The High Cost of Staging Your Own Success
The elevator cables groaned like an old man waking up from a nap he didn’t want to take. I was between the 6th and 7th floors when the world just… stopped. There was a shudder, a metallic click, and then a silence so thick you could almost taste the dust in the vents. My thumb was still hovering over the button for the 16th floor. For 26 minutes, I sat on the carpeted floor of that four-by-four steel box, staring at the emergency phone and thinking about my Instagram feed.
It’s a sickness, really. There I was, potentially facing a mechanical catastrophe, and my first instinct wasn’t to call my mother or pray. It was to wonder if the emergency lighting was dramatic enough for a ‘raw and vulnerable’ story about the struggles of the modern freelancer. I could almost see the caption: ‘Sometimes life pauses so you can find your center #HustleHarder.’ I had 86% battery left, and I spent 6 minutes of it framing a shot of my scuffed leather boots against the elevator door.
Insight: The Core Rot
This is the core rot of the gig economy. We aren’t just workers anymore; we are the marketing department, the PR firm, and the lead actor in a movie that nobody is actually watching. We are trapped in a cycle of Productivity Theater where the appearance of being busy… is more valuable than the actual work being done.
The Staged Reality
I eventually got out, of course. A technician with a 46-inch waist and a very skeptical expression pried the doors open, but the feeling of being trapped didn’t stay in the elevator shaft. It followed me home to my desk. I spent the next hour staging a photo of my laptop at a local coffee shop. The latte cost $6, and I didn’t even like the oat milk they used. Then, I went home and spent 6 hours doing soul-crushing data entry for a client who won’t remember my name in 26 days. The data entry paid $106.
Time lost to projection
Net return
“The most dangerous form of mourning is the one where you grieve a person who is still alive.”
– Natasha W.J., Grief Counselor
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The Performance Contract
Natasha W.J. mentioned that the ‘gig’ isn’t just the task; it’s the performance of the task. If you’re a designer and your workspace doesn’t look like a page from a Scandinavian catalog, are you even talented? The pressure to perform is a second, unpaid job that we’ve all collectively agreed to pretend is part of the ‘dream.’ I’ve deleted 56 drafts of a single tweet because I was worried it didn’t sound ‘authoritative’ enough.
The Primary Product
The professional brand has become the primary product, even when there is no actual service being sold. We are selling the idea of ourselves, hoping that someone will eventually buy the reality. The technician in the elevator didn’t have a ‘brand’; he had a wrench and a set of keys. He just fixed the damn thing.
I’m guilty of it. We all are. I’ve lied about my availability to seem more in demand, only to spend those 6 ‘busy’ hours staring at a wall because I was too burnt out to move a muscle. The theater is exhausting, and it’s expensive.
The mask we wear is becoming the only face we have.
Finding Dignity in the Direct Approach
I think we’re all looking for a way out of the theater. We want something that doesn’t require us to be a marketing agency for our own existence. There is a certain dignity in the direct approach. When you stop trying to project success and start looking for genuine opportunities, the noise begins to fade.
I found that when you strip away the theater, you find people who are actually interested in the work. For example, if you’re looking for a more direct, no-nonsense path to tangible rewards without the fluff, you might find something useful at ggongnara, which cuts through a lot of the usual noise we’re forced to navigate.
Metaphor: Grief vs. Hustle
Natasha W.J. once told me that ‘grief is just love with no place to go.’ I wonder if the performative hustle is just ambition with no place to go. We are decorating a house that is currently on fire, and we’re worried that the smoke is ruining the lighting for our next post.
I’ve decided to stop. Or at least, I’ve decided to try. I’m not going to post about the next time I get stuck in an elevator. I’m just going to sit there and feel the 26 minutes of silence. I’m going to let the ‘Productivity Theater’ go dark for a while.
The Radical Act of Being Present
I think back to that data entry task. It was tedious, yes. It was 126 columns of names and numbers that meant nothing to me. But it was honest. There was no filter that could make a spreadsheet look like a lifestyle choice. There was just the work. And in a world where everything is a stage, there’s something incredibly radical about being the person who just turns off the lights and goes home.
The Decision
Putting the attention engine away.
No Presence
Quiet Room
Real Work
I’m going to put the phone in a drawer. I’m going to sit in my living room with the 6-watt bulb in my lamp, and I’m going to be nobody for a while. No brand, no hustle, no theater.
It’s Time to Break the Gear.
If you find yourself staging your life for an audience that isn’t actually there, remember: you’ve become a ghost in your own machine. The elevator is moving again, and this time, we’re getting off at the floor where the real life is-even if the lighting is terrible and there’s no Wi-Fi to tell anyone about it.
Find the Path Without the Performance