The Journey of First True Work
For the past few years I’ve been trying to figure out: am I a filmmaker, a writer, a composer, a storyteller?
When I figured: storyteller, I was on a quest to figure out “what type” of storyteller. Never dreamed I was more of a poet.
The first time someone called out I was a writer was on this documentary project, 2018-2019 (click link if curious) which confused me, you see, I started making videos BECAUSE I thought I was such a terrible writer.
Even as a “storyteller”, I had to wrestle with what was the main medium. The funny thing is that by experimenting with video, music, and this podcast project, I was still tricking myself into writing, and most importantly using these mediums or formats to sneak in poetic moments I was completely unaware of.
I made this web page mostly to see, in a visual sense, what mediums I’ve been iterating on and what I think is missing.
All visuals I use are from my life and travels, and during these experimental years I offered clients design and video editing services as a freelancer.
There is a purity to these iterations since I never thought about making money from them; my freelance service was completely separate.
So now comes the task to integrate all of this into offerings to sustain the vocation. This is a huge obstacle for me, honestly.
Me being curious about podcasting: I took 6 months just to experiment with formats: roundtables with cameras and friends, one on one conversations with a friend, no camera, etc. until I realized that a lot of heart was missing and I needed to try monologue first. A year process to getting the first episode out.
So this was me basically writing whole talks bookended with poetry lol
September 2020
Season 1
Breaking Free from the Performance
The first season was about “Breaking Free from the Performance”: how pretending to be good blocks our gifts, creativity and authenticity.
I used theatre and “stage” as a metaphor for the kind of performing where we put up a facade so people will like us, so we can be loved, belong or be accepted or to achieve “peace” etc.
Including an intro episode, this ended up being a total of 11 episodes of a limited series.
The seeds of the true works I feel are in this one. Season 2 had some good moments, but even when I started changing things up and experimenting with other things, it felt off. May 2021
Season 2
Listening to outside voices.
Here I lost my way a bit.
After the first season, the response from people was wonderful and so surprising to me, but a lot of what I heard was: “This isn’t only about creativity, this is about LIFE.”
And of course, I didn’t understand about letting people just have their own experience with whatever it was that I was creating, so I tried to lean more into “life” things, which means I changed the intro completely, and made it even more abstract, which made it terrible.
Breaking Ground: Letters to a young gardener.
This one took on the metaphor of the “inner garden”. The episodes were about weeding out of toxic plants, planting things that heal the ground, learning the climate and environment before you can even break ground to put the new seeds in. The patience of planting things and not getting results overnight.
For this season I experimented with video and did the audio in a “voicemail” kind of format. I wanted the video to feel “raw” or whatever, I did not like how this turned out. I ended the podcast after this season because it felt off, and I was still trying to figure out: am I a writer, filmmaker (director, editor, producer?), should music be my main focus? etc.
Ep. 2 | Accept Your Climate: Stop Judging Yourself
2022- Kept doing some youtube videos once in while, mostly to express paradoxical thoughts, but really I was clawing my way out of a depression that lasted 2 years (2020-2022)
2023-2024- “A Year of Imperfection” on Substack, where I published something every Wednesday for a year no matter what. Accomplished this and realized I lean heavy on the poetic side.
2025-2026
Been experimenting with different ways to deliver poetry. I’ve been sharing these on my Substack lately, but not any other social media. Recently someone said to me, “When you read it in your voice and you do the music thing, your words come alive.”
So that was a revelation, that the audio, music, or visuals for any of this serve for the words to come more alive. That feels right. That all the mediums are not the point, but support the words.
“Full Price” I did audio only.
I have figured out that at minimum, how I package my words, must at least include a vocal reading and music or soundscape. So an audio track of the written word is my craft at its most basic, just the writing alone is not complete until it is brought to life.
-
No one tells you you will have to pay full price for the life you want.
You get all motivated and inspired
And so one day you find yourself in the Boutique of Life
Shopping for upgrades,
Hoping to score a deal,
Putting things you wish to obtain into your basket:
Perhaps a stronger body or mind
More courage or patience,
Learning to love,
A new skillset
Mastery of craft
A plan for more freedom
Or you finally decided on that new version of yourself.
You walk up to the counter of Life to check out your chosen items,
and you finally start to see the true cost.
The shock of the price brings you to despair,
You have no idea where you will find the way to pay for:
The tenacity
The discipline
The time
The focus
The devotion
The endurance.
No one tells you there is also a cost if you decide
to leave all the items on the counter of Life and walk out empty-handed:
the hidden fees and costs of atrophy and entropy,
the price of delay and decay,
and the interest stacking up on all your fears.
And you can try to run away or hide,
but Life will find your new address
and send you the bill where you reside.
So turn around and go back inside,
up to the counter and pay the fee,
for not even neglecting your life is cost-free.
Is it more than you bargained for?
So what?
Did you really think you’d find
the best of your life
in the bargain bins?
Do not be so cheap with your life.
“Full Price”
A Burial- This is the first time I read a poem on camera. Super uncomfortable lol
-
And when the time comes
Enter into the chapel of your heart
Light a candle and
Forgive your life for what it is not.
Stand in ceremony and read the eulogy
As you lay to rest what:
Could have been
Should have been
Would have been.
Sing one last hymn and
Lead the mourners out into the garden of your heart
For the final disposition of your decomposing dreams
And bury them to fertilize the new ones.
-T.
Back into the Wild, I did voiceover but over more “cinematic” shots… things I shot on my iphone while out on walks.
-
After many years of practice
I too became an expert tracker and trapper.
It was still dark when I went out
Found and followed them down to their den
Caught them
Kept them
Fed them
Thinking they’d bring me
Comfort, certainty, or guarantee.
But they kicked within their confines
Roared against their reins
Resisted their restraints and
Hissed at their hindrances.
No comfort could I conjure from their capture
Nor certainty obtain through their chains.
One morning I awoke with instructions:
“Release your caged Expectations back into the wild
Loosen your imprisoned illusions
Free your fantasies from their fences
Find a friend
And in the daylight,
Go hunt for new Hope.”
The Latest
One form I have always known is inevitable and really “end game” is a book.
I love visuals and design, and for the first time ever, I took some of my words (intro from podcast) and just played around with some of my old photos from Patagonia just for fun, and stylized alignments and such.
And I have to say, just seeing this on the page after a few hours of playing around, MADE ME FEEL THINGS.
So for my next true work iteration, I think I’m going to go through my various writings from past years, edit, select, and create a collection of poems and essays into a digital book for now.
I’m contemplating if to keep them on “theme or concept” according to how I wrote the ideas in the first place, making them a complete “work”.
Start to finish a complete work looks like:
Getting theme or concept, writing, making an audio or video experience, then a book version.
With the “talk” or session kind of vibe, this gave me the opportunity to spend more time with someone and talk through a theme, and not only a one-off moment, but exploration through weeks, and this feels deeper, in both connecting with people and the ideas.
The solo poems are too… solo?
I’m still not sure about being on camera, trying to figure out if it’s a composition thing from my part or something I need to get over in my own self.