Why Don’t You Just KILL YOURSELF?!
Let me introduce myself. I'm pope. Wait. I'm the traveling barber. Wait. I'm a small business owner. Wait. I'm an artist. Wait. I’m a lover, a friend, a poet, a professional bullshit slinger.
I am not really any of those things. I do those things. Who am I then? I hope I am what the moment calls for. I don't travel to barber that much anymore. I haven't for a while. I have been so scared to kill the traveling barber. Will people abandon me.? Will they accept the shapeshifter that I am? Will I lose all my clients? Who am I if I’m not that?
I am a little different every day. In large part thanks to my client's diverse worldviews I get great nuggets from them all the time. In one conversation about some tired branding I needed to let go of, my client told me to “murder my darlings,” an idea in creative writing penned by Arthur Quiller-Couch. He purposed, it's time to kill off a character or storyline that no longer serves the overarching piece, no matter how emotionally attached you are.
This advice helped me let go of that tired branding. It felt very freeing and I got to wondering, how free would I feel if I could do this with some of the character traits that no longer blended into the tapestry I saw as my beautiful life? How many new colours would I get to work with if I just dropped the ones I have been gripping this whole time? I am very attached to the idea of being a good person, a smart person, a desirable person. What if I just kill my most darling of all? Me, and see what happens.
It's fucking awesome! Life is best lived curiously, with as few labels and boxes as possible, it is short and long, too short to waste time in the boxes, too long to be sad about letting go of the ones we thought we really liked.
One of the reasons I have a passion for barbering is the lessons I learn behind the chair every day. The peeps in my chair teach me. They are fascinating, they make me wonder. They pull me to the present. The peeps in my chair remind me to be thoughful and joyful. One teaches compassion and resilience as they deal with their grief of lost love, lost life, lost time. The next guides me through a practical way to use google calendar for time management. They all teach that our perspective is our reality.
These are my peeps. Thanks for keeping me on my toes. Making me laugh. Sharing your sorrows. Thank you for inciting my curiosity.
~your irreverent pope