truthfully messy, unintentionally organized

allowing myself to have publicly unedited thoughts

I have an obsessive personality.

I’ve always found comfort in having a “thing” to obsess over. In recent years, the obvious one would be cycling. Maybe even running if we’ve just met. When I was younger, it would be an obsession with competitive gaming like SOCOM on PS2 till 3am on a school night, reading instruction manuals for building a PC and how to master the tools in Adobe Photoshop 7 to mod game textures like Need for Speed Most Wanted, getting lost in fantasy worlds like Star Wars, falling into the void of philosophy and psychology books, making art, and writing poems about family, relationships, and purpose in life.

lionmoose

Design entered the picture my sophomore year at RISD in Industrial Design. Business. Tech. Product Management. Communication. Networking. Innovation. Design thinking, problem solving, critical making, whatever you want to call this, is probably my longest running obsession in the mix — maybe over 10 years of being hyper-focused in it. I still like to talk about these topics, listen to podcasts, watch videos, read articles, and seek out books to further this expertise. In this obsession, things like the Radish food truck, the Greycork furniture startup, my creative studio with Brandon, all the client projects and the people and companies I’ve connected with across software, health, crypto, AI and more, have allowed me to have a rich career in design, and share a clean and neat success story of how I’ve always worked for myself.

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productively unproductive

I can confidently say that I’m extremely organized. It’s part of the job as an independent user experience designer when you have 3-4 jobs/clients/projects at a time. If you have other obsessions, every minute across your multiple calendars are blocked with a task or a meeting or activity (work and personal) and you need to learn to easily context switch, effectively communicate, and design in a way that is both comprehensive and fast. I live and breathe productivity workflows, and i can’t unsee things as part of a larger system. I rarely get caught up on imperfections and small details. It makes my job of gathering and synthesizing feedback, drafting concepts and creating compelling visuals or intuitive interfaces, come naturally. I understand my strengths and weaknesses, and I know the value of my time and where to spend money. This organization has brought me plenty of happiness in my work life as a designer.

While this same organization has bled over into my personal life in a mostly positive way (it allows me to be a decent cyclist and travel often), it has been getting in the way of me being creative. Creative in the way I was during my freshman year of college, when I would have called myself an artist.

designer

I’ve felt far away from that version of myself. I’ve made multiple attempts at getting back into writing and making things without a “problem to solve.” Going as far as involving artists to bring “expression” into my client work. Or designing another iteration of my website to organize my creative “content.” I needed it to make sense as to why my poems live side-by-side my client case studies. My other attempts at career related blogs or newsletters falling through because of a topic I’m not fully obsessed with.

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real change, not the idea of it

Since being bicoastal between CA and VT, I’ve felt more creative than ever. I look around the living room, and every corner is interior designed to induce a specific feeling and serve a purpose. I assemble furniture. I take care of the bikes, the cars, the house. I’m building a trail around the property. I’m working with my hands, I’m being creative, but it’s still not in a way that satiates me in a way that I am seeking.

This unknown feeling has become a craving this past year. It comes after Jenna and I decided to let go of our city apartment in San Francisco last spring, to live and work remotely full-time in rural Vermont — truly another level of remote work.

Although I’m closer to what I’ve been looking for, it feels like I’ve taken two steps back. I now find myself longing to live in a shoebox apartment again that is constrained with a more finite number of design “solutions,” just because it was easier for me to turn off my design thinking obsession when I was in it.

inhale

We traded:

1. Community

2. Culture

3. Change

For:

1. Family

2. Nature

3. Time

exhale

Expedited by seasonal depression of winter (oh how I’ve missed you…) I’ve been spiraling with ways to design my life out of this hunger. I’ve been back and forth with obsessions, trying ways to recreate my life in California, so I can change my life for the better in Vermont.

Two vastly different worlds that will never collide in the way I desire.

After a full winter, I still don’t have a solution. And I give in to the feeling that guides me.

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intentionally disorganized

Currently, my personal life is not as organized as it used to be.

I sleep and wake up and work out at irregular times. I’m playing with my cat at inconvenient times. I sometimes don’t know what time it is. I’m playing video games without completing them. I’m leaving messes around the house. I take photos when I feel like it. I stopped tagging and categorizing my notes. I’m talking to ChatGPT about life. I’m writing incomplete sentences, and I stopped looking for the “right” way to say things. I stopped making plans months in advance.

mom

This past weekend, I went on an unplanned trip to NYC to see old friends, mostly because I felt like it.

I drowned in the sea of strangers.

I wandered the chaos.

I emoted with friends.

I drained my social battery.

I got lost in the time.

I experienced the space left by an absent obsession.

                                        Inhale. 
                                                                                             Exhale.

Thank you for helping me remember a truth to come back to.

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showing off my new wip

For the first time, I’m feeling confident that I’ll keep up this blog for longer than 2 posts. I know I need an outlet that is purposefully messy and forever a work in progress, so it’s important I break the rules I follow when doing client work.

dad

Here’s how I’ll approach my writing:

1. yes to mess — this blog is a success if it feels like posts are easy to write, interesting to read, but difficult to describe or categorize, you know what I mean?

2. send it — it’s okay if sentences are a little bit too long, if thoughts jump from one topic to another, if an idea feels half-baked, if posts feel short, or that things are not grammatically correct...

3. an audience of me — it’s my living to design for others, so this blog will be for me, mostly raw and likely full of “mistakes”, if other’s like you like my thoughts, bonus points.

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obsessions I’ll ramble about

• Trucks - I’m casually shopping for one in VT, there’s no trash pick-up here so we’ve been making hauls to the transfer station in our Subaru, it’s getting stinky

• Tractors - we got 9 acres of land up here, mowing with a push mower is about a ~5 mile walk every time, I also have a few landscaping and trail building projects I’d like to do on my own

• Vermont - insights for my fellow millennials on home ownership and rural living

• AI - I’m currently designing a platform for agents, got many thoughts

• Games - I’m still designing with Logitech G, still love to play and been getting into streaming

• Gear and Tech - I’ve always been a geek about these things

• Bikes and Running - Training, goals, adventures, and why it matters to me

• Communication - currently obsessed with individualist and collectivist cultures

• Wababaland - the bakery, and will probably be more about my forever with Jenna

• Asian American - have never stopped digging into my experience growing up in New England

• Photos - moments and stories I’m capturing

• Death - always lingering in the back of my mind

Most likely forgetting other topics, and ones that will come up in the future.

marnie

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my digital places

I don’t use LinkedIn, and I don’t keep my old portfolio updated. I have a messy digital footprint, but you can expect to find me here:

• Substack — where I’ll share life updates, not curated

• Instagram — where I’ll reach and connect, curated

• Glass — where I’ll share photos, curated

• Twitch — where I’ll stream games and convos with friends, not curated

talk more soon

-pips