”If you don’t follow the interests inside you that compel you to do things your life will just gradually lose meaning until you’re old.”

— John Frusciante

Hello,

For three months now, I’ve had this ceaseless, simmering obsession with this “John Frusciante Interview on Creativity and Inspiration” video. I’ve listened to the entire forty-five minute talk half a dozen times, penned 21 passages from it onto index cards for my commonplace book, and have perhaps sent the video to more friends than any other internet link. I think John’s insight hits me so hard less because it offers new perspective and more because it unites what, to me, previously felt like separate perspectives and levels of reality. With this interview, John Frusciante offers us creativity, curiosity, and Capital-S Self — all rolled into One.

I attempted to distill the sage wisdom of the John Frusciante interview into an article. It is a rabbit hole I strongly recommend. Should you choose to take the dive, I suggest blocking off an hour to first read the article as a primer, then don some headphones and listen to the interview in full.

*You might also notice the article is entitled John “Jesus” Frusciante. While I propose that John and Jesus have some deep similarities, I did this to (hopefully and in time) rank high in the results of a very particular Google search. If you’re usually put off by religiousness, do not let appearances keep you from the “divine” within this article.

After 37 days in Colombia, I flew back to Phoenix on January 8th. I spent the first three weeks in Medellin (living out of a room in an apartment I rented for $270 for the month). It was fascinating, trippy, and lonely, being in the heart of a four-million human metropolitan city and not being able to conversationally speak the language. This allowed me to float around, observe, and think in an oddly profound way, but also (aside from a couple of rad run-ins with other nomads) isolated me from just about everyone.

The last two weeks, including Christmas, New Years, and turning 30 years old, were spent in hostels, with a group of friends from the USA and spread all over Colombia. We drove up and down Colombia’s Caribbean Coast, walked a probable average of ten miles a day, partied often, chartered a boat with fourteen others to the islands, danced our way into the new year at an EDM rave atop a 408 year old wall, romped about four major cities, and just never stopped going. It was utter fun and utterly exhausting.

I switched gears upon return to Phoenix and have since been a real estate photography business machine. Photoshoots, web design, interviews, meetings, plans, presentations, templates, networking… I created a 50 page PDF guide to the art of real estate photography this month. I’ve been hustling. Our business did pretty well last year and I am currently laying plans of grand ambition. I’m sort of betting my time now this will be worth a lot of free time in the future, a decision I do not take lightly and do consider a dangerous move (as we have this moment, but are not guaranteed the next). Either way, though, it’s almost all creative act, growth, and promises to be a new adventure as it unfolds.

Sorry for getting so state-of-the-Ethan in this letter, there’s been lots of happening and change in the past month and I like to keep y’all in the loop.

With love & stoke!

Ethan

P.S. Don’t forget to dig John Frusciante’s golden wisdom (below).

John “Jesus” Frusciante

There is speculation that John Frusciante — the guitarist most renowned for face-melting licks with the Red Hot Chili Peppers — is a modern day Jesus Christ. While this speculation is largely fueled by a few photographs of John floating around the web dressed as Jesus, I’d like to add to the internet that the similarities go deep than appearance.

While I am half-joking, I am also half-serious.

Read On >

2021 In Review and a Glance at the Map

With the turn of each year, I find great benefit and orientation in reflecting on the year past and envisioning the one to come.

While a new year is just an arbitrarily chosen point in Earth’s lap around the sun, it is also a regular reminder of transition. And as transitions tend to cause us to pause and reflect, a new year seems a sweet, cosmically-tuned reminder to pause, ”pull our heads out of the water,” and look around.

I don’t believe in resolutions or fixating on specific goals. Rather, I liken the process to “stopping for a few minutes to study the map, check that we’re heading in the right direction, and boldly continue with the journey of life.” Goals can help us achieve what they’re aimed at, but also become blinders to other opportunities that arise in the present. I attempt to walk a middle path, aiming my awareness at certain things, but not fixating upon them.

Read On >