The hand drew – I just wished it drew plans

I thought I had hippied myself all the way. I must think thoughts of the damned, I thought. The thoughts of the artists, of the uncanny, the rare. I didn't think in such a way, yet, I felt it. Transformations are scary. Younger, I had the capacity to reinvent myself at every subtle turn. I could go to sleep as a philosopher and wake up as a scientist of some sort. Sometimes, I would become a painter, a great, raw painter, with true eyes, while looking at a basket of fruits on a table. My perceptions would instantly switch. I saw the world with great delicacy, a sense of renewal. The colors and shapes seemed more real, real in a way that was personal, and the thing was vibrant, literally, like slightly shivering. I wondered whether my visual cortex or my prefrontal cortex played with the world, or I should say my perceptions, like that. Yes, I do ask myself questions like that all the time.

But when the night came, of course, I was the great writer. I was molten metal that hadn't found its mold, its purpose, maybe. What could I be next ? A gamer ? A flower ? A spring ? A bass rhythm ? A ninja ? A sugar addict ? A neuroscientist ? A poet ?

And then came a time where my beard grew, not in a graceful or pleasant manner. It just grew. You knew I wanted to shave but skipped it now and again. The poet had built his base and his kingdom all over my face. My writing hands, my zoomed in eyes, I know, were a show. The mind of the poet was so engrained in me that I inadvertently wrote things like “I think thoughts”, to imitate Shakespeare's 85 sonnet : I think good thoughts whilst other write good words...

I would inhabit coffee shops like pigeons live inside house roofs. I had become the poet, the absolute one. The writer. I was not a machine that would produce matcha latte, but one that would drink it. I had considerably endangered myself by getting caught in a cycle of establishing myself somewhere.

I had no social recognition whatsoever, I felt dreamy all the time, but I was a bad dreamer, at the time. My dreams were infested with dark thoughts of loss, failure and such things. So, as I said, I had no social recognition whatsoever – and I giggled like a teenager all too often when something seemed funny and that I craved for acceptance. I was your flawed dandy, your weirdo, your poem dealer at the coffee shop. I existed, yet not. I felt marginalized, and felt that I occupied too much of the margin.

I thought I had hippied myself all the way. That's when I thought this thought. When I realized it. Yet, a scientist thought structured thoughts and didn't want to be erased. I thought it was time to go back to school, to study, to become a scientist. Have you ever thought about parallel lives ? The ones you could have lived ? I did the trick, I did the magic ; you should not. Instead, embrace all your interests. If you are an artist and a scientist, be both. Imagine if I had stayed a hippie all my life. I believe the world of podcasts would be a little less rich. Wouldn't it ? No, that's a narcissistic thought. But I would be less rich in soul and mind, that's for sure.

Think of all the boxes people have tried to make you fit in, and break them. You personally know how wide your world is.

Eh ! I thought I had hippied myself all the way...

My name had to be Andrew. Beautiful, isn't it ?