explore your intersections

I just finished watching this TEDtalk that I'm sure a lot of you have seen already. Please definitely watch it even though it's twelve minutes long, because it's really good. And especially at this stage of my life (the one where I "have" to decide what I want to do forever), it was really comforting to hear.

I do a lot of internal dialogue with myself. A lot. Like so much I don't think normal people do it (or maybe everyone does it?), but I analyze everything and look for the connections between everything, and I would say I know myself pretty well. It's been really interesting this year to see how all the different interests and experiences in my life (and a few in other people's lives) are all connecting to who I am today, seemingly unconnected things like time theory and personality studies and buying a billion disposable cameras when I was a child and philosophy and why I loved to eat leaves when I was little (haha I was a strange kid) and making art with thread and string and a lot of weird things. And even the obvious things about me like photography and writing--everything is starting to come together, why I did certain things or enjoyed certain things for a time.

It's really nice to know that I can be an Art Major (who's doing photography and mixed media), an English Major (who continually fails at writing that novel but now is in love with poetry), and I can also take philosophy classes (that relate to art, agrarianism, religion, and reason); and that I can be a photographer, a writer, a blogger (since apparently I'm back into it, haha), a studio practicioner, a social media exec (my fancy title that I made up for my side job getting paid to go on someone else's facebook), and someone who is interested in a million different hobbies (tea, book making, fashion, psychology, travel, sewing, astronomy).

And it's nice to know that I don't have to have it all figured out. Emilie Wapnick wrote another blog post to follow up on her TEDtalk, about different approaches to careers that multipotenialites can take, which you should read here. I think for me, the Einstein work model is the one that makes the most sense for me right now, maybe doing photography as my "day job" to sustain a studio art practice and writing practice, or maybe getting a generic part time job to do all three. There's a lot of options and I just have to remind myself that there are a lot of right choices, instead of just a single one.

So what am I going to be when I grow up / what am I going to do after I graduate? Lots of really incredible, creative things and live a really beautiful, fulfilled life.