I’ve always had a hard time starting things. Laziness, fear of failure, PTSD, perfectionism, imposter syndrome; you could blame it on nearly anything but regardless of WHAT causes me to choke up and panic when I’m about to start anything I actually care about.... I do, nearly every time I’m faced with a challenge. Do I let it overcome me every single time? By no means. I thought I had to suffer in silence because I was weak for feeling this way about, well nearly anything. This feeling has caused me to procrastinate and avoid the things that I care about as well as the things that scare me.
I’m sure we all feel this way, at first. The rush of something new and exciting, coupled with worry for umpteen illogical reasons. For years and years I felt like I was somehow broken. How can everyone else handle the stresses of life and I can’t? Why can’t I focus on my work, why can’t I understand concepts in class? Why can’t I start a paper even when I know exactly what I want to say? Why can’t I start a book that, although it’s required for school, I actually want to read? This obviously transferred over into college where I felt so uncomfortable going to the photo studio to use the equipment because what if I didn’t know what I was doing? Having to plan photoshoots with my friends was difficult, I couldn’t feel comfortable asking them for their time, not when I don’t know what I’m doing...
No matter who you are I’m sure you can relate to these feelings. It’s unfortunate, but they’re natural and normal, when occasional. However, when you start to talk weeks, months, years at a time, constantly feeling uncomfortable doing much of anything at all, yet all the while pushing through and pushing DOWN the feelings... If stress and emotions and thoughts and feelings like that last for extensive periods of time; well, I’ll let you use your imagination what happens.
You break.
That’s just what I did. Over and over I broke. I believe there are two different choices you can make at this point. You can either choose to break DOWN or break OPEN. I’ve done both, and let me tell you the difference and why it’s important for our purposes here.
When we break down, we go low low low. We cower into ourselves. We beat ourselves up for all the bad, wrong and ugly we’ve done and are. It’s a very lonely place, a breakdown. I’m sure we’ve all been there, too. Here we can maybe get back up, quickly for some and not so much for others, regardless we’re pretty rattled, and we still have the feelings of darkness and we just shove them down.
That can work.
However, I’ve also broken open and let me tell you, it is magical. When we break open we reach out for human connection and we lean on our support. We ask tough questions and we shake off the shame and guilt because by this point, and if you’ve ever broken open I’m sure you know, we are just so emotionally and physically drained that there’s no more room for those negative emotions. I’m not saying you don’t break (remember, it’s in the name), rather when we break open we may be just as low, if not more than, when we break down.
The key difference between the terms is in the direction of course, but that’s why it matters. Break downs are all about the moment itself and how you’re feeling right then and there. They’re closed off. Maybe you have your breakdown in front of someone, and they comfort you. It’s still a breakdown if you fail to open yourself up to the pain, and effectively work your way through it. There are several ways to do this, but I’m going to make you listen to the podcast for them!
So, I broke OPEN. I’ve broken both down, and open since then, and each time I’ve been able reclaim some kind of center. A place where I find myself thinking! When stress consumes your entire life it’s fairly conceivable that you would have a hard time being intellectual. I’m accessing parts of my brain I feel like I’ve never used before, thinking through my struggles and the world around me. Learning things that make my life more productive, more colorful, more peaceful... With all of these things combined I had ambitiously decided that I wanted to start a podcast, and I had the general idea of what I wanted to do with it. I was ready to start thinking of a potential name and I kept hearing:
“THINK outside the box! THINK outside the box!!”
That won’t mean much to you unless you were at Camp Hinds in Raymond, ME during the last week of June of 2015. If you were there you would have been there for RYLA, the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, where I spend close to a week of my summer every year (except 2020 for obvious reasons) facilitating rising high school juniors in activities designed to test their leadership skills, and leading reflections in which we process these lessons in real time. We make connections between abstract concepts and use processing tools to relate our camp experiences to actual work that each of us can be do to better our lives and those around us; outside of camp. Here, I’ve made my most important revelations about life and have learned, cried, laughed and been quite frankly transformed by and alongside people who I genuinely believe to be the best among us. On the last night of camp we hold a campfire where campers preform skits that convey what they got out of their experience. As you can imagine, this can get pretty... creative. This year in particular was memorable for two skits, one poking fun at one of the senior staff (all I’m going to say on that one), and the one that rang those words through the campfire ring that day.
It was genius. Utterly sublime. It felt like a cop out of a skit but somehow it was all you needed. There’s a dance too, and I remember it somewhat like flossing? I think you get the picture. So, with this chanting through my head every time I tried to think of a name I was getting pretty annoyed.
“Why can’t I think of a name???”
It wasn’t some instant when I realized the connection, I think that would be more dramatic but I think honesty is better here. The name grew on me. “Think Outside the Box” felt so cliche, and I thought surely someone out there had used the name before. It wasn’t for another couple weeks until I finally did some research to see if there was some huge show with that name but, to my surprise (and delight), there really wasn’t. I ditched the word think as I knew the phrase hit multiple aspects of my life, and intentions for creating the podcast. It felt perfect. Opening up the box to the emotions, to the pain, and thinking beyond what is plain in front of me. It was everything I’d been doing and everything I wanted the podcast and name to be but there was one problem.
Fear.
My familiar friend coming back to remind me that I’m not good at starting things and how bad it could possibly be and what people might think and how was I going to do it and and and..... I stopped. I remembered that I have both broken down, and broken open. I have felt raw and real emotion, fallen and made progress, cried tears of despair and of joy. I have been there through it all and what has gotten me through each time? Connection. Learning from someone else. Hearing someone go through my strife and tell me it’s ok and that I can do it too. Showing myself I can do it? Showing others they can too? RYLA? Full circle??
So I had a name that I felt extremely passionate about and all of a sudden I had actually RECORDED my first episode. I was on top of the world signing up for my host platform and then I was slapped back down to reality...
“Upload cover art here”
Shit. I was not prepared for audio to need this but of course it made sense and immediately what did I do? What did I feel? What Happened?
Froze in fear. How was I going to come up with a cover that I felt comfortable representing the entire podcast? Something I hadn’t even really got a good understanding of how I was going to keep making episodes and with my poor track record for keeping with things prevailing my thoughts I felt so much guilt and shame. I knew exactly what I needed to do.
Feeling cooped up at home and not being able to go out / travel with as much ease due to the pandemic, I’ve found it comforting to look back through old photos. It can be on my phone, instagram, snapchat, physical prints from school and the catalyst for the cover photo: My polaroid collection.
Spanning several years and more importantly many phases of my life, my polaroids have set in stone memories that I cherish, some that I would rather forget and even some I don’t remember. But they’re all uniquely me and my story. Each and every one.
This is that dramatic moment you were waiting for.
The very second I opened the box of polaroids I knew what I had to do. Thinking off an older piece that I made out of a similar time of desperation titles “Cotton Monsoon” I knew I wanted to crate in my space using the polaroids and expressing the honest, open, and unapologetic tone I wanted to carry through the podcast. It all came together just like most things I’ve mentioned, slowly. People might say that there are finite moments to the creative process in which you come up with each idea. I on the other hand feel like inspiration is grown in the garden. You water it with good intentions, and bask it in rays of positivity and support. You are gentle with it and shield it from the winds. Eventually, a mature plant will offer you the fruits of your labor in the form ideas, expressions, and art.
click for a surprise xx
Art, to me, is any expression of passion.
Whether that’s chess, diving, cooking, sewing, driving... absolutely anything. It’s in our biology to care for these parts ourselves and gravitate to them. A boxer to the ring, a pianist to the stage, a fisher tying flies; it makes no difference your medium it’s all art as it’s an expression of our deepest selves. We all require, on a biological level, some form of artistic expression. Coming to this photo was the result of countless attempts to talk myself into even THINKING about what to do, hours of set up (3 separate days, all failed), a lot of gaffers tape, acceptance for my capabilities and most importantly, instinctively allowing my passion to guide my creation.
So, now you know where my inspiration came from, and I’ll leave the critique up to you! Feel free to ask questions, make statements, or leave emojis in the comments should your heart desire.
Best xx
Nick