I Have A Responsibility To Commit To My Chaos & So Do You.

I can’t stop thinking about this Tiktok video…

via @ayandastood

I am not too proud to admit, that I often fear my own expansion. I feel myself being pulled in so many different directions. My love for the world runs deep. Its abundant resources and infinite timelines fascinate me, but they also frighten me.

Because I am unable to fully articulate my being, I resist. I struggle with the ability to balance the fluidity of the constancy of a full life. I create in fear because I am afraid of what I can’t compute. On my search to find a solution I attempt to confine myself to a single category. To ease the understanding of my existence.

To be understood.

By who?

me?

you?

Some voices tell me the solution is to find an office. Strut through the doors in a wannabe fancy outfit. Parade around like I am okay with being in rooms that aren’t ready to accommodate my evolution and embrace the complexity that is me. (But it makes for a great photo-op and everyone will be proud, right?)

That’s if they’ll even let me in the building. These days you’ve gotta be everything to everyone and someone to yourself, but selfless enough not to become too much of a body in a gate kept space. (Fake it to you make it huh?)

I think I’m a bit too abstract for that kind of suit.

Or maybe I’ll become a teacher and attempt to validate the insecurities I hold around my lack of knowledge, by pushing it on some other impressionable mind looking to fill a similar void. (I’ve got my degree, so I should be happy right? The great post-grad debate: To be advanced but not advanced enough?)

I’m not sure if I am prepared to stretch my hand back in that way, yet. (inwards before outwards)

Or maybe I’ll go back to school and be the student again. Rack up more debt, pivot to a career suggested by someone who can only believe what they can see. But unfortunately the story unfolding before me is being crafted in a unique code that hasn’t been cracked by anyone yet. Not even myself. So even in good faith, disappointment bubbles beneath the surface.

On my quest to figure it all out, one of the most important things I have learned is that my obedience must lie in a higher power.

And that power keeps telling me no. (But for some reason I just won’t listen)

I can’t begin to tell you how many jobs, residences, grants, and opportunities that I have applied for this year. Foot on a swivel, fingers on the keys, I scour through listings, craft cover letters and reduce my resumé to words. Hoping that the something I need will find me, and place me in the desk I am supposed to be in. (And then problem solved, right?)

But one after the other I have been met with rejection.

Imagine that. The girl who’s got it all together, can’t find a place to land.

I ask myself, “How could I be in this predicament when I worked so hard in college?” I told myself that I would be the first person in my family to graduate, and I did that. I told myself that when I made it out that I would actually make it out. I wouldn’t settle. I would provide my family with freedom and opportunity beyond what we’ve always known. I would be a young hero.

But as I have learned over the past couple months (via Marvel movies) heroes aren’t born, they are made.

And more often than not the battle we are willing to fight for a taste of victory, requires a relationship with time. And in this reality, time is something we cannot control. We can only feel our feels and work from within.

So I try to get better.

I wake up earlier, drink more water, work out more, read more, listen to the greats in conversation, tell the stories I want to tell, share those stories, make more art, meet more people, pitch for bigger budgets, seek new partners etc. etc. etc.

But after a few days turned weeks turned months, when I don’t see the grand results I want, I panic.

I become overwhelmed with anxiety, afraid that I won’t actualize into the best version of myself. I fear that choices fueled by intuition are actually mistakes. I worry I’ll be a struggling artist forever. I contemplate settling for a subpar opportunity just to ease my current state of mind.

I compare myself to my peers. I see that they’ve chosen something tangible to work towards and I watch them work.

I envy what I perceive to be their tunnel vision.

I wish that I wanted to be a single thing.

I wonder if I’ve seen my best days…

I begged the universe for a sign & I was given a Tiktok video. And let me to tell you, these words shook me, and stuck like glue.

“Oh, she's singing. Oh, she's dancing. Oh, she's talking about philosophy. Oh, she's talking about music. She's talking about politics. Now she's a poet. 

We want her to have all the facets. We want to support you in your most expansive form of being. Do not think that you are here to be consumed, babe.

They want you to have a niche. You are not a commodity. Niches make people more consumable, but you are not here to be consumed. You are here to be experienced. You are here to be felt. And you are here to be this multi-dimensionality. It just flows from your being. You cannot help but be that way.”

“Confusion is a state of humility in the face of the unknown. We want to be confused because it (can be) pleasurable.”

Hearing these words provided me with a brief sense of comfort, followed by a tsunami of thoughts.

The first being that I agree.

From an audience standpoint I love when I discover someone new and they take me on a journey.

So many times I find myself captivated by people who follow the tide of their own wave. They understand that they are a part of a larger body of energy flowing, while also embracing the fluidity in their own form. Their uniqueness and the many ways that they can contribute to the progression of people and perspective intrigues me and inspires me to want more out of myself and the things I produce. So why do I deny myself this honor?

Seeing that Tiktok reminded me why I gave myself the title of a Multidisciplinary Artist & began The Soular Lab in the first place. I needed a central point for people to explore the many planets orbiting in my galaxy. This platform is here to be a channel for me to to try, succeed, fail, quit, and examine an infinite number of outcomes. That’s why it feel like it’s a lot happening at one time, because it’s supposed to be. (It’s my sun and I can’t shy away from its light)

In the past I attempted to commodify myself into a package to be consumed in an effort to niche down and scale up.

I found success in crafting the perfect rollout for products, and subconsciously I began to treat myself the same way. I handled my own image like something to be stocked on a shelf. As if the benchmark of my success would be determined by whether or not I could get rid of all my stock for others to enjoy, and discard of when I was done being of service to them. (But I am person & I can’t go out of service. Even when I am gone I believe that there will still be a need for my existence and my work.)

The voices of the digital world advised me to pick a thing and become “great at it.” Because “a jack of all trades is a master of none?” WRONG!

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.”

I am not trying to master one thing to appease to experts that should still consider themselves students. In an effort to bridge their life experiences with my current reality, to begin to comprehend what it means to be a complicated 20-something Black woman artist in the year of 2024.

I am also not trying to completely disregard the focused efforts of those same experts by attempting to be anything and everything just to prove that I am worthy of creating in today’s landscape.

I acknowledge those that came before me. I seek to leverage their wins and losses to find more clarity on my own path. But I understand that the complete answer I am seeking will require more than just examination of someone else. And it won’t come in a one-dimensional package.

In conclusion, I have a responsibly to commit to my own chaos. Chaos as is in, diving into the disruption of what we already know. Marrying the mayhem that many shy away from. Turning turmoil, into beautiful things that uplift and empower my people. Embracing every facet of myself in an order that honors the peculiarity, of my body and soul, as it transforms and transcends outdated tradition. Trusting that nothing is truly random & allowing confusion to drive us to new heights.

If not for myself, for the other Black kids who can’t just be a writer, or photographer, or painter, or musician, or whatever other single profession our families may hold hesitations around, because they just want us to find security in an economy that is rarely working in our favor.

Post-grad life has been a constant fight to be felt, seen, and paid adequately. But even in my lowest moments when it feels like life or death, and the world is crumbling down on me, I have to continue to remind myself that I didn’t take this leap for no reason. The stabbing feeling in my gut is real, and continues to propel me forward even when it feels like I am not going anywhere. The universe is making space for me, and I need to believe in my faith wholeheartedly through sunshine or thunderstorms.

If you take nothing from these words understand that balance does not always look the same for everyone. You cannot successfully juggle without tossing at least one object into the air and temporarily letting go of it. According to gravity we know that eventually it must come down, and if we want to continue juggling we must send another into the air while we handle the objects in our hands. It is a continuous act, that requires us to choose what goes up and what stays down. But no matter what, it is our choice, just as long as we catch them. But if we don’t, and they all fall to the ground it’s alright, because we can always start over again.

Craft your own rhythm, embrace the chaos that it requires for you to master the art of juggling and remember ayandastood said, “What you seek is seeking you.”

Special thanks to Ayandastood for creating and sharing this video. Following the completion of writing this piece ayandastood dropped the longer version to the tiktok HERE

Check out more of their work at https://ayandastood.com/