Titled: Unveiling
This blog has existed for three years and 100 posts now. In the beginning I didn't have a title. Actually, nothing I've had to title have had titles. Instead, some obscure name that alludes to my perceived inability to title things takes the bolded, large-fonted, centered space.
And all the while, I'm using words like "Unable to Conjure a Crafty Title", "Insert Cleverness Here", "Randoms", and "Untitled But Satisfied" to label my drawings, art pieces, and shared creative spaces that mean the most to me. Fooled by the guise of creativity and cleverness I am leaving these precious pieces nameless.
And for what reason? You're probably thinking, "so what, Jess? This is pretty creative and there's no need to get your panties in a bunch over naming things". That's true. It is. But in a culture where labels are slapped on everything there's a rising opinion that we shouldn't be so quick to label everything. Believe me, as someone in the mental health field, I definitely take to that ideology. But in the process our society, plagued by narcissistic posts, tweets, and snapchats that proclaim our everyday happenings, thoughts, and duck faces (now replaced by open-mouth-wide-eyed-smiles with unrelated quote) to literally hundreds of people in an instant has manged to veil the true details of our existence.
Presently, disclosure usually exists in two categories:
1.) The let me tell you all the good in my life or someone else's
And the
2.) The woe is me, I need your sympathy
In all of this, our stories remain unknown. The corners, struggles, and desires of our heart, mind, pasts, and presents are invisible to those we love most.
And what good is that?
My shortcomings, opinions, hopes, and fears hide behind "we"s, "us", "they"s, and "them"s.
What happened to the "I"s and the "my"s? They are there but confined to the two categories. Our stories are worth owning up to our personal names and labels and they extend beyond the shadows of "we tend to do this" "we believe this" "this is a great drawing but I don't need to title it".
I'm not satisfied with the masks we use to cloud our stories, in impersonal personas that make up our worlds of social media, classrooms, workplaces, friendships, and homes. Call it what it is, man up. End the ambiguity. Out of principle, Untitled but Satisfied is now Unveiling.
And all the while, I'm using words like "Unable to Conjure a Crafty Title", "Insert Cleverness Here", "Randoms", and "Untitled But Satisfied" to label my drawings, art pieces, and shared creative spaces that mean the most to me. Fooled by the guise of creativity and cleverness I am leaving these precious pieces nameless.
And for what reason? You're probably thinking, "so what, Jess? This is pretty creative and there's no need to get your panties in a bunch over naming things". That's true. It is. But in a culture where labels are slapped on everything there's a rising opinion that we shouldn't be so quick to label everything. Believe me, as someone in the mental health field, I definitely take to that ideology. But in the process our society, plagued by narcissistic posts, tweets, and snapchats that proclaim our everyday happenings, thoughts, and duck faces (now replaced by open-mouth-wide-eyed-smiles with unrelated quote) to literally hundreds of people in an instant has manged to veil the true details of our existence.
Presently, disclosure usually exists in two categories:
1.) The let me tell you all the good in my life or someone else's
And the
2.) The woe is me, I need your sympathy
In all of this, our stories remain unknown. The corners, struggles, and desires of our heart, mind, pasts, and presents are invisible to those we love most.
And what good is that?
My shortcomings, opinions, hopes, and fears hide behind "we"s, "us", "they"s, and "them"s.
What happened to the "I"s and the "my"s? They are there but confined to the two categories. Our stories are worth owning up to our personal names and labels and they extend beyond the shadows of "we tend to do this" "we believe this" "this is a great drawing but I don't need to title it".
I'm not satisfied with the masks we use to cloud our stories, in impersonal personas that make up our worlds of social media, classrooms, workplaces, friendships, and homes. Call it what it is, man up. End the ambiguity. Out of principle, Untitled but Satisfied is now Unveiling.
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