A promise to live strong

This is it.

However it reads, this will officially be my first released writing piece. Its been such a long time coming.

I’ve had all kinds of creative ideas dating back to around 10 years ago, way back when the world was due to end in 2012; then throughout the years while I was busy being a cog, spinning away in the machine; and then still in 2016 when I quit my job to travel; and then still in late 2017 when I first made my blog in South Korea; and then still in late 2020 while locked down in Australia when I remade my blog to now, here we are in the post-COVID world of 2022.

Some of those creative ideas did make it to reality, but it was neither here nor there. In the past 5 years, I felt a strong pull towards writing, hence making the blog. However, since its first creation I’ve gone through countless ideas, then revisions upon revisions, only to shelf or throw the idea out. Over hundreds of hours of writing to no outcome; yet in the moment, always thinking that this piece — this one — will be the one to be released.

Stuck a the perpetual “it’s coming soon,” my blog sat there without a single post for 5 years.

But it was going to be my first piece! It needed to dazzle, to impress, to be unforgettable right?

What needless agony; who cares. It’s just the first piece of writing in some small corner of the vast digital universe by someone; why not just do the best you can right now and write away?

And so I did. But about what?

Well, for the longest time until now — perhaps it’s just how I am — but I noticed my brain has been taking lots of mental notes of everything: the good, the bad, the in-between, all the things I’ve observed throughout my life; and now I want to work through them and dot down what I think might be of value to the people of this crazy, wonderful, messy and ugly world.

Somewhat like a neural network trained on billions of data points to produce insights into making sense of the human world, and perhaps how we may navigate it well, as individuals, as groups, small and big, and as a collective. I’m hoping to start some good conversations, learn, connect, improve my writing, and ultimately go to a better place my heart longs for, still unknown.

In short, I want to connect and write about life and people.

Something that might spring to mind along those lines is Humans of New York. How magnificent is their work? How inspiring is it that they get to spend their life — not as a cog of a machine — but as masters of their destiny, doing work they believe in, living off it, while helping and inspiring millions of people all over the world? Their reach now extends far beyond just the people of New York. How sublime.

It’s not just me right? Don’t many of us wish we were here? To not be managed by someone, locked in, forced, drained, until there’s barely any of you left. Instead, wouldn’t it be immeasurably more wholesome to be able to do what is meaningful to you, to be able to support yourself sufficiently and just to be able to live your life more freely?

What a world that would be.

You might ask, why didn’t you do what you love before?

I don’t know — it’s complicated.

Firstly, 1–2 decades ago there were significantly fewer creative “internet” jobs, so even more so than today, if you were privileged you’d take your best pick at what you — a clueless teen or young “adult” — think you “love” that pays. Then full of hunger to progress and prove yourself you launch into it, at first it’s all about this and the game-changing full-time salary takes the backseat (gotta make it past the steep learning curve to keep that salary).

But then after countless long days into years of grinding, rinse and repeat, the shine wears and suddenly the passion is gone and it’s somehow just the money, or people, or familiarity, or comfort anchoring you here. Somehow, just somehow, the mixing of passion and money, over time, even the dream job somehow is morphed into an ongoing, seemingly endless nightmare.

What then? You might have a family to feed, or a mortgage, or some other debt to service, obligation, duty, or heck — you’re too old to redo; you’re kind of locked in aren’t you? It isn’t that easy to just drop everything and start over for something you finally realised you love …or think you love.

Complicated.

Maybe passion, like creativity, needs to be free; not undisciplined or inconsistent, but just free to pause, to rest, to change, and to evolve with time.

So now I, like many others find ourselves caught in the crossroads of needing to work to live, but also wishing to be free to pursue our creative expressions. Though, even if this situation is complicated and hard, what other choice is there than to bear the cost to walk where it beckons you?

Thus, for the next 1000 days, I embark on a journey of creative expression and connection, with these words marking the first step.

21 pieces total. With this as 1, then another 20 to go. Writing, drawing, designing, making a video, an app, a website, a game, or whatever else fitting — I want to do it all.

It’s a pretty wild thing to do in your 30s.

In my society, in these cultures and circles, the more approved thing is to advance to management, or senior roles and beyond in your career, get that salary to 6 figures and buy those big shiny things, all while looking like you are doing well and on top of it.

And maybe you are, maybe this is your hill. I would gladly celebrate that with you. I have friends thriving in the corporate world; they love their work, the people they work with and the nice salary and benefits that come with it. It’s a great spot if you could find it (though not necessarily just in the corporate world).

You could say that ultimately is what I wish for myself and everyone. It is the absence of that in my life that kick-started this journey. I just wanted to be sure about the important matters, because death can unexpectedly visit any of us at any time.

Yep, that death. That thing our society seems to hush up well, always seemingly delivered formally addressing distant people far away, unrelated to you, to your world — until one day when it is.

The other thing that bugs me when keeping on course by societal standards is that if I work “exceedingly” hard (to “exceed” those KPIs), day in and day out, perhaps by the end of the year my bosses will drive into work with another nice car (only semi-joking). But really I just feel like it’s their dream I’m building — not mine — and if my time happens to be up, then all I could say is that regretfully I was too afraid to fight for my dream, so I sold my time to sail someone else’s dream.

You can even read all about it in The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying. Then perhaps you might see clearly the end from the beginning. How many people would have done things differently had they known how things would turn out?

The ghosts of many ideas, the spirits of unrealised dreams have come to me; they have been with me over the years, constantly talking to me; even while I persisted in ignoring them, they kept whispering to me, ideas upon ideas, again and again, day after day.

But it is now or never. Let it be their time.

Denzel Washington puts it powerfully:

Imagine you are on your death bed and standing around your death bed are the ghosts representing your unfilled potential, the ghost of the ideas you never acted on, the ghost of the talents you didn’t use, and they are standing around your bed angry, disappointed, and upset. They say: “we came to you because you could have brought us to life, and now we have to go to the grave together.” So I ask you today, how many ghosts are going to be around your bed when your time comes?

So let us say to them: arise. Let us take back control. Let the empty vessels be filled; let the embers be set ablaze to a consuming inferno, that we would burn with life.

Let all those who were barely alive awaken to their purpose entirely.

Is it also your time? What will you do?

As for me, let me just try. I might fail, but I might also succeed. I might even just find the unknown I longed for. Maybe you will too, or already have. And then, where shall we be friends?

I hope we can meet often.
The journey is just beginning.

How long is the road? I do not know.
How great is the mountain? I do not know.
How dark are the valleys? I do not know.
How high is the cost? I do not know.

But.

How beautiful is the final view? Stunning.
How fun was the adventure. Unforgettable.
How are the people? Amazing.
How much will it be worth? Priceless.

So, then let us go forward,
together,
forever.