I started photography in 2011. My first camera was a Nikon D3000. If you know cameras, you know how that dates me.

Like everyone else starting out, I photographed everything. But one shoot changed the direction of everything that followed.

I was in college, running late for an assignment that required a studio portrait. I booked the school studio last minute, walked to the library, and asked strangers if anyone wanted to be photographed. One person said yes. She had modeled in Mexico. I got lucky twice in one afternoon.

That shoot is where I found portraits. Not as a genre, as a calling. I started dedicating myself to them.

Before photography, I was quiet. I kept to myself. I would not have walked up to a stranger and asked for anything. Photography pulled me out of that. It sounds like a cliche and I know it, but it is just true. Without it I stay shy, I never learn to communicate, and I never care to tell stories or meet people.

Thirteen years later, I understand what the camera actually taught me.

I learned I can talk to people. I became a people person, which I never believed would be me. I learned to direct someone, to help them feel like the best version of themselves in front of a lens. I also saw the dark side. Demanding clients. People who could not see themselves clearly even when the image proved them wrong. Unrealistic expectations. Impatience. But I also watched people leave the studio with tears because they did not know they could look like that. Some of those headshots helped people land TV spots. I got to hear where people came from, what made them who they are, where they wanted to go.

Everyone carries hopes and dreams. Most people just need to get on the road.

Here is how I think about it. Say everyone wants to reach New York. Some people are already in the state, so the drive is short. Some are starting from Alaska. It does not matter. The ones who arrive first are not better. They started from somewhere closer. You have your own drive. The distance is not a reflection of your worth. It is just geography.

That is what photography gave me. The certainty that I can get anywhere I decide to go.

I used to think I was not creative. Then I found something that satisfied my technical brain and my creative brain at the same time. Photography did that. Cinematography does that. I stepped away for a while. The detour had its lessons. But I know my road and I know where I am headed.

Foot on the pedal. Let’s go.

One lesson I learned the hard way you can’t get to the end of the race without running it.

I wanted to do and become so many things so fast.

I stopped doing photography for about two years to focus on building a graphic design and copywriting agency. And I wanted it to take off fast. I wanted it to be at the same level I was at with photography. What I forgot in that moment was that it took me 13 years to get there. Thirteen years of skill, recognition, and learning how to actually run a business. I had the mindset. I didn’t have the reputation or the reps.

What was hard to swallow was that I was better at copywriting than I was at design, despite having a degree in graphic design. The reason was simple. I had put more time into copywriting, writing for my own business and a few friends’ businesses. More reps, more growth. The degree didn’t matter as much as the hours did.

Somewhere along the way I had forgotten that things take time. That the slow way is usually the right way. That paying your dues is not a setback, it’s the whole point.

I’ve since come back to photography, this time adding cinematography to the mix. And I’m coming back different. I see everything now through a designer’s eye. The years I spent writing copy taught me how to use story to sell, to communicate, to connect. That changes how I shoot. It changes what I’m looking for in the frame.

I’m more clear now about what I do, who I want to serve, and where I want to go. I didn’t get there by moving fast. I got there by building slowly, paying attention, and trusting that the work was adding up even when I couldn’t see it yet.

Thirteen years is a long time. It’s also exactly how long it takes.

I almost didn’t take the job.

I’ve done film only shoots before but for some reason this shoot was different. The client wanted film only, no digitals, my safety net.

Every film shoot I’d ever done had my digital camera. I would set the settings my light meter gave me take a shot with the digital and I had that safety net that if it looked good on my digital, it’ll look good on film.

This time I left it at home. Just the Hasselblad, the light meter, two rolls of film, and hope.

I kept running the worst case scenarios in my head. What if the light meter reads wrong? What if I loaded the film badly? What if something I have done a hundred times fails the first time with a paid client?

We got to the location. She stood in the light, I set the meter, set my camera settings and I looked through the finder, and I hear the click.

And then nothing happened. Nothing went wrong. The light was the light. The camera was the camera. I was still the person who had been doing this for twelve years.

It reminded me of going on a first date. The anticipation is nothing like the thing itself. You spend the hour before anxious and nervous, and then the date starts and you’re talking and it’s just two people in a room and all the nerves disappear. The nervousness was never about the date itself it was about what could go wrong before. But when nothing went wrong… well nothing went wrong. It’s like that saying, “we suffer more in imagination than reality.”

The same is true for the photos. Nothing was going to go wrong just because someone was paying for it. Nothing was going to magically break down because a client was watching. I just needed to remember I know what I’m doing, I’m not new at this.

One shot to remember it.

In high school I used to envy my friends who could hold a room just by talking. I was the one in the corner listening, convinced I had nothing worth saying.

For years I told myself that story. That storytelling was something other people did. People with natural charisma, quick wit, an easy way with words. And that, that’s not me.

I was what I now call a “recovering awkward joke teller.” I would start a joke nervously, and then rush straight to the punchline, and pray someone laughed. Very few people did.

The voice in my head had a simple explanation for that, “you are just not built for this.”

Then I read Mindset by Carol Dweck.

Was it a dramatic change and impact in my life? No. But something in that book made me stop treating my awkwardness like that’s who I am and start treating it like a habit. And habits can change.

So I went on a hunt. I got books on storytelling. Courses. Communities. I found Sun Yi’s Domestika course first, then followed him on Instagram, then joined his community Night Owl Nation when he launched it at five dollars a month. I signed up so fast I did not even finish reading the landing page.

That was a few years ago. Today I am one of his small group leaders. I help other people practice the exact thing I was convinced I could never do.

I also picked up How To Tell a Story by The Moth, which I read and listened to at the same time because a friend told me the audiobook has the actual recordings from the live sessions featured in the book. That detail alone is worth the download.

None of this was the plan, I just wanted to be better at talking to my friends. I wanted to hold their attention instead of losing it. What I did not expect was that learning to tell stories would rewire how I do everything. How I write. How I shoot. How I think.

That is what Grain&Ink Co is. Not a content page. Not a portfolio. A place where I share what I keep finding on the page.

She read a Substack piece front to back. Liked it. Thought about it after. Then out of curiosity clicked the AI checker on it. Fully AI written. The whole thing.

And her reaction to that is basically the whole episode.

We got into a lot from there. Why she left Instagram for LinkedIn. The word she’s noticed creeping into everyone’s writing lately, the one that’s replacing the em dash as the tell that something was AI assisted (you’ll know it when you hear it, and once you hear it you can’t unhear it). Why she still journals on paper even though she uses AI every day. A study where people rated AI written stories higher than human ones, until they found out which was which, then flipped completely.

There’s also a bit where I bring up Socrates, who apparently hated writing and thought it would ruin how people remembered things. Which is basically the exact argument people are making about AI right now, just a couple thousand years earlier.

Fifa also mentioned something on Threads that stuck with me. She said writing isn’t just for the finished post. It’s one of the only things left that makes you slow down enough to actually know what you think. I keep coming back to that one.

If you’ve been thinking about your own writing at all lately, this one’s worth the listen.

Find Fifa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fifatran/

If you want a nudge to actually start writing instead of just thinking about it, I run a free 5 day challenge:

Free 5 Day Content Writing Challenge

I take a deep breath, then bust the door open, look to my left, to my right… nothing. I hear a cry a few feet away. I get low to get through the smoke. The cries got louder as I keep moving forward. I kick the door open, scoop the baby. The flames got higher and hotter. The way I got in is now blocked by flames. I see the window. The people outside, waiting, all they hear is the sound of the burning crackling wood. The crowd gasps, they see a 6’5″ man break through a window, like an old western where the drunk is getting kicked out. I land on my back with the baby safe and sound in my arms.

These are the kinds of stories most people think they need to tell personal stories online. Or how in the movies it cuts to an unfunny punchline yet everyone in the room is laughing. Or how they went from being a broke guy living in his mother’s basement to now six months later making 100k. So now they sell a course on how you can too if you follow this easy 7 step formula.

I used to think I didn’t have any cool success stories, like the one I made up in the beginning lol. I didn’t take a client from earning $800 a month to $10k months. I never hiked Pikes Peak and survived a bear attack. Who’s going to care that I swirl all my drinks for no reason, I even do it with water sometimes. Or that I lost my tolerance for caffeine and now have to drink matcha and chai. Or that I buried six cats and my dog all within two months.

That last one I keep dropping into sentences like it’s nothing. It isn’t. That dog was eleven years. The cats were years before that. Two months, six funerals, and then you have to keep going because what else do you do.

Some of these are everyday slices of life. But every now and then you have the ones that hit different. And those matter too.

Take Peter McKinnon. One of the main reasons I became a fan is because when I was around 16 I was into magic card tricks. In one of his videos I see him pull out a deck of cards and start doing some of the handling moves I knew back then. He says he used to do magic. Boom. Instant fan. I now have a connection with him. He didn’t have to tell me his come up story or how he got from zero to five million subscribers. I connected with him over magic and leather goods.

I started writing down my everyday moments, the ones I’d text my friends about and forget. The time Kyro ran off and the second I caught up to him and picked him up it started pouring. The random thing I noticed on a walk that I kept thinking about. The client call that didn’t go the way I planned and how I sat with it after.

Those are the kinds of moments I now turn into posts, captions, newsletters, blog entries like this one lol. And I keep discovering how many stories I had inside me the whole time that I never thought to write down.

RJ is a content ghostwriter who serves individuals in the manufacturing industry and helps them write their online content for platforms like LinkedIn, Threads, and Substack. He also helps them build their emails sequences for example if someone signs up for a freebie (lead magnet) they will get a series of emails. Those are the one’s RJ writes for them.

And in today’s episode, I talk with RJ to learn a little about the difference between copywriting and ghostwriting, if there is any, and if someone is interested in become a ghostwriter what books does he recommended and how should someone get started.

We also inevitably touch on AI and its role with content writing and can or will it replace content writers.

I hope you enjoy todays episode as much as I did and make sure to follow RJ on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/reyesrjt

If you want a more guided way to start writing and telling your own stories, the 5 Day Story Challenge walks you through it: 5 Day Story Challenge

In this episode I share a copywriting technique to tell a story and lead your audience to a page, video or thread.

Most business owners have a sameness problem, not a content problem. Free 5-day email challenge, one email a day, five storytelling frameworks to help you sound like you instead of everyone else.

Free 5 Day Email Challenge

Since the beginning of the year, nothing has gone my way. I’m not usually pessimistic, but this has been a tough start. My business is slow, I’ve gained weight, and I watched my dog die in front of me.

I know I have nothing to truly complain about. I’m alive, I’m healthy, I’m not homeless. The fact that I have a keyboard to write this on and a website to post it to is a blessing. But this weekend was one to remember.

Two months ago I applied to MIU for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. I never thought I’d love writing this much, enough to want a degree in it. There was one problem: the school required a 20 to 25 page writing portfolio, and I didn’t have one.

Almost everything I’d written up to that point had AI’s hands in it. It helped me turn raw ideas into something that sounded the way I’d always wanted to write. That felt good, for a while. But I leaned on it too much, and I couldn’t submit a portfolio I hadn’t really written.

So I decided to start from scratch. Best and worst idea I’ve ever had.

I began in late May. By mid-June I was trying to spin too many plates at once, the portfolio, content, a new business model, meetings, all of it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t spinning any of those plates. I was just balancing them, barely.

I almost quit. I told myself I’d wait and apply next round.

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Then I watched an interview with Ocean Vuong. I haven’t read his work yet, but the way he talked about writing, how much he clearly loved it, pulled something back open in me. I sat down and got to work.

I had five messy rough drafts. Taking that break gave me enough distance to see that one story was actually two, hiding inside the same draft. I split it, cut what didn’t belong, and within a week I had a 21 page portfolio.

Hitting submit made me nervous as hell. I felt like a home cook about to plate something for a five-star Michelin chef, except in this case the chef was the program director.

I submitted it Wednesday evening. Thursday afternoon, she emailed asking to meet the next day at 2.

“I really enjoyed your writing,” she said.

I felt like a contestant hearing Gordon Ramsay say he liked the dish.

She walked me through the residency schedule and a workshop next year. While she talked, one thought kept cutting through: did I get in?

“Any questions for me?”

“Yeah. Did I get in?”

“Not yet. It needs admissions approval, but I see no problem on my end.”

At 5 p.m. that same day, an email said a decision had been made. I opened it on my phone, didn’t even bother walking to my computer. Clicked View Decision. White screen. Two seconds that felt like ten minutes.

Then confetti, and these words:

Congratulations, we are thrilled to inform you of your acceptance to the MFA in Creative Writing.

My portfolio, written in a week, got me into graduate school for something I’ve loved for four years.

I used to feel like an imposter calling myself a writer. My bachelor’s is in graphic design, not English, and I still sometimes forget what an adjective is. But I know I have a passion for storytelling, and I think it shows in my writing. Now I have proof, from a chef whose opinion I respect.

I hate that it took someone else seeing me as a writer before I felt like one. But whatever works, works.

Entering my official writer era. Wish me luck.

Most people use a page to say what could have been said in a sentence.

In school we’re taught to write as many words as possible to get a good grade. Somewhere along the way, we were conditioned to believe that longer is better. People assume that the more you can write about a subject, the more you must know about it.

I think the opposite is true.

If you can make something complicated simple, you probably understand it better than someone who needs three pages to explain it.

For example:

“What’s an em dash?”

“Well… it’s like a line that’s used a lot in writing, and ChatGPT started using it a lot, so now when people see one they think it was written by Ai. But really, it’s like,have you ever wanted to create a pause for effect? Yeah, well that’s when you use an em dash.”

That was a mouthful.

It could have been…

“It’s a long dash, similar to a hyphen, that’s used to create a pause in a sentence.”

Simple. To the point.

A writer can fill pages with fluff and say absolutely nothing, or they can say everything in a single sentence.

We have to stop thinking longer is better when the truth is, a sentence that is too short, is better than a sentence that is too long.

Brevity is about removing everything that weakens the idea.

Don’t write more.

Say more.

Do I belong here? The weight of the boxes made me ask myself this while I was unloading the U-Haul. This was the hottest April I’ve seen. It’s as if Mother Nature said, “nah, you don’t need a spring this year.” I was standing in the living room, holding this box, questioning my life, thinking, which room do I want to take.

I had to live in my mother’s house because I need to wait for the lease to end for the current tenant living in my house. Which is why I had to contemplate which room I was taking. I had two rooms to choose from. One had two windows and the other only had one. Normally this isn’t an issue because I love natural light, so the choice is usually easier than this. The only thing is that the room with two windows used to be my grandparent’s room, it felt odd moving in there. This isn’t something I never thought about before moving.

I was born in San Antonio, TX and lived there until I was 3 years old. Long story short, my dad wasn’t the best, so my mother moved us out of SA to my grandparents’ home when I was about 3 years old to the humble little town of Eagle Pass, TX. I then moved out of Eagle Pass when I was 21 back to San Antonio. I was so happy moving to the city I was born in and to my vacation spot. When I was a child, my mother would ask, “where do you want to go for summer vacation?” I would always say San Antonio. On the moving day, I thought, “I’m finally moving out of here and I hope I never have to come back.” So, when I saw the sign I said, “here we go again,” it was a punch in the gut to my ego.

There’s a stigma when someone comes back to Eagle Pass. Whenever you bump into someone you knew in high school, they usually stare at you, waiting for you to tell them what happened and why you couldn’t make it on “outside” or why you “had” to come back. I could already hear the questions and feel the judgment as soon as I saw the sign. But now moving back at 35, things are different.

The last time I was in my grandparent’s room, they were still alive. I can still smell the musty and musky scent. Looking at the room now, I thought, how strange that my grandparents had separate beds. I didn’t think anything of it when I was younger, but now I’m curious as to why they had it that way. I also thought, what if their ghosts are in this room? Is it disrespectful to stay here?

I place my box in my grandparents’ room. It’s mine now.

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I can’t believe how much time has passed since my grandparents passed away. I began thinking about how fragile the memory is. I have forgotten so much of my grandparents. Standing in that room, so many memories felt like they “unlocked.” The room is just empty and cold even though the temperature was 94 degrees. The sense that they’re gone, and how I didn’t think about them or remember them much which got me thinking, how will I be remembered?

There was this quote I read that made a huge impact on me and how I want to be remembered even after my “three” deaths. “There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.” By David Eagleman. How can I be remembered after the last person who knows my name dies?

At the beginning of 2024, I lost my job in San Antonio. My savings dried up, and I had applied to 70+ places, none got back to me. The ones that did get back to me were to “regrettably inform” me that they decided not to move forward with my application. I got so good at spotting rejection letters, I didn’t even need to open them anymore. I could tell with the preview text on Gmail that they were not hiring me. Not only that, but I had to move in with my mother and ask for her help financially. That went on for a year. That murdered my ego. It was necessary.

In Feb 2025 my mother makes an offer I can’t refuse. She said, “what if we move back to Eagle Pass, I’ll gift you one of the rental properties, help pay some debt off with the money from the sale of the house.” “So, you’re saying I can be back in Eagle Pass, debt free in my own house? Say less!” I can go from being homeless to homeowner just by moving back? I’m going back better than I ever was. If I didn’t murder my ego, I would still be living in San Antonio with my debt and in my mother’s house.

That’s the full circle moment as to why I’m back in Eagle Pass. To leave a city where people will forget about me soon, to a place where I was forgotten when I first left. But not truly. Someone in San Antonio will hear, see or smell something that reminds them of me. And when I bump into someone I knew from Eagle Pass, they’ll remember the high school, tall, quiet, band nerd, emo kid. And they’ll make new memories of the person I am today who is still tall, has a beard now, tattoos, who is working on becoming a writer, cinematographer and storyteller. Time to create new memories and forget some.

I’ve noticed I seem to place more value on material things because it has a price tag, the higher the price tag, the more I perceive it to be of higher value. What I wish I learned earlier on is that the opposite is true, the things we get for free in life, are the most valuable in the world. My family, body, friends, love, and most importantly my mind and memories. How grateful I am to remember my first kiss, first time my dad bought me a cake with my name on it, when my mom went to my first high school drumline performance. With my memories I get to play my “mind movies” like I’m back in the 90’s watching a movie I rented from Blockbuster.

To help me with this, I discovered journaling. I used to think there’s no point to having a journal. I can remember all of my thoughts and experiences, so why would I need to write them down. So, I thought. It wasn’t until I saw a video which gave me an interesting take on journaling. She’s in her late 70’s and she was advising the crowd to start writing in a journal. She’s beginning to lose her memory. She said that reading back her journals helps her relive those moments and thoughts. Then it made me think about photos, they are a memory of what we looked like, but a journal is a memory of what we thought about. I started to think, what if I had a journal from my dad who passed away when I was nine years old. How amazing would it have been to read his thoughts and ideas. To get an insight on who he was to himself internally. So, I made the decision to start a journal. To record my thoughts and memories for when I get older and have a difficult time remembering. To also leave behind my thoughts, ideas and memories to my future kids and family. To have a conversation with me even when I’m gone. Also, so that I can live on in the pages. This is how I will be remembered after the last person who knows my name is gone.

He was just there, under my hand, warm and breathing. And then he wasn’t.

Not gone exactly. But his head dropped, the way a water hose drops after losing it pressure. Lifelessly. Is the word I would use to describe how he looked. His neck just gave out, and his head fell on the floor, and for about two seconds everything went quiet in my head.

I started yelling. Shaking him. “Kyro… Kyro!” Two shakes, maybe three, and then he lifted his head and looked at me, the way dogs look when you’ve interrupted a perfectly good nap, he was annoyed and confused, but completely fine.

I hugged him. I kissed him on top of his head. “Don’t do that again, stupid.”

He’s a border collie mix, black and white, medium-sized with fur that’s a little too fluffy for the Texas heat. He turned eleven in December of 2025. I read somewhere that border collies live anywhere from ten to twelve years. I haven’t been able to forget that little fact since.

“I’m not going to the shelter to get a dog. I want to be clear about that. I just want to look.” At least that was the plan. Just to look.

He was in a kennel when I first saw him and that was it, love at first sight. I asked to do a walk with him, and they brought us out into one of those small yards behind shelter, just the two of us. I petted him, and he flipped on over his back so I could rub his belly and I thought, yeah. Okay. He’s coming home with me.

I started the adoption paperwork that same day.

That was in San Antonio, Texas, when he was a one-year-old, and I thought I had all the time in the world to give him the life I had already built in my head. A yard big enough for him to run in. Only wet food. All the toys he wanted. Freedom from the fleas that have been winning the war against us for most of his life. I kept losing the war.

Now we’re in a 312 square foot house in my mother’s backyard in Eagle Pass, Texas. When he was younger, he used to jump onto the bed with little to no effort. The first time I saw him try and fail, he hit his chest against the corner of the mattress. He backed up and didn’t try again. I felt something shift in my chest; I didn’t have a name for yet. It wasn’t sadness exactly. It was the recognition of something I hadn’t wanted to accept yet.

He’s slower now. Getting up takes him a moment. The fleas got bad enough that he lost some hair near his rear end. I would feel embarrassed to take him on walks to the park, which I know was just guilt wearing a different hat. And we don’t walk around the block anymore since the last time we did, he came back home with ticks.

Watching him navigate all of this reminds me of watching my grandparents near the end of their lives. The way they moved slowly, like the world had gotten heavier and their bodies were struggling with it. That slowness that wasn’t laziness, more so the cost of having been alive for a long time. I didn’t know how to watch them then. I’m not sure that I know how to watch Kyro now. But I’m making myself watch because I know I’ll regret the costs of looking away.

Unlike like my grandparents who lived in another city, Kyro and I live together so I get to be there for his end of days. It’s both fortunate and unfortunate. I don’t want him to die alone without me there, but I also don’t want my last memory of him dying in front of me.

I struggle to make ends meet. How can I give him the life I dreamt of when I can only keep us afloat? And the worst part of is, I’m running out of time, he can pass away at any minute. How am I supposed to live with the fact that I won’t be able to take him on walks or see him run in a bigger yard? Or somewhere that is free from fleas so that he no longer has to suffer their wrath.

“Kyro, let’s go papa.” He takes his head out from underneath the coffee table. He struggled to stand. It reminded me of when I would help my grandpa by grabbing on to his hand and lifting him off the bed. It was almost the same pace too. He took a step and fell to his face. He tried and fell again. He went for the 3rd, I put my hand on his head and said stop. I put him on his side and stretched his legs out. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was lying on his leg for about 3 hours. It fell asleep. My little man failed and fell in a way I’ve never seen before. Like a superhero falling weak… My superhero who was there in my darkest moments like when my ex-girlfriend had an ectopic pregnancy, he never left my side while I had that dark cloud holding me down.

“Kyro come here!” He’d come running to me without hesitation. Sit, stay, he did all of them. The only thing we never got down was fetch. He’d chase the ball, come near me, and drop it somewhere random and wait for me to throw it again. It drove me crazy.

Every stuff toy I gave him, he would have all of the stuffing all over the room. The last one I got him was Lamb Chop. He was so good at finding the squeakers. Another thing about him was his favorite thing in the world was belly rubs. If you met him, he’ll have to pet on head for a moment and then he’d fall straight on his back for belly rubs. Kyro was the worst guard dog in the world. He would start crying if a stranger didn’t some say hi to him and pet him. If someone broke into my house, he’d welcome them with a wagging tail.

On the morning of June 14th, 2026. “Kyro, let’s go outside papa.” It’s around 10 am and I’m running late. He gets up slower than usual. He started limping from his back legs. They wouldn’t keep up. His head was swinging side to side in a way I’ve never seen. We get to the kitchen, and I give him his favorite, wieners, he kills them. He holds it in his mouth for a second, then I see it roll on the floor. I couldn’t believe he just dropped it.

An hour later, I finished a zoom meeting and we go outside. This time he got up faster and had a little pep in his step again. I was so relieved. I had a difficult time paying attention in the meeting I thought my dog was starting the phases of dying.

At 8:41 pm, I start praying Maghreb. In the middle of the prayer, I hear Kyro panting heavy, I thought he was thirsty, but his water bowl is full. His panting gets heavier; I’m on the floor doing the last of the prayer we lock eyes and I just knew what was coming. “No… it can’t be… he was just ok.” I rush and end the prayer. His panting slowed down they started to be spaced out. “Ugh, what a relief.” He stopped; everything was ok. This “sign” was scarier than the first one with the wiener.

“It’s ok Kyro, you scared me again! You gotta stop that ok?” His body spasmed, almost like he was doing an ab crunch. “Kyro?” Another spasm. “Kyro what’s wrong?” Another spasm. I put him on his side from lying on his belly. And another. “Papa no please, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I couldn’t do better.” The last one. “Kyro, I’m sorry… I love you papa.”

What was supposed to be a quick prayer turned into my burying my best friend at 11 at night. Nothing prepared me for carrying his lifeless body. I didn’t even know where to start. I wasn’t expecting his head to be so limp, I adjusted my grip and accidentally hit his head on the floor. A distinct sound I’ll never un-hear. As I’m about to place him in the grave, I lose grip and drop him, people say it sounds like a bag of potatoes, I never heard a bag drop, all I heard was my best friend hit his grave. I couldn’t see anything with how wet my glasses were, it wasn’t rain that was falling. I stand over his grave for a second before I put the dirt in. Then I toss Lamp Chop in with him, just as he left it, dirty and chewed up. He didn’t get to take out the squeakers yet, I’m sure he will in heaven. “Goodbye Kyro, I’ll miss you so much.”

I thought I would be ok. I was already grieving his loss when I read, he would only live up to 10 to 12 years. I was mentally prepared that he would leave the world soon. There’s one thing I didn’t think I would have to prepare for.

When our pets die, we expect to miss them, no doubts about that. What caught me off guard was the rituals I didn’t notice while he was alive. No more “Kyro, let’s go outside papa,” no more opening the door to let him in, stepping over him to use the restroom, calling his name to come get food. Now I see the empty spot where he would lay next to me, his leash hasn’t moved, his dog food bag is halfway full. I didn’t anticipate how big the hole his absence would leave.

Every morning I still wake up expecting to let him outside.

I get out of bed to go open the door. Then I remember, there isn’t anyone waiting at the door.

Let me ask you something simple. What do you actually know?

Not what you think you know. Not what you were told. What do you genuinely, without a doubt, know to be true?

It sounds like an easy question until you sit with it for a moment. Then it starts to get slippery.

Philosophers have been wrestling with this for centuries, and the most widely accepted answer comes from a theory called JTB, which stands for Justified True Belief. The idea is straightforward: to truly know something, you need three things. You have to believe it. It has to be true. And you need a good reason for believing it, not just a gut feeling or a lucky guess.

Think of it like a jury. A verdict is not just about what the jury thinks happened. It has to be true, and it has to be supported by real evidence. Belief alone is not enough. Neither is truth without justification.

There are also different flavors of knowledge worth knowing about. There is knowledge through direct experience, like knowing what coffee tastes like. There is practical knowledge, like knowing how to ride a bike. And there is propositional knowledge, knowing that something is true, like knowing that 2+2=4. Most of what we call knowledge is some combination of all three.

Then there is the question of where knowledge even comes from. Rationalists would say reason. Descartes summed it up with his famous line: “I think, therefore I am.” If you can think, you can reason your way to truth. Empiricists push back and say no, knowledge comes from experience. You learn by observing, touching, tasting, living. Both camps have a point, which is probably why most of us land somewhere in the middle.

Now here is where it gets interesting.

A philosopher named Edmund Gettier came along in 1963 and quietly broke everything.

Imagine you are driving and you see a white fluffy animal on a hill in the distance. Based on the shape, the color, and every sheep you have ever seen, you conclude there is a sheep on that hill. You know it. Then you get closer and realize it is actually a dog. A white fluffy dog that looked exactly like a sheep from far away.

So did you know there was a sheep? You believed it. You had good reasons to believe it. But it was not true.

Gettier called this a problem, and it is a good one. Because it suggests that justified true belief might not be enough. You can check all three boxes and still be wrong. You can be completely confident in something that turns out to be false.

Here is another way to think about it. When you had your first child, you learned that a pregnancy takes nine months. That was your knowledge. Solid, justified, true. Now imagine science updated that understanding. Suddenly what you knew is no longer accurate. Does that mean you never really knew it?

This is what makes knowledge such a strange thing. It feels permanent. It feels like once you know something, you know it. But knowledge can expire. It can be wrong from the start without you realizing it. It can be justified and still miss the truth entirely.

So what is knowledge?

It is our best attempt at understanding reality. A combination of belief, truth, and justification that we use to make sense of the world around us. It is not perfect. It is not permanent. But it is the closest thing we have to solid ground.

The real question Gettier left us with is not just what knowledge is. It is whether we can ever truly be certain we have it.

I would love to know what you think. Drop a comment and let’s figure this out together.

We usually treat this as a logic puzzle for ancient history, but lately, I’ve realized I am the experiment. I am the ship. As the ship’s wooden planks rotted, they replaced each piece one by one with new, stronger timber. Overtime, not a single original piece remained.

Now the question is... is it still the same ship? And if you took all the old, rotting planks and built a second boat, which one would be the “real” ship of Theseus?

This is a fun exercise I enjoy talking about, but lately, I’ve been looking in the mirror and wondering... Am I currently sailing a ship made of new wood?

It sparked a question in me: could I be my own version of the Ship of Theseus? About 3 months ago from posting this, I had long hair that went a little past my shoulders and 5/8th of an inch ear gauges. Fast forward to now. I have a 4 guard all over with a taper and I’ve removed my plugs, now my ears are closing. I’ve also gone back to my black outfit comfort zone. My mother’s friend said I now look like a young adult. My silhouette changed from a mushroom cloud on my shoulders to now seeing my head shape. I no longer worry about whether I brought a hair tie and I touch my head more often. A lot did change but... did I change?

Well my physicality did. I no longer take forever in showers and to dry my hair. I don’t have to clean my ears and gauges the way I used to. And whatever outfits I pick I’ll be safe because black, grey and white are easy to combine. But I’m still me right? I still like writing, photography, and design. That didn’t go away because I changed my appearance. But could it?

A small disclaimer before I state my idea. This is simply my own thought experiment. Could I find articles and data on this? Yes. But one, that takes the fun out of making my own thoughts. Two, I want to write as if you and I are speaking, so feel free to leave comments and discuss with me.

What if we took a feminine woman and completely changed her appearance? Give her a combover. Swap her wardrobe for men’s clothing. Put men’s glasses on her face, even if she doesn’t need them. Would she stay the same feminine woman? Or would her own appearance be enough to start questioning herself and start believing it to be true? Would other people treating her as a man contribute to her own psyche and have her start believing she’s a man? Or at the very least start acting like one?

So in that regard, did me cutting my long hair off and taking out my gauges change me? Or did I change, thus making me remove those things? I would like to know what you think. But in short I think it is possible. If the woman were to cut her hair short, dress like a man and be treated as such, she wouldn’t be as feminine and would start to embody masculine traits.

So if you believe what I’ve said, physical changes don’t stay on the surface. They alter your behavior, your routine, and how others treat you. That shift feeds back into how you think and see yourself. When external change shifts how you see yourself, something real has changed. Not only your appearance. So the line between physical change and identity change is blurrier than we think. The Ship of Theseus applies to people as much as it does to boats.

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Ok now let’s give this a name. There are two ideas at play here. Materialism and mereology. Materialism in short is the idea that we are the sum of our parts. When those parts change, the hair, the weight, the clothes, the materials that make us up are different. So by definition the person must be different too. Mereology asks us to look at the transition. At what point does a collection of changes become a change in the whole? Is identity found in the individual planks of our habits and appearance? Or does our identity exist as a whole, regardless of what the parts are doing?

Now some would say: no, your core identity stays fixed. Growing or cutting your hair doesn’t make you a different person. But the piece asks: are you sure? Because if enough external changes pile up and reshape your psychology, the line between surface change and identity change gets blurry fast.

And another important question. Is there a threshold where accumulated change becomes a new person? Or is identity simply a story we tell ourselves to feel like the same person over time?

I would love to know what you think and have a healthy and productive discussion about this.

The incident that changed my life must have happened around 1997, on a morning school bus ride. I used to watch other kids do this all the time, so of course I had to try it too. But something happened on that ride that I had no idea would still be affecting me well into my 30s.

Was it a near death experience? No. A life-changing amount of money? Also no, lol.

I wore sandals to school. And as soon as I sat down I heard, “you have really long toes.”

That was it. I never wore sandals again.

Was it as dramatic as I had fun making it sound? Not really. But it genuinely was a life-altering experience, and here’s why.

Even now in my 30s, I recently bought a pair just to wear around the house. But outside? Never. Maybe the beach, and that’s still a HARD maybe. The drive-thru window gets a a cameo every now and then, but that’s about it!

I tell you that story because I grew up hearing “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” And sure, there’s some truth to it. But I’ve come to believe words can absolutely break your mind and your heart. Think about the moment the love of your life calls you and says “it’s over, I’m with someone else now.” That cuts deeper than any stick ever could. Words have driven people to their lowest points. They carry real weight.

That same weight is exactly what makes words so powerful in the other direction too. “I have a dream.” Four words that most people on earth would recognize instantly. Words that didn’t just inspire a speech, they helped inspire a movement.

And the words you say to yourself? Just as powerful, maybe more so.

Earl Nightingale put it perfectly in The Strangest Secret. I’ll link it below because it’s worth your time. He compared the mind to fertile soil. Plant a poisonous seed or a healthy one, and the soil doesn’t judge. It just grows whatever you give it, equally and abundantly. Your mind works the same way. Feed it negativity long enough and that’s the only crop you’ll harvest.

That’s why, as much as people love to roll their eyes at them, positive affirmations actually matter. Are they a magic fix? No. But they’re how you make sure you’re planting the right seeds consistently.

Words tell your story. They sell your ideas. They connect you to other people. The way you arrange them is like a composer arranging notes, the same raw material, but the order changes everything. Certain books have been banned throughout history not because of the paper they were printed on, but because of the ideas the words carried. That’s how much power they hold.

So consider this a reminder. Your words, spoken or written, said to others or whispered to yourself, are more powerful than you probably give them credit for. Choose them wisely, make your thoughts heard, and speak your truth.

You have people a choice, sit alone in a room with your thoughts for 15 minutes, or press a button that will deliver a mild electric shock? Can you handle the 15 minutes with your thoughts?

Researchers wanted to find this out. They conducted a study where people are placed in a room alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. No phone, book, no music. Simply uninterrupted thoughts. The researches did give them something, a button that delivered an electric shock. Here’s the catch… before the session, everyone had already felt the shock. They rated it as unpleasant. Some said they’d actually pay to avoid experiencing it again.

Then they were left alone with their thoughts. 67% of the men and a 25% of the women shocked themselves anyway. One participant hit the button 190 times!

Let that sink in. People who had just said they would pay to avoid this shock preferred it to 15 minutes of silence. Not because the shock got better. Because the quiet got worse.

We’ve gone to great lengths to find “things” that help us avoid our own minds. Social media. Doom scrolling at 2am. The algorithm feeds us content to keep you in a loop of just-one-more. We’ve become experts at running from the one thing we can never truly escape.

Here’s what’s strange about that, the things we run hardest from our bodies, our minds, our relationships are also the things money can’t replace. You can’t buy back your health after YEARS of ignoring it. You can’t purchase a sharper mind after years of feeding it junk. You can’t wire someone the money to make up for the years you didn’t call.

These things were given to us for free. And we treat them like they’re disposable. This is why I keep coming back to reading and writing, not as hobbies, not as self-improvement checkboxes, but as maintenance. As the basic upkeep of the most valuable thing I have.

When you read, you’re practicing something that’s quietly becoming rare… sustained attention. Following a complex thought all the way to its conclusion instead of bouncing to the next thing. Building the mental muscles that make it possible to actually sit with yourself.

When you write, you find out what you actually think. The act of putting words to something releases it. The messy, half-formed stuff floating around in your head starts to take shape. You stop being a passenger in your own mind. These aren’t luxuries. They’re how you take care of yourself.

Back to that experiment. The reason 25%-65% of people chose pain over fifteen minutes of quiet isn’t that they were weak or broken. It’s that they were out of practice. They’d spent so long outsourcing their attention that being alone with their own thoughts felt genuinely threatening.

That’s where I was. And here’s what I’ve learned from stopping the discomfort you feel when you finally get quiet isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s simply everything you’ve been avoiding, rising to the surface. Some of it’s uncomfortable. Some of it is stuff you actually need to sit with.

But on the other side of that discomfort is something worth having. Clarity. The ability to be present in your life instead of perpetually escaping it.

You don’t need to start with 15 minutes. Start with five. Sit somewhere quiet. No phone, no music, no background noise.

Just notice what comes up.

The researchers who ran that study thought people would enjoy the quiet time. They were surprised by the results. But maybe they shouldn’t have been, we’ve made silence so unfamiliar that it feels like a punishment.

It isn’t. It’s just you.

And you’re worth sitting with.

You Don’t Have to Pick Just One

“So what do you do?” One of the storytelling group members asked me this, and I had a loooong pause.

Not because I don’t do anything. Because I do too many things.

I’m a writer who doesn’t want to be an author. A graphic designer with a bachelor’s degree but I don’t feel good enough to claim. A photographer with 13 years of experience who stepped away from it. A self study philosopher. A storyteller without a clear medium.

“I do a lot,” I finally said. “And I love it all.”

The problem is, I can’t figure out which one should be my business. Or if I even have to pick.

The Weekly Shuffle

This is what my weeks look like:

Monday, I’m deep in a design project, thinking in grids and color theory.

Wednesday, I’m writing, trying to figure out what I actually think about something.

Friday, I’m editing photos from a shoot I did months ago.

Saturday, I’m reading philosophy and journaling about epistemology.

Sunday, doing my homework for my masters in communication.

It’s like cycling through high school class periods. English, art, photography, philosophy. Except there’s no bell to tell me when to switch, and no one’s handing out a diploma at the end.

People keep telling me to pick one thing. “You need a niche.” “What do you want to be known for?” “Focus on what you’re best at.”

But what if what makes me valuable is the intersection? What if the thing that makes me me is that I refuse to be just one thing?

The Renaissance Man Problem

I think about Leonardo da Vinci. We remember him for the Mona Lisa. But he was also an inventor, engineer, scientist, and writer. His notebooks are filled with sketches of flying machines next to studies of human anatomy next to philosophical writings.

He didn’t pick one thing. He was a Renaissance man, someone whose genius came from combining disciplines, not isolating them.

I’m not saying I’ll master all these fields like da Vinci did. But his willingness to pursue multiple interests at once, that’s what I’m after.

We don’t have a word for that anymore. Or maybe we do, but it sounds less impressive: Generalist. A Jack of all trades, master of none.

But here’s the full saying most people forget: “Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one.”

We Still Need Specialists (But Not ONLY Specialists)

I’m not saying specialization is bad. The world needs specialists. We need heart surgeons who’ve spent years mastering open heart surgery. We need engineers who know everything about one type of bridge.

But we also need people who see relationships across fields. People who can write and design. Who understand philosophy and storytelling. Who notice patterns that specialists miss because they’re looking too closely at one thing.

Perhaps the struggle isn’t that I can’t pick one thing. Maybe the struggle is that I’m trying to fit into a framework that was never built for people like me. Maybe I don’t need to escape frameworks entirely, I just need a different one. One built for people who refuse to be just one thing.

Collaborating Identities

Here’s what I’m learning to accept. I don’t have to choose between being a writer or a designer or a photographer or a philosopher. I can be all of them. Not perfectly. Not expertly in every single one. But authentically.

Because the truth is, my design work is better because I understand storytelling. My writing is stronger because I think visually. My philosophy practice deepens because I try to photograph ideas.

They’re not competing identities. They’re collaborating ones.

Maybe They’re All Real

If you’re reading this and you also feel like you’re cycling through different versions of yourself, trying to figure out which one is “real” maybe they all are.

Maybe you don’t have to pick your English class or your art class or your math class. Maybe you’re allowed to be someone who needs all of them to make sense of the world.

The Renaissance didn’t happen because people specialized. It happened because people refused to limit themselves to one field.

I’m not saying I’m da Vinci. But I am saying I’m done apologizing for not being just one thing.

And if that makes me harder to categorize, good. The best things usually are.

Next time someone asks what I do, I’ll tell them the truth: everything.

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It’s 1895. You’re on your horse riding with a buddy. You then see a motor wagon at a distance. Your buddy says, “That motor wagon can never be as fast or haul as much as a horse can. They won’t take off.”

131 years later, it’s 2026, your buddy says, “AI creations will never be as good as humans.”

Same thing is happening, just in a different time period. But why did I bring up the motor wagon? Because if we look at how far cars have come since 1895, those people couldn’t have ever imagined that cars would be faster than a horse. Or that the Ford F-150 would be a thing that can haul more than they could ever imagine. Or could have ever fathomed 18-wheelers carrying houses across the land.

I have a hunch that AI will do and be the same. We keep judging AI by its capabilities that we are currently aware of. We can’t foresee the “F-150” of AI, like you and your buddy couldn’t foresee it back in 1895, talking smack about the motor wagon.

Ok, so why do I even bring all this up? I say we need to be more humble with our predictions of what AI can or can’t do in the future. People remember the start. When AI couldn’t make hands. They believe that flaw will set the base for future updates. But now not only can it make hands better, it can talk, create realistic images and video. It can mimic voices so accurately that there’s a real risk of someone getting your voice and likeness. Someone can call your grandma and ask for ransom money because they look and sound exactly like you. That’s a scary reality. What I’ve done with my mother is set up a code word, like a home alarm system.

So why does this matter? Who cares if we can’t foresee the next version?

People now say AI will never write a Pulitzer Prize novel. They say it will never make an Emmy-worthy film. They say it will never make a Grammy-winning song. But what if that confidence is simply you on a horse in 1895, dismissing the motor wagon?

What if in 10 years, AI does win a Pulitzer? What if the “F-150 of AI” isn’t just better tools but AI that thinks, creates, and collaborates in ways we literally cannot imagine right now?

If that happens and you weren’t prepared, if you dismissed it as impossible, you won’t just be wrong, you’ll be left behind.

There’s a quote from Seneca that hits home with this

I take this as, the punches we don’t see coming hit harder than the ones we do see. So we need to start getting ready for the punches, instead of everyone TALKING about how they won’t come. Those people will get hit the hardest.

This is why I’ve started learning how to use AI. And not just the LLMs. Making images, video, writing, music, and even apps. I don’t want to be the next Toys”R”Us. And it’s not that Amazon took them out. It’s that they didn’t want to adapt and they stayed “tried and true,” and then lost to online shopping. Don’t be Blockbuster either lol.

So be a little more humble with your predictions. Start learning how to use AI so that IF the equivalent of the F-150 happens with AI, the blow won’t hit as hard because you were ready for it.

Don’t be the buddy on the horse in 1895, so sure of yourself that you miss the 18-wheeler coming. Be humble. Be curious. Be ready.

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Hear me out on this reading goal thing.

Two years ago, I set a goal to read 36 books.

I fell off completely. Didn’t even finish the year reading.

This year, I told myself I’d be more “realistic.”
I set the goal to 24 books.

I fell off AGAIN.

And this time, I started doing something embarrassing.

I was looking for my “shortest books” on Goodreads. All because I wanted to say I hit my goal.

I started skimming books I didn’t care about. Treating pages like obstacles instead of invitations.

All so I could check a box.

That’s when it finally clicked.

I’m spending money on books I’m not reading. I’ve got last year’s unread pile and this year’s unread pile. And I’m stressed about a goal that’s supposed to be fun.

Somewhere along the way, reading stopped being reading. It became performative.

So I tried something different.

I set my goal to one book a month for the rest of the year.
Only twelve books.

That’s it.

And something strange happened.

With almost no pressure, I read five books in two months.

Not because I am disciplined.
Not because I optimized my routine.
But because I actually wanted to read again.

Here’s the part that messed with my head.

If your goal is one book and you read five, you’re at 500% of your goal. That feels incredible.

But if your goal is ten books and you read five? You’re at 50%.

It’s the same amount of reading. Completely different emotional experience.

One feels like momentum. The other feels like failure.

That’s when I realized most goals don’t measure reality. They shape how we feel about reality.

And feeling behind is one of the fastest ways to stop doing the thing you say you care about.

So yeah this is what I’m doing in 2027.

Setting the bar stupid low.

Not because I’m lazy.
Not because I don’t value reading.
But because I want to enjoy it again.

Books aren’t a checklist. They’re conversations. And conversations die the moment you rush through them to say you had them.

If reading has started to feel heavy, maybe it’s not because you don’t love books anymore.

Maybe your goal is just too loud.

Try lowering it. See what happens when the pressure disappears.

You will be surprised by how much you read when you stop trying to prove that you read.

I struggle with calling myself a writer.

I am not a formal writer. I am not an academic one either. Even though I’m starting master’s program I’m starting soon, I hesitate to call myself a “writer”

But I love writing.

I love thinking on paper and screens. Writing helps me clarify what I am actually thinking. Most of the time, I am not writing to anyone. I am writing with myself.

Marcus Aurelius did this in Meditations. He was not writing for publication. He was thinking, and the work survived.

Even now, as I write this, I am not imagining readers. I am translating what is in my head onto the screen. The audience comes later, if at all.

Rick Rubin puts it simply:

“ The audience comes last. I’m not making it for them. I’m making it for me. ”

That is how I work.

The first draft is for me. No pressure. No performance. Simply clarity.

Only in the editing do I think about my one true fan. The single person who might need to hear this. That shift helps without turning the work into something hollow. I am not writing for an imaginary audience that may never show up.

That is what the title means.

Do not write for an imaginary audience before writing for yourself.
Write for yourself first.

There are exceptions. If you know exactly who you are speaking to, and you know what they need and why, then write to them . That is not imaginary. That is intentional.

This applies to more than writing. Video. Design. Music. Any form of making.

Create from clarity first. Then let others follow.

The real reason I care about this is simple. I want people thinking more.

Not optimizing. Not performing. Not outsourcing their thoughts.

Writing is not about sounding smart. It is about knowing what you think before asking anyone else to care.