Every day reminder: professionalism is a myth
The other day I heard a woman on a podcast detail how she learned childcare tactics from reddit.
Her co-host confirmed that the breast-feeding forums are particularly informative if only to exhibit the level of anxiety women experience when they initially begin breastfeeding.
Anxiety is a huge motivator for online research.
I search everything I worry about.
As an insecure unemployed artist I find myself in a state of repeated re-evaluation: What is my worth, why, how do I maximize it?
It is exhausting.
My mom keeps beckoning that I consult with a professional: Maybe my doctor or maybe someone my doctor can recommend or maybe someone at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) or maybe my cousin can tell me how to get a job.
Professionals are subjective trust-stations.
Most of them are so engrossed in what they are doing, they have no grasp social protocol or reality.
Once people are comfortable in their professional title, they abandon the effort it takes to be a person.
Or, rewind to the years the spent before claiming their professional ranks when they were in school constantly, pledged to make the “sacrifice it takes” to complete their professional program.
Professionals are jaded and socially antiquated individuals.
The can give you their opinion but it is likely just an informed collage of nonsense that floats in their brain.
Take for example, the news.
There is a top ten list floating around the Toronto theatre scene and, no real offence to anyone on the list (I guess) but it feels incredibly arbitrary, as if the person who wrote the list illegitimately just listed names they happen to know.
I wish I had a replacement list for the one that was recently released but I don’t. I truthfully don’t know enough about our community to make such a list. If pressed, I would list my friends and people I have enjoyed collaborating with which is, I imagine, exactly what the journalist did.
But hold on, all awards are issued nearly in the same way and would it be anymore valid if research were applied? Yes. Except. The professional would still lead with their own bias.
If awards are inherently unprofessional as are most accolades and commercial successes, what validity is there in claiming a titular profession?
Consider yourself lucky that you have choices and forget about claiming stakes.
Earlier today I lay on the floor with my boyfriend and we breathed slowly because I worry lately that the ebb and flow of professional insecurities for two individuals who have been working in a medium that is almost no longer viable….I worry that maybe we won’t survive.
I had a dream about our break up this afternoon.
I spent the entire week trying to up my content creation game, glued to Twitter, planning a YouTube channel, fueled by a real need to discover what I offer the world so that I can advertise it across platforms “I give people hope for a more creative future”….no, still too vague.
But, that was my week.
Then today I dreamt we would break up.
I asked him to lie on the floor, separately but together, cushioned and breathing, heavy in absolutely nothing. After 15 minutes I rolled on my side and told him it was over.
“Do you feel anything?” I asked.
“Not really. Hungry.”
“You’re hungry because you’re so relaxed!”
“That’s good.”
And then we ate grilled cheese.
I still have no job. But, I really enjoyed the cheese.
Rachel Ganz 