I enjoy creating content, call it what you will. I’m an artist with a fine art background and a Ph.D. in Literature. I make my living as an independent contractor creating digital assets for content marketing, and I have done so since 2013. I strive to use photography and writing to create a mood and to convey a message.

Being an artist is either academic or entrepreneurial by nature. Or, as KRS One taught us, edutainment is the combination of both. There is and always has been a business aspect to creativity for me because I value independence. Creativity comes from creative choice which requires creative freedom. Communication requires emotional intelligence and an understanding of the context. You need to be empathetic to your own and your audience’s desires simultaneously while you craft a message for a brand or to spark ideas about culture.

You need a good plan to be able to have the time to do creative work that can both delight and educate. My goal is always to make things that other people will love and that communicates a message or asks questions. At the core, that’s my motivation: to create something you will enjoy and that provides subject matter that can act as a prompt for thought, dialogue and action. 

I don’t think that I have all the answers. I constantly push myself to learn more and to improve in every way possible. From working out, to eating well, to researching, writing and studying the craft of photography, I’m passionate about making the best possible product for the public and I devote myself to the process. For me, this means working up early and working hard all day every day. It means researching new ideas and experimenting with new techniques.

In order to enhance your desire to experiment, cannabis is a really valuable tool for creative work. It helps to balance out my analytic side. A side effect of cannabis is to make you hungry, but it also amplifies the pleasure of eating, of seeing something beautiful, of feeling your experience. It turns up the volume on your sensory perception. Cannabis consumption can shift your focus to bodily perceptions and help you to feel the flow of energy in your breath and circulating throughout your body. 

For me, It gives the moment a beautiful focus, a sense of nothing else happening but the act I’m performing if that is looking through photos, composing a shot, writing out a draft for an idea, or interacting with other artists or businesspeople. 

Cannabis creates a perspective shift. It both causes you to focus more on your physical sensations and it stimulates your mind so that you see something in a new way. That can be disturbing and a source of anxiety if you are not used to becoming suddenly introspective. If you are not used to looking at art for long periods of time, staring stoned at Instagram can blow your mind. You just see things differently. You see vibes. Once you can see vibes, you want to curate vibes. Your work becomes a garden flowering in different moods. 

Getting stoned helps you to see your work the way other people will see it. If you are working on a painting or some writing and you get stoned and go back to work, you suddenly see it totally differently. You can smell it. Wherever the tone is off, you will notice. 

Cannabis is a great ally for working in the studio. Not only does it shift your focus to sensory perception, it also provides you with a fresh mental outlook so you can see and hear your work with new eyes. 

Before the Internet, the interaction between artist or graphic designer and the public didn’t happen that often. Most of the time, they would be focusing all of their energies on the work. Then, once the work was finished, they would present it to the public. This created an occasion. The release of a new work represented countless hours of unseen experimentation and development. 

With the Internet, there is an unending back and forth between brand and audience, between content creator and content consumer. The loop has never been shorter or more direct. The level of access the public has to the process of creating content is increasingly more and more comprehensive. Anyone who really wants to figure it out can if they are willing to put int the time and work. 

Because of this feedback loop, cannabis has an even more important role to play for the creator. Getting stoned and looking at your work will never lie to you. It might make you insecure as fuck depending on how wack your draft is, but it will definitely not overinflate how good you feel about it. You will experience it and if it feels good it is good. It is that simple. 

Simplicity is part of the value cannabis brings. It helps us to make judgments based on simple criteria. Does it feel good. Does it taste good. Does it smell good? You might be able to fool yourself into thinking something is better than it is, but you can’t fool stoned you with fake content. It either sparks joy and makes you happy, or it doesn’t.