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Hello, and welcome to The Storied Human. Today we're going to have a chat with Renzo del Castillo. He's from originally from Peru. He's been here a while with his family. He has a tumultuous story about how he came here. He's a poet, and he's a world traveler. And he has a lot of things to say about culture, and how we gain empathy from traveling. So I'd love to hear more about all of it. And I want to say welcome to Rennes.
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Pleasure, pleasure to be here.
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Pleasure to have you. So where shall we start? I know. There's a lot of drama to how you came here. And I think people would be really interested in that. Sure, we can start at the beginning, if you'd like. So when I How did I come to the States? Well, my father was a major in the Peruvian army, and my mom was the Secretary to the Minister of Health. One day, when I was before my sister was born, there was a union negotiation happening. And some members of the Union were members of a terrorist organization on the Shining Path, and they came armed to the negotiation. And my mom, who was there said, Hey, does anybody want any coffee or something to that effect? And I guess, because there was a bit of massagin ism there, and they didn't think much of it. And she was a woman. They're like, yeah, go get us coffee. And she came back with the police. Oh, good for her. Yeah. And she came back with the police. And they marked her for death. So one of our nannies was, they discovered she was a terrorist. And they stopped her before she did anything. One of the nurses when my mom gave birth to my sister, was also found to be a terrorist. And they stop that, and there was a third instance.
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So after that, my mom talked to my dad and my godfather lived here. He was a US citizen, he sponsored my student visa. And we came here with my mom, my dad, my little sister and myself around when I was about four or five years old.
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Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So if you had stayed something terrible would have happened.
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I'm assuming so. I mean, I when my father passed away a couple of years ago, I, I, you know, you, I cleaned out his study.
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And I found the papers from the deposition, like the transcripts from from court, and it, I guess, I always thought about, and I'm like, oh, maybe it was exaggerated in order to know it's, I asked my mom. Yeah, I asked my mom about it. And she said, No, this is all this is all true. So I can't even imagine, you know, with little kids. I can't even imagine how that felt for your parents. I'm so glad that you were able to get out.
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Thank you. So where did you guys settle when you first came here?
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I me. I still live in Miami. I spent my entire life trying to leave it and now I love it here.
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I love Miami. I love my song.
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Yeah, it's really special.
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There's, there's something to it. Right. So just not to deviate. But I was recently in Dublin. And Dublin has a history of literary history. You know, you have Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, it's very respected. And people tend to think of Miami as a bit of a party town a bit of a young, maybe superficial place, but all of the big ticket political issues that are going on in the world, whether it be Medicare fraud, or immigration, they're all happening here. And there is a culture of people that write about it, want to talk about it, have certain viewpoints about it. So it's my there's a lot of depth to Miami. If you if you look, you know, yeah, I believe that. Yeah. And I love the mix. You know, it's just exciting to be there. There's such a mix of people of, you know, ages of buildings. I just remember visiting there and loving it, because it was exciting.
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Art Deco paradise for sure.
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Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I love how they didn't let them go to ruin they, they renovated them.
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It's just, there's a real respect for for history. Yeah.
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So just just to finish up on that we can hear how was it being in Miami tattoo your question? Sorry about the detour there. It was, it was difficult at first, right? Because when we were in Peru, I came when I was about five. So I was old enough to understand certain things but not old enough to understand the rest of the context. So we came here we were like upper middle class or lower upper class in Peru and when we came to the States We started from the bottom there were nights where my parents would tell me and my sister go ahead. We already ate dinner. But they didn't. Right.
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And I knew they were lying, right? Because it wasn't enough.
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So, um, that marks you. I always, I always like to say I'm kind of like Scarlett O'Hara, right? Like when I was a kid, I decided as God is my witness, I will never let my family go hungry again. So I became very driven. When you asked little Renzo, like, what do you want to be I said, I want to have money because money equals safety.
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Money means you can eat money means they don't turn off the light money means you can pay your mortgage, pay your rent. So it was something that was incredibly defining for me, but we made it okay and what, because of that I wasn't really able to travel much until I achieved a level of financial security. But what my parents gave me was a thirst for knowledge. A lot of literature introduced me to poetry, my grandparents as well. So we were we were rich in other ways, if that makes sense.
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That's a great way to raise a child. Yeah. to plant those seeds. So what did you major in in college?
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So originally, I went to I went to UF, University of Florida Go Gators. I went to UF for the aerospace engineering program.
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When about six credits short of graduating, I decided that I was always fascinated by how things work, like taking it apart and seeing how things worked. But around that time, I really got into Neruda and Bukowski, and which lower Szymborska and I started just appreciating that things worked at all. So I was always the kid that did the right thing, got the good grades and never gave any grief. And I decided that I wanted to switch my major to poetry English Lit.
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You can imagine what that Thanksgiving slash Christmas season was like with my immigrant parents, right? Yeah, no, it was it was not good. But they were it came. It came from a place of fear. But it came from a place of love, right?
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Like, how are you going to eat?
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How are you going to make money?
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How are you going to do all these things that I already mentioned, I was concerned about. So I ended up studying poetry with some some great, great American poets and critics. One of my teachers was a man by the name of William Logan. If you look him up, he is a very, very intelligent, very capable critic and poet. And that's where I learned a lot about poetry, just like you know, the form the meter, you know, ghazals bill and Nels pan tombs like all these different things, and I got into a program in Cambridge for grad school, but because I had we didn't have our citizenship yet it took us over a decade to get our residency, because of the way the immigration system is. I almost didn't get my scholarships for university.
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Because I didn't have we got political asylum right before I graduated. If I didn't have political asylum, all those scholarships wouldn't have gone to me, right? Oh, my gosh. So I was able to do that. But it was after September 11. I'm 40 years old now. So when I was graduating, it was 2002.
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September 11. Happened 2001 I'm sorry, it when I was graduating was 2006. I graduated high school 2002. But it was after September 11th. And for those of you who were around back then, you know that the situation in the country was heightened. And it was up to the discretion of the immigration official at the at the border at the time, whether you let you in or not.
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And I knew two people who were deported. They weren't terrorists. They went to study abroad and they were deported.
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So my parents told me, Hey, how about you finish here? And I didn't fight them. I got it.
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Right. I completely understood it was logical, but I was heartbroken. heartbroken about it, I want to feel right. I want it to be a long haired hippie in Cambridge, you know, let's take writing poems and living life and looking at a rose and feeling it was beautiful, because it was finite, very Blakey, and right. But that wasn't the case. So I went, I went full corporate. In that sense, I ended up doing my grad school I did intercultural international intercultural communications. I ended up coming back to Miami and just to help out to help my mom was is here and I ended up getting a job at a call center for health care company because I figured what are the industries where you can make money? And in my opinion, my opinion, I think law and healthcare benefit from an efficiency when something doesn't work, they just tossed more money at it. I figured some would land in my pocket, right based on Everything I described in terms of why I was concerned with money equals safety. And then that eventually led to the, you know, within a week I was running projects, I eventually, within three years, I became a consultant, project manager then did some engagement and became an executive in healthcare. And that's what I do now from my day job. I'm a VP for our company.
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That's amazing what a left turn, huh. But, you know, when you have basic, good skills, and you're smart, you can sort of you can excel in a lot of places. No, thank you. Thank you for that.
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It's honestly no, it's that's what I'm hearing. Yeah.
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But I have a I had a good friend, I was, I achieved, as I mentioned, a level of financial success, but I was not happy.
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And I have a really good friend, his name is Curtis Franklin.
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He's one of my closest friends from college. He's in his 60s, he's a bit older than us. But one of one of us for sure that there was never that difference.
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And I told him, I'm just not happy. I remember that conversation very vividly. And he said, and he talks exactly this way. So he's like, What are you passionate about? And I couldn't answer him, because everything I thought it was in relation to someone else. Right.
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Like, I just focus so hard on, I guess, people pleasing for a bunch of different reasons and how I grew up, that I couldn't say it. And he said, Well, follow your passions, because they'll lead you to your purpose. And a life full of purpose is a life of joy. That's Kurt. I eventually realized that I'm very passionate about problem solving. I love puzzles.
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I love looking at complex things. I told you, I love breaking things down seeing how they work, putting them back together, solving those things.
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I also whether it be narcissistic or not, I, I would hope that you and I like you leave this conversation better off than when you came here. I hope I have a positive impact in your life.
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So lovely. Yeah.
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Yeah, I think you should leave the world better off than when you found it. Right. So when it comes to work, healthcare, I was very frustrated because I consider it a failed system. And but I get to solve complex issues there every day. And I also get to help the people that report to me discover their potential achieved different things, I am much more fulfilled by the achievement of my people than I am of mine. And that switch was crazy. Because I was a consultant, I was very much focused on what I can achieve. I was a gunslinger, I came into town where I had my money and left now I'm a sheriff, I stay I make sure the town is livable.
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I, there's a different skill set from doing to enabling others to do. Yeah. And it requires a lot of empathy. Right, which is why art is so important to me. I think art helps you develop an an analytical relationship between yourself and the object yourself and the object of where the art comes from, which in turn helps develop empathy.
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You're seeing it from another perspective, you're looking at it from somebody else's viewpoint. So yeah, that's, that's kind of how I got to that.
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I like that. It's, it's also I hear a dropping of ego, you know, because you can't, you can't empower people that way.
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And you can't be you can't enjoy it. Unless you you know, you've grown a little bit and you've dropped that ego a little bit.
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1,000% Look, when I was a consultant, you have to have ego. My dad was a fighter pilot in the army. He was a helicopter fighter pilot, he had to have ego i to be a good consultant and a good project manager ticket. You never call a consultant if things are fine.
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Yeah. Because things are breaking down. Please, yeah, you have to have a healthy ego to come in and take rein of a situation and move forward. But for me to tell the resources that work for me, the project managers, just like I was a project manager right before I became an executive to tell a project manager that does this every day. That I know more than them is hubris, it's false. And it's not true. They are the subject matter experts. They are the ones on the frontlines. What I have is a different perspective. Yes. See it from a higher level to allow and my job becomes removing obstacles from their path. Yeah, I don't know more than that. Until combat perspective. Yeah. It's just it's detrimental to the relationship you want to build.
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Yeah, trust there.
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There's a real art to being a great leader. Some people just never put it together, I think.
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Yeah, I've had good and bad. I worked in it as a technical writer during the day. Yeah. And lately I've been at a healthcare company and I have spent the last year of my life doing major overhauls of documents about prior authorization software. So I've been knee deep in this, I've been knee deep in it. But I'm so tickled that you said you hope you leave things better than you found them because somebody, one of my interviews because I'm usually a contractor or like a consultant, I hop around like, you know, gun for hire, definitely. But the funny thing is, I get really, as I got older, I get attached to people.
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So it's harder and harder to leave. But somebody said, Why are we know, what do you like about tech writing? And what I like is that I leave something better than I found it, I leave it more understandable if one person picks it up and is helped by it. You know, my days is good.
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You know, it's funny, you mentioned that. It's funny, you mentioned that because one of our I had a resource that was a tech writer, and he didn't want to be anything other than a tech writer. And I think that's fine, if that's what you want. Some people want to grow in different areas, or he wanted to be in what he did, but what I challenged him with his so how can you become a better tech writer? What certifications can you take? What do you want to learn? Let's talk about right, I don't have to grow somewhere else. And he eventually developed into a damn good scrum master alongside being a tech writer makes sense. You know, he no longer reports to me, right.
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But recently, when we transitioned over, we were just acquired by a bigger health company, and we're in a different area. And he went, he had to go a different way, because of just the way the levels were in his position. But we couldn't reach our templates.
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And he contacted me and his manager who works for me out of the blue, just to catch up. And he had told us that he just obtained his agile certification from PMI from the Project Management Institute, right?
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fantast which, which is just lovely to hear that he's continuing to grow and develop this and then said, Hey, do you need those templates? And he sent them over? And it was just such a gesture. Such a kind gesture that he didn't need to do? Yeah, right. Like he had all the templates from before. And it's we stay in touch. Of course, like if you one of the things we say as long as you leave through the front door, once in the family, you're always in the family. So I continue to coach resources that no longer report to me in different different companies and different things. And we make excellent, yeah. But it was just so nice to see him just genuinely out of the goodness of his heart provide information from the place where he thought he didn't want to leave. Yeah, which is now just, it's not his skill set. It's a basis for his overall skill set, which is just just that stuff makes me happy.
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You know, you know, it's funny tech writing. It's very few people stay strict tech writers.
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Usually, I think in the last 10 years I've seen it's usually tech writer slash something else, because we, especially in it, it's so easy to use us in all kinds of, you know, Project Coordinator, business analysts, I've been a process analyst, I was a systems engineer at Lucent. We're just sort of chameleons because our skill set, especially in information technology, lends itself to so many things. And not everybody sees that sometimes they think of you as like a wart on the side of the system. But you're an integral part of this. You know, it's about what you do, Lynne, it's about what you do is you take the abstract, and make it tangible, so we can communicate, right? I don't want to like just for your for your audience, I don't mean to get too techie.
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But basically a technical writer creates documentation creates templates creates a variety of different things. But you take all these abstract concepts of engineering, and you allow the business to be able to read it to communicate to the client. So that's art. I mean, that's what we're talking about poetry, you're taking these abstract concepts, and you're making them tangible for other for the audience to be able to intake.
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And that is foundational for any skill set anywhere you want.
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Proper, ation proper communication. 1,000%. I think that's why you're so marketable in different areas, the only way to do it well, and I have to, you know, educate everyone everywhere I ever go, is to get in, is to let me in different pieces of the system.
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You know, I'm a senior tech writer. So I do UI design. I've done wireframes I do user acceptance testing, I designed those tests. Because once you learn all those things, you have input you have because you represent the user, you're always representing the user.
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And that's such a cool thing.
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Talk about empathy. Any of these jobs, well, you know, UI design or develop development or, you know, a business analyst, especially the way I was where you sit in between the business and the developers, you can't do that translation. unless you have empathy for the user, you have to, you have to assess the user. And so I just think that that's so cool that you that you see all that? Well, it's it's funny to me when people say what you're an executive, why do you do poetry? Or you're a poet?
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How do you do the business world? I'm like, There's no separation. For me. Yeah, like, it really is just communication and taking, being able to, to work together to solve complex issues, whether it's breaking down, like the essence of what love means to that person at that particular moment, versus getting a user to be able to accept the software that just came out without bugs, it's still like communication is still flowing between each other. And in getting that connection so that you can put out something greater than yourself, you know, when you're creative, you know, it's just, you're always going to use it wherever you are. You're a problem solver, you know, creative. I always feel like when I'm in a room with people that aren't especially creative, I'm annoying, because I'm always saying, well, we could do this.
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And we could do this. And I'm thinking of these, like a million things, you know, that we could do, which not everybody appreciates, but it is a useful thing to let your creativity flow, because out of that, maybe 100 ideas. Five are good, you know?
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How many? How many engineers? Do you know that are musicians, right? How many engineers do different things? That's because people say like, I'm right brain and left brain, there is no evidence. Right? That one area of your brain, if you look at the literature, if you go out and look at it, I encourage people to do that it's fully on the right brain fully in the left brain because it's complex, multiple areas of our brains light up. So to say, like, Oh, I'm technically focused, that doesn't mean I'm not creative.
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No, like, I've done abstract mathematics. To me, there's nothing more creative than abstract mathematics, right? But then you go into people who code and then you go, and people who write music and that, like being able to read music. That's, that's something that's applies to my, to the logic part of my brain, but it doesn't mean you can't be creative, you need that. For me, I find that I do better when I have that discipline as a foundation. And then it just allows me to be as creative as possible. If you go to poetry, it's the meter, right? There's the map. They're not right. There's a rhythm. Yeah, it's so true.
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That's so cool. And I see that all the time in developers how creative they are and how they are musically oriented. And, and people are often surprised that I'm a creative writer also, like, it's like, you're supposed to be one or the other. And I'm like, No. But it is unusual. I don't know why I think it's I think a lot of us just are sort of trained to be either or, you know. So tell me about the poetry tell us about what you what you're drawn to what you write about.
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So this book, The reason I wrote this book was, there was a seven year period, it's going to be seven years now. It recently kind of paused, where I started thinking, and this is not logical at all right? This is a very emotional thing I'm about to say. But I thought life had stopped giving me things and it started taking them away. And that's not true. What if you and I hit it off today, we become great friends. Life has just gifted us this friendship today.
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Today, right? As long as you breathe, you get you have the ability to get something new.
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You have a chance. Yeah, you have a chance. But in the last seven years, I lost my father to pancreatic cancer. I lost my grandmother, his mom, I lost my cousin who was my age a week apart. My little cousin who was 10 years younger, I lost my best friend's mom. I lost a number of family members, a number of friends. I lost my dog. The relationship I thought was going to be marriage ended around that time. So I was just moving to many classes. Yeah, you're pummeled? Yeah, and I was moving too fast to grieve. I have this thing that my mind is always on the future.
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Not anymore. Right? I do a lot of yoga to help me be centered in the present moment and uncomfortable in the present moment and things like that.
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different philosophies of that sort. But I wasn't allowing myself to acknowledge all of these things. And you know, that comes out either as your skin breaks out or your back hurts or you become anxious, you have trouble breathing. It comes out does until I realized that all right. The first time you ate sushi, right? Did you do that?
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Because you thought Hey, this looks cool. or did somebody you love or admire or hung out with her friend said hey, try this.
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This is cool. Your favorite movie? Why is that your favorite movie? Yeah, I would have never eaten sushi without somebody telling me it was good, right? You're your favorite book. Did your parents read it to you? Right like and then that's when I realized that we are made Out of all the little pieces of everybody who has ever loved us. And in that sense, if that is true, if I am here, then they're still here. And that is why the book is called still.
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The other reason it's called still is that I needed to be still. And just allow myself a moment to acknowledge this loss, feel this loss and put it down on paper. I needed to, I needed to be still in the moment. It's like looking at a pond, right?
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You have to look at that Stillwater to truly see yourself. So that's the other reason the book is called still.
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And it really chronicles my family's journey, what it means to be an immigrant in a Center for Latin American Caribbean migrations, which is Miami, what it's like to grow up from that perspective. But it's not solely that it's just there's it's snapshots of my life so that if you read the book, you'll get to know some of these people that I love. And maybe you'll love them a little bit too. Yeah. Does that make sense?
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Yeah, it makes perfect sense. So how can we get the book? Is it available? on Amazon? It's available on Amazon. I'm sure I'll send you the link. So you can have it when you post your when you post this episode. But we a couple of weeks ago, we became an Amazon Best Seller in multiple categories. So we're doing fantastic. Yeah, it's isolations. Thank you. I just love the idea of people having like a hardcover book and open up right the US we don't do that as much as like Europe does or South America. Right. But just the fact that in the US we've become an Amazon bestseller is encouraging to me because that's something that I didn't even think about, I originally just published the book because I had a, I wanted to do it for myself, and then kind of use it as a tax break all the way until I realized that it could be much more. And you can find it on Amazon, you can find it at Barnes and Noble. If you're in the Miami area, you can find it at books and books, $1 zine, other local bookstores around here. It's lovely. You know, the thing I love so much about poetry. And I didn't write it for a little while I won an award in college, I actually did win an award for my poem, which I should have taken more seriously. But I had to make money. So that's sounds familiar, right? So I went into tech writing, my friend said, oh, you know, she was a year ahead of me. And she goes, Oh, there's this new thing called Tech writing. And I think you could do it and 18 t is hiring, and you should try it. So, but I never stopped writing poetry.
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But I took a long break, actually. And recently, I went to an open mic and read my poems, and I knew my friends, I always share with certain friends. But it was amazing, because they were super well received, which of course you love. But the real beauty of that night was that there were eight poets there. And we had very similar imagery in our poems. And even the poet who sponsored it, the professional poet said, your poems are speaking to each other. So there was just that wonderful feeling of, you know, I felt like we had met in a dream. And we had agreed to show up, because the way I did that night was two days before I hadn't even known they were going to do it at a local art museum. And I just said, oh, yeah, I should go to that, like no fear, no pausing, I just went to it. And then somebody else said, Oh, you got the memo. That's, like, so wonderful, that we were so connected in that way. But the real point I wanted to make was, somebody was talking to me about how they loved my poem. And, and I said, Well, you've known me since I was young, you know that every single thing in there is real from my family. And they said, Yeah, it's so specific.
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And I said, yeah, the more specific you get, the more universal it is, somehow, that's what happens when you get down to that kernel. That's the beauty of it for me, that I read something you love connected that night, though, right? Like you went there. You went there with what you brought, and you left with all of these. See, I think that if God, the concept of God or the entity of God exist he she it whatever you believe the Divine is between us right now communicating. And when you when you go to this, to this to this open mic with people you don't know and find this common thread of him. I mean, that's how you start healing yourself from the trauma of being human. Not to be overloaded.
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No, but that's the whole deal.
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You're absolutely right. It was and you know, coming out of the pandemic, it was so joyous to be with, first of all, when was the last time I hung out with poets I think it's been like a million years, you know? And to have poets, other poets come up to me and say, Oh, could you email me that last one, and it was so good. And just this and I said, I loved yours. I said, I can't believe how similar our imagery is. Just that love that connection. Yes. In person, you know, like, the pandemic really took that away from us. And I was always like, Oh, this is great. I love zoom. I don't have to drive into work, blah, blah, blah, yeah, okay. But after a while, you miss being with real human beings, you miss seeing their smiles, you miss feeling that connection. So it was it was really special. And my husband went, and he said, I could hang out with these people. This is great. Like, there was something in the air that night, you know, there really was, you guys, you created that environment by being open and vulnerable. To share people. Oh, the stories, it was just the admiration.
00:30:59.400 --> 00:31:13.259
Everyone admired each other. And I was like, When was I in a room where everybody was like, Yeah, you know, it's been a while. So yeah, it was wonderful. I loved it. And I love that you did that. With your grief.
00:31:14.069 --> 00:31:19.799
Thank you. Could you do me a favor? Yeah. Could you keep going open mics?
00:31:20.549 --> 00:31:40.769
Well, you know, I will, because there's another one in the spring. And we all said we would return. Yeah. And I love the woman who sponsored it. I just felt like she facilitated it. So well. She was like, she was leading it. But in the background, you know, she was like very much she got it, you know, making a platform for us.
00:31:36.089 --> 00:32:04.890
Definitely beautiful. I love that story. Thank you for sharing that with me. Thank you for hearing it. And I can't wait to read your poems. And I just, you know, keep on keeping on you got just know what you're doing. And you're adding something to the world. Whenever you tell these stories. And whenever you're with your people that you're that you're leading.
00:31:59.549 --> 00:32:06.839
You know, it's for real. And I really appreciate you sharing with me.
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:11.490
You would you like to hear one?
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:15.690
I have the book here hoping Yes, I was hoping. Would you like yeah, so please? Oh, sure.
00:32:15.690 --> 00:33:29.730
I think I have one in mind. Now that I'm thinking about it, because you mentioned you like to travel. Right. And that was the other part of this. Like I think art breeds connection. But I also think if we can, if we have the, you know, the socio economic basis to be able to go ahead and travel and see different areas of the world, I recommend it if you can speak different languages, I recommend it. Because it allows you to see things from somebody else's perspective. There's poems in this book that are in Spanish, and French, some with Portuguese words, I believe there may be one with Italian words. And the reason that I did that, that included those are those are the ones that I wrote in that language. And then I added the English translation after. But the reason I mentioned that is you I at least think differently. When I think and spend like when I think I dream in English. My thoughts mostly happen in English. I grew up here. I grew up here since I was five. But if I'm angry, you better believe my inner monologue go Spanish. I don't know what happens to me. Like if I just become emotionally upset, it just turns into Spanish in my head. And I, I find that when I think about a problem in Spanish, I tend to go about it in a much more emotional way.
00:33:30.119 --> 00:34:34.619
And if I think about it in English, I tend to go about it in a much more logical, yep, spread out way. And it's interesting how that how that happens. So I'm going to read you a poem. You know, I'll give you the choice. Would you like to hear a poem that was written in Bali? Indonesia, or do you like to hear one in Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon. I mean, I love Bali but I'm just I would love to hear when Britain and Lisbon will do that. It's called Lisboa. I'm exploring led by cobblestone roads asking to be experienced, no longer searching for a missing piece. I am whole light reflected. God's glitter envelops the horizon while the hard consonant sounds of European Portuguese poet my shoulder. The tiled walls and every building bemoan their histories of poverty and sacrifice birds of paradise.
00:34:29.670 --> 00:34:45.599
This is the foundation of a people. turning a corner means opening a gateway to another time, hidden in front of me if I would only see while the city whispered had secret poetry in my ear.
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:53.369
That's beautiful. Thank you. And wouldn't be here the one in Valley to know Yeah.
00:34:55.230 --> 00:35:20.519
No worries. You tell me I'll read. They were written To be read Bali I thought the sea would be different. The sand is volcanic ash blackened by progress. But the sea is the same. It followed me here of all places. Solitude is a warm hug.
00:35:21.239 --> 00:36:05.550
To share this with you is to dilute absent with vinegar intruding, unapologetically abruptly. Without a second thought to my introspection. I left you in Chiang goo with a kiss on the cheek, instead of how I want it to dripping sweat and smelling of my cologne. I would miss you. I would wonder where you are. I would wonder who you were with. I did not come here for you. I came here to stage a coup on my ego to escape the shackles of corporate America and to race time to see if I remembered how to yield.
00:36:08.489 --> 00:36:12.599
Fantastic last line. Thank you.
00:36:08.489 --> 00:36:12.599
That's so good.
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:28.769
And the reason I won't explain them is that I think that once I write them down, and you read them, they become yours. So whatever writing is in there is for you. Okay, good. Yeah.
00:36:29.250 --> 00:37:12.150
You know, the poem that I wrote in college, I remember it got printed in the newspaper for the college at Rutgers and, and I won the award, it was money, and I had to split it with my roommate because she wrote a poem. And for the first time, they had a tie. And we're still friends. And it's a big joke, but like, you couldn't let me have the money. Like, she was like a year younger. And I was like, you couldn't let me have my moment as a senior. But I love her poem. And she loves my poem. But I remember somebody saying to me, I was playing tennis with the editor of the newspaper, and she said, Oh, yeah, I love that poem, feminism and the whole imagery, and then she was going on and on and on.
00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:32.070
And I was so I was so amazed, like, I was young. And so I was thinking, that's not what it's about, you know? What I realized it wasn't mine anymore. That's such a great way to put it. It wasn't mine. It was what it was to her. And then that's the beauty of it. It's it is so for example, that barley poem. I'm not going to tell you what, why I wrote it.
00:37:29.730 --> 00:37:43.920
But I'll tell you two different interpretations that somebody gave me that people gave me an open. One thought it was about self discovery, like an Eat, Pray, Love type deal, meaning a lover there and all that stuff.
00:37:44.760 --> 00:38:12.630
And another person thought it was about globalization and the westernization of Indonesia, and how it's encroaching in the, in the, you know, in the traditions of the native people from Bali, they're so me, and I think both of those interpretations are great. And only I know why I wrote it, but I think they're very valid. And I think it's all in there. It's all interwoven.
00:38:09.329 --> 00:38:19.980
Yeah, that's so cool. I remember reading a poem, my brother took a poetry course. And he wanted me to come and read my poems.
00:38:16.409 --> 00:38:28.469
And it just so happened that the professor was somebody that used to teach at my college. So I went there, and I read my poem, and it was about Sylvia Plath.
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:35.730
And when I was in college, Sylvia Plath was like, practically worshipped. And, and I thought she was wonderful.
00:38:35.730 --> 00:39:11.489
Honestly, I loved her poems. But I didn't love the worship. And so I wrote this poem, really, specifically, to sort of attack her like she was a it was a very short poem, but it was like, she was perverted Trinity, she was making a perverted Trinity out of her, her unfortunate end of her life. And when I read it, and they were much younger, there was a community college, and when I read it, they thought Trinity. They thought of, there's a book called Trinity.
00:39:08.670 --> 00:39:21.960
And they started riffing on that. And I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna break that up. You know, it's like it is whatever it is to you, like, whatever it's bringing up in you, is what you need to hear.
00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:27.239
And I was so again, very amazed.
00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:49.110
We don't own it. We don't own it, then it becomes a crash stick, right? ekphrastic poetry is just poetry written about a work of art. And in that sense, anytime somebody hears a poem reads a book sees a painting, their interpretation of it, the way to describe it to someone else, becomes an ekphrastic poem, and it sounds so cool. That's so cool. Yeah, the connections are amazing.
00:39:50.099 --> 00:39:51.329
Thank you inspired.
00:39:51.869 --> 00:40:02.340
Is there anything else that I didn't cover that you'd like? I always like to give people a chance if there's something you'd like to say or did we not see something you would or something you want to leave us with.
00:40:02.909 --> 00:40:21.179
Yeah, two things. The first one is create. I think creation is the antidote or the antithesis to this languishing that I see people experiencing at work in life. In this generation of just you're not depressed, you're not super happy, you're just there.
00:40:21.179 --> 00:40:38.760
Don't be a passive observer of your life, go out there, meet people do what you did go to an open mic, go eat that dinner with somebody go talk to someone you don't know. There's I'm not saying it's not warranted. But there's this fear of the other.
00:40:39.030 --> 00:41:03.000
There's this fear of no rejection, there's no rejection of being learned when it used to be something that was aspired to. Yeah, right, that I that I feel and the more you learn, the more you know, the more you experienced, the more your imagination can grow. Because you don't imagine what you don't have a reference for. Go. Live your life and create love.
00:41:03.900 --> 00:41:15.449
And remember that you're connected to others, like I always say, remember who you really are. Remember who you really are. We're not separate.
00:41:09.719 --> 00:41:21.989
And I think people, for whatever reason, are encouraged to be separate and be afraid. I think, you know, it's not a good place to be in.
00:41:22.409 --> 00:41:52.199
Well, there's there's a glorification of the individual, right? So for sure, it's very Adarand in that sense. But even as a turn from that, but think about somebody as talented as Michael Jordan, considered one of the best basketball players of all time, but he had coaches, he had parents, he had a wife who supported him throughout the time when he was doing that he had children who looked up to him. You know what I mean? Like you are not alone. Nobody is alone, right? Nobody does it alone.
00:41:53.010 --> 00:41:59.340
Exactly. That's what I honestly believe. I love that. Well, thank you. I could talk to you all night.
00:42:00.360 --> 00:42:16.500
Well, I'll give you the second thing before we go. The second thing is, I just wanted to thank you for sharing your platform with me sharing your time with me your afternoon. I know you could be spending this doing something else. So I'm grateful to you. Thank you. It was really a pleasure to chat with you today.
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:26.280
Oh, same here. It's totally selfish on my part. I just love this. I really enjoyed it.
00:42:19.739 --> 00:42:26.280
Thanks so much. Thank you
