i fear what i've become
I say I’m an artist because it’s the closest word I have. But personally, the term seems a little untrue, like, calling the ocean “water.”
It had always been something I could not fully articulate for years, mostly because it had a stigma relating to delusion, hallucination, crazywildhysterical fantasy, etc. I always tried to find “safer” words that were digestible or having the least chance of getting misunderstood. Words like ‘creativity’ or ‘storytelling’ or ‘problem-solving’ could sit comfortably in a room full of people who only trust things that can be standardized and measured.
Imagination leaks and wanders. And it can also be manipulated to be conditioned out of someone. Building a world of make-believe has a reputation of sounding unrealistic and deceptive. What we forget is that in life, most of the time, we must first visualize an ideal scenario [a better world] or self before we can actually create it.
What we cannot imagine, cannot come into being. - bell hooks
I wish I could say that I built The Love Club (TLC) to explore the idea of imagination, but it was the other way around. The Love Club gave me enormous space to imagine and permission to just create.
My digital footprint is a time capsule for someone in the far future.
I have been in the habit of documenting everything about my life online and offline. One could call it an attempt to build a following or maybe a way to feel seen or start conversation.
But if I’m being honest, the reason I create — the reason I keep doing what I do instinctively—is for the doing itself. The expressing and the laying out of thoughts in whatever form they decide to take.
Writing.
Illustrating.
Podcast.
Music.
Film.
Anything that lets something intangible become visible.
I find immense joy in witnessing myself make something out of nothing and bits of pieces of everything all at once. But even with the knowledge and the accumulation of things I experience and learn on top of that joy—the search in the unknown continues.
The world’s terrible forces will go out of their way so we can’t access things that can aid us in understanding life itself. They do this by poisoning our reality with greed, dread, anxiety, guilt, and disconnection.
Imagination matters more than I ever allowed myself to admit cause imagination resists that. It insists on possibility even when everything else feels “fixed”.
So I keep building because stopping would mean ignoring something that keeps asking to be made. This constant reaching, this partial knowing is the work. Every time I create something — a character, a story, a space — it reveals just enough for me to walk alongside clarity, rather than chase it.
Forever,
--
I make things.
Stories, drawings, conversations, spaces. Sometimes they become projects and sometimes they just pass through me. I try not to overthink about categorizing them too neatly but what I know is this: I am always trying to make meaning out of something that feels slightly out of reach.
One of the greatest breakthroughs I’ve recently had is the topic on imagination.
Stories, drawings, conversations, spaces. Sometimes they become projects and sometimes they just pass through me. I try not to overthink about categorizing them too neatly but what I know is this: I am always trying to make meaning out of something that feels slightly out of reach.
One of the greatest breakthroughs I’ve recently had is the topic on imagination.
It had always been something I could not fully articulate for years, mostly because it had a stigma relating to delusion, hallucination, crazywildhysterical fantasy, etc. I always tried to find “safer” words that were digestible or having the least chance of getting misunderstood. Words like ‘creativity’ or ‘storytelling’ or ‘problem-solving’ could sit comfortably in a room full of people who only trust things that can be standardized and measured.
Imagination leaks and wanders. And it can also be manipulated to be conditioned out of someone. Building a world of make-believe has a reputation of sounding unrealistic and deceptive. What we forget is that in life, most of the time, we must first visualize an ideal scenario [a better world] or self before we can actually create it.
What we cannot imagine, cannot come into being. - bell hooks
I wish I could say that I built The Love Club (TLC) to explore the idea of imagination, but it was the other way around. The Love Club gave me enormous space to imagine and permission to just create.
Birthing adorable characters kept evolving and shape-shifting into a mission, a specific branding, and lore-building that was extracted from my own or other people’s experiences. It became a world that constantly grounded me to the values that I pursue evidently for as long as I can remember: kindness, community, creation, wisdom, and chaos.
And all of that catapulted me to multiple directions and I get to practice them, study them and grow from them, knowingly/unknowingly.
And all of that catapulted me to multiple directions and I get to practice them, study them and grow from them, knowingly/unknowingly.
My digital footprint is a time capsule for someone in the far future.
I have been in the habit of documenting everything about my life online and offline. One could call it an attempt to build a following or maybe a way to feel seen or start conversation.
But if I’m being honest, the reason I create — the reason I keep doing what I do instinctively—is for the doing itself. The expressing and the laying out of thoughts in whatever form they decide to take.
Writing.
Illustrating.
Podcast.
Music.
Film.
Anything that lets something intangible become visible.
I find immense joy in witnessing myself make something out of nothing and bits of pieces of everything all at once. But even with the knowledge and the accumulation of things I experience and learn on top of that joy—the search in the unknown continues.
The world’s terrible forces will go out of their way so we can’t access things that can aid us in understanding life itself. They do this by poisoning our reality with greed, dread, anxiety, guilt, and disconnection.
Imagination matters more than I ever allowed myself to admit cause imagination resists that. It insists on possibility even when everything else feels “fixed”.
So I keep building because stopping would mean ignoring something that keeps asking to be made. This constant reaching, this partial knowing is the work. Every time I create something — a character, a story, a space — it reveals just enough for me to walk alongside clarity, rather than chase it.
Forever,
PLAYLIST:
Make Me Feel by Janelle Monáe
Tambalan by Up Dharma Down
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' by Michael Jackson
6's to 9's by Big Wild, Rationale
High by Sir Sly
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