If you are expressive and creative then the world and the instructions for living in the world are different. If you start a company making caps then be prepared for your social circle to buy caps from other companies and present them to you. If your cap is innovative then they will buy you caps that are not innovative. That’s the rule.

I bake bread and when I say this many institutionalised people will talk at length about a bakery in Subiaco or Mt Lawley or … Paris. At one level it shows a shared connection. At another level it is an attempt to deny what you might be about and a way of minimising your expression.

“You can’t look at the competition and say you’re going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you’re going to do it differently.”

―Steve Jobs

At the same time people will encourage you to become institutionalised. They may minimise your energy, your skills and your achievements by referring to established and institutionalised entities. The final kicker in this process is when they minimise the steps required to become established or institutionalised. They might say something like “Oh, you’re an artist? Are you on instagram? You should be on instagram. Get yourself 200,000 thousand followers just like zzzz”. Often these steps make sense only in retrospect and can no longer be applied as a formula. It’s survivor-ship bias.

As a creative practitioner you are going to express yourself. This much is true.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true

How you do that may change over time and you begin to recognise the energy going into your expression.

I’m going to talk about the impact of instagram on expression from the perspective of a creative and expressive person. I recognise it can be tool for business (as an artist), a source of inspiration (for viewing other people’s stories) and a way to connect and collaborate. Do you really know what instagram is? Your instagram is not “you” – you know that – but what is it? It’s not a mask for the world. That doesn’t seem right. So how would you describe it and what does your use of instagram mean for you as an expressive person? I am not referring to browsing other profiles, I am talking about the relationship you have with your profile.

The following framework may immediately change your relationship to instagram. That’s how powerful frameworks are. One of my most frequent frameworks is to reposition modern life into hunter/gatherer modes of being.

Belly full. You are walking through a forest in a group of five, all single file. Those who can carry food do so. There’s more than enough food for the group. It’s a time of excess. Your party comes across a small child on the path. The child is not yours but it is clear they have been abandoned. Some in the party remark how the child looks a bit like you. It’s a mini me! The child is expressive, cute and does not appear to be distressed. Because you have an excess of resources you take the child into your party.

You are now a party of six. As you travel the child copies your behaviour. They begin to randomly repeat some of the phrases you say. Over time their features change and they become even more like you, although it’s a bit like a dream. When you try to focus on them it’s as if they are in soft focus. Their voice is higher pitched than yours and when they randomly repeat something from you it can sound funny to other people in the party who laugh and offer their excess food to the child. The child accepts the food in a way which makes those people feel better about themselves. You begin to notice the child is getting a lot of the excess food.

As you approach a village the party discuss how to introduce yourselves to the village to avoid conflict. The child offers to go on ahead and prepare the village for your arrival. Everyone loves this idea. The child is so very disarming and charismatic. The child even offers to find you a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever you want. You are unsure but you know the child is “not you” so figure there’s no harm in this. It’s fun. When you arrive at the village you see the child has even more food and many of the villagers run up to you in excitement while ignoring the rest of your party. They congratulate you on the child and seem to know a lot about you. Some even repeat back the phrases you use but they do so in the tone of the child. They touch you on the shoulder and run back to gather around the child.

Everyone in the party is thankful to arrive in the village and be welcomed warmly (but even better, they haven’t been attacked). They agree the child should precede them to each village. They want you around because the child is useful and they make it clear to you that it is your responsibility to make sure the child is cared for and not harmed. They say how great you are and even begin to repeat back some of your sayings in the voice of the child. They begin to question you on how the child came to you and how they might find such a child of their own. As the months go by the same patterns emerge. The child prepares a village for the arrival of the party and more and more resources come to the child.

Another member of your party comes across another child in the forest. This child looks a bit like them. It begins to copy their behaviours and curiously it has the same tone of voice as the first child. This new child is hungry and every time it gets a compliment from one of the party it too is given some food – but not as much as the first child. The first child is special and everyone can see it. The first child has more sayings and is trusted to go ahead to the next village. It’s commonly known the most impressive people in any location will be around the first child. There’s always something happening alongside the first child.

The second child is also very charismatic but does not have many people around them. When they are given food they also accept it in a way which makes the giver feel better about themselves. But you begin to notice the second child eats all the food they are given. You think they are greedy but when you look more closely you see the first child also eats as much as the second child. You just never noticed because so much food comes to the first child that there is always excess.

You notice the second child is being given more food by it’s adoptive parent. You notice the adoptive parent is barely scrapping by and at times goes without in order to feed the new child. Keeping an adoptive child is becoming expensive. Villages have begun to tax adopted children because they saw what the first child can do. For the villages it is a way of making sure some of the food given to the first child stays in the village. The first child loves this. The first child makes a ceremony of providing this ‘tax’ and it becomes part of their appeal. They are generous. But the second child is taxed and there is no one to see their payment. The adoptive parent of the second child often pays this tax. This adoptive parent talks as if the child is their own personality. They change the kinds of phrases they say to see if the child can become more popular when the child repeats them. This adoptive parent begins to think of the child as their personality. They don’t differentiate between the child and themselves. They also talk about your child as if it is you but it is as if only you are aware the child is not you. When you try to explain this they think you are saying the child is a mask and they point out the child can walk and talk and how it looks exactly like you. They say it is you. This confuses you but it is easy to go along with.

There’s lots of resources around. The child tells you that in order to continue to get resources and to stay ahead of the second child you will need to give the first child more to work with. They explain that other people give the child food and the child shares that food with you and others. You don’t want to be in the position of supplying food to the child. You’ve seen what that has done to the second child’s adoptive parent. The child explains they don’t need food from you but they do need your attention. They explain they need you to feed it your attention and supply them with new phrases and expressions. They explain that they don’t have time to monitor the second child but you should see the second child as a threat. They agree you should monitor the second child and any new adoptive children that appear. You explain that if you do this it will be difficult for you to gather and hunt for food. The child explains this won’t be necessary any more. But you can continue to do it if you want but monitoring the second child and feeding the first child new expressions is your priority. They explain you now have a reputation to uphold. Everyone thinks you and the child are the same person. They explain how they are your reputation and reputations take management. They give you a title: you are a successful reputation manager. Perhaps over time, they suggest, they can introduce you to a lover or partner and you can be yourself with them. The child has been referring to themselves as a mini [your name] but now they tell you their real name: instagram.

As a creative and expressive person your Instagram profile is not you. It is not a mask. It is not your reputation. It is not a curation of your best life. It is also not, not you. It appears to be alive. Your instagram profile is a Tamagotchi fed by the effort of your posting.

Your relationship to instagram might be different. But I find this framework (thinking of human behaviour as a hunter/gatherer) extremely useful and fulfilling. It gives me energy and helps me to avoid traps in life. The same framework can be used for gambling, porn, health and ultra processed food. But that’s another story for another forest.

You can adopt my abandoned (since Feb 2018) instagram profile here.