There's a little nature preserve about 15 minutes away from my house that not many people go to and over quarantine, it became something of my safe haven. I've always loved nature and being outdoors, but it wasn't until the past few months when I had the chance to really immerse myself in it. As many people probably realized over quarantine, regular life is hectic. Being in the woods alone and without a map for extended periods of time probably was not my brightest idea, but it gave me a sense of peace and a space for introspection that I've never had before. To me, the natural world is a timeless world, in the sense that there is nothing that "should" be happening "soon" or "later"--things just happen when they do. But this aspect of nature is contrasted by the human perspective on environmentalism--things aren't happening when we expect them to, and things are happening that shouldn't be happening. I love how resilient and self-governed nature is by cycles of life evolved over millenia, and I don't want nature to lose its self-regulation due to harmful human activity. While I understand the importance of human intervention to regulate invasive species and keep ecosystems in balance, I hope we can address the root of the problems (pollution, human activity, etc.) so that nature may continue to thrive with us, and on its own.

Recently I've been painting and selling sweatshirts as a sort of casual part business, and donating 15% of profits to the environmental charity "Rainforest Alliance".

Growing up, I always remember listening to podcasts and radio talk shows on long car rides with my dad. It never failed to spark interesting conversations and debates, and undoubtedly shaped by worldview now. Looking back, I have a word to put to the feeling I felt: sonder. A term coined by John Koenig, it describes the "realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own". Podcasts were always a window into someone else's life, and if done creatively and well, slipping into their shoes by listening to their story took very little effort. I think a universal tragedy is the inability to directly transfer your experiences and emotions to someone else, because true empathy, truly understanding what someone is trying to convey, is so rare. But through creative storytelling, I think you can get pretty close. With the Creative Process, I can help share other peoples' unique stories, and cultivate the same sense of connectedness between completely different life stories.