Many don’ believe I used to be quite withdrawn, and mostly on the loner side. And many still don’t believe that ‘I’, really and actually am a bohemian ‘closet hermit’.
Closet Hermit, you say?! Yes I say!
Participation, the constant engagement and contributions in different realms, the jobs, the work, the balance between critical work with institutions and work in the creative realm, all constitute an attempt at some form of weirdly-withdrawn-yet-very-active form of disabling the hermit inside!
I’m all in, in a way, but not really also. Across fields. Constant rethinkings. Struggle though, not really at pragmatic levels, but emotional and psychological, mostly.
So I keep it constantly churning. And make self remember the importance of the contributions. Large and small. vocal and subdued. Grandiloquent and not. Local, national, global.
And I call it a form of chipping in, of course. A variation on it. A variation on chipping in.
An attempt to chip in, raise the hand, contribute somehow. A social project. A political project.
Chi’p In’.