Kissing the dirt

I recently had a conversation with someone who had been captivated by a big vision and was told by a person in my network that I was an expert in the area of the vision. In other words, my referring person had positioned me as having the skills and tools already that this person wanted to bring to life. 

The conversation started like this. The big vision person shared their vision with me and then proceeded to explain why their approach to building it was right. When I attempted to speak about my experience, they insisted on speaking over me to reinforce their untested theory. 

After some time of being told their theory, I was compelled to say I could not help this person, because indeed there was no room for my experience in this person’s world. Another dismissal, erasure and irrelevancy by the usual voice of the world-changing movement. The very lineage that created the reason we need to change the world in the first place.

And I am done with being stepped over, disregarded, made irrelevant. Speaking into that was not optional.

I called it out.

That did change the direction of the conversation and opened the space for a little more listening. 

The irony was that this person was insistent on creating a world of collaboration without hierarchy. (Not possible, or healthy.) Clearly, they had no issue with being the dominant force in our conversation.

Sigh. 

I’m glad I spoke up and called it. 

Yet, I see my younger self in this conversation, both as the erased and the person who refused to listen to experience. 

Ouch. 

Underneath all of this is a real pain that I witness time and again: people offering shonky, unthought-out work and getting paid very well for it. Great work, great art, often gets left in that huge field of the forgotten or unrewarded against the ocean of mediocre.

Keep doing great art. AND, keep being an advocate for your great art. If we are not our own greatest advocate, then do we really honour our art? 

Or, put another way, a question I am deeply considering. What would I do if I really backed myself and my work? 

Life’s lessons. Not only do they keep coming, thank goodness, they keep us kissing the dirt.

Photo July 19th 2025, Article written July 19th 2025