As an observer, I pilot over paths, all while remaining human and thus standing at the paths' ends. I try to remember that my attention may be lagging, that I have only my perception, subject to blinking, distraction and the lens I use to see. The paths will cross, alter in altitudes, at times they will be in view of each other, other times they will not be. I will outline what I see through my lens, encouraging you to note when you suspect I’ve become distracted, blinked.

It is important to note that, in a moment of power imbalance, only a select few are given the opportunity to dictate their own path. One is more likely to view the paths from afar, or to be relayed tales of the paths. Everyone, though, is impacted by the journeyers and their choices. The majority, subcategorized into minorities, wait at where the paths end. I wait. I wait for the privileged few to inform me of what path has been taken and which of their journeys to trek. My beginning is their end and my end is defined by their beginning.

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I recognize that this is a convoluted metaphor. It feels accurate to my experience of waiting for others to determine my route for me. Typing this, I think of an experience on the bus. A woman was chased onto the bus by an unwell man. I deemed him unwell due to his confused speech, rapidly and dramatically shifting mood, in conjunction with the thick layer of filth that had collected onto his body. Other passengers took to policing the unwell man to aid the woman and the bus driver. I thought of what I have in common with him and the woman and what separated us. I am white, they are not. I am male, she is not. I have a debilitating mental illness that is fortunately medicated so that I was, at the time, functional according to modes of conduct. He was not.

Some time ago, I was on the Max. A young man was overwhelmed trying to depart from the Max. He was facing the closed doors and became distressed. I approached him, gesturing with a smile to the open door opposite him. He appeared relieved and smiled. There was no such opportunity this time around. Neither the man nor the woman communicated their needs in a manner that I understood.

I do not know how they felt about the othering they experienced. Two distressed individuals, longing for help, unable to receive it, all while being policed. In this instance, the well bus passengers were the hegemony. They attempted to police two people into expected modes of conduct. This makes me think of the melting pot. All of the ways in which the isolated must assimilate. Interestingly, the man and the woman remained as they were. The separate police took to policing each other. All of us coexisted. 

Often in my life, I have felt disempowered. I have felt as though I was awaiting instruction that would dictate my path. With the above example, I see that this is not necessarily the case. I’d like to explore the ways in which I am wrong regarding my status as gay, mentally ill and impoverished; a white, cis male citizen of the USA.

I exist with extreme privilege. More often than not, I feel subordinate. After experiencing a second trauma in my early sobriety, I was diagnosed with PTSD, which worsened during my time as a sex worker. On what path then, do I view myself walking? Which direction do I choose? In taking a path, do I dictate that someone retrace it and to what end?

The more loudly these questions sound, the more distracted I am from piloting over the paths. Meanwhile, I stand alongside others. Someone of greater privilege than myself approaches. We all stand together. We coexist. Under the threat of the melting pot and in the interim between its dictates and followings, lies choice. In that choice, lies multiculturalism. Try as I might, I cannot offer the bird’s eye view through anything other than my lens. Through that lens, I gaze from where I stand. It is in recognizing this that I find my gratitude. This is what I wish to explore as an artist.