Grappling with using Insta "the right way" ...

​I have recently been troubled by my own Instagram fascination. Yes, I scroll and like a lot, especially because I keep an eye on the community of 60plus (and 50plus and ageing-gracefully) bloggers. And I have been posting selfies regularly.
​

"Pretty me" can't be all ...

​
​Putting myself out there in cool clothes and cute postures gets me “likes” … and I find myself staring at the phone more and more hungrily to check the little hearts. At the same time I feel a sense of shame about being so superficial: posting happy clothes pics! What in the world is that good for? What does it add to anyone’s quality of life?
Why should anyone be interested in my own little life?

Self promotion = vanity?

​
​I started out using the platform as an easy way to share my travel photos in a more organized way. And I got “likes” from friends, mostly people I know. As I navigated my way around Insta I realized that it could be used as platform to promote blogging. And my NepalNow.blog really needed promoting. My own big cause: helping my modern artist friends in Nepal to become more known in the world.

​But it turned out that photos of myself seem to be the real attraction. Now that is not really a sore point for me. After my first photo shoot 12 years ago (with a bald head due to chemo treatments) I realized that I wasn’t shy in front of the camera. Or that it was easy to overcome the shyness during a session of hundreds of photos being taken. I could even imagine myself as a senior model (and proceded to sign myself up with an agency which resulted in some invites but never worked out time-wise).

​
​Comparing myself with successful Instagrammers

​
​Then my niece turned into an Insta star. With a lot of hard work and great pics she created an audience of 501k followers @ameliecheval31. And I thought it might be a nice project for me to do (in my own very small way) something similar for women my age. Wouldn’t it be nice to cooperate with some brands – worthy ones, with sincere ecological and social missions, while still being stylish?

Who do I want to follow me?

​
​But to be able to do that you first have to build up a following.
​
And I don’t even know who it is that I want to have as a follower. Surely not the weird men of a certain age which have been flocking recently and are quickly blocked.

Yes, I would women like me to follow, who don’t feel “old” but like to grow wiser with age. Who are fun, multi-interested, love to travel (alone and with partner), like to eat well (meaning healthy AND delicious!), have an interest in design and fashion (without spending too much and spending too wildly) while at the same time beginning to exercise some minimalism, or better "essentialism", ideas.

​Women who like to move, may have found a sport they like in recent years (I used to hate sports, especially indoors, and especially sport studios where people were running on machines instead of being outside). Women growing healthily into crazy grandma-ness, always ready to learn new things and broaden their horizons.

​Grateful for what I have

At least I got lucky: I am endlessly grateful for a “bread job” that kept me afloat during the last three decades, allowed me to raise my son, permitted plentiful travel. A job that in itself has been multi-faceted because of working for a super multi-interested boss (writer & filmmaker). But now I feel too old to be the eternal ASSISTANT.
​
So it’s time to create something in and out of myself. T follow my own passion(s). But it needs to be something that doesn’t tie me down. Lets me travel. Lets me explore.

Superficial vs do-gooder

​
That’s why I started a personal blog under my own name. Doing this also helped me sort out the different facets that make up “me”. Being a multi-passionate personality had (and still has) me feel lost more than once in my life. Feeling scattered. Feeling unaccomplished. Feeling like not living up to my potential. Feeling like having taken the wrong turn and/or missed out on important things.

​BUT WHATEVER I DO, IT MUST NOT BE SUPERFICIAL! All my life I have been a do-gooder, also. A bleeding-heart, as my husband finds. I’ve supported plenty of causes, have used a lot of money to get a young family in Nepal get find their way in life, have started a preschool near Kathmandu, have run and closed a gallery for modern art from Nepal, have used micro-loans for a variety of projects in Nepal.

​… so I can’t just take pretty pictures of myself and upload them on Instagram. That’s shameful!  But I want to gain a voice out there in virtual land. I want to share my thoughts and longings and doubts and accomplishments and struggles … but not totally without an audience or readership.

So what exactly do I want to be when I grow up?

​
​But how open do I really want to be? How public a persona do I wish to become?

Well, that’s a lot of food for thought for another post …