The Curious Life of a Multi-Hyphenate
Let me reintroduce myself. I'm Emon, and I'm a multi-hyphenate.
I live and breathe film, photography, music, and writing. Any medium that's a sibling or offshoot of those four, I've either immersed myself in it or will someday. I felt a reintroduction was necessary to put an end to all the "What’s your main thing?" questions—spoken or not. Time to set the record straight.
Since I was a kid, I’ve been catching bugs: cricket first (the game), then music, then movies. Obsessively going through a learning phase so I could make my own. That part’s not unique. I am, however, a lifelong serial catcher of bugs. I wasn’t aware that’s not how things are done. The notion of building a life around the many things I loved to do was wrung out of me during my teen years. I was called dumb and stupid long before I was told to pick a lane—an easy one for the dumb kind—and work until I became passable at it. "Stick with passable, 'cause you'll never be good at anything." Nostradamus, they ain't.
"A jack of all trades is a master of none" is an oft-repeated phrase hurled at multi-hyphenates. And the classic: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Horseshit. Aside: Shakespeare was called a "Johannes Factotum"—which translates to "John who does everything" (an early iteration of jack of all trades)—for being many things. (I wouldn't be surprised if the guy also tacked flyers of his productions around town himself.)
I'm not comparing myself to Shakespeare, because who wants a monocle-wearer foaming at the mouth over the audacity. I'm simply pointing out that the guy did what he had to. I'd further conjecture that had cameras and recording gear been invented in the 16th century, Bardman would've been all over it. So would, without a doubt, da Vinci, the OG of multi-hyphenates, if those tools had been available during his time.
Shouldn’t I have chosen ‘the one’ by now? Thing is, I’ve never auditioned disciplines for a perfect match. If a new discipline shifts how I see filmmaking, writing, photography, or music, I’m all in. I don't expect every work I complete to be good. I'm good with having completed it. Besides, there's never been a consensus on what makes good art good. Also, I don't care.
Now, fam, I know being a multi-hyphenate has its drawbacks. Lane pickers—especially those who went to special schools for their trade—will never believe multi-hyphenates can do quality work. My art will likely be read differently from those who specialize and settle into a style. People find it hard to market or introduce me "properly." The establishment prefers neat categories, and I’m basically a zine shuffled from section to section at a bookstore. I’ll likely never be invited to join a club. In Groucho Marx's words: “I don’t want to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”
I’ll admit it. None of this has been, is, or will ever be easy. It takes me twice as long to learn anything as it does a normal person to begin with, and I’m a frequent traveler to square one. (This post has been through over 35 revisions.) I struggle with project and time management. I struggle with containing ideas that constantly bubble up and demand an audience. I wrestle with having to struggle. Imagine being ping-ponged between what you’re very good at and what you’re, ahem, passable at, while trying to balance with a foot in each boat.
The irony is, some of my best work has come from that state of harmonic chaos. Give this guy a hard deadline and watch him turn into a human Swiss Army Knife. All the disciplines become mentors. A bookbinding technique reinvigorates a film edit. A challenging passage on the guitar reshapes a dormant short story. A collaging snafu reframes a seemingly disjointed photo essay. It's cross-pollination. It works.
To put a bow on it: a multi-hyphenate is to disciplines what a juggler is to their pins. If you’re good, the number of pins doesn’t matter. Until you’ve juggled successfully, you’re just a dabbler. And we multi-hyphenates are many things, but never dabblers.
