Transcript

I’m Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

Today, I longed to call out of work and to attend a movie matinee. I had the temptation to simply email my colleagues and ask, “Who’s in? The work will be here.” I wanted to encourage delinquency.

Last week, someone made a remark about a political topic that was so infuriating I wanted to shout them down, which is the mode of our current zeitgeist. Doing so would likely have cost me my position and the regard of my peers. Instead, I attempted to reason with them, hoping they would be open to being persuaded into a different perspective, because, I’ve been told, that’s how a rational society behaves.

Not too long ago, I had a staggering thought that only the megarich, I mean so rich it's hidden away, should pay taxes. But, of course, that would not be fair. I imagine everyone has experienced feelings of having to suppress unpopular opinions and to toe the line.

While I am a strong advocate of individual freedom, our social contract pressures us to conform to a set of perspectives and rules that is for the betterment of all. Then again, I wonder how much of our authentic selves are lost in the belief that we are stronger collectively, when we adhere this way, to a set of civic virtues that may not fully align with our worldview. Is there a part of us that wishes to express something different? How might we look within, and no longer seek social affirmation? Today’s poem hilariously and subtly bespeaks the illusion and cost of communal existence and belonging.

I Tune My Body and My Brain to the Music of The Land
by Natalie Shapero

An important part of becoming any actor 
is showing up to a room full of people who look
more or less like you, all auditioning for the same bit part.
I guess some find this threatening and/or a source
of destabilization, but, for me, my everyday activities 
already leave me so threatened and destabilized 
that it’s hard to imagine a throng of lookalikes
making that much of a dent. Asked why he didn’t paint

from nature, Jackson Pollock responded I AM NATURE.
Asked why I don’t live in an admittedly flawed
utopian experiment in which work is substituted 
for property as the basis of social belonging,
I say I AM AN ADMITTEDLY FLAWED UTOPIAN
EXPERIMENT IN WHICH WORK IS SUBSTITUTED
FOR PROPERTY AS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL 
BELONGING. I spend all day reading magazine 
columns and spitting back my own stories. My Most
Embarrassing Moment would have to be a tie

between when I forged NUMBER 1 (LAVENDER MIST)
using five separate pigments that weren’t developed
until years after Pollock’s death, and that time 
I strutted through the neighborhood assuming
nobody but me could tell I was dead, when actually
half the street was texting each other SHE THINKS
WE DON’T NOTICE [eyeroll gif]. I want to be a better
person. Divest from bad habits. I also want to 
just hop in the hedge and hide from it all, like the thirdmost
surrendered domestic animals (rabbits).

"I Tune My Body and My Brain to the Music of the Land" by Natalie Shapero. Used by permission of the poet.