Vachon Imagined

As we express ourselves through whatever medium we choose, there is a desire to build popularity.

Culture.

A following.

But underneath that desire, there is something much simpler:

Someone who says,

Yes.

I see you.

Maybe even,

Yes, I agree with you.

Or even criticism that turns our insides out.

Just to gather some evidence that you are not alone.

This isn’t exclusive to social media.

Perhaps it began when human beings first became aware of themselves.

We began trying to alter the mirror rather than accepting what it showed us.

When we go inward towards ourselves, deeper still, popularity is rarely the immediate destination.

There is no noise.

Sometimes for years.

No one is listening.

No one writes back.

No one notices.

There is only the person, alone in a chamber of their own thoughts, expressing an idea simply because it needs to be expressed.

And then doubt enters.

Slowly.

The temptation to write for money.

For popularity.

For recognition.

All the things this world offers us begin to rationalize their way into art.

Into expression.

Into being human.

But something changes when you become the kingdom of your own territory.

When what you are expressing becomes unmistakably yours.

It no longer requires a following.

It requires someone willing to express.

And to keep expressing.

I read writers every day.

It doesn’t matter what they’re writing about.

Give me enough time with their words and I begin to recognize them.

A signature.

A way of seeing.

A sentence that could only have come from them.

And it makes me smile in gratitude.

Not because I agree with everything they say.

But because I am grateful they made it.

They stayed with it long enough for it to become theirs.

There is a kind of self-assurance in that.

A quiet pride.

Not the pride of being better than someone else.

The pride of knowing:

This is mine.

This came through me.

It’s theirs.

Undeniably theirs.

And that is the work.

To feel an unquenchable urge to put something into the atmosphere simply to let it exist.

Something that could not have existed without you.

That is different from popularity.

It is expression without negotiation.

Confidence replacing doubt.

Solidarity replacing conformity.

The work no longer asks:

Will they like this?

It asks:

Is this true?

And then you make it.

You write it.

You sing it.

You paint it.

You live it.

Alone, if necessary.

Until someone recognizes themselves in what you made.

Not because you changed the mirror.

But because you finally stopped trying to.