All I want for Christmas is someone who wants to take responsibility for themselves.
i am realizing that I have a damn near impossible time trusting anyone because I am observing that most everyone has an excuse for everything. Everything is everyone else’s fault these days.
but in the end, how can I expect a person to be honest with me when they have yet to be honest with themselves.
thinking this way makes me feel alone.
I feel like I’m code switching like a mother these days and it is cutting my brain in half.
I’m preparing for my first dragon, first full arm tattoo. And im stressed tf out. Inside im thinking “what have I gotten myself into.” This morning got off to a rough start, could barely sleep cause I was thinking about this tattoo… running it through my mind over and over again.
this morning, im taking some time to study the great Horiyoshi III dragons, being inspired by tradition and mastery. Today is a big day for me, I feel like I am getting to jump into that feeling of tradition.
here goes nothing. Also, here is a photo of my practice from last night.
Hey y’all, I got some time to sit and stop for a second and wanted to write a blog to catalog what’s been going on in my life this fall and winter. If we have met recently and you decided to click through to this blog out of curiosity, welcome! I have been blogging for almost 10 years now in various forms, and I’ve always enjoyed conversing and sharing my real life, unfiltered thoughts and experiences here. I consider this blog my “real" social media,” or not really social media at all, but a place where I like to process and share what I’m going through life. I try to be as transparent as possible because I believe that our world and the society we live in is looking for things that are real, although the 99% of things we look for or engage with on the internet are illusions, fabrications, half-truths and almost too often, straight up lies. I hope that for any of you reading you might find yourself in my writing. As you probably already have realized, life is very complex and sometimes it is really nice to know that someone else out there has the same questions and struggles you do. I’ve always decided with this platform that me being judged or embarrassed by some is a fair trade for the others of you that find a dose of healing here. So, whether you’re a new reader or have been reading for a long time, thank you for engaging in my perspective and I hope it is helpful.
Turning Pages.
In August my life changed. Like really changed. As many of you have seen, I started the first leg of my journey to becoming a tattoo artist as an apprentice under Atlanta artist and tattooer, Miya Bailey. We would need to sit down in person for me to tell you what this opportunity has meant to me, but to some it up shortly… I felt like my time in life had come. Almost everything I had experienced, and all those experiences taught me, seemed to become ultimately useful for this one moment in my life. The things I had been developing in myself as an artist and a person seemed to become ultimately useful and appreciated within this one opportunity and to be completely honest, it felt like my purpose and my destiny was really revealed to me in a massive way. I would consider starting my apprenticeship at Peter St Station under Miya the most important singular moment in my entire lifes career as an artist and creative, and a pivotal point of growth for me as a person.
From that moment on August 9th, I saw a vision and an opportunity and I ran as fast and as hard as I could through that door. Since August, I have done a little over 30 tattoos, sold almost every painting I’ve painted (with the exception of 2), booked commissions from buyers across the United States and have experienced countless “out of body” moments, realizing how lucky and exciting my life had become almost overnight…I feel the love, I feel like I have an entire army of people behind me cheering me on. To be honest a lot of it has been awkward to handle, because I never envisioned myself having experiences remotely like this at all but ultimately I feel like it’s so strange for me to be here that it has to be meant to be.
But, as exciting as it all has been, this time has also presented some intense challenges. First of all, I just realized as I was able to take a moment off that I have not stopped working since August 9th. Like, I have not taken a day to do nothing and to reflect and take care of myself. I havent been sleeping, I’ve lost 10 pounds, my diet became chicken wings and weed. I stopped going to the gym and having outside hobbies. I have been fully immersed and fully focussed, almost to a fault now that I think about it. I’m realizing the importance of rest, balance, and taking care of my body soul and mind, something that I had neglected for the idea of “trying to make it.” I’m currently working to reset, rest, and develop a life structure that allows me to work really hard but rest really hard too.
Another incredible challenge for me was the transition from white evangelical Christian culture and predominantly white culture to an all black culture. And my God… where would I even start. Then add the fact that I’m Asian in the midst of all this? Can we add another “WHAT THE ” to the equation? This could be an entire series of blogs or hours long of conversation but what I would say is this; it was been invaluable, eye-opening, and humbling to learn about an entire different culture and to hear personal stories of how my friends have experienced white America from a black perspective. Most of the time, the stories I hear are nightmares, and has challenged me to really dig into and understand everything I’ve believed or understood prior. It has also forced me to be willing to change my own mindset, as I discovered my ideas of black America and black people were mostly created through messaging from white America and not through my own experiences. It has taught me to think critically about our history and our systems, and ultimately this all has started me on a journey of forming my own viewpoints and beliefs from the ground up, and not just going along with how I’ve always been taught to think by white america and especially the white american church.
What I’ve seen and heard in the last four months has landed me in a place where I feel embarrassed, embittered and angry that I was a part of white evangelicalism and a distorted form of christianity that historically judged, neglected and abused everyone that didn’t conform to its cultural guidelines. I cannot currently look past the systems designed to control, manipulate, and ultimately capitalize off masses of people in the name of “God.” It’s unfathomable to me. and I know that a lot of you were involved in these churches and still are, and please hear me that I am not passing judgement on where you are at in life or what God you’ve chosen to serve.. I am just challenging you to really think about the places and people you are involved with. Compare your church’s values to the values you read in the bible, or even values you would believe to be “good and Godly…” and make decisions from there. I believe that the american church, and all its industries surrounding it, is the nasty monster capitalism disguised almost seamlessly as “God’s plan and will.” and if you do not believe so, I’d like to ask you this question: have you been to an american church where the church and the leading ministers therein seem to care as much about serving the community as they do the growth and popularity of their own church and ministers? Let’s start there.
Anyways, all of these experiences have happened so fast and in many ways have been overwhelming to me. There are times where I feel my entire experience as a christian was a complete lie and I’m starting from nothing again. I am realizing through my apprenticeship, as I have watched and learned from those older than me that I would like to become like, that I had actually lost touch of (ironically) some of the most important and simple ways of decency. I am re-learning basic respect, etiquette, patience, communication, justice, loyalty, and honesty… all outside the walls of evangelicalism… where these ideas seem to be completely foreign. I feel like I’m learning to think critically again, and my conscious is coming more awake to the truth about how life works and what is good and true in the world. It has been very painful, and I have had to let go of many ideas, beliefs, and relationships, but I believe that I am only growing in compassion, understanding and ultimately love, one that is willing to walk in another’s shoes, despite my anger and confusion towards the ideas that I used to believe.
So, to conclude all this… I feel like for the first time in my life I’m allowing myself to believe what I believe… without fear of judgment. Ultimately, what others judge you for are merely a reflection of their own fears, insecurities and faults that they cannot look at themselves. I am allowing myself the right to change my mind, to say things that I will take back later, and to share my findings and ideas with people even though my thoughts are all in process and incomplete, hoping that people will understand or even take the time to listen. I am practicing the elusive idea of “being in the moment,” which includes not just your joys and victories but your confusions, griefs and doubts too. Experience and explore it all… after all, the truth about what you actually feel and believe will express itself at one point or another. Might as well take the questions as they come.
I guess where I’m at now is, I am asking all my questions and allowing myself to grieve things that don’t fit my life anymore. I believe in God, but I also believe through my observations, conversations, and experiences that human beings over all of history have been very very clumsy with power. I believe that the truth might fall in between the lines, in the subtle justices in our lives… not in the grand powerful statements. Perhaps God lives in the miracle of being able to have hope in a world that feels so baseless, chaotic, and cruel. And maybe God can be much more found to every human being, despite the hoops and conditioned we designed along the way. One thing that gives me comfort and joy right now is my art, it gives a place for all my swirling thoughts to land and helps me feel that beauty and good can be made through very weak means… and that right now is my little light of who God might be… It’s not much but a good start in my mind.
Anyways that’s it for me. thank yall for reading. Til next time.
extra credit: each post has a header image. The image comes from an archive of thousands of film photographs I have taken over the years. I choose an image that expresses the sentiment of each post and at the end of each post I share a little extra credit about either the photo or some other random thought. This photo is the view from my little apprentice desk, where I draw, do work, and talk shit with Ro who usually sits next to me in the mornings. This has been my view for the last 4 months. I have seen many random things through this window and I guess on this day I liked this red car.
Imagine a time in your life when everything you once held to be true or certain is challenged. It’s like you are shown a whole other world, and you have to make a choice to jump into it or be afraid of it. That describes where I am right now. It’s every. single. day…. Like I leave the tattoo studio every day, no matter how good or bad or hard or weird that day was, and I feel so thankful for everything I’m getting to witness and be a part of right now. I feel like one of those stuffed animals that’s been picked up by some giant crane and dropped into a new dimension.
All that to say, things are going well. It’s hard, and it’s costing me things, but I’m realizing some key things about myself and what I think about the world.
Today, I turned on my machine for the first time and started working on fake skins to see how the machine works. The first time I hit the skin I knew I was hooked.
That’s all, I’ll be seeing you guys soon.
What’s going on everyone! Thanks for making your way back to the blog. It’s been a really long time since I’ve written a proper one. My life took a really interesting turn and I’m trying my best right now to catch everything back up. If you’ve been a reader of the blog, and have been wondering what’s been going on here, I want to catch you up. And if you’re brand new to this blog, welcome. This is a place where I like to write my honest observations, feelings, and experiences. This is a place where I’ve always wanted to take the conversation deeper, and hopefully put some ideas out there that are a little more substantial than social media. Here I talk about a lot of different aspects of my life - art, music, God, random thoughts, things that don’t make sense to me.
I did want to address the last big post I did, called “Escaping Christianity.” Yeah that one. I’m sure everyone’s probably moved far on from that post, but honestly putting all that out there was an undertaking I did not yet understand at that time. It was one of those things you feel like you need to do, but I had no idea it would affect not only me, but all of you out there in the way it did. It was overwhelming, it was heavy, but it was really powerful. I have learned so much from that moment about all I said, and live pretty open handedly with all of that stuff. I think the scary thing about writing anything is the fear that people will cement you into that idea. But I view all of this now as passing experience, giving myself the grace to change, redirect, reconsider, and grow through all of my experiences in life. I do want to say, if you responded to that post, wrote me an email, know that I had read it. It got to a point where I didn’t know what to say to people anymore, the stories were so important, but I didn’t feel like I was in a place to respond to them after a while. Maybe the post just allowed a lot of people to admit the same thing together, and I think that’s always been the point of doing this blog - to talk about the hard things and also help everyone feel a little more comfortable asking them and talking about them. After all, I don’t think we all know what we’re doing as much as like to portray, so to me it’s like, why pretend? Anyways, all that to say, writing that last blog post took so much out of me, and I even tried writing some follow up posts, but the energy I needed to re-engage the internet in that just wasn’t there for me. But, I’m back on here, and excited to catch everyone up on my life at this time! What I am hoping this post will be is a broad-stroke update of where I am at with my creative journey.
So, at this juncture, this is where I’m at - I’m in my 4th fine art gallery show of the year as a painter, I am a tattoo apprentice at City Of Ink Tattoos under Miya Bailey, I’m working on painting commissions, I just booked my first official modeling gig with an agency, and I’m moving my music studio down to Atlanta to capture the sounds and the music that engulfs me every day in my life at the moment. I spend my days (and most nights) at the tattoo studio, helping maintain the space and the business while also having the incredible privilege of learning from not only Miya, but from the other incredibly talented artists around me. I am not speaking in a hyperbolic way - every single day right now opens my eyes wider and wider. I am completely locked in and focussed on this opportunity in front of me, which I believe to be once in a lifetime. I am often overwhelmed by the “holy crap” feeling of this experience, and I am learning to balance the two feelings of “I totally do not deserve to be here” vs “I am here for a reason.”
playing bass on edgewood
As far as how I got to this place, we’d need to sit down and have coffee. But to make the long story short - when I moved to Atlanta in the summer of 2020, I found an amazing group of people and brew bar called Gilly Brew Bar in Stone Mountain Georgia. I mean seriously check them out. I was blown away by their innovation and their commitment to disrupting and shifting coffee culture. After a while of coming around and hanging with Daniel and the rest of the staff, we decided to try moving my music studio into Gilly. That happened in March of 2021. Through Gilly, I found my way to Peters Street Station (PSS) in Atlanta, where Gilly will be opening their second location. I remember the first time I walked in there, the strangest and deepest feeling stirred in me. It was in the middle of the day, and my friend Toni and I were in Atlanta driving around, and we decided to stop by for a tour. Petie, the GM of PSS, who has since become a good friend of mine, showed us around. The best way I can describe that moment was like a magnet was turned on in me, drawing me towards what I later understood to be where I was supposed to be. From then, I started going to the jam sessions on Wednesdays at Peters Street. It’s an open jam where any and everyone can get up there to either play or sing. Again, at that first jam session, I felt that magnet pull me. I remember sitting at the bar, wanting to play so bad, but also feeling so scared, intimidated, and not good enough to be there. But this year, I’ve made a promise to myself to face my fears in life and believe my way through them. I have began the change the way I view not only myself but also the way I view emotions such as fear, insecurity, and discomfort. And to me, there’s really two ways to do it: you either listen to your fears and run from them (self-protect), or view your fears as an opportunity to grow. These days, whenever I feel a fear about a social situation or an opportunity in art or music, I force myself to try it, and it is my own way of proving to myself that things are not that big of a deal. Anytime I hear a voice that says “nahhhh better not talk to them, or nahhh better not ask for that” I believe to be exactly what I’m supposed to do. Do that for a while and you realize that it is what you’re supposed to do in most cases. You just have to be paying attention to it. People don’t really care that much about what you do, it’s all passing, so to fear what people think is becoming completely impractical to me. So, that’s how I got involved in the jam. The first time I was there, within the first 15 minutes, I forced myself up on that stage to pick up the bass. And I did that, every week, for like 5 months. The jam became my highest priority, it was like church, I never missed a Wednesday unless I was out of town. There were so many weeks that I felt like I missed the mark or “failed” as a musician up there (a lot of people up there are really really really good), but I began to realize that by thinking that way I was missing the point. It was just about growing and enjoying music and people. And I feel so lucky to have been around the caliber of musicians and creatives in that way and have met some really great friends through that. All that to say, I remember that first jam and getting up there as a turning point for me, it changed the trajectory of my life, cause I proved to myself that truly the only thing in the way of where I wanted to be was myself. My own mind.
my meeting with corey davis
From that point on, I continued to build a relationship with PSS and eventually was able to show in two art shows there at Hidden Gallery 333, then in July, I got wind that Corey Davis, the owner of City Of Ink on Edgewood was asking about me. I decided to go down to the shop to talk to Corey and he wanted to ask if I would be interested in becoming a tattoo artist. I can’t thank Corey enough for this opportunity because it flipped the switch. It was right there. The magnet was at 100%. and it clicked like, whoa, I really want to do this. I had always wanted to, like even in college I was drawing fake tattoos on people, I just never felt like I wanted to give up music and art to do it, but I don’t believe I have to anymore. We can do it all! I remember being in the shop on Edgewood and watching Corey do a dragon back piece, and just being the shop, it was an incredible feeling. From that point, I considered my options and decided I wanted to stick around PSS, after all, that place was the impetus for everything. So I went back to Peters Street and I booked an appointment with Miya on August 9th to approach him about being his apprentice. That was Monday, and then I started on that Wednesday. I feel like my whole life, all my experiences, all the ups and downs and strange and unexplainable things up until this point, was like slowly ascending the first big hill on a giant roller coaster ride. Slowly clicking up that first hill, getting higher and higher, filled with fear of the unknown, excitement, and mystery all together. Then, on that Wednesday August 11th, my first day of the apprenticeship, the roller coaster of my life had reached the crest of that very first hill. And on that Wednesday it felt like those few moments of absolute silence when the cart is released from the chains at the tom of the hill, and you hear a few people muttering “Oh My God,” and then, in what felt like both a totally mundane but momentous moment, the roller coaster began its descent. And it cannot run backwards.
I’m about a month and a half in. What I have experienced is so overwhelming, and even if I wrote down every experience here, it would still fall incredibly short. It is impossible to explain with words. On a typical day, I get to the studio between 2-3:30pm, sometimes earlier, and I clean and set up for Miyas tattoo. During that time, I’m drawing, painting, or recently been getting all the un-fun stuff set up - LLC, website, email list, announcements, branding. I am attentive to Miya’s process and am soaking up each nugget of wisdom that he drops. In this environment, you and only you are responsible for your place and your experience. It is truly you get out what you put in. Period. No one’s telling you what to do and rarely how to do it, it activates deeper part of you that needs to be on point, never cutting corners. I’m realizing the importance of integrity, and how the rest of our social structures really lack this trait. For the most part, people go through life believing that it’s someone else’s job to get things done - it’s someone else’s job to fulfill us, it’s someone else’s job to do all the work to create experiences for us, it’s someone else’s job to make sure you even know what your job it (think about a corporate job description)… We even rely on other people to tell us who we are and what we’re supposed to do with out lives. And that to me, personally, is terrifying. This apprenticeship operates on a completely different axel. No job description, no set hours, no HR department… it’s simply asking you everyday, “how badly do you want to do it?” And the way I’m seeing it, the benefits of being here and all the life it is going to teach me is totally worth getting to start at the bottom of the totem poll. I’ve realized that hard work doesn’t seem that hard when it has a purpose. Mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms is like second nature to me now, I don’t even sweat it, because of the incredible knowledge and skills that I am able to learn in return. I would much rather do hard work for a purpose, than easy work that builds virtually nothing for tomorrow.
a moment I will never forget, watching Miya pick out references for the first time. I couldn’t believe the speed and confidence.
Currently, I’ve finished all my rebranding stuff, got my email list in order (that’s what I just sent you!), and I’ve just got my machine and all my tattoo supplies. The more I learn the more I realize I have to learn. Like, I’ve only scratched the very surface of art and all that I could do within that context. I’m at the very very surface. I do have moments recently where I’m thinking, I can’t do this. Like I’ll have these moments of anxiety where I just want to go back to how everything was 3 months ago. But that’s just fear talking. Again, I believe I’m here for a reason and everything in me is aiming to maximize this very important moment in my life. Like, everything I’ve ever wanted to see is just waiting for me, right here. I just have to work really hard to get to it.
As far as when I will being tattooing, I wish I could give you a date. But I am approaching. this art with a lot of respect. I want my tattoos, when they go on your skin to make you and I feel amazing. I want my clients to have an amazing experience all around, with me, with the conversation, with. the execution and with the tattoo itself. I want my clients to learn about life through their experience with me, and about art and history and the overall deeper meanings of things around them. I want my clients to feel like I do now in life, that you can be anything you wanna be and can express your message into the world and be proud of the person you are becoming. And all this will take time. I’m currently going to listen, read and draw my skinny Taiwanese ass off. I opened up. a waitlist on the tattoo page, and you can sign up to get a tattoo once I’m ready. I’m currently using that list as a guide to practice certain motifs that y’all want, and then when Miya and I think I’m ready, I will be reaching out.
But that’s it all in a nutshell yall. Thank you for reading. Please follow along, sign up for the email list, and enjoy the ride!
if you’re new to reading this blog, I always did some extra credit at the bottom, just as a thanks for reading all this and investing into my life. (by even reading this you are investing into me, in my oipinion). So, I would always write some advice or something I’m learning at the end with extra credit.
So the extra credit today is this. Pay attention to those magnetic moments - it might be a place or a person, or just something you want to step towards. That’s in you for a reason. It will take some effort and you will need to get uncomfortable inevitably. But if you get used to being uncomfortable, you will know longer be that uncomfortable. get what I’m saying? Growing is a skill, and pursuing the things that attract you regardless of how scared you are is a very important thing for all of us to learn. Thanks for reading.
Also, at the VERY end of the post, I’ll give the context of the header photograph. All of these photographs are from my film collection, which I don’t like to share a lot of them online. I also choose the header photograph very carefully as some sort of easter egg. And at the end of the blog, you get it! The header photograph is from my very first day of apprenticeship. I was so nervous. Thank you Surayya for guiding me through those first days and for taking this picture.
I’m trying to create process work to document every step of this artistic endeavor. Enjoy this little film I put together showing the creation of one of my most recent pieces “Ryu No. 1”
It’s about 12. My record dropped tonight. It’s been such a long time on these songs. Wow what a release. In short, this record is written about realizing how unfair life can be sometimes, and how relentlessly life moves on. That’s it but that’s a lot. Hope you like it.
Hey everyone, it’s been quite some time since I took to the blog, a couple months. Truth be told, I haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to say. And truth be even more told, sharing what I think scares me more than it ever has. So, if you’re reading this, I would like to again say thank you and welcome to my world of thoughts. I have always wanted to use this blog to share openly, in hopes that some of you reading this might feel encouraged by having a place on the internet where you can find something honest. I am in a fight with myself because I want everyone to know how “good” I am and how much I have it together, I want to project an image of wholeness, while on the other hand, I know that sharing our true selves is actually the more meaningful path. We are all struggling in some way, and most often very hidden ways, and I’ve always seen this blog as a means to help some of you (and me) feel like you’re not so crazy or you’re not so alone. Over the years, I have come to find that I’m not interested in speaking to the popular, the pious, or the successful… but the hurting, confused, and wayward. Because for most of my existence I have felt like the latter.
When it comes to faith, and more specifically, Christianity, I long to see a space for the angry, traumatized and broken to understand that they can work out their anger with God and come out the other side a more whole, compassionate, and loving soul. If you are involved in Christianity, I probably don’t need to tell you that millennials are fleeing from the church. I am one of them. There is so much I am angry about, there was so much about my American church experience that was so wrong. Personally, I feel like religion stole some of my life. I feel like it didn’t prepare me for the real world and helped perpetuate a prolonged and inappropriate adolescence. I feel like it only taught me how to say “no” and not “yes.” A lot of people are really angry with the church and their experience. It’s like when you’re in a really bad friendship or relationship for a while, and you tolerate and minimize all of the ways you were really hurt by it, only to feel and realize all that anger, frustration and embarrassment later after you’ve gotten out of that situation. I’m very hesitant to use the word abuse, since I feel like even the idea of being abused is abused by us young people, but I really do feel like a lot of abuse has transpired within the walls of the church, it’s just so hard to identify and name because everything is tied to the idea of God and being in good standing with God.
For ,e, with all of our anger and trauma in mind, I feel like I’m being moved into a new space. I want more than ever now for young people and especially young people who have had a real and meaningful encounter with God, to feel like there is a way through all of this pain. From my own experience and my observations of my peers, I’ve found that a lot of us feel the need to escape completely from our religious environments. For me and for many others, we do this through rebellion, blame, and sometimes the destruction of our once-held values and belief systems. And what is most tragic about it all is that we have no guides… no voices to walk us through these shadowlands, and very few who are willing to share their experiences through this. There’s still so much shame attached to our brokenness, and we fear that if we are honest, we will no longer have a place in these environments. American Christianity is not equipped to handle most of the real questions of life, so most people, once they begin to uncover the tragedy and depth of life’s pain, feel like they have no choice but to walk away all together… because the Christianity we grew up in ceases to be relevant to our actual real-life experiences.
There are so many unique situations out there, and honestly, I don’t feel like I have any answers, but I felt deep in my heart that I needed to share my story, as I have always tried to do. I have to let a light into this dark spot of my experience. And though 99% of “letting the light in” happens beneath the surface in ways no one could ever see or know (as is true for every persons spiritual path), there is a freedom in being able to let you, whoever is reading, into it. Maybe there are a couple of you out there who are at the very end of your rope. Maybe your faith in the goodness of God and life is hanging on by a thread, or maybe it's been completely broken ad lost. maybe you’ve woken up today wondering, “how did I get here, who have I become? and what have I done with my life?” Maybe you feel abandoned by God. maybe you are feeling like your entire experience with God was an illusion, and you feel deceived and manipulated by a many number of people and places that claimed to represent God. Maybe you, like me, decided to put God on the shelf for a while and explore the dark and faithless corners of this world, and you’re finding yourself alone with the broken pieces of your life in front of you, wondering how it will be restored. I wish I could give you an answer, a step-by-step book to find your way back to where you want to be, but the truth is, no one can really give that to you. But what I can give you, is a look into my experience - a little breadcrumb of my life, broken off and left on the path for some travelers to find. Not all of you will need to walk this path, and some have already gone here, and some will go here in the future. I’m simply offering my story for any of you who might find yourselves here at some point in your life. Everything in me wants to write disclaimers, but I’m trusting myself enough to share this stuff unapologetically and without filter. I believe that only the truth can set us all free.
For me, a lot of my young life revolved around the church and performing within the church’s system. This system, in my experience, had many channels that you had to perform for. There was the moral channel, the appearance channel, the social channel, and the musical performance channel. Ever since I became a Christian, I've always remembered feeling the need to perform perfectly for all these channels. Looking back, I’m not really sure who I was trying to please. I think everyone. And of course, I was just a kid, I wanted a place to belong and I wanted a community to approve of my lifestyle and my actions and who I was becoming. And because I was gifted in music, from the moment I was in the church, I was on stages. This began a long and arbitrary pursuit of Christian fame and identity that was built on being, to put it simply, “ successful Christian,” which I now believe to be an impossible goal (that’s an entirely different blog post). During this time, it was the hay-day of Christian celebrity. Passion, Hillsong, Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, Bethel, whatever… these were the people you wanted to become. My dream was to become one of these incredibly influential people, ultimately believing that God’s overarching will for my life was to become highly visible on a global scale. The Christian culture I was in then and throughout my early twenties really valued visibility, just as humans tend to do. We all loved the idea of becoming famous for our faith performances and musical ventures, all in the name of God. Who got the most impressive “word?” Who healed someone on the prayer walk? Who knew the famous worship leaders? who was invited to go write with these famous worship leaders? I wanted to become a God spectacle - so in tune with what God was saying and doing, as if to appear super-human and other-worldly. I was in circles of Christianity that you almost had to become an incredible weirdo to be God-like. It was almost like the more detached from reality you were, you were somehow more in tune (and therefore more loved) by God. We all ate this up. All this to say, the pressure within myself to be a perfect person was immense. After all, I wanted to be God’s elite in the world, elevated to high places of influence and visibility, therefore I had to be better than everyone else. But I’ve realized now, in my late twenties, after countless failures and my seemingly unending tendency to wander off and make messes out of my life, that I never really allowed myself to be me. I always needed to be better, and I felt like I was never enough. All this pressure over time, I’ve realized, has not allowed me to develop the art of being known for who I am. I write songs and do all this stuff on the internet, but when it comes to letting people really know me, I don’t know how. I feel cursed by a lot of the judgmental systems and performance-based social hierarchies that these religious environments were built on. To me, I find it increasingly ironic that churches preach unconditional love… because that was often the place where I would not find it. And I understand that this is a lot to do with my issues and my wounds, but I remember always having this feeling that I had to earn my love from the church. I paid for it by becoming a “somebody” within my Christian world. I paid for it with my spiritual performances, musical gifts, and my adherence to its moral codes and expectations. The love felt conditional after all.
I don’t mean to make a long story longer, and I want to spare the internet the dirty details of my dirty laundry. But I’ve spent this time rebelling pretty strongly against this system. I was angry for a really long time. I was angry at a Christianity that was so limited, that seemed to be only concerned about creating a safe tribe around itself and not actually expressing an unconditional love into the world. I started wondering: Are church’s just social clubs that had an “ace card” of control (the word of God) that they could use to control mass groups of people? After all, no one wants to be wrong in God's eyes. As my experiences broadened in my late twenties, and I started seeing how vast and kaleidoscopic the world was, I could not understand how Christian morals were even useful in today’s modern world. It seemed so archaic. It just seemed like the world was too big and too colorful to be confined into the narrow and dualistic religion I had known my whole life. I felt tricked. I felt like my experience with Christianity had robbed my life in away. I feel like the years that were designed for exploration, making mistakes, and figuring out I was were spent on trying to please a religious system. I felt like I gave my energy, soul and life, to a religion that was ill-equipped to engage with any actual experiences of our lives today. And then, when you mixed in the racism and the white supremacy that is woven into the church’s fabric, It was game over. I didn’t experience racism more than I did within the church - the white churches I was giving hours to each week, singing for, sacrificing for. I remember one time in high school, we brought in a “famous” worship leader from Passion City Church to lead a youth event, and during our little meeting before we played, he made a comment directly to me, making some joke about how many parents ran a dry cleaner (that’s a korean stereotype, by the way. I am Taiwanese). Isn’t that so fucked? and to think this is the kind of person that I dreamed of becoming all throughout my youth. To me, and many of us kids back then, this guy represented the marker for Christian success and influence. I didn’t realize that interaction was fucked until this year. And that’s how all this pain surfaces - I’ve heard it in a hundred different conversations from countless others - it’s often years and years later, because you didn’t know quite what was happening at the time, but as you mature and come into yourself, you realize the nastiness that was underneath the surface of your experience. It’s the same dynamic of an abusive relationship - where the abuser gets to move on with their lives and the victim is left with a shattered life, picking up the pieces by themselves.
All that to say, I feel like I left God for a while. I was still doing Christian things, after all, I had no idea where else I would go. My entire life I only developed one skill it seemed - how to be an American Christian. I knew all the songs, I knew how to talk like one, I knew how to earn applause in those circles, I knew what to say, what to read, and what to like and dislike. But later in life, I started to have this awkward and embarrassing feeling that I didn’t know how to just be a person and see people and the world as exactly that - people and the world. It was always us/them, in/out, christian/non christian, cool christian/non-cool christian, right christian/wrong-christian. I felt like I could not escape my experience and that my perspective was forever limited by the legalistic environment I was formed in. I wanted desperately to be away from that, to be away from performing, to be away from the feeling that people were always watching me, judging me, being let down by me or being “blessed by me.” It was just too much pressure. I felt that I regretted becoming Christian because I felt that maybe I’d be happier and maybe I’d love myself and people more if I didn’t have a gauge for what a “good” person really was. So I escaped, in my own way. And yes, when you think of religious rebellion, you’d probably first think of sex, drugs, alcohol - which are, in my opinion, the only real sins of evangelical Christianity but let’s not forget bigotry, sexism, racism, greed, dishonesty, exploitation, and manipulation - all of which seemed to live rampantly, unchecked. But, yes, all three of these cardinal sins of Christianity are a part of my rebellion experience. It’s really strange, looking back at the last few years now. Remember how I mentioned I felt like some of my youth was tainted by this incredible pressure to be perfect? Well, in my mid-twenties I think I went out and was living the way I wanted to live my freshman year of college - hooking up with girls, doing drugs, partying, trying to be free. I think it’s because I suppressed all of those urges I felt in my younger years, and never gave myself the opportunity to form my own opinions about those things. So think about it - you’re a kid and you go to college and you see everyone else having an incredible time (or so it seems at that age). And at that time they seem more free than you, able to make mistakes, explore, and essentially do whatever they wanted without consequences. And then there’s you, and you’re not allowed to even want those things deep inside. and if you do want to explore those areas of life, you better not let anyone know. So what heppened with me was, after I left the church, I started fleshing out all of those questions. The real hard part about it thought was that the only people I knew were Christians, so I did most of it in absolute secret. And that really hurt me and a lot of people. But back to the plot: I feel that the real dark and painful elements of these departures are about deeper things. sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, all the “external” sins, to me, are just symptoms of deeper problems a soul is trying to work out - the questions of love, adequacy, safety, belonging. Those are the things we’re really after. And again, I want to spare everyone the details (if you want to talk more I’ll talk with you no problem, basically if you are a christian and think of everything “worldly,” I was probably involved in in some way or another), but to sum up my rebellion with this one word: inconsequence. I wanted to live a life of no consequence, again, trying to escape all the pressure of being a “world changer” a “mouthpiece of God” or even a “good person.” I had no idea what any of that was anymore. This led me down a dark path of faithlessness, spiritual anarchy, and ultimately complete and utter loneliness.
I believe in the dynamic of reaping and sewing. It’s a mystery to me, but I believe life gives you back what you put into its soil. For a long time it seemed, I really sewed into myself - I sewed into pleasure, I sewed into personal gain, I sewed into protecting myself and getting what I wanted, I wanted to do me. I wanted to be FMBM. FOR ME BY ME. and I think what happened, after a while, is I reaped the harvest from that time of my life. It’s so hard to explain, but it just felt off. Everything did. I felt like I had lost my way completely in my life. I had so many secrets, I had so many things to hide, that I never felt like myself. I didn’t even know who myself was. I never felt like me. Free, happy, funny, goofy, loving, and caring me. And that’s why the blog has been so silent, I didn’t know how to share these things with you, or even admit them to myself.
But then, slowly and with the help of people I can only describe as angels in my life, I started to find my way back. back to where? I actually have no idea. but back to something healthy I guess. Back to something faithful, hopeful, and maybe that’s God. If I were really honest, I’m still finding my way back. I feel like I’m at the beginning of this journey now - of finding God again, of finding myself again, and rediscovering the real meaning of life. I can’t quite pinpoint what it was that helped me realize how lost I really was, and how dark my world and my heart had become. I think what woke me up was losing a lot of things I loved. I hurt people I loved, I lost relationships that I deeply cared about, and in a sense I feel like I lost a lot of my sense of purpose and power. What saddens me even now is that the people I want to read this the most likely aren’t reading this blog anymore. My heart is broken. I feel like I’ve lost part of my soul. I’ve lost a lot of confidence and belief in myself. My choices have undermined my place to stand, and I find myself now, sifting through the pieces of my broken life, slowly replacing and repositioning its cornerstone.
I am challenging myself to be honest in the middle of this process with you. So often, we want to share our experiences after we have won the battles… but I really think that we need to start being honest in the middle of our processing, however ugly it is. Life is madly complicated. If there is anything I’ve realized, it’s that we are all actually really broken, some people just hide it more than others. I’m not the first person to have the experience that I have had - actually a lot of people have. The problem is, if you are involved in a Christianity that is remotely similar to mine, the fear of being judged and persecuted by your own people keeps you silent and ultimately keeps you alone in your struggle. You feel like you need to hide because this kind of conversation is not yet accepted nor taught within the church. I have had too many conversations with too many people to hide my story, because my story is actually all of our stories, and I believe that if we were to create a true space of unconditional love and dialogue, we might have the tools to actual work out our traumas with the church and find the true God through all of its bullshit.
I wanted to title this writing “Escaping Christianity” because to me, it really sums up this process. There is a critical point where we need to leave a system in order to find the truth. I had to ask the terrifying question, “is it possible that the Christianity I know is drastically far from the real truth? The real Christ?.” For me, I haven’t given up on the idea of God, or the idea of Jesus, or the incredible truths I have observed in Jesus’ life. It’s just that I think God is going to turn out to be a lot different from what everyone, including me, claims He is. That’s all. That’s the mystery of life and the mystery of God.
If you are in this chapter of life, I want to encourage you. I’ve had countless, countless, countless conversations. Everyone my age seems to be escaping their Christianity in some way or another. Something has gone terribly wrong. So many people are hurt, traumatized and abused by Christianity. Sometimes I wonder if we will ever really recover from our experiences at all. My observation in most of these conversations, though, is that most people are stuck in the anger phase of the process, the tearing down, if you will. There is a lot of bitterness, anger, even hate towards the people and places that represented Jesus, but failed. And while I believe the anger chapter of this journey is necessary, it breaks my heart to see people camp out there without any sense of hope of moving forward. Being stuck in this place, to me, is not far from hell - dark, hopeless, fruitless, faithless. This is where I was over these last few years, I understand its darkness. I understand the feeling of not knowing where to go and only feeling anger. But, if there is one thing I desire to see out of all this writing, sharing and blogging, is that we might discover a way out without needing to leave God altogether - I’ve done that too and that’s hell too. I want to sit with all of you and say and believe with you - there is a way through this. I’m living the very first moments of the other side and its so free and so beautiful, just keep walking.
I don’t know how this looks or anything, I just have this deep desire to start some sort of dialogue. You need to share your story. You need to voice your experience, and let people affirm it. You need people who will see your pain and who will both dignify it and challenge you forward through it. We have all been hurt. Our experiences vary yes, and there are some unimaginable circumstances when it has come to spiritual and religious abuse and traumas - but I have a desire to see my generation forgive these experiences and build something better for our future. We have a lot of work to do - painful, real, but critical work.
This post was a little all over the place, but I’m believing that there is a purpose in some of these words. I would like to try something. If you are with me, and see me, would you share some of your experience with escaping christianity with me in a comment below? I’ve never tried this before, but I just want to read your story and say that I see you and I get it. and maybe this thread will become a place for everyone else to read everyone else’s stories. And we might all realize, oh wow this is so real and so important. It’s not me that’s defective, or my church, or my old pastor… it’s everyone. Be as honest as you can be. You don’t have to go calling out people by name or anything like that, and I don’t want this to be some cancel-fest of people or churches. also I’m not a counselor nor do I believe im the person to help you through it - I wouldn’t know how I’d do that other than just being real with my story. I am more interested in your experience and your affirmation. It’s not actually about the specific people and places that have failed you, it’s actually about learning the deep and unending layers of forgiveness and taking responsibility of your experience and your own life. and ultimately, I don’t want the residual hurts of other people’s pain and failures dictate your future. do not give them that satisfaction.
if you’re with me, let me know. Let me know your story. write it. I’m interested, and I’m thinking that A LOT of people reading this feel the same way. comment anonymously, send an email to me, talk to your friends, it’s whatever. I just want to get everyone to start talking.
If there is a lot of resonance with this post, I’d like to continue writing about the nuances of the idea of “escaping christianity” to continue the conversation and create a resources for anyone in this stage of life to move forward. Even if it is an inch a day.
I really do mean this when I write this now, but you are very loved and what you have experienced really matters. And I’m sorry for all the pain, it’s just how this world is. It’s full of people with very limited perspectives and limited tools. But I think, as we take steps towards the truth, we might see that it actually does set us free.
Love you guys. Andrew
Last week, I released my new song “Back For You.” This is my third single of 2021 following “Part Of Me Knows” and “That Day.” All of these tracks are a part of a project I am going to release later this spring called “987.” I wanted to start by saying thank you to all of you who have listened to this music, and for any encouragements you have sent my way saying you’ve enjoyed the song or have shared it with your friends. It may not seem like a big deal to you to let artists know that you enjoy their music, but trust me, it goes a LONG way. I believe that an artists’ biggest asset is their belief in themselves. It’s so hard to do this without believing in yourself. So, thank you for all of the love on the new music, you are helping me to grow.
Last year around this time, I started recording all of the songs that will be on “987.” Preceding this record was my debut full length album “Never A Waste.” With “Never A Waste,” I was trying to challenge the idea of what “Christian” music was. This album had songs about everything on it - faith, loss, regret, failure, breakups, love, missing people. In my opinion, Christian music was so removed from real life (a reflection of American Christianity in general). I was wondering, “why aren’t we being honest?” “why do these songs feel so unrealistic? what are we actually saying?” To me, Christian music is expiring. It’s starting to stink, like leftovers left in the fridge. And people are starting to smell it. American Christian music has a very obvious formula that recycles the same generic Christian rhetoric over the same four chords. If you really pay attention, the formula is painfully obvious - write about some sort of fire or desire, mention heaven coming to earth or a revival, film a room of attractive millennials in a room emoting unrealistically to the song, then if you want extra points in today’s time, make sure minorities are in your video. That’s Christian music right now. But to me, the lyrical content, what we’re actually singing, is so hard to actually connect with real life. I think I believe heaven coming to earth will help us, but how does that actually happen. I don’t know that much, but I’ll bet heaven on earth is not a room full of hot people in hats and Chelsea boots jumping around and lifting their hands. All that to say, with “Never A Waste,” and moving forward, I have always been interested in making art and music that actually named the very real things that we go through as people, Christian or not.
With “987” and the songs contained therein, I only had one rule for myself. No boundaries. I had become increasingly uncomfortable with being a “Christian” artist because I felt that that association limited what I could or couldn’t say or pursue musically. I felt trapped in a thematic and musical cage. The scope and perception of Christian music is so limited and I have always felt like I wanted to say things that were slightly outside the status quo of the genre. So, I think in an unconscious way, making 987 was a way to free and separate myself from that genre. 987 was an experiment and an outlet for me to pursue my true musical interests. The sounds and the songs on this record are a free exploration of ideas, sounds, and perspectives that are true to me, irregardless of whether it fits into the listener’s expectations. So, at the risk of being misunderstood or not received, I set out to be me and make music that I really believed in, and thus we had 987.
I’ve definitely had some inquiries about that these songs are about. I really like the idea of you guys being able to have your own relationships with the songs. That’s why I’ve put up no disclaimers or explanations about what this stuff is about. I think it’s really beautiful actually that a hundred people can listen to a song and have one hundred differing interpretations of it. I think that good art and music is able to even transcend itself, and speak directly to an individuals own personal experience of life, irregardless of the artist’s original intent. That’s really cool to me. But, I thought with “Back For You,” I thought it be fun to share what this song means to me, and the place in my heart that it came out of. It came out of a very special and very specific time in my life where I was figuring out a very specific puzzle, and thus “Back For You” was born. Hope it helps.
There is a song that Death Cab For Cutie released on their album “Codes and Keys” called “You Are a Tourist.” In the chorus they sing, “If you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born then it’s time to go.” I feel like this one lyric is the perfect framework for where “Back For You” came from.
Before moving to Atlanta, where I currently live, I lived in Athens, GA. It don’t know whether to call it a town or a city. It’s like a big town or a tiny city. I don’t know. I lived there for the last 9 years of my life. I did my undergrad there at the University of Georgia and after school I stayed and continued to make music as an artist and producer. I was so invested in Athens, deeply involved in the church and the very special music scene there. I had some of my best times and memories there, and many of my best friends Ive met through that very special place. I cut my teeth in Athens, working on my craft as a producer and engineer there for many years, starting as an intern, then becoming an engineer, then a manager of a studio, to owning and operating my own studio, Bloom Sounds. Man, it was such a perfect time for me and what I wanted to do. I had an identity there, I had a place there, I had a community, and I felt like I was in the perfect place at the perfect time. I absolutely loved it.
In 2018, though, I remember having this tiny tiny feeling inside me whenever I’d visit Atlanta or LA or any other big city with a lot going on there. Yes, the feeling started sometime in 2018. I even remember drawing the Atlanta skyline in my journal after visiting my friend there one weekend. I started having all these questions: “is there something bigger for me out there?” “have I experienced all I can experience in Athens?” “am I supposed to stay in Athens?” “How long is the runway here?” Looking back, these questions are so critical to have. They’re terrifying, so they typically live deep in your gut and take years to really come to the surface. But I remember being so enthralled by the energy and the pace of the larger cities, and made me really start to wonder if I had what it took to move up to the next level of my life in all areas - career-wise, craft-wise, relationally. I had a sense that I was getting better as a record producer and artist, but I could no longer tell if that was just because I was a growing fish in a smaller pond or if I really had what it took. The questions continued to grow. “what would I be in a larger pond?”
I think I stayed in Athens one year too long. I believe everything happens for a reason, so I don’t regret that decision, but staying one more year without pursuing the answers I felt deep in my heart provided a real challenge for me. I was rebelling a lot against mostly everything. I felt kind of like a bird trapped in a cage, growing to resent itself and its cage. I think I identified my desire to move on and grow, but in a way resented myself and was embarrassed at myself for not having the courage to pull the trigger. I think, for the first time in my life, was able to understand this feeling of having a chip on my shoulder - often I’d feel simultaneously like a know-it-all and a failure all at the same time. And that is not a good feeling. I felt like I was continuing to grow, but my environments were making it harder for me to flesh all of that growth out. I had hit a ceiling.
Going back to that Death Cab song: I started to feel that exact way, a tourist in the place that made me. I started to feel less and less connected to the places and environments that I once held so dear. It’s this weird feeling of everything changing around you, sort of feeling forgotten or something. It’s hard to describe. It’s funny, there was an opportunity to buy the house that I was renting with my friends Zac and Joe. It was a beautiful old house, where my studio was too. It was prime real-estate in the middle of Athens, and would have really increased in value and would have been an incredible investment. I really saw a future in it - a life in Athens, making records, right in the middle of the city. Everything I need 5-10 minutes away, familiarity and comfort for rest of my life. But I remember having a lunch with my friend Julie, who has a family and a house and all that, and she basically told me “if there is anything in you that wonders what you can do out there, you have to leave. You can always buy a house later.” And that was it. I realized at that lunch that I needed to face the questions inside me. I remember that day so well and am so thankful Julie was there to ask my own question back to me. I would have been very happy taking that path, but I think I would have honestly regretted not taking the harder route. I think I would have always had the question burn inside me, “what if I had left?” I think I would have been hard on myself, believing that I took the easy way out in my life.
And that’s what “Back For You” is really about for me. People have asked me, is it about God? is it about a girl? what’s it about? And, though it’s such a layered answer, I think the song for me is about the feeling of leaving everything you love and know behind so that you can answer the questions you need to answer. It’s about the feeling of going on there to find out what you’re made of, by yourself and for yourself. It’s an ode to Athens, GA - and every single person there who has been my friend or touched my life in any way. It’s a
”thank you fo much, I love you, but I’ve got to go now. Let’s all get together after we went out and found our way.”
We will do anything to avoid change. We spend so much time in situations, environments, relationships, and communities that no longer align with where we really know our life is taking us. I experience this push and pull as this slow, deep undertow of a river, pushing our lives ahead. And it’s pretty relentless. We spend a lot of time swimming against this river’s current, but what would happen if we learned to let go and enjoy the ride down the river? “Back For You” in a sense, captures a moment in my life where I, in my own small way, trusted my gut through my insecurities and my fears, knowing that something less comfortable and less familiar was what I really needed. who or what am I really coming back for? I’m not really sure, but I do know that it will all make sense down the road.
Thank you for reading and for listening, love AB.
Guys, dropped a new single today, on V day called “That Day.” I’m massively proud of this song because I felt like I nailed something special in the way I wrote it and produced it. Because a lot of this new collection of songs was an exercise in “letting go” for me, I was able to free myself to throw all different flavors into the pot. This song is a cross between alt rock, piano ballad, hip hop… I don’t know it’s a lot of things, but things are feeling more and more like me. Anyways, give is a spin today, hope you enjoy.
The act of loving will always call us out of what is immediately comfortable or known. Love and sacrifice are more closely intertwined than our western view is comfortable with. An act of true love requires us to act beyond ourselves and beyond what is easy. It requires us to see the possibilities of a new narrative, a new possibility - whether it be in ourselves or in the recipient of our love. This is why, to me, we need God in order to understand love because He gives us a model as to how to lay ourselves down.
I think I’m making peace with myself. Or at least I’m starting to. I’ve been at odds with who I am, never feeling good enough, feeling like I’ve “missed it.” But, somehow I’m learning to make peace with everything - who I am and who I’m not. This is the beginning of an important and fruitful time ahead.
These are my thoughts about judgment and gossip.
It’s really easy to judge people. It’s really easy to assume people’s motivations and their reasons for doing the things they do. It’s easy to write people’s stories for them and write them off as bad or worse people. I consider myself a Christian, and the more I consider the words of Jesus and also my own personal experience of divine love - love that is all inclusive, all understanding, and unwavering - the more I am realizing how much judgment is actually a disease that critically cripples our experience of connection, unity, and ultimately love. If we are to grow into mature and more useful people, we inevitably will have to honestly face these judgmental tendencies in our own lives and come to crucial realization that we’re not really better than anyone.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a part of this problem. I have been in groups of people who’ve been speculating about other people’s character and decisions (while these people are never in the room of course), I’ve passed judgement on people who are different than me - people who struggle with things that I don’t struggle with, and ironically, people who exhibit the same distasteful behaviors that I myself practice. But as I’ve grown, a strange feeling has begun to gnaw at my inner person, my conscience. “Something just isn’t right” I’ve started to feel, during moments where I’d be exploiting someone else’s life and weaknesses just have a laugh or to make myself feel and look better in front of my other friends.
The irony is, we expect different treatment than what de dish out to others. I would say that almost every single person who reads this would like their friends and community to give them the benefit of the doubt during their difficult times and their personal failures. We would all like the space to fail and for people to walk with us through those times and try to understand the inner workings behind those moments, yet when it comes to everyone else, we fail to extend that same grace. The irony is so obvious it seems laughable. In my observations, environments that are filled with judgment and gossip aren’t safe for anyone. While there might be some laughs and some “revelations” (more accurately, judgments we spiritualized to shift accountability away from ourselves), I think the constant analyzation of other people’s lives without the intent to help them creates a rather poisonous environment. It’s all fun and games until everyone realizes - we always talk about people who aren’t in the room, so what does everyone say when I’m not in the room?
In Christianity, sex, drugs, alcohol and cursing are condemned easily and naturally, but things like judgment, gossip, gluttony and self-righteousness are given a free pass, sometimes even encouraged by the culture. Do not be deceived. These things are killing us too.
I’ve decided that I want to be the person who helps the people who are struggling. I do not want to be another part of the giant gossip machine that is most young people, even (and sometimes especially) Christians. I want to be a part of helpful and fruitful conversations. Honest conversations. I want to see the ostracized and marginalized people who have morally failed the community and themselves, the people who can’t quite seem to get it together. And I feel like I’ve only been able to come to that place because I’ve realized that I myself am that person. I want to work towards becoming a person who can include all, who doesn’t feel the need to separate himself as better. Because at the end of the day, we’re all on the same playing field. I want to become a different kind of voice out here. I want to be there person who actually follows through, who gives grace, who picks up the phone to walk with people through their life, who actually does something instead of just talks about it. I for one, no longer want to contribute empty words and harsh judgments without any cost to myself. Ultimately, judgment and gossip are easy because it cost nothing but love costs us our very lives and comfort. Let us remember that all the shit we talk in our lives dissipate as quickly and as cheaply as they came, but choices to actually exhibit love ring forever through time.
I know this is such a specific topic, but I have become very passionate about this. I really think that if we chose to graciously exit these patterns and offer solutions to people instead of just ripping apart their lives when they’re not in the room, some beautiful things could happen and we could find that our Christianity would actually begin to work.
With Love. A.B.
Yesterday I took a massive freaking L. Felt worthless, like a failure. contemplated quitting, etc etc.
But today’s a new day. Still believing that I can change whenever I want to, and part of changing is, in essence, making decisions for yourself even if, maybe especially if, you feel like you can’t. Those small decisions are pivotal moments for your growth.
Get up, and try again.
I’m dying my hair so I had some time to kill tonight. So I just opened up my blog and here we are everyone. I’m just going to type whatever comes to mind.
The new song is out, which is pretty cool. I hope everyone likes it. To be honest I put it on repeat the last few days… cause I’m really proud of what I was able to achieve both as an artist and a producer and also mix engineer with this track. This whole project, in a sense, was a happy accident brought to you by quarantine as well as my existential and emotional challenges. I wanted to push the conventional boundaries of recording and challenge myself to get outside of my own box. I wanted to create a sound that was experimental in nature that also replicated some aspects of music that I grew up listening to. And I also tried to mix all my interests the best I could. I feel like I’m one step closer to developing my voice as an artist and producer.
Besides that, I’m out here. Thinking about the future. Wondering what it will be like. Wondering if I will ever realize my dream, or if the dream dies so that you can realize that what you end up getting is better than what you wanted originally. I don’t know. Or does life have to come with all the “what if’s.” Like what if I did that? What if I didn’t do that? The haunting question, “did I miss it?” Sometimes I’ll watch youtube videos of hit producers and artists in a studio and wonder to myself if I will ever get to experience that… and then wondering if I am an idiot for even thinking those things were ever possible… Or if it’s wildly closer to me than I could ever imagine. I don’t know… maybe time will tell.
“Part Of Me Knows” came out 20 minutes ago. I’m really excited about this song, and even if it feels a humble beginning still, I feel like this was a big feat for me personally. I just can’t wait for people to hear it. I’m going to eat a grapefruit and here is the link to the new song.
My new project begins rolling out in just a few weeks. I wanted to premiere the full artwork right here on my website. So take a moment and take in this beautiful illustration created by Arielle Zottneck. There will be more revealed about this artwork in due time. But to the song:
The song I will be releasing is titled “Part Of Me Knows.” I’ll also do a little write up on what it’s about alter, but I think I want you guys to decide what it means for you without explanations this time.
Mark your calendars, this bop will be dropping on October 9th! If you are a Spotify member, would you consider taking a few minutes to follow this link to pre-save the song? Doing this really helps the song have more reach with it drops, and costs you nothing! If you pre-save the music, I’ll promise to keep trying to make the most beautiful and most dope art I can possibly make. Deallll? :)
And while we’re here, you can keep scrolling down to get lost in my random thoughts in my not so secret online journal called Dear Diarya.
til next time :)
Okay today was an amazing day. Like extraordinary. I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time. First, spent an incredible time at HeyHey Studios with producers Ryan Wilson and Zach Epps working on Mary Michael’s new record. I had never met Ryan before in person, but had been wanting to for a while. The hang was amazing. The day flew by. I felt like the spirit of everything was right.
During this same day I got an invite from a hip-hop producer who lives in Atlanta to come meet him at his studio. I played some of my music for him. I was more nervous playing music this time than any other time in my life. I think I was intimidated by this producer’s success in music. I was in a situation where I could fail. It’s one of those moments as an artist where you think to yourself, “is my music good or have all my friends just been being polite for a long time?” It felt like song played for an hour. But he said encouraged me. There’s no more details here but I felt so encouraged. It was one of those moments where I felt like I was going in the right direction.
Anyways. I’m pretty tired and don’t want to explain what all this meant to me. Just know that it was truly, an amazing day. AND, it’s nice out tonight.
I’m releasing new music in October.
Last night I had one of the worst dreams I had ever had. In the dream I found out I had cancer - and everything about it felt so real. All the emotions were there, all my fears and shock. It felt really real. I had never experienced anything like that.
When I woke up, I remember thanking God for the life I have now. My problems, for a moment, seemed so marginal. Then I remember saying to myself as I got up, “you better go out and live.”
