Still Becoming
A Life in Drafts
I’ve never been particularly good at being one thing.
In high school, I was convinced I was going to become an animator. Somewhere along the way, I ran a little sticker shop, spent countless hours drawing, and became the person willing to plan an entire imaginary world because my friends needed a Dungeon Master.
Then I went to college and studied agricultural science and economics — two subjects that probably make even less sense together until you know me.
Since then, I’ve hosted a social club, worked in HR and recruiting, helped people navigate careers and make connections, started a YouTube channel, fallen in love with collaging, worked on other people’s creative ideas, and slowly started learning that being interested in a lot of things isn’t necessarily a problem I need to solve.
I think I used to assume that eventually I would stumble onto the one thing I was supposed to be. Now I’m much more interested in building a life where all of those versions of me get to exist at the same time.
GrackenInk grew out of that idea.
It started as somewhere to put my videos and creative projects, but over time it has become a place where a lot of the different parts of my life can meet: creativity, careers, storytelling, community, design, self-discovery, and the occasional idea that becomes much larger than I originally intended.
I don’t think any of those earlier versions of me disappeared. The animator still cares about visual storytelling. The economics student still wants to understand how things work. The recruiter still loves connecting people with opportunities. The Dungeon Master still wants to build worlds. The sticker-shop owner still wants to make physical things people can hold.
They've just accumulated.
And GrackenInk is becoming the place where I get to use all of them.
What I'm Building
I have a pretty big vision for Gracken.Ink, even if I’m still figuring out exactly what shape it will take.
I want it to become a creative company that gives me room to follow good ideas.
That might mean making videos and writing. It might mean helping someone turn what they know into content other people want to engage with. It might mean creating stationery, mailing something beautiful to someone’s house, developing the In Progress System, hosting people around a table, consulting on a project I find interesting, or making something I haven't thought of yet.
The goal is to build an umbrella big enough that curiosity doesn’t have to be edited out of my career.
I want to make useful things and beautiful things. I want to help people feel more confident in their careers and more curious about their own lives. I want to create work that gives people ideas, makes them feel understood, or simply makes an ordinary afternoon a little more interesting.
And, eventually, I want Gracken.Ink to support a life where I can spend more of my time doing exactly that.
For now, it’s still in progress.
Which feels pretty appropriate.