dance its way into night, I am not really, truly, fully there. Which brings me to my next point.

Who is it for?

This one is trickier. And closer to the root of many of the changes that have been unfolding in my life.

When we share our lives online – photos, reels, small blurbs – who is it for?

For a long time, I told myself it was a kind of digital diary. A place to look back and witness the progression of my life. But that wasn’t really true. It’s just what I wanted to be true.

The truth is, I was sharing because I wanted to feel like I belonged. I wanted to feel connected. I wanted to express myself in soundbytes and participate in trends.

I wanted attention from the guy I had a crush on. A subtle form of manipulation – knowing what he liked and shaping myself accordingly.

In getting honest about what all this sharing was really for, I saw how thoroughly I had camouflaged myself. So much so that I wasn’t entirely sure who I was anymore.

My identity had been molded by the desire to be accepted, to be inspiring, to be beautiful. It bred a level of inauthenticity that, in hindsight, makes me ache.

False Gurus

I don’t know if it is just my algorithm, but there seems to be an overwhelming number of ‘wellness experts’ these days. Everyone has their own ‘unique’ method for looking better, feeling better, healing better.

On one hand, it’s a beautiful sign of the times. Health is becoming more autonomous. There is a remembering happening. A spiral. A return to ancient wisdom.

And yet – there is another layer that yields visceral repulsion. It feels illusory. And dangerous.

I’ve often wondered if this reaction is jealousy. Would I love the financial freedom and flexibility of my daily schedule? Fuck yeah.

But the deeper truth is that I can see what is not true. And it is way easier to call bullshit now, especially after stepping away from it.

As that x-ray vision has spent time looking within more and refined its capacity to see deeper + underneath layers, so, too, does it carry that same ability when sharpening focus when gazing elsewhere.

There is also a quiet stress that comes with all of this. With so many techniques – most of them centered on appearance – it starts to feel like you are never doing enough.

It’s just more trends. More consumption. Wrapped in the language of “health”.

The more a person dislikes themself, the more profitable they are.

Illusion

I live in Hawaiʻi. I have for nearly seven years. Many people imagine this place as pure paradise. They coo when I tell them where I live.

And yes – it is unimaginably beautiful.

But there is also deep pain here. That is the law of contrast.

Hawaiʻi is Hawaiʻi because of kanaka maoli. Because of aloha. And many locals have been priced out of their homes through modern-day colonization.

I have always harbored discontent about being here, for occupying a place that belongs to someone else. But I have made peace with this through service. Teaching, farming, volunteering… I do my best to participate, not just consume.

But there is an epidemic of illusion playing out.

Wealthy transplants curate their display of ‘island life’ online. A ‘day in the life’ consists of a $9 matcha and $12 juice, and that’s just before yoga at 9am. It is a life of endless leisure, bronze skin, and forever smiles.

It is excruciating to witness this.

A friend once told me he had to block all of it, for it feels like a slap in the face. The exploitation of his home that is not being understood, respected, or thoughtfully considered.

I am guilty of participating in this illusion as well, especially during the time I tried selling Kangen machines during COVID. (Major cringe.)

But I learned. And I know now that I do not want to contribute to this false narrative. In fact, much the opposite. I want to aid in bridging the gap.

Local living is aloha ʻāina. It is reciprocity. Humility. Being in active relationship with a place as opposed to using it.

Fear

I want to see the data correlating social media with the increase in:

Eating disorders.

Cosmetic surgery.

Fillers.

Botox.

Teeth-whitening.

“Anti-aging” everything.

It is no secret those numbers have exploded.

The fear of aging is an epidemic that has plagued the nation, and it is rooted in the fear of death.

The fear of death is rooted in the fear that one has left this planet without seeing through the desires of the heart.

The fear of not experimenting with one’s deepest desires of the heart is rooted in the fear of what other people will think – if they will be shamed or ostracized.

The fear of failure.

The fear of not being good enough. Why try?

So instead of taking the risk of looking silly, or falling on one’s face and bearing the brunt of a bunch of I told you sos, the soul is silenced. The spirit is hushed. The inner knowing is beaten like a helpless child and threatened to never show its face again with that attitude. That attitude of hope. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare be so naive and idealistic to think you can make this world any better.

So the soul learns that to be quiet is to be safe.

It books appointments for the aforementioned and keeps scrolling.

Distraction / Escape

Yowzah. In that one week of having that app back on my phone, I was shocked by how often I opened it.

Any time I was just a smidge bored (waiting at a red light).

Feeling nonsocial (waiting for a friend at a coffee shop and not wanting to make eye contact with those around me).

Alive with creativity (having a vision of a video compilation + wanting to bring it to form).

Before I knew it, minutes – hours – had gone by.

I had just lived so many lives. I had just come up with a list of so many things I never even knew I wanted to do.

Make paper machete ornaments with dried flower petals? Yes.

Move to a rural town in Portugal where the country will pay me to live there for a few years? Why didn’t I know about this earlier?

Learn more about the Beckham family dispute?

Wait.

Wait a second.

Ah, there it is. The drama. Public statements, comments from ‘close sources’, memes, AI-generated photos, etc. Attracting folks like moths to flame.

It’s all just noise. It’s all just noise.

Without an Instagram account, I’ve learned it’s okay if my life is quiet.

It’s okay if my joy is simple.

It’s okay if I am not receiving hearts + comments for little things I do or happenings in the day.

It’s okay if I am happy, and not a single soul knows.

Zooming Out

Moving from microcosm to macrocosm, we look to the stars to gather insight.

We are reaching a place of completion.

Neptune has been moving through Pisces for fourteen years – a prolonged season of dream, fog, longing, and dissolution. An era of bleeding boundaries, spiritual aesthetics, and illusions that could have proved harmful.

At the end of January, Neptune leaves Pisces for Aries, and around the same time, Saturn – the planet of structure and commitment – does the same.

This is the end of the dream.

The formless is asking to become real. Longings are asking to become embodied experience. Visions are asking to become practices.

In relation to Instagram – which, so ‘coincidentally’ became mainstream in 2013, thirteen years ago – perhaps many will be engaging differently with social media in general.

Perhaps there will be a sobering realization that life is passing by, and a life filled with screen time is not much of a life at all.

Perhaps there will be a returned joy to delayed gratification. Making things with our hands. Tinkering. Engaging in eye contact and smiles. Witnessing pictures in clouds.

This last Sunday was a New Moon in Capricorn. These recent new moons have been happening in very late degrees, so there has been more of an intense, culminating energy surrounding them.

That day, I was in communication with someone very dear to me. Angry. Grieving. I confessed: Why does it seem so easy for some people? I feel so invisible right now.

Part of her response was: Feeling invisible on the path means you are on the right path. Any other path, the visible ones, mean you are on someone else’s.

Despite invisibility from humans, I have felt witnessed by something else. By eliminating distraction, I have deepened my relationship with it.

Though it has neither a name nor a face, it is adamant I keep going. It knows the grief and bliss that have colored each chapter of my life, and it insists I wet my finger to turn the thin, fibrous page, and prepare for what is to be written next.