The Art of Delusion

It's only crazy until you do it.

I want to begin this post by posing a question: How delulu are you?

Lately I've been thinking "what's the throughline between those I consider to be the most influential characters in my life?". After combing through plenty of interviews, podcasts, and articles (I'll link them throughout this post) it finally hit me. Can you guess what is was? DING DING DING! You're correct! All of them, to some degree, are crazy as hell! Now I'm not saying they're the kind that should be admitted to a mental health clinic (for the record, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that), but they definitely think in ways that might have you questioning their sanity like "is this person genuinely okay?".

These cultural savants, as I like to call them (never called them that before this lol), possess mental models which promote the unshakable belief in themselves and their ideas above all else, even when the rest of the world sees what they strive to acheive as impossible or just straight up delusional. But you know what? Maybe they're onto something. Over the next few posts I'm going to explore some of the paradigms which have had the most impact in how I approach the art of creation.

I think there's an oppurtunity to take from these models and work them into the context of our own lives, all for the sake of feeding our experience of course. And you see maybe, just maybe we can harness the power of delusional thinking or better yet; learn how to have an absurd amount of delusional belief in ourselves. Because everything seems crazy...until you do it.

Alright. Now that's out of the way lol.

Let's dive in.

Act I - Admire your past, but don't chase it.

Have you listened to "Don't Tap the Glass" yet? I feel like that's a prerequisite to this post... or maybe Tyler's entire discography at this point. Recently, an interview dropped between Tyler Okonma, better known as Tyler, the Creator, and Apple Music's Zane Lowe. I've played this conversation on repeat for the past couple of weeks since Okonma's latest album release because it's that special. Something I love about Zane's interview format is the commitment to curating a space that allows for pure authenticity with his guest. Now, when you pair this environment with Tyler's natural dispostion, the conversation becomes a unique look into the mind of arguably one of the most influential multi-hyphenates of our time. If you have the opportunity, I highly suggest listening to this conversation.

When is the last time you looked at your past creations? Do you remember how hard it was for you to create it? What about the context in which it was made? If I were to bet I'd say that the person that you were when you created that think