TLDR I’m officially pausing the blog updates here and moving things around. The archive of existing posts will still be here, but everything new will exist on Substack, which allows me to share and send posts with less admin effort.
Still Mind has gone through many iterations since I started this blog in 2015.
It started as an idea on the ceiling when I felt lost as an independent recording artist and desperate for change.
Then it evolved into a creative obsession, sparked by a conversation I had with my collaborator Brett (who designed the first logo, header image, and merch) on a flight to Tokyo.
When we were back in LA, I cycled again and again through this vision we had of a digital magazine with “art, design, music, and mind” as its pillars. It was an invigorating exercise filled with mood boards, films, playlists, and scheduled posts. And by the time the site went public, it was actually quite close to what we had dreamed up.
Concept deck for Still Mind, 2015.
Friends and strangers reached out to tell me how the content on Still Mind was resonating with them. Guest writers and Q&As added more dimension (special thanks to contributors like Ossy, Ben, Rene, Greg, Juliet, Mona, Yoshino, Mark, Evan, Dyan, Elyn, Jane, Michael, and Jacqueline <3.
We even planned and co-produced a few events. Our community of creative seekers looking for the inspiration to keep going was growing.
Photo by Steve Lucero
Flyer for MIND / WAVE event, 2017.
But in the end the full vision, which walked the line between lifestyle brand and digital movement, just wasn’t sustainable.
For quite some time now it’s been a one-man show, and as such, I feel compelled to make the footprint smaller.
Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:
Lesson 1: There’s a huge gap between self-directing a solo project and leading a collective.
You have to learn how to communicate clearly with yourself before you attempt to lead others in any significant way.
Most of the avoidant behavior that was my default as an only child and chronically single person in my 20s simply did not work in the context of a large editorial project. Even with the accountability of people watching me, I eventually ran out of steam and stopped following up with contributors. By 2017 I had ghosted all of our Slack channels and Trello boards without a trace.
Still Mind Trello board, 2017.
In hindsight, a lot of the community-based aspects were driven by my own need for external validation. Still Mind was a personal quest to prove I could send a message that was transcendent and build something worth following. But I don’t need a collective to do that. I just need to get out of my own way.
Seven years later, a lot of the extra pressure to keep up the content machine and involve a large network of people has faded away. I still have a strong desire to document my observations in real time, just at a different pace and a different scope.
Lesson 2: You don’t have to monetize everything you create, or everything you love or everything you have a passion for.
It’s okay to invest in things that don’t necessarily make a return (see: research and development and creativity for creativity’s sake).
If you’ve ever had a side project - a home bakery, a clothing brand, a party to promote - you’ve flirted with this tipping point. When what you love becomes what you do for a living.
The switch sounds simple. And the creator economy really has our generation in a chokehold. But the artist-to-influencer-to-enterprise pipeline shares many of the trappings I’m familiar with from the music industry, and I don’t yet know how to reconcile it.
Whenever I’ve depended solely on my art to sustain a living, it has sucked the joy out of my process. To preserve that joy, I’m willing to make some tradeoffs.
I’ve stopped beating myself up about projects that never took off or turned a profit, web domains I bought and never used, and paid apps that haven’t seen a login since signup.
Still Mind still costs me more in hosting and service fees than it brings in, and that’s okay. Having returned to working a corporate 9 to 5, I have the privilege of saying so.
I will continue to learn the language of business, media, and technology in my own way, because I’m deeply interested in it. I just won’t subject my writing or my music or my social media to every tool of modern capitalism to make it happen.
There are plenty of other ways to explore.
Lesson 3: Make learning the goal, always.
I keep reminding myself that progress is never linear and my goals are allowed to evolve over time.
Adaptation and self-compassion is key.
That’s what allows me to go back and appreciate how big the vision was for Still Mind in 2015. And I get to be grateful for all the things I learned while building it. Things like:
How to take an idea from concept to execution.
How to design and iterate for the web without knowing how to code.
How to write things that people will read and remember.
How to organize my thoughts to inspire action.
How to talk about myself with confidence.
How to show up consistently, even when it feels imperfect or unstructured.
In 2023, I’m still figuring out where to take my creativity next.
The biggest challenge for me is not being self-conscious about the new topics I want to explore.
“To be seen trying” is always scary.
But the more often I show up, the better I get at bearing the uncomfortable feelings that come along with it.
And when I finally strip my identity down and free myself from the tyranny of “brand” and perfectionism, I trust that the whoever needs my message will find it.
Constantly revisiting and rewriting and remapping through this outlet has taught me more about myself than I ever thought possible.
When learning is the goal, I can always find my way to success.
I’m convinced, now more than ever, that success is in the practice and in the journey that continues today.