RIP Story: September 17, 2024
I sit here looking at all these things around me. Blocks of paper, data, instructions, and however many business processes there are that make all this function. Why am I any different? I sit here and I make all these paper blocks sing the song of business. I am the master of paper blocks, and that makes me feel like a block. Am I a block too? If I move my knowledge and experience into the paper blocks around me, what is left behind?
I have been doing this a long time. I am good at what I do but what does this all do for me? There was a time when growing all of this was the thrill. Now, it runs largely on autopilot. I will admit, the song these blocks sing is different if I’m not in this chair but who really cares if the song is a little different, as long as it plays?
The song of business has given me a home, family, and what I thought was a sense of purpose. I sit here now, looking at these paper blocks, watching reports update and I can’t hear the song. I’ve never heard the song. There are images on my office walls that remind me of the smiles in my life. Kindergarten stick-figure drawings only a parent could love, surround my collection of desk toys. I’m coming to the realization there is another song being played in this office. A messy song filled with color and life. The sounds are disorganized, but that’s what makes the song so beautiful. It’s also what makes the song silent against the song of these paper blocks.
I should be filled with by the aura of these toys and images. The colors should be the basis of my life, not an accent in the place morphing me into a collection of paper blocks. I am hollow in the place that takes my skills. My attempt to fill the void with reminders and distractions papers over what I really should be.
I should be built from the collection of the things that make life worth living. My heart should beat to the march of my toddler’s footsteps. The warmth of my blood comes from my partners’ love. The toys and games fill my mind with learning or distraction, whatever I need on a given day. My eyes should be a View Master, replaying the images of my life on repeat. Dare I say part of me should be these bloody paper blocks. I don’t resent the blocks themselves. I resent how much of me is made of these blocks.
Maybe I can have my kids take their markers to the paper blocks. The hallway walls can have the day off.
I feel hollow and that needs to change. This is not an exercise in filling what is there. The plan is to replace the blocks of me with the eclectic that is me. Humanity is diverse and the individual should be as diverse as the masses it plays part of. Paper Blocks No Longer Anonymous is the name of the game. I will not let this place I sit define who I am nor what I am made of.
Feel free to come along.
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.
EPILOGUE: Partly autobiographical, partly a call to the rest of humanity to take the time to see themselves against the backdrop of a life created FOR them. When I saw this image, I saw myself and all my coworkers of the past. How many of them feel similar? Sadness if the primary emotion. Hope is the seed that lives in this character’s hollow insides. Hope doesn’t need a thing. Hope doesn’t need to be seen. Hope exists at all times. Are we able to see it, recognize it and tell ourselves that it exists. It’s there for all of us. We need to help one another propagate that hope.