Look what you've done What do you have now? Things that never come I'm laying here in a dead end room Is it time to come down?

 What was the world like before the endless doom scrolling?

 Apologies for this photo and how shockingly sick I was when I took this. I promise there is a reason why I included it.

In 2012, I got my first smart phone. I specifically got my first smart phone so that I could use Instagram. I think that Instagram was the very first app I ever downloaded. I still have the first photos I ever took on it up on my account. I remember really being committed to making sure I used the filters to make all the photos look vintage.

What we think of as "smart phones" didn't hit the market until 2007--that is, specifically touch screen iPhones. Touch screen Androids would come by following year in 2008. I had just gotten my first cell phone in 2006, which was a Nokia brick. I bought it with my own money, and I loved it very much. Had it not met its untimely end preventing my leg from being shattered with a door, I would have kept it longer. I still had it for about 3 to 4 years. Even after being smashed by the door, it was still... for all intents and purposes wholly usable. This was the same device that had been both run over by a car and had taken a jolly swim in the ocean.  I had a few phones after that I didn't care for and died rather quickly. However, after three Samsung phones in a row, and the fact that iPhones weren't available on my carrier at the time, it just seemed like the natural choice for me. To this day, whilst I love and adore Apple computers, I don't very much care for the OS on any of their mobile devices.

Before doom scrolling, bad things were very much still happening in the world. Sometimes they played on the news on a loop in real time. One of my earliest personal memories was watching The Gulf War on television, all day, every day. I think that was the first war  where people could watch it unfold in all its horror in real time on television like that.

Even in the early days of me having a smart phone, I don't remember being as plugged in to the horrors unfolding in real time. Is this the "optimism" they attribute to Millenials? This unknowing of the horrors? Partying through the blood on the dance floors?

I am not going to comment on what happened yesterday. I will not give it oxygen. It is designed to dysregulate, destabilize, desensitize. I remember bad things and wars and things happening before, but nothing like this constantly being plugged in all the time and having the horrors consume us as though we are hooked up to them like an IV.

Was life actually any better before this?

I think about the above photo of myself. I think about how sick I was. I think about my lack of nutrition, the lack of sleep, the endless wanderings.

The one thing I miss the most would be drawing all of the time. I don't draw anymore. I also don't read as much anymore. Consistently, I have been talking about wanting to read  books again. My mind is too busy to read. I can't concentrate. I try to read articles, I try to read blogs. I try to continue to learn. But in terms of reading actual-factual books, it's a struggle. 

I have also become to soured to drawing. I hardly draw anymore, and when I do, it's met with so much anxiety and trepidation. There is am embarrassing amount of time spent looking at other people's art, thinking about how nice it would be if I drew again. I find I have had more success with the sketch card give aways than anything else I've done. I recently had a whole and total meltdown (over something that I do not want to talk about publicly), and ended up tearing up whole sections of my current sketchbooks.

But in 2012, art was how I defined myself. Art was how I saw myself as having value. Art was the way in which I sought validation--both the validate the value of my art, and myself as a person.

2012 wasn't actually that simple.

I do often wonder if now we are addicted to the dysregulation cycle-- that for as much as we complain about it,  we all secretly enjoy it somewhere in our lizard brains.

I recently bought ANOTHER-another sketchbook. The cover is my favourite shade of lavender. I am hoping that yet another fresh start will make me want to try again. I still get anxiety about posting any art online because of my negative experiences.

I remember very specifically after sadfrenchpeople relentlessly attacked my art that I said I was going to switch to music--and they made posts about how I was "too old" to be starting and that "it was never going to happen." The also harassed my Tumblr asking me to take the call-out posts down (how TF did so many people have wonderful experiences on Tumblr?! Because I absolutely DID NOT). And you know what? Looking back again on my art that was ripped off, I wasn't being unreasonable. That witch absolutely ripped off all of my art and character designs. My only mistake was running afoul of a Big Name Fan (which, in all honesty, by my estimation just makes you a famous.... loser? LOL). 

I will be honest, I don't think I am that particularly special enough to constantly steal from, yet here we are.

So, again, what was the world like before the endless doom scrolling and dysregulation loop? We were still dysregulating ourselves. Bad things were still happening. Even though some of us had smart phones by 2012, it still felt like we could... put it away. We still felt like we could put the phones down and not constantly consume. Those of us in activism spaces were still particularly burnt out in the way only activism can achieve. 

2012 was still bad. We just had a false sense of security.