Rat Race

Paperwave Originals

A poem used to be a very different thing. It was words in stark black font, perhaps Times New Roman or something just as simple, against a white page. The poet’s name (sometimes pseudonym) and a biography never exceeding a paragraph. You found these in magazines and newspapers and poetry collections. Occasionally, these were developed into performance, visuals and oral readings that still honor the words over the show. The process of creating such a seemingly simple thing is one of relentless obsession and torment.

Half the process of writing is lying in bed. Not as rest or sleep, God forbid the poet experiences either of those, but as an artist lying in wait for inspiration to strike. The poet must spend sweltering afternoons tossing and turning with bed sheets wrapped around her calves and sweat beading on her forehead as she unravels her thoughts, struggling to separate the genius from the mundane till she cannot tell the difference between the two. Then she must spend long nights in the face of blue light boring through a laptop or a painfully white sheet of paper. Most nights all that can be achieved is this staring. And then some nights, by the grace of god or whatever she believes in, she’s shaped up words that sit right. This may not sound like a lot but it is everything.

This process has been inordinately disfigured, the poem and the poet have been forced to adapt to a new world. This is what many other writers have called “instagrammification”. The poet now must take videos of her life and organize them to fit beneath the text of her poem. She must plaster her face with her work that’s being reduced to the arch of her eyebrow or the curve of her breast. She must choose a song that is popular enough to have engagement yet still niche enough for her to be considered authentic. She must produce content rapid as a machine to compete with the literal machines, robots that have learnt to mimic her work. The quality and humanity behind art is being compromised in this rat race. She chose work far from math and stats yet she is fixated on counting likes, views and comments. She must worry whether this has been done before by a thousand other people or she must worry if it has never been done before. The latter being rather dangerous as people flock to critique what is genuinely unique despite authenticity being all the rage. Hypocrisy seems to be trending. Being a writer is no longer enough, she must be a graphic designer, a videographer and an influencer for her work to be enjoyed and at the very least witnessed. Her life must become a menagerie.

This does not just apply to writers and poets but artists, musicians, actors and creatives of any kind. The toil of finding the center of gravity on a crooked balancing beam. These are not all new problems, issues with publicity, general fears and doubts have always existed in the creative sphere, however they have grown substantially. It would be naive of me to advise that you should strictly create from your soul and leave it out there. Unfortunately, if the goal is success and not just self expression than a certain level of conformity and trendiness is nonnegotiable. The rat race requires many sacrifices. Choose them wisely. Don’t let them take your cheese.