I AM AN ACCOUNTANT
They say turn your pain into art.
So I have channelled an idea for a show I am going to have to create, called “I AM AN ACCOUNTANT”.
Yes you heard it here first!
It could be a comedy, about how ridiculous we all behave in corporate situations, poking fun at how we completely change into being “professionals”, totally inauthentic, playing along with some pointless game. Or maybe the show is an all-singing, all- dancing musical! Where all the backing dancers are dressed up as numbers moving around the stage, moving through financial processes, being transferred between different ledgers and accounting codes, flowing with every transaction made. There will be a theatrical trial balance which spits out financial reports that get produced for people in suits to look at and use fancy financial language to show off to each other in stale Board meetings. The stage will be set up like a computer screen. (I can vision it — it will be SO good and silly). Like the ‘Scary Numbers’ on the show Severance!
“I AM AN ACCOUNTANT” has already been a show for 18 years (well… on and off). People have asked me if I am an actress, I am not, although I have been damn good at my immersive acting role as a Financial Controller, pretending day after day like I care about the numbers I am controlling. I am just so done with this role! It is like I have been playing Peggy in Eastenders forever, and I keep on auditioning for other roles but all I get offered is lowly paid amateur dramatics gigs.
I have been trying to “career change” for a decade, I take so many courses and trainings, read self-help books, try to meet a wide range of people, volunteer at places, I really do try loads of things out. People say follow your passion, well… I have discovered I have 20+ passions and had a spiritual awakening about how life is ridiculously amazing, it is an unbelievable miracle, a glorious infinite soup of consciousness playing with itself, and I am ecstatic to be alive…
>>>>> But I can’t seem to escape accountancy!!
Because capitalism. Ugh.
Because everything I create, workshop I facilitate, act I invent or event I produce pays so little. I take entrepreneurial risks that don’t pay off. I spend a lot of effort marketing my own events which really takes it out of me, only to make £100 profit… (although the events I put on are SOOOO worth it, sod the money… they give me such joy, they blast me open!!!)
Anyway, woe is me, I have just started another accounting job
Luckily it is only a short contract, there is an end date. Whilst I am contracting, my soul is dying a little, I sort of grieve each day I am wasting on things that don’t light me up.
But this time it is different.
I am tuning into not only myself, but all the people I am working with in this grey business park. I feel so sorry for them.
WHAT ARE WE ALL DOING?!!!! Staring into computer screens- when really we wanna be immersed in nature, being with our families & friends, enjoying existence.
These jobs weren’t around a few decades ago, we created these jobs… they weren’t needed before. We created these departments, these ‘career ladders’, these policies & procedures, these soulless corporate cultures, these job descriptions. We have made it complicated. Where is humanity going? Is this the world we want to be in collectively? Everyone is in a self-imposed prison, and can’t escape cos we need the money to survive. Doing repetitive, stressful, uninspiring NONSENSE. Just to survive. Can we go back to all being small scale farmers, or go back further to sticks and stones?
I still haven’t completely saved myself from the trap I got myself into, but when I do, I really wanna help others to WAKE UP and escape too. Create a new way of existing that isn’t so monotonous and depressing.
Maybe I will wake people up with my fantastic “I AM AN ACCOUNTANT” show, and politicians watching in the theatre will say, Iona has got a point here… and it took all this singing & dancing & laughing in the show to realise we don’t want this anymore. Let’s liberate everyone and create a utopia of living instead. Yay!
Anyway, that’s my mid-week ramble over.
Back to work tomorrow!
