The Layers of Story
Journal Entry: Sunday January 5 2025 - 12:53am
I just watched ‘Entergalactic’ and ‘Midnight Gospel’ on Netflix and I guess that was the tipping point I needed tonight to get me to accept (again) that I can make anything I want.
These last few days I’ve also been working through the “Inner Engineering” course by Sadhguru; a well known spiritual thought leader. Amongst some practical self-management advice, it’s been hours of listening to him tell bad jokes, rambling stories, and say “isn't it” way WAY too often.
So the culmination of all that has now reaffirmed that I can say and be whoever the fuck I want to be.
Who’s to say I need to stay in a lane?
There really are no rules.
Who’s to say I can’t be a Bill Burr, Ali Wong, or Matt Rife while being a Sadhguru?
Who’s to say a “spiritual” leader can’t be vulgar and controversial?
It’s all role play at the end of the day.
Not stepping into the mold that’s already been replicated countless times before you is rather refreshing actually.
To play off of current trending archetypes; who’s to say I can’t be a “boss babe”, stand up comic, spiritual contemplator, motivational speaker?
Be. Your. Self.
Side note: I’ll post uncensored journal entries on the website, and just skip the roasting of spiritual celebrities from the Youtube channel... for now :)
. . .
I’m fucking psyched.
I’m once again having this awakening of what it means to be WHOLLY authentic.
To have an uncensored “brand”.
Brand: A front facing/presenting identity (Identification entity)
If I look at my art over the years, I was always pushing it.
I was in the visual arts program in highschool and my thesis painting was a large canvas of a nude woman pierced with rings all over her body. There was metal through her nipples, through the skin on her stomach, legs, arms. Attached to the metal rings were taut ropes that torturously pulled her body in all directions. In the background stood ambiguous figures watching the fiasco from different sides.
“This is a representation of the inner dichotomy and the pain that comes with it-” I explained to my principal, arguing WHY I should be allowed to display an image of a naked lady being tortured in the main hall of our Catholic School during the grad show.
“-the tearing of values equated to actual physical torture”.
And after some back and forth he allowed it to be exhibited.
My pieces throughout school touched upon themes of anti-censorship; bleeding heads, duct tape over mouths, teary eyes.
Damn right I was an angsty teen.
I also possessed the artistic ability to manifest my tortured visions and bring them to perceivable reality. Which in hindsight, is something I’m super super grateful for; that I had that gift to express it, whereas many teens - and people in general, don’t know what their medium is. So the pain and thoughts become trapped energy in their body and spirits.
Since highschool, the relationship with my art ebbed and flowed.
I stopped for a few years, taking space to prioritize career and other ambitions - but art to me was always my sacred space.
Art is a place where I could open up my heart and pour out onto the canvas what needed to be witnessed.
Not even by others, but even just for me to witness- turning abstract energy into something that I could decode.
Alchemy.
In 2019 I experienced a heart wrenching betrayal, the end of my engagement, and the crumbling of a life path I thought was going to be on. So in the isolation of 2020 I smoked weed and drew for countless hours. Images of human figures mourning, loving, healing - a journey of release and becoming whole again.
And now here we are, on the threshold of another new chapter on my creative journey. One where I’m embracing having a broader audience, and new mediums of communication and consumption.
So why should my louder, more evolved iteration of my soul’s expression be dulled down?
So it can be sold in gift shops and in Target?
Fuck that.
We’re on the path of authenticity here, so let’s fucking go.
. . .
If I really look at my work that’s been a hit in recent years, it’s pieces like “Fuck it”, “I’m OK”, “Mother” as well as those drawings from 2020. So essentially everything that came from a raw place of catharsis.
Authenticity speaks. And so I’m simply speaking.
So all this consumption of recent media; those Netflix shows, seeing various Youtube channels that exist; talking about everything from conspiracy theories to dirt-bagging it in a swamp - it once again brings me to [my creative project], and has given me the energy and will to push past the blockages with bringing it to life.
The motivation behind making it isn’t even about possibly creating a show that gets on Netflix, it’s about really REALLY waking up to the fact that there’s NO reason why I shouldn’t create it for the pure reason of creating it.
Enough of:
“But to get a movie on Netflix I need to be THIS good-”
“I need to go down this path, go to this school-”
“I need to learn all parts of filmmaking-”
“I need to have all the right instruments and tools-”
These limiting beliefs are assumptions and afterthoughts.
Assumptions: Rules that you thought were true, or that you had to follow - in order for you to get a certain result or open a certain pathway.
Afterthoughts: You had the initial spark, fire, and vision, but then you came up with a list of excuses of why it won’t work or why you’re not good enough to do this.
Remember: there is NO exact formula.
There is room for SO many paths to your desired outcome.
There are so many variables that you couldn’t even possibly fathom.
So let yourself be surprised.
Let go of the layers of story that you hide your soul behind.
Let’s fucking go.
