Unique

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes,
Unique in each way you could see

And now after some thinking
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes
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The big lie that swallowed us whole. Batch after batch, swarming out of art school into the stomach of something endlessly growing and feeding on our egos.

The artist is to put herself out there in the brazen form of hashtags and curated feeds. It isn't enough that the act of flitting through snapshots of each other's daily lives in itself a curious perversion of contact. Now even that has become commodified. Are you truly an artist if you show photos of your cat and husband? Are you an artist if you weren't at this opening and that show? Are you an artist if you don't make drawings everyday? Or if you are drawing, does it count if you don't show them to the world immediately?

In this frustrated tangle of uniqueness, we still live normal lives. Netflix and Pastamania, cell group and Zara. Can I stop being unique now?

One of the struggles in this job was, for me, not being able to show any of the work I do for them. The one gig I know would impress my clients and perhaps help me reach that realm of Thereness.

I've had to learn that just because I can't show it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. So the performer in me has had to sit down for a little while, and wring my hands in mild panic attacks.

In the process I've learnt to work for others. To be a small part of a large project. To do menial things and find that I enjoy them. To work for something and someone other than myself.

There is freedom in not having to be an artist all the time.
There is freedom in giving up the self.
Because you never truly lose yourself. That was a lie.