The Opposite of A Sales Funnel
deleting instagram, substack is next
I just did it a few minutes ago, ceremony style with candles and incense. I’ve been off instagram, as in I have not logged in or looked at it since Summer Solstice 2024. I went back today because recently I watched Zuck’s video on getting rid of fact checking and remembered all my shit is on there and it feels so nasty I had to completely delete it. (Watching Nathan Macintosh’s hatred of big tech is a cathartic hobby of mine lately.)
[[[Please please understand that this is my personal journey and I probably in a parallel universe where I stayed on ig for all the reasons as so many of us do. This is not a post where I am saying anyone else should get off ig. It’s the content of my life right now, this moment, this is what I am doing, so I share it, because I want to be in conversation with you about how we are finding our goddamn way in all this hell. We need all the people doing all the ways.]]]]
Perhaps it’s an act of agency, however tiny, to say, I will not be here, not in this particular hellscape. I’m concurrently amidst all the other hellscapes, but not that one. And I am missing out on plenty of world events, friend events, I don’t know about so many things that are happening.
In fact as I logged on to delete today I saw a beautiful video by the bright light that is Dean Spade, talking about how we need to see people, we need to hear horrible news with other people. So glad to think of all the people on ig watching that video right now.
I felt really sad and so deeply relieved to delete it, such a weird thing where so many moments of processing and sharing ideas and feelings has happened there for me for the last 8 years or so…. lots of beautiful connections and cultivating of soulfulness with others, etc etc. And the grossness (and terror) of the intrusion that zuck etc have had on such intimate communications. It’s a complex set of feelings I could unpack for way too long. For now I’ll just say, ugh. Nasty. I gotta get out of here. Even if I’m sad and feel weird and afraid about it. Even if it feels like I’m deleting a body of work I’ve invested so much time in. (I d-loaded my stuff, btw. And turns out, I’m writing basically the same things I was 8 years ago, if a bit more humbly, a bit more messily, now.)
I’ve been working on (it’s not to be worked on actually) re-tethering myself to my intuition. Like listening for instruction from god, (aka earth) and then just following that instruction without seeing the entire picture in front of me. (See my last post on making borscht the venn diagram between me and god). Often times what happens is, I do get an instruction from god, like for example, deleting instagram. And then my mind goes through all this stuff like, how do we figure it out, plan for all contingencies, see the future, control for all variables. And if I can’t do all of that (which, spoiler alert, I NEVER can) then I don’t act on the instruction. Then I stay in a painful limbo in which the things I do don’t have my wholeheartedness behind them and they aren’t as fruitful or meaningful or alive.
I still don’t know how my business will work without instagram, but I know it wasn’t “working” on many levels with instagram. I don’t have any of it figured out, and that will probably be a constant. I’m learning, however, that the way to reconnect to my intuition is to include faith. Which means, being willing to follow the instruction before I have everything figured out. Being willing to do one thing, and when I do that one thing, it opens up the space for the next thing.
This could also be called the dance between no’s and yes’s. As I repeat every few months here as told to me by my therapist - no is just yes to another question.
Right now the instruction is - it doesn’t matter if there are a million other places in your life which feel equally complex and icky and complicit, etc, you still need to take one small step and delete instagram completely. Let go of the backdoor into a space you think you might need sometime, based on fear. You need to do this without knowing what will come after. You need to know it because your body (aka god aka earth) tells you so clearly that you are a no to this space. This space is not the space where the turtles, moss, and willow leaves live. It’s not even the space where your candles and pasta and bath are. It’s not the space where your friend’s tired shoulders and eyes are. Those are the spaces where you will solve the problems that are yours to solve and no more, no less.
Insist on more. Insist on more for yourself. Insist on more for everyone else. Reach fewer people with your work. Way fewer people. Maybe in the span of an entire life, you could do something truly useful for 2-5 people. Take care of some plants. Make food for those who will let you make food for them. Write your writings, as instructed by god (earth). Buy socks to funnel money to people who need it, who have lost everything (follow the lead of others’ generosity). Sit with your own impotence, become friends with it - it will certainly be with you the rest of this lifetime, on this particular planet - so that your fear can become quiet enough. When it’s quiet enough, you can hear the voice of your intuition (aka earth aka god) telling you what is yours to do, the most loving, expansive, soulful, real on-the-ground version of what is yours to do.
Concurrently / holographically, I’m grateful for your reading of this, your willingness to commune with me in this particular way. As far away as we can feel, I am right here. I am another person who is right here, with/in my body, sitting at my desk, not forgetting the oak tree from which my desk was made. I’m grateful for the trees you’re not forgetting, for the socks you are buying which are a yes to the lives of the people who you do not know and love anyway, because this earth (god) made us.
As soon as I can muster up the logistical bandwidth, I’m moving these writings to another platform - which I guess is the way we go now, and we’ll keep going as needed - migrating away from a place that is replicating the worst frenetic parts of social media and toward the places that approximate the opposite of a sales funnel. I just looked up the opposite of funnel and one of the words that came up was entrance. That feels good. I want to offer entrances, to myself and hopefully to you. I’ll be on the internet in the places that support the loving, depthful attention we deserve for and toward each other. (Trying this spot out for a bit, it’s a nice way to build a collection of resources, which is one of my favorite things to do.)
That’s it for now. Thank you for existing over there.
(Also, I do have some spots for astrology readings in February! I’m in a really generative astrology time right now, working on some things for later, (my no to social media is a yes to my astrology mind!) but in the meantime, readings are where it’s at!)
with love,
Sarah