For much of my life I have had a constant sense of failure. My head travels through different concerns and I tend to get bored very quickly with things. This has a positive side, which is full of creativity and eagerness to produce new things. But the negative B side is the frustration of not “finishing” anything. And I put it in quotation marks because now I know that something ends when one’s own will dictates it.
I studied fine arts, drew, painted, jumped to photography, to 3D. I discovered Photoshop. I took courses, dozens of them. I started a career in environmental biology, I am studying cooking and baking. I’ve been making electronic music for years. I started to learn how to tattoo. I built a puppet with a Stan Winston School formation. I shot macro photographs of insects. Illustrated. I wrote. I taught classes. I performed on stage. I became a father and married a man. Some things I finished, others are ingrained in my life and others I abandoned when I felt they no longer contributed anything to me.
Society, our families and even friends tell us to specialize. Finish things and follow a dotted line that traces a hypothetical and imaginary path that will lead to success. I couldn’t disagree more. This line is a fiction that sometimes leads to monotony, lack of creativity, lack of interest, routine and sadness. And don’t get me wrong, it depends on each person and their circumstances. In my case, it has taken me too long to discover that what makes me happy is learning. And learning entails a continuous journey of discovery, abandoning many things along the way.
Some people might think it’s easy to say something like that from the comfort of the well-off in a socioeconomically wealthy place. And they will not be wrong. But beyond the options that life has offered me, or my circumstances, I have always tried to get somewhere where I would get recognition. And it has been, in part, a mistake. Affection for myself took a back seat under the gaze of external approval. I remember my father judging all those people incapable of committing to anything.
But what is commitment when it becomes obligation?
This site has mutated so many times that I’ve lost count. With each change of direction I have changed her as well. And that obsession to be consistent with my creative work, my concerns and give everything a consistent way, is an impossible task. So this time I decided to show my work and what I do in a different way.
This space becomes my personal diary, with my creative portfolio, but also with a blog section where I can literally throw up everything that comes to my mind. Maybe you’ll find a recipe, or an article about wildlife, or a meaningless reflection. But at this point in my life, I let go of the rope of external approval to start loving myself for what I know and what I think.
