Some nights I dream that I have a completely different life.

Once, i woke up thinking that I had quit my job to become a lighting designer.
I had no formal training in the subject, but made a life of visiting old, run-down restaurants, vintage shops and dumps, and finding hardware for my creations.
I understood the mechanics of lighting, and electricity, and focused more on the craftsmanship of actually making something.
Copper, Tin, you name it, I found it.
And made it into something beautiful for someone to have in their home.

I dream of owning an olive grove, pressing my olives into oil, to sell at the local farmers market. Taking my children to pick olives off the olive trees, the way my parents used to do with me. Coming to Marin County from Egypt, I think my parents were always fascinated that there were olive trees just lining the streets near my house. I remember as a child, we would walk over to St. Isabella's church, and pick the olives from the trees and ferment them. There is something so tranquil about olives; their trees, the leaves and their taste. Symbols for peace and a delicious snack all wrapped up into one. That's it, in my next life I will own an olive grove.

This video, by Alan Watts is one that I first saw right after graduating college. They say that when you leave design school, for the first 5-10 years you will feel like you are just shit, as a designer. Everything you produce is garbage, and every one else knows exactly what they're doing, but you. I have to agree with that statement for the most part, even the projects I have been really proud of, started as a disaster. I went through the ups and downs, highs and lows, of the creative process.

This is going to be great.
This is harder than I thought.
Can I even do that?
Well that's just awful.
Maybe if I...
Better.
OK, that's dope. Look at me go.
Meh, turned out alright.

I like to believe that anyone in the business of 'creating', and putting something out into the universe that will be their contribution, and will continue on when they're no longer around, has probably felt this same struggle.

Every once in awhile, this video comes back into my life. Without fail, it happens in the most deep of creative slums. Those moments where I ask myself: what I am doing with my life? Why I am not spending my days hand lettering type, and filling my garage with letter-presses, and screen-printers, and anything else I could get my hands on to fuel my creative energies.
In those moments, this video finds me, and there he is.
Alan Watts.
Reminding us all that it's never too late to stop, and re-evaluate. To not fear the unknown and to take risks in becoming the person that we were intended to be. Because the only shame is in not trying, or giving up after the first road block. But there can never be shame in trying too much, or too hard.

Do it because it terrifies you.
That's all.