Dreaming is Free

I used to think about status a lot. Before the pandemic, I had a plan to leave my job at the food pantry to focus on writing, consulting projects and my general caché of miscellaneous cooking jobs. It was a moment where I thought I could see a future for myself both compelling and financially viable, two great tastes that taste great together. Status felt like an aura that could get me into rooms, into conversations, into opportunities. Recognition begets possibilities. Do you know what possibility feels like? It’s like having the best breeze behind you, it offers daydreams when life feels like every day will just be the same. It offers hope, it allows us to dream.

Then COVID happened, and I found myself in the right place at the right time, an essential worker at one of the few pantries that was open during shutdown. I feel lucky that I was there to do the work, to figure out what to do with all the donated food when every restaurant, office and school in the city closed, and all the chaos that followed. I trusted my instincts and my vision, following them. I was up to the task. And there, on Lexington Avenue, I bought truckloads of pallets of food, worked on my pallet jack skills (generally third worst), made thousands of produce and fresh milk and egg bags every week and moved millions of pounds of food. There was no room for status, just the reality of the moment. 

When I left that job after six years, I left secure in the knowledge that the programs and satellite pantries we set up would continue. I returned to freelancing full-time, consulting on a restaurant opening, food-styling on TV shows, catering. Over the past few months, I’ve found myself grateful for engaging work that pays well and respects me.¹ I’m grateful for the stability, and while there’s nothing fascinating about stability, we totally should be. It’s a fucking unicorn in many people’s lives. I feel lame for expressing this publicly, and I’ve wondered why. We like people who give us chaos, passion, art, wildness, strange cult vibes, esoteric art leanings, blasé attitudes towards most people’s lives. We love suffering, especially the self-imposed kind. Cool is cool, drama interesting. Stability and basic human needs are boring, and we hate to be bored. 

This year I realized what I want is agency—agency over my own work, my time and the work I do for hire. I have no patience for the bullshit. I want to make money based on my skills and my mind, without having to acquiesce. I’m not interested in playing games.

Agency. Status. They’re not the same thing. They seem related, but it is somewhat distant. Agency is very personal and internal. Status feels external. I can have agency, but someone else grants me status. Status can get you into a room, status get masqueraded as power. Agency is fulfillment, an actualization of the brain and body. Status, while voted on by committee, can be hollow, but still important in our increasingly shallow world. I wonder about this stuff because it’s the stuff of influence and access. 

There’s something empty about a life made solely on status. It gets people places, often relying on the same antiquated things we’re trying to shed to move forward in our society…generational wealth, family connections, nepotism, knowing “the right people,” making every human interaction transactional, money, money, money. It’s rarely about the work. It’s a consumption that is never satisfied. We’re chasing things that can’t be caught. It’s like living on quicksand, watching people trying to keep up for the sake of keeping up but never getting there. But here’s the thing, and it doesn’t apply to everything², but it does for this: if you don’t believe in it, it doesn’t matter. 

1. I admit, I am somewhat depressed about this statement, to be respected and paid well. It doesn’t feel like that should be a monumental thing, but it kind of is.

2. I’m looking at you, Flat Earthers.