Sketching on Instagram

Since I decamped from social media six months ago, I haven’t really looked back. I’ve sent a couple of Twitter direct messages to people that I only know how to reach that way, but otherwise I’ve been absent from Twitter and Facebook and haven’t missed them at all. It all seems like a strange addiction now. So much pith, so much scrolling, so little satisfaction.

But then I started sketching, and I started to post some of my sketches on Instagram. And now I do it as a regular thing.

I like that, as a side effect of this, I’ve been able to chat, in real life, to a collection of people who follow me on Instagram about what I’m sketching, and how I’m sketching; it’s good feedback and great fun both. I like that other people have started sketching and posting their sketches, following my lead. I like seeing what they come up with.

And I enjoy, I must admit, the rush from the micro-dose of dopamine that comes when someone likes one of my sketches.

So I’ll keep posting, at least for a while; it’s a good summer to micro-dose on dopamine. But I’ll also remember to post sketches here too, because while Instagram is an ephemeral public canvas, this space is mine, and I don’t want to lose these moments to my personal historic record; future me should have a way to remember.