For The Platypus in All Of Us
We strive hard to invent the new, to be one of the souls whose work illuminates the secrets of what it means to be alive. At the same time, we struggle with uncertainties of our worthiness to own our stories, let alone raise our voices to share those stories with anyone. Tell someone you love their work and they’ll freeze waiting for the drop of the inevitable but….
The experience of Imposter Syndrome comes in many flavors—like popsicles. Yet—like popsicles—we make every single version from the same stuff. Consciously or not, we are struck by the self-accusation of slithering through the world as the con artist soon be caught. How dare we value our emotions, our stories, and our voices? Who are we to think good of the gifts we offer the vastness of the world? What hubris to even create in the first place. Who do we think we are?
But…our weird is the miracle.
Imposter Syndrome is a terrible sensation, a fear we numb out in differing ways. Everyone else on the planet is clearly confident and accomplished. In short form, everyone else is perfect. All the while, we fraudulent individuals rush to cover up our miraculous weird. But…our weird is the miracle. We rush about trying to cover up the Creator’s handiwork with fig leaves because embodying our weirdness, being seen, leaves a deep vulnerability to ancient anxieties of not belonging. Love me but don’t look at me.
I composed this little poem at the beginning of the pandemic, intending the verses for my writing friends busy setting page-count goals for the lockdown. I wrote it for me, setting the same goals for a future that doesn’t yet exist. The future did come into being, and I’ve revised the poem countless times. I’m sure I’ll revise it again.
If you now endure or have endured the ravages of shame for being, you know, human, I offer this as a whimsical meditation in response to our egos’ go-to protection strategy of flooding us with self-doubt. Being or Belonging? To this writer, that is the question at the root of who we humans have become.
Some Assembly Required
God opened the Universe
Like boxes from IKEA
with Swedish monikers declaring
Böjan, Gåva, and Gus.
Impatient, God threw out
the cryptic instructions.
How else to explain the Platypus?
With a duck’s flat beak and
a beaver’s flatter tail,
a body porcupined
in poisonous quills,
mud-colored yet bio-fluorescent at dusk—
The work boasts designers
of mad, mad, mad skills.
It’s no looker like the mighty Tiger,
no honey-hunting Bear, no Orca
racing a billionaire’s yacht.
Old Platy might not tempt many hearts,
but what’s better than a loving Creator who
ditches the expected and
wings it with leftover parts?
Whenever I feel a cosmic mistake,
that I don’t fulfill anyone’s plan,
I search this DIY Universe and
find creation never did rest.
Original always emerges as odd—
of all the wonders near or far
God might love the Platypus best.
April 22, 2020
Most Recent Revision: May 23, 2023
Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash