Slap on the wrist
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things…”
I got a ‘talkin to’ last Friday. Actually it was a “What the FUCK were you thinking sending out an email to (a large group of co-workers)’!”
My answer: “What’s the problem?”
Boss: “The problem is that you don’t FUCKING just send shit out like that to everyone.”
Me: “I don’t want to work at a company that doesn’t allow me to voice my opinion. This goes beyond work for me.”
Boss: “You work for a corporation. This isn’t FUCKING art!”
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I’ll stop the rest of the conversation from here. They mostly contain expletives and emotional rage.
I’m 32 and still believe that design matters. Everything I create is a painful process for me because I CARE about the output. I care about design and usability to the point that I become an emotional wreck. I want others to remember to care. There are many that have in the past, and many who still do. But something is happening. Every time I look around there are less of us. Something distracts them and they take other paths.
That very same thing is starting to make me forget. Infusing me with self-doubt. Telling me that the things that I’m holding onto don’t matter. And the scary thing is that I’m starting to believe, that its true. My spirit is dying, and my work is suffering. “I don’t believe in it, so why should I put so much energy into it?”
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Picture a soldier. He starts off with a belief. It get nurtured through training. His focus is clear. He believes that he can make a difference. He believes that he WILL make a difference.
Now, imagine him stepping off the ship onto the shores. He is weighted down with the supplies he will need for battle -food rations, ammo, rifle, extra clothes, canteen, etc.. All of these things are essential in his battle to ‘make a difference’ -to battle an enemy who hinders progress and wants to turn the world’s people into a hive-mind. For his enemy there is no place for individuality, progress can only be made through the direction of ‘The Board’, it knows what’s best for the world, and individual freedoms are a threat that needs to be contained.
As the soldier ventures forward, years pass and he begins to forget what he is fighting for. His comrades slowly fade away. Some join the opposition. Others lose their minds. They fade away is if they never existed. They have forgotten themselves, and the world has as well.
Still something pushes the soldier forward. His supplies become lighter. The walk heavier. But his feet keep moving. He wants to believe that he can make a difference, but maybe its all just a fairy tale, an ideal which exists in an alternate world with unicorns and tin men. Even so, even if it can’t be possible in his world, its still important for him to believe in. For it is ideal which moves him forward. He will die, but be reborn in a world in which it exists.
