The Dusty Lego Bin

The Bird Cage

I’m now standing in a place where I have a real audience reading my work — and some of these people are rather famous, important, accomplished.
Well, they’re all important, of course.

These days I am living right now are not quite the payout times. This is not when the checks get cashed, the reservations are made, the clothes are purchased, and the rewards of a long creative pilgrimage finally begin to unfold — but it’s damn close.

I find myself in an exceedingly powerful position because these are the days of the creative. The ones who excelled in school by following rules, doing their homework, and extra credit — they are becoming the dinosaurs, stuck in the tar pits of fear, worrying about AI taking over. They lament smartphone addiction and the fact that kids don’t build treehouses anymore, missing that these kids are busy designing apps with AI, becoming the next multimillionaires, while the plastic bins of Legos gather dust.

The future doesn’t belong to those who cling to what was.
It belongs to the ones who can imagine something that doesn’t exist yet — and have the nerve to build it.
That’s what artists have always done.
We don’t wait for permission.
We don’t wait for the map.
We make the map.

I’ve learned how to die and be reborn while still alive. I’ve lived multiple lives in this same body. I am a ninja pivoter — beyond resilient, unsinkable, a shape-shifter. I will thrive in this new world because I was made for it.

Legos weren't my generation. I can still hear the sound of my son raking through his plastic bin looking for that right piece. I loved knowing he was doing something that connected his hands with his brain. That’s a good memory but I’ve lived enough lives to know the world is built and rebuilt by those willing to imagine something new.