Essay: Wrestling With The Concept Of Being "Not Enough"

There Is A Reason I Make Masks

By Steven Warrick

Art by Steven Warrick

For the longest time, I have wrestled with the concept of being "not enough." They are words that have seemed to follow me. 
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They have escaped the mouths of ex-lovers in parting, employers in layoffs, would-be friends in vanishing, people considering my career as an artist, designer, performer, whatever, and of course anything financial.

And it bothers me most because they are words that describe a person who isn't trying or incomplete somehow. Who is lazy, careless, or daft, or pathetically and hopelessly lame. That ain't me. 
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I don't wonder what the status quo is for being enough anymore. It no longer seems relevant. 

​I have no illusions that a great deal of it is financial. You can't do shit unless you can pay for it, including making more money in the first place, and that's just the reality we live in. For now.

But the concept extends into more than just that. You gotta be enough of someone to do everything else in life in a constant endless staircase of expectations. Are you sexy enough? Thoughtful enough? Confident enough? Charming enough? Strong enough? Talented enough? Committed enough? Not committed enough? Adaptable enough? Stable enough? 

There is always someone else to compare you to, who is also being compared to someone else, by someone else too in a long human centipede passing this shit down the line.

So what is your illusion? Who do you pretend to be so you can be enough for someone else? What is the you that can be used and reused to feel validated? What makes you matter to someone, anyone, everyone?

It makes life itself feel like one long interview for a a job using acceptance and interaction as a paycheck.

And it's all utterly fucking stupid to me.

There is a reason I make masks. 

Because I decided to take mine off decades ago and smash it on the floor.

The face you interact with is just me. I am boring, neurotic, awkwardly quiet, unsure of most everything, helpful, caring, occasionally witty, sometimes funny, determined, lost, empathetic, loving, grumpy, sometimes very depressed, defensive, annoying as fuck, typically a little disheveled looking, often confused and overwhelmed. I have a head full of wonders and constant music playing, and sometimes I'm just totally checked the fuck out and blank.
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What you see is literally what you get with me, and that will always be all you will ever get, so trust me when I say it better be enough.