Verse to Voice: The Space Between - art. ecology. travel. poetry.

WELCOME TO THE CRUEL WORLD

The journey started when I moved south for the music I craved and was swept away in the big city waves. I moved with a group of musicians and we travelled into the unknown. A young soul trying to experience the world from a different shore. Originally from a small town, we were a group of artists living in one house, paying little rent, playing music, and attempting to make our mark on the vast city. Very green and very naive, each day we wrote song after song and rehearsed constantly trying to find a sound, find a place, find a vision. Our new found city granted us all great new experiences, but like a drug, the high only lasted for a short time.

Unfortunately, the bright lights of city life pushed each soul like a storm, grabbing the sails and ripping them from their mast. The city has an unimaginable force rendering it almost impossible to travel against the current. Overwhelmed, lost, but completely content, I let my mind soak the sights and soak the smells. I let the wind dictate my path.

Slowly over time the group lost its creative force, and for reasons unknown not one member fought to keep the unit intact. With little effort we tried to maintain our collective artistry but we had a virus, an issue was dividing us. Within six months I and the other musicians were lured like little puppies looking for a home as the city offered us its wide variety of luscious treats fulfilling all personalities and tastes.

Eventually our ship smashed on the rocks and was soon floating in a million pieces which made the void between all members impossible to close. It's amazing how we all thought we were in control when we first arrived, but the city quickly chewed us up and spit us out. I guess a lesson learned in life. It's funny that the only mark left by this group of artists was a million BB gun pellets, a billion cigarettes, and hundreds of broken pieces of TV glass scattered in the back yard of our rental house. With both good and bad memories etched in our minds, our musical dream ended and the city had won.

music man, the one I am

music gone, the one that ran

a lost vision, now turns to dust

societies path, the guitar now rusts

A story was told, I never wrote it down

destined for loss, connection was never found

the river city with its current strong

instinct is shadowed, find where I belong

The big city is a funny thing, millions of souls all trying to figure it out, fighting, fucking, loving. The one thing I found out about the metropolis is you can be who you want to be; anonymous, absurd, opened, hidden, whatever. Compared to a small town where everybody knows everything about everyone, the city at this point was kind of freeing to the soul. It was a large wide open canvas just waiting for paint. The massive metropolis was exactly what I was looking for, complete anonymity. You didn't have your family shadow hanging over you and you didn't have to be a certain person to please your neighbours. For an artist, this is great, this is how to live, completely free, but was I truly free? I guess I would soon find out.

As I left the large music house and found a new place on my own it quickly became apparent, to stay in the city I was going to need a real job. Not just stupid random work that paid shit, but a job that at least could pay my rent, give me some food, and afford me some left over cash for art. That is one of the great trappings of the city, with freedom came responsibilities, and with responsibilities you lose your freedom. I needed to survive and have somewhere to live, but in the city this proved more difficult and very expensive.

I quickly found out that you couldn't just tread water because you wouldn't see or do anything. Therefore it would be pointless to even live in a large metropolis if you didn't explore all that it had to offer. I found myself bouncing around a few different meaningless labor and customer service jobs, which would be fine, but I was looking for something that would pay me more and give me the freedom to create outside of work. I decided to fall back on my college business diploma and began applying for real office style jobs. The type of jobs that make your parents proud. The type of job you get and keep until retirement.

I applied at multiple financial institutions and investment companies with some of them granting me an interview. Unfortunately my career search proved futile as I quickly found that there were probably 100 or more applicants for every position. The scariest part is that they all had some sort of diploma or degree and a couple years of experience, exactly what I had. How would I stand out? How would I improve my resume? Upon leaving my last interview I came to the realization that before I could continue art I would have to upgrade some courses at college and make myself more desirable. Ultimately, the city forced me to play the game.

After one year of working a stupid customer service job and taking evening accounting, business and computer courses, I applied for a job at an energy company. From my previous failed interviews I found that most positions wanted minimum 5 years experience. Let's just say I gave them what they wanted to read. Using what I'll call a creative license, I added a few extra years on my resume and over embellished with a few elegant words and phrases. I used a couple of my friends as my references to back me up.

Yes, I know what you're thinking, but seriously, it's just an office. Not like it mattered what your resume said, as long as it made sense to the human resources people. A week later I was granted an interview, which went very well. And to my surprise, I was offered the job. I guess I was a good salesperson, or I was great at talking bullshit, whichever one they gave me the job and it paid well.

My new position was working for a large energy company located downtown amongst all the other corporate giants in a tall office tower. We had the whole building to ourselves, which meant a lot of people worked in this place and a lot of money came in and out of the building. I was first hired within the Small Customer Residential Contracts Division working with a large team of people, good co-workers and an easy office environment. Just like everyone else I had my small cubicle tucked away in the corner unable to see or talk to anyone except my computer.

When I think back now, from the time I started working it didn't take long to move around within the company into different departments. Every new move increased my income, and with more money came more responsibility. I was naturally good with computers, so that would always help get my name transferred from manager to manager, eventually helping me move up. In all honesty, it truly was a really good job, probably something most people would love to have. It was a big corporation, nice perks, nice office and good hours, actually hard to complain.

It was amazing how quickly my mind was assimilated into the career driven, big city living, buy everything life. Considering I had moved for art and a creative search, somehow I quickly found myself far off the original path. Somehow I was aspiring to have a nice car, big house, and nice career. I began to live the voracious and carnivorous North American lifestyle. Even for a minute I actually thought that having a bunch of titles on your business card actually mattered, and even worse, I actually thought that I was better than someone else. I'm not sure why, but maybe because I wore a suit? Regardless, it's all comedy when I think back now.

After a few years, I worked my way up into the Large Customer Contract Division, which was a giant step up in both pay and responsibility from my previous positions. This position afforded me the opportunity to enjoy some of the city's fruits, including new computers, cars, clothing and entertainment. From the outside my job seemed and sounded very important, but from the inside most days at work felt like I was living in the movie Office Space, Do you have those TPS reports done? with nothing really challenging the mind. I had started at the bottom and worked my way up, working extra hours, doing extra projects, let's just say I was the perfect employee, but endless meeting after meeting, report after report, and contract after contract the days were easy, but very long and dragged out.

Of course I had responsibility, but when you really thought about it, it was a responsibility to the corporation. A responsibility to a business contract and a stock. My only true responsibility was to make money and keep the train rolling. It's not like I was raising a kid or dealing with any life or death situations. If something went wrong, life would continue, a new product would be made and another contract signed, overall no loss, just a bunch of accounting changes.

As I moved into this new department I worked with some interesting characters. They all looked normal and dressed really well but inside they were different, and by different, I mean kind of fucked in the head. I remember one particular day a co-worker of mine had Botox done. Why is that crazy you ask? It's crazy because she was only 25 years old! She sat in a cubicle across from mine and told me she wanted to get rid of her wrinkles, and the funny part was when she tried to talk she couldn't move her face. It was a total joke! She didn't even have any wrinkles, maybe under a magnifying glass, but not visible to the naked eye. It's crazy that someone at the age of 25 is worried about their age and appearance. You're fucking 25!

We also had another guy who worked in our department that talked like a robot. He literally had no personality. His great claim to fame was that he could rhyme off every fashion label and jewelry company in existence, and he always made sure to judge everyone on their appearance. I would hear vomit come from his mouth like. What an idiot, just look at his shoes. or bullshit like Seriously, that shirt and tie are probably ten dollars from Moore's. I'm pretty sure to this day he is still working in the same cubicle.

Then there was Jerry, who was close to retirement but always thought he was going to be laid off and lose his job. Good old Jerry. He continuously asked me multiple times a day if I had heard anything about restructuring or cost cutting; this guy didn't have a real position. He literally didn't do shit! He just walked around all day and drank 20 cups of coffee. Even to this day I still have no clue what he actually did. I think my biggest regret working for this company is that I never grabbed one of his business cards. I would have loved to see his title. I would of loved to read such creative bullshit.

Even when it came to management I wasn't sure what the hell these people were doing. The best example was one day I needed to ask a question about a discrepancy on a large contract that I had found, so naturally I went to my head manager for some guidance. To my surprise I found out that she had been gone on vacation for one month. A whole month and I had not even noticed anything different at work! I didn't even notice that she wasn't around. She could have been dead and nothing would have changed, it's just amazing. It's complete insanity! What the hell was she doing in the office? They should of just bought a pylon or a blow-up doll and put it in her place, think of all the money they could save.

Another comedic occurrence was how many times we went through upper-level management changes, each person coming in and making some stupid lateral changes and then leaving to collect their severance packages. These people were very smart and knew how to abuse the system. It was simple for them, they would get hired, make a few speeches and stupid changes, and then cash out and move on to the next.

A big company is a funny thing, everybody has such defined jobs. Real change is almost impossible and real ideas are almost unattainable. You basically can't clean your cubicle because that's what the cleaning staff does. Or you can't fix your computer without calling some hotline and getting a ticket number, when all you need is a simple program update online but you don't have administrator access. Basically, you can't take a shit unless it was written and agreed upon when you did your job interview. I define the corporate life like a very large pool with a brilliant design, beautiful blue waters, and the perfect temperature. The only problem is that there is no deep end, just a continuous shallow end all the way across. Everybody in the pool is completely content with just floating, nobody wants to actually swim and take their own lives in their hands. They are simply content with lazing around in shallow waters.

I noticed at my job that people had no real motivations to enhance their lives outside of their careers. They had no desire to design and build something to change the world, or really have any true impact. Instead they lived within the shallow presentations, shallow business dress codes, and shallow offices and meetings. Comically, deep down the employees could care less about their company or co-workers. The worst part was that the employees even cared less about their actual jobs.

I found it so hard to contemplate that there were a ton of brilliant minds working in these offices, but truthfully, all they cared about was the pay check. They had no motivation to reach out, instead they stayed within the reports, spreadsheets and processes, all the while their amazing talents were being wasted. Most of them seemed to live in mediocrity, which was a true shame. A corporation can't pay you to just sit and think, it needs something tangible, it needs something billable. Sometimes thinking and creating new ideas takes time, but corporations are like little children, patience is not a strong suit.

the sky fades into a skyscraper mind, the top is the goal for all

the further from earth and the closer to green,

do all the mighty stand tall?

are you standing in the shallow end?

Every once in a while through the city smog, my creative mind would make an appearance. I would sometimes venture around on weekends and try to experience something different, something that would fill the mind. The city is like the human body, the people are the blood, the subways and highways are the veins and arteries, while the businesses, buildings and entertainment hubs are the organs. But where is the brain? Is it the government? Hell no. Should it be the brain? Probably yes. Unfortunately, the one running this show is the big corporations, they're the ones making the real decisions. They're in control. This could be fine, but the real problem is we're missing something, the most important organ of all. The heart. Where is the heart? You decide.

laser beam lights cascade the trail

time slows and the air becomes stale

no buttons pushed equals nothing gained

the disease spreads with no one saved

who will step outside the laser beam desire

who will stand up against heat from the fire

he who shields death from the mind

just reciprocates darkness to the blind

I cover my eyes and the street fades away

walk