Stuff my body in a box, labeled neatly, nice and tight and I will burst forth at some point, some moment entirely unexpected, perhaps even to myself. Stuff my spirit in a box and I will spiral through those seams in a rage, in reckless joy, a hazard to life as we know it. Stuff my curiosity and my talent, my softness and my wonder into your box and tears will run down my face and through the cardboard and pour out of my fingertips and seep onto this page, ink running everywhere, staining and smearing its version of the truth.
I once said I left a job, a reliable job at an arts school, because there was no room for growth. No upward mobility, as they say. It was true because I sought stability and success, and in the model we’ve been given, our framework for attaining those things, the only option is to acquire more responsibility and more money, in that order. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I needed upward and outward and inward and backward mobility; I needed to demolish the seams of that box and every other one that had crossed my path, that might be placed upon my shoulders and around my torso, squeezing my heart into one tiny corner of the world in exchange for a dollar, maybe two, a form of currency so necessary and yet so toxic that it’s luring another round of extinction towards us all.
Death of the sparrows and death of koalas and death of my spirit, too.
It seems that we are invited to be one thing, occasionally two by this world, and by accepting those constraints — those labels easily digested by capitalism — we step onto a path previously approved, a path set in stone that tells us how to be a writer or mother or musician or business person. Labels are limiting, boxed in, and in the end, they exist only to commoditize slivers of our spirits that are too big and sweeping for any one definition.
Perhaps just as limiting is the sheer act of will it takes to see progress in any one arena. Business dictates that we mine our talents — and if we’re lucky, our interests — for a marketable skill and then force it into submission for 40 or maybe 70 hours each week, month after month and year after year.
When we pause to question this model, other labels are swiftly bestowed upon us: radical, millennial, rebellious, free-spirited. Call me crazy, but my time and attention are all I have. They turn my moments into days, into a lifetime, into a legacy. Time is my most precious resource, and that sentiment, too, is often forced into the framework of capitalism, wherein I trade my precious resource, time, for money.
This exchange is undeniable and unavoidable — even valuable — and yet.
I trade time for more than money. How my moments are spent affects my creativity and integrity. It impacts my health — physical, mental, spiritual. All of it.
So maybe it’s radical and maybe I’m rebellious but I’m going to question the world’s model of assigning and adopting these labels and using them to exchange time for money, first and foremost, at all costs. I have no choice but to play that game — I have significant student loan debt and a mortgage, after all — but knowing the value of my time and attention, I’ll make every attempt to be discerning.
Liminal spaces are hard to inhabit. Many of us, myself included, seek clarity and direction. The world, too — the people doing the hiring, for example — likes to feel confident that you’re dedicated to the path their work requires. If you deny labels, if you’re in between worlds, most people struggle to understand what exactly you mean to be doing. Too often, this scares them away from working with you, even though they may find your diversity of thought intriguing.
I am an artist, but am I artist enough? I am a writer, but if I trade those skills commercially, am I writer enough? I am a singer; I am an organizer; I am a wife; I am a consultant; I am a teacher. Am I enough?
Creatives often write off those who have some measure of success in the business world, and business types are fast to assume artists to be under-capable. I find this to be especially true in Small Town, USA. I am occasionally “not enough” within the standards of either realm, limited by definitions, and it can be hard to illustrate that my writing and consulting and benefit concert hosting and singing and teaching are all linked, all facets of one creative being just trying to make it out there, make it sing, make my loan payments on time.
Rejecting this type of fencing in makes the most sense, holistically speaking, and allows me — and my partner, and maybe you, too — to make the biggest impact in the world, both by engaging with things that feed our spirits and contributing to the pressing issues of our time. Oh, and by paying our bills.
If labels serve commoditization of self, and commoditization serves capitalism — and we know that the greed and convenience obsession accelerated by late capitalism has endangered the very planet we call home — then it stands to reason that commoditization could endanger our wellbeing, too. And of course, it has.
Most of us recognize this on some level, even as we feel disempowered to change it, even as we check our email before work, after work, and through the weekend. As a result, the idea of self-care rose to mainstream popularity. There, we watched as it was commoditized, mined for profitability, and turned into privilege, like everything else. Over the past four years, the wellness industry has grown by over 6.4% annually, twice the rate of global economic growth.
We are quick to assume that this illustrates our evolution, a refreshed dedication to health that our grandparents never considered, yet perhaps it demonstrates necessity, instead; perhaps it’s proof that the pace we’ve been asked to adopt is unsustainable and unfair.
Maybe it indicates that the truest form of self-care is actually taking our power back, resisting the temptation to dilute and commoditize layers of ourselves for mass consumption, the primary way to meet capitalism’s expectations. It could be an invitation to stick with the discomfort of living between the lines, even when people don’t understand, even when results are sluggish. We’ll trade time for money, sure, but we’ll do it on our own terms, whether that means not being available around the clock or preserving weekends for creativity or daring to pause work in the middle of the beautiful, vibrant day to take a freaking walk.
Commoditization is extractive and depletes natural resources for consumption, and again, profitability. I don’t know about you but my most creative output, the things I’m proud of, are not enjoyed en masse. And they’re life-giving, not depleting.
Their very nature resists the box.
So when will we start questioning the systems that have benefited us but held the less privileged back, and when will we resist frameworks that splinter and restrict our talents for their own pointed gain? When might we reclaim profitability — a desirable trait, despite its shadows — for the fruit of ourselves, for our own wisdom and curiosity and health? When do we stuff our spirits inside the box only to invite them to explode to their fullest expression, even if it’s outside any framework we’ve touched before, even if it makes someone uncomfortable, even if it asks people — living, breathing humans who sign checks and consume art and make decisions — to think again.
Between you and me—
Last week I wrote about finding your guts and sticking to them. My partner got a piece of good news yesterday — hurray! — and as I told a friend recently about my own projects, it’s amazing how much good one yes can do in a world of no. Like a reminder to hold on tight. Take care.