Hobhipster Nation!

This morning I went to Green Line and ate a bagel and read that Grotowski book I found in the pile of books I was supposed to have read in undergrad but did not because in undergrad I already knew everything. 

I was reading with my pen (that's what I always tell my students to do) and underlining stuff that was interesting or that I might want to think about later, and sometimes putting notes in my notebook. I picked up my pen and started to write in my notebook "we have no channel for our creative force without technique." and I stopped after "creative" and before "force" because in that moment I saw myself writing "creative force" in my notebook with my coffee in West Philly and I got an ocean tug of fear that I was kind of a joke. 

"Creative force" indeed. Too bad I didn't have my nosering in and tattoos and my old timey glasses. Pfft. Enjoy your chai, hipster.

But "creative force" was the right phrase for the job in the sentence I had read. I believe, at the very least in the context of what I was reading that creative force is a thing. And I do have a nosering and old timey glasses, and I like them both and also chai. 

What is this fear of being something? And why is it so powerful that it might prevent me from doing something?

This makes me think of a conversation Braak and I were having trying to figure out why we don't like Portlandia, even though it seems like we should. The conclusion we came to is that we don't think that people who do what they enjoy and don't interfere with others are a worthy target of mockery. 

I would go further and say, a destructive force is maintained when we make a joke of pursuing what you love. 

There's one joke where we take down the pretentious, and that sometimes gets parroted as a joke where we take down the earnest. One has cultural value and the other does cultural harm. 

Why WOULDN'T we want to own bookshops with cats in them? And why wouldn't we want to be poets in trees, and why wouldn't we want to wear gothy skirts and corsets that make us feel badassed, and why wouldn't we want to eat local organic food, and why wouldn't we want to spend our Friday night taking apart an old projector? I can't think of any reason besides the fear that joke creates.

I wrote the whole thing down, and then got pretty excited about the idea of leaning into that story to abate the fear. As a fearless parody, I'd be untouchable! If I weren't afraid of being a joke of an artist or a joke of a white thirtysomething in an urban neighborhood, or a joke of a woman, I could just get right down to being those things however I please.