Masterpiece in the Making

I want to be okay with being seen more naked than when I'm actually naked

I don’t find it too hard being vulnerable on the internet, there’s a screen that protects me from you seeing my entirety. I see it as basically curating an exhibition or yeah maybe somewhat of a performance. Call me the founding mother of internet performance art haha. I have control in presenting what you experience. The process, trials and errors to produce the final product don’t need to be on stage or in the gallery if I don’t want that. I meann my shit posting isn’t hyper curated but what I mean is that I can control what you know about me and see of me.

IRL I don’t have this control and therefore I am confronted with the discomfort of realising my humanity.

Like, ew FML.

I feel so uncomfortable in knowing that — like anyone — I’m flawed. I feel so uncomfortable with not having complete control over your perception of me when you bear witness to me in the flesh. IRL I'm less performative than my online self. I want to be genuine in my real-life interactions and tbh I find it hard not to be anyway. I guess I feel more vulnerable then because there is no option for a filter (hardly use them tbh cause this face card is to die for but anyway). Online I can tap into a kind of alter ego, I’m a little more sassy and savage.

That you have to witness me make mistakes, try and fail, that you might have to experience second hand embarrassment from witnessing me trip over myself and it be beyond your comprehension how I even manage to do so has me saying “FML” out loud and in my head like a mantra. That you have to see me figure it out, as though I’m scrambling around on all fours like a pathetic loser looking for their glasses (been there for real). I feel more naked than if I was actually naked.

I beg you close your eyes and give me a towel, I don’t wanna be seen in HD.

I worry that when you finally see said masterpiece, your experience of it will perhaps be tainted because you saw what it took to make it and seeing that might override whatever beauty is witnessed when it’s finally framed and hung in the gallery.

I want to believe in the beauty of the process but admittedly it makes me feel so sick. It’s like you get all the demo tapes but never the album and then maybe when you hear the album, you can’t appreciate it because you’ve already heard the initial versions of the tracks and you can’t shake those from your head. I can only hope that years later they end up on YouTube as some sort of archival artist tribute to appreciate the genius in its most raw form.

I guess this is why I struggle when I take dance class sometimes. Dance training is so vulnerable I think because of the culture. For me personally I think my experience might partly be attributed to ballet culture of having to incessantly get it right and always be striving for perfection, partly the stripper culture of performing and subjecting self to what we conceptualise as desirable to someone else. My ego gets in the way of the inevitability of having to get it wrong before you can maybe oneday get it right. It feels so vulnerable to be witnessed fucking around, failing and figuring in out real time.

I find it hard to accept myself as a whole person. I know it’s kind of an ick confession but I hate that I cannot conveniently render myself into the ideal product every time.

I wanna be an AI dream girl. Just kidding, that would suck. I like my soul.

I dunno I guess it feels like I’m presenting some scaffolding and saying “I hope you like it!” I cannot yet hide behind the solid structure of a building and the beautiful details and decor. I feel so exposed, I want to throw up! Kinda feel like I’m going to cry, throw up and shit myself at the same time or something.

I just just wanna be a sexy, bitchy BITCH who’s really charming and witty and funny and gives nooo fux. But sometimes I’m honestly such a lil bitch like right now where I get stuck in my head and feel really self conscious and shameful of my human-ness, all the mess of it.

The live, human exhibition of me feels messy and awkward. The paintings are fucked and ugly, the sculptures are on the brink of falling apart, the music sounds like Bjork had a 3-day crack pipe bender and to top it all off there aren’t even drinks available at the gallery as something to help you take the edge off. You just witness it allll. It’s raw, disgusting and uncomfortable.

FML.

But I refuse pity or to beg anyone to stay and see what happens next, I can only hope they might see value in the process. To be clear I don’t want sympathy, it would make me feel worse. Empathy at most, thanks.

I just hope my drafts can maybe sometimes be enough to the reader when I’m still in the works of publishing the novel. The spelling mistakes, the grammatical errors, the story line flopping, can all of this at least be somehow endearing?

To find some temporary respite from the shame and nausea, I dial up the delusion helpline (1800-ego-wya?). I tell myself that maybe it’s possible that the drafts, the errors, the sketches, the rehearsal itself contains a beauty in its own right, whether or not I’m proud of it.

I feel so exposed and embarrassed but I know I will have to eventually make peace with my vulnerable reality. Here’s to accepting that I won’t always be, or in fact may never be a masterpiece that sits behind glass and a red rope bollard at the Louvre.