'My Daily Commute'

I was on a train to a 9-hour shift, staring at my reflection in the window, trying to muster my best

hospo smile, when all I wanted to do was scream. This is when the concept for this piece came to me.

We all have many faces for the many spaces we exist in. All of them are a curated version of our true selves. Both conscious and subconscious performance are needed to move through the world.

For me, at least, this performance is most evident in the workplace, where we have to set our feelings and our lives aside to put our ‘best face’ forward.

I know I am not alone in this feeling; otherwise, why would Severance be so popular?

This dance between our actual reality and the reality we present to others can be draining. It’s what allows people to work in ways they disagree with. It’s a coping mechanism necessary to survive.

We mustn’t blame the individual; this performance isn’t fake, it's a performance choreographed by the systems we live under. The system's constructs are bogus, but the governance of those constructs is very real.

We are told that the ability to play the ‘game’ promises us power, status, mobility, and access. We are all born with various capacities to play/ participate in the ‘game’. We were told that if we play the game, we will find happiness, but at what cost?

This performance is inherently oppressive, and it’s extra insidious because we often enforce it on ourselves. Suppressing our needs and wants and losing touch with our inner humanity allows us to be inhuman to others. Not gonna lie, it’s lowkey genius, as it's a perpetuating cycle where being submissive to the system feels like the only option.

So, ask you to take a closer look at the faces you have in your life. Why do you have them? Whom do they serve? What impacts do they have on you and others? Because the system won’t change unless we begin to understand how we mold ourselves to it.