This week I put in a few applications for part-time jobs and on Wednesday I had a 3-question, pre-interview interview. And one of the questions was about what I currently do for work and if I'm not working why. And my answer was that there are actually two answers to that question:
#1 -What I do for work
#2- What I do for money
And let's be real, #2 is generally what people are really asking when they're using the language of #1. And capitalism has corrupted so much, that a lot of us have been tricked into thinking our big dream is being able to do #1 as #2, but in the (very frequent) event that we can only choose one, we prioritize #2. Which is exactly how we end up living in sin.
So how did I answer the question? I answered the questions. And in thinking about it later, it ended up being kind of revealing for me. For money, currently, I provide respite care for one of my family members and I do seasonal /temp work. For work... I said: I produce podcasts. I do audio engineering. I write. And I do creative consulting. When it came to saying "writing," I actually stumbled a little bit because I'm actually trying to shift away from referring to myself as a writer, because I don't actually enjoy writing. I enjoy having ideas and I enjoy having written (being done writing something), but the actual physical process of translating my ideas into standard, formatted written language? Ugh.
STORYTELLER is what I actually am and aspire to be. And storytelling is not limited to writing. For me, it involves so many things (written words, spoken words, music and graphics) and so many mediums (essays, poems, scripts and productions).
I noticed later that I didn't say Musician. Or songwriter. Because as much as I love music and songwriting - something I am finally accepting is that they are not and never have been the point of me. I have kept trying (and to this day I catch myself still trying) to make my music make sense to and in capitalism. To write and produce and release music the way I'm "supposed" to. To sever them from the stories I wrote them from/in/about and package them as collections (EPs, LPs, albums) that make sense to capitalism, to the streaming services, to the industries. And then I get frustrated and hurt because people aren't picking up what I'm putting down. Meanwhile, I'm putting it down wrong.