“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid.” – Alan Watts
I’ve always been a quiet observer. As a kid, I distinctly remember watching adults around me come and go to jobs that they didn’t appear to enjoy very much. Work, it seemed to me, was defined as some sort of drudgery a person exchanges for money– and money was a means of acquiring necessities and luxuries for a good life.
What I observed, however, was that adults didn’t seem to be all that happy. Nor did they have much time left over to enjoy the things their money bought. Mostly, they complained about all the things their money couldn’t buy. So, I made a promise to myself that when I grew up, whatever I did by way of work would be something I wanted to be engaged in. I had no desire to relive the patterns I saw in the adult world around me.
My work is not drudgery. It is also not necessarily a means of making money, which has never been a motivational force in my life. It’s simply what I feel compelled to do. And though it has not always been easy, somehow I’ve managed to maintain independence and integrity in my work and still have all my needs met at the end of the day. My work is a reflection of me.
In These Gay Mormon Shoes
My independent engagement with the world really started with a simple blog I began in 2010. “In These Gay Mormon Shoes” was my effort to create a resource I felt would have been useful when I was grappling with the apparent incompatibility between two core pieces of my identity. It was simply a record of my thoughts and experiences, but it was the start of my understanding of what part I am suited to play in the creation of this world we share.
My inbox was flooded with emails from around the world from people who were experiencing similar situations and who had felt isolated and alone in their suffering. The blog and the handful of videos I clumsily made received tens of thousands of views. Suddenly, I found I had a voice that people wanted to hear and that they were finding helpful. It wasn’t until years after I stopped blogging that I realized what it taught me about myself.
Though I’ve moved in other directions and this project has largely been left in the past, it continues to be relevant in my life and my work.
Reelboy Productions
Though I’ve moved in other directions and this project has largely been left in the past, it continues to be relevant in my life and my work.
Away We Go
Though I’ve moved in other directions and this project has largely been left in the past, it continues to be relevant in my life and my work.