The deeper meaning behind ‘PAWN’

I wrote ‘PAWN’ during a very dark time in my life. You can learn more about that time here. I am a big believer that creativity is not born from ideal, perfect circumstances. Sometimes my favorite work comes from periods of my life when everything is flipped upside down. To create from chaos in healthy and artistic ways is a path I choose to walk instead of sitting and being a passive non-participant in my own life.  A more poetic concept of “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade”.

I am a naturally curious person, and I find delight in being challenging, which means I love asking the questions many people might find uncomfortable. I am that friend or person you know who seems to call out every elephant in the room and ask “inappropriate” questions, that’s me, and maybe it’s you too. I tend to discover we find one another, especially through art.

So, what is ‘PAWN’ about beyond the blurb or synopsis?

‘PAWN’ Examines: How America’s broken healthcare system transforms caregivers into captors, reducing loved ones to financial burdens and forcing impossible moral calculations where a parent’s life becomes a debt you can’t afford. That human care for one another is not a burden we need to free ourselves from and trying to do so costs us spiritually on a soul level.  How we put so much of our own self worth on status and entrepreneurial achievements as a representation for freedom, agency and self-worth when often to reach and sustain those things we become more trapped and undervalued, and as a result undervalue the actual important things in life, sacrificing the wrong things, especially on a soul level and ultimately other people.

‘PAWN’ Exposes: The dehumanization built into the American Dream. The lie that ruthless hustle will save you, that someone always has to lose for you to win, and that freedom only comes through abandoning those who need you most. That the more you have (status, money) the safer you are, but you can’t take it with you when you die. It exposes what people will do to avoid grief and loss and how hoarding and greed is often an unhealthy result of attempting to avoid the uncomfortable human emotions in grief, when we only become more consumed by them.

‘PAWN’ Asks: How far will you go when the system offers no good options, only expensive ones? Does money and status guarantee comfort and an easy, burden free life? What do we become when care itself is unsustainable? How far will we go to fill voids in our hearts and create more disconnection from one another to avoid discomfort, loss and healthy vulnerability?

I chose the title for what the word PAWN represents.

DEBT: Financial, spiritual and moral.

APPRAISAL: The value of things and people and how we’ve dehumanized each other in the process.

SACRIFICE: Often we think of pawns like the chess piece, but also many of us feel like pawns in the bigger systems, and exploring in what capacity do we have agency against them and also how we remain complacent in them as well.

You can buy ‘PAWN’ directly through my website’s Book Store or on Amazon here.

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