Very recently I was talking to a friend about job options and the possibilities that would exist if society operated in a system where choice was the only factor. Over-skill and connections. What would I be if I could be anything? I contemplated a few things: working at an embassy in a foreign country, being an air hostess, and being an award show host. A reclusive poet. There’s so much that can be done in a deviation from reality, hence the need for fiction.

And even in this imaginary land, they never really gave much room for exploration. I am guilty of this as well. None of these alternative realities are simple, even though I have raged on and on about the beauty of a simple life. It just felt like a failure of some sort to choose something small in a reality where anything is possible. The closest to reality I can put this is having a relatively okay week and then having it go sideways when someone innocently enquires about life plans.

It feels like the highest form of self-sabotage to dream of nothing grand. Nothing extravagant. I have expressed this in a previous piece called the economy of passion. In this day and age where everything is possible and the gap between ideation and execution is smaller, the bottlenecks have become redundant and the possibility of dreams has become a social media click away; it feels like an abject sense of disservice and a great measure of disgrace to aspire to be nothing.

To live a simple life, care and just faff around until life becomes something different anyway. I was listening to a rapper’s lament while taking a tricycle home recently. It was almost sorrowful to listen to the rhymes and lyrics of a fifteen-year-old feeling like they have failed because they do not own the most expensive things yet. Of twenty-year-olds thinking life is empty if they have not made some attempt at attention and stardom. If they have not done something slightly in complete deviation from who they are, it feels unacceptable. The understated whispers are persistent: "You can be anything. Anything but small.”

So sometimes I am secretly overjoyed when I'm temporarily out of a job and enjoy just writing and capturing videos of the mundane. However, when I have conversations, I know how to put on my persona and how to speak fluently enough that it is credible. To ensure that I, too, fit seamlessly into the fold. That I aspire to great things and grab my share of the capitalist cake.

Rest is romanticised. I see these Pinterest-inspired posts of a village-side retreat, of mountains, of hills, of beautiful greenery. I could log on to Substack and be rest assured that someone would post about it wistfully. About how they wish that were reality. If we all dream of this simplicity, if we all crave the shared life and desire of smallness, where does this shame of being small come from?

I have met people who were perfectly comfortable with the quaint life, as long as no one else knew. And life is this whole performative show of who can paint a picture of a mansion and be the measure of bravado that matches the frame. As I listened to someone talk about how they were in the process of getting into a school of aviation and how grand it is – they said this in good faith – I paused for a second; I didn't tally it with my own dreams of greatness. Of preconceived greatness. Of that mutual ego stroke and shoulder rub of grand things.

I merely stayed quiet and congratulated them on the achievement because it is remarkable. I didn’t need to put on my own performance of perfection. I actually did not need anything grand to be happening in my life at that moment. But some part of my mind is very in tune to what things should be, and I wonder if I should be bothered by my lack of interest in the song and dance I have done my whole life.

The performance of perfection isn’t really pride. Even if it has hints of it. It is more of an understated fear. I don’t know about many generations; I know the one I was born in and the people that surround me both physically and virtually. An environment of limitation will most likely lead to a fear and an aversion to these limits. To smallness. So it becomes a measure of escape somewhat. Choosing, or thinking about smallness that is really a monotonous life, becomes a betrayal to everything that has been taught as a reality. As a betrayal of self to the sacrifices made for these opportunities.

A simple analogy for this is I studied microbiology. I got the chance to be this person and chase this chance because of the sacrifices that were made to put me this far, and in the depths of my soul I know I don't want to get a master's, work in a medical field or even explore the journey that getting this bachelor's would offer. I want to chase things that are almost fleeting dreams because they linger on my fingertips; I can't completely define it. I only know that it feels like a betrayal that I compensate for by having blanket dreams that are big enough.

Deep down, that perfection, the noise, and the extravagance aren't the path that is craved by everyone. It just seems like a logical standpoint. So we put on our attire, wear our masks, design the stage and put on a performance of perfection. Because how, how dare we dream of being small?