Nine-to-Nine Jobs, Zero-to-Infinite Expression:
We are told we have free will.
Choose your career. Choose your passion. Choose your happiness.
But somewhere between the morning stand-up call and the last “one quick thing” message at 9 pm, free will quietly clocks out.
Free will is overrated if everyone is expected to be successful in the same narrow definition of success. And honestly, what is the point of free will if you cannot exercise it after working fourteen hours a day?
In Kochi, this hits hard. We are a city that works. Hard. Offices are fuller, calendars are tighter, and everyone is “just busy this week” every week. We are building careers, paying EMIs, upgrading phones, upgrading skills, and upgrading stress levels. But expression? That gets postponed. Again and again.
And postponed joy has a way of turning into frustration.
Work is not the problem. Silence is.
Let us be clear. Work is important. Ambition is healthy. Nobody is saying quit your job and take up interpretive dance tomorrow. The problem starts when work becomes the only place where energy goes, and everything else runs on leftovers.
Most people are not unhappy because they hate their jobs. They are unhappy because their lives have become one long to-do list. Wake up. Work. Eat. Scroll. Sleep. Repeat.
There is no space to be loud, stupid, emotional, curious, or creatively terrible.
Performance art spaces exist for exactly this reason.
They are not luxury add-ons for “artsy people”. They are basic human outlets. Places where you can sit in a room after a long day and feel something that is not pressure. Where you can laugh without context, watch someone say the thing you have been thinking, or get on stage and fail safely.
That matters more than we admit.
Why Kochi needs this now
Kochi has artists. Always has. Singers, actors, writers, comics, dancers, poets hiding in offices, agencies, startups, classrooms, and cafes. Talent is not the issue. Space is.
Most performance today happens in borrowed venues, temporary stages, or one-off events. There is rarely continuity. Rarely a place where you can show up regularly, grow slowly, and build something without immediately chasing scale or virality.
For working professionals, it is even harder. You want to attend a show, but it feels indulgent. You want to try something creative, but you are tired. You tell yourself “maybe next month” until months turn into years.
Performance art spaces change that equation. They make expression accessible, not aspirational. You do not need to be great. You just need to show up.
And showing up does something powerful. It reminds you that you are more than your designation.
Absurdity exists because life already is absurd
Absurdity was not built to fix people. It was built because pretending everything is normal is exhausting.
We optimize productivity all day and then wonder why joy feels scheduled. We talk about passion but only if it can be monetized. We believe in free will but only within office hours.
Absurdity pushes back on that gently, with humour.
It is a space where comedy feels less like content and more like conversation. Where performances are raw, imperfect, and honest. Where audiences are not passive consumers but part of the room.
You might walk in after a brutal workday and think you are “just watching a show”. You walk out lighter, without fully knowing why. That is the trick.
For artists, Absurdity is a place to try, fail, repeat. No algorithms. No pressure to go viral. Just stage time and real humans. For everyone else, it is a reminder that expression is not a reward you earn after burnout. It is how you avoid it.
This is not about escaping work
Let us be clear again. This is not about quitting your job or rejecting ambition. It is about balance that actually works.
A city cannot survive on output alone. People need spaces to process life, laugh at it, question it, and occasionally mock it. Performance art does that better than motivational posters ever will.
Absurdity is part of that ecosystem Kochi needs right now. A place where work does not define your worth for a couple of hours. Where free will gets a small but meaningful window to exist.
If this sounds familiar, it probably is
If you have ever said “I used to be creative”, this space is for you.
If you are tired but not done with life, this space is for you.
If you believe success should not look the same for everyone, this space is for you.
Take some time to explore what Absurdity is building. Read the vision. See the shows. Understand why this space exists and why it is not trying to be everything to everyone.
Because nine-to-nine jobs may be unavoidable right now.
Zero-to-infinite expression should not be.
