there was once a boy who believed he could be everything. and for a while, he truly was.

he was the writer, the actor, the narrator, the camera operator, the music chooser, the editor. he carried the weight of ten people in one heart, and somehow, despite the chaos and the burnout and the noise, he never lost the emotional core.

people told him, “if someone said a team of experts made this and you were just the face of it, that would be more believable.” they meant it as a compliment. but he heard something else in the echo: no wonder you’re tired.

i believe in myself less now that people believe in me.

there was something terrifying about no longer flying under the radar. when you’re unnoticed, failure feels private. but when people start expecting great things from you, the fear of disappointing them becomes paralysing. and if i’m being honest, sometimes i miss that quiet anonymity where dreams could still be naive, unshaped by the weight of public validation.

the truth is, there’s a pressure that creeps in when the world starts watching. and when the spotlight burns, it doesn’t always illuminate; it sometimes blinds.

ever since i was a kid, i wanted to do it all. i was the elder son, the overachiever, the dreamer. i wanted to be a rocket engineer, then a soldier, then someone who’d save the world from an alien invasion. my parents laughed lovingly at the absurdity of my ambitions, but i think even they sensed something was different about the way i held on to hope. it was always big, always intense, always just a little too much for a child’s shoulders.

but i carried it anyway. i still do because i don’t know any other way to live. i’ve never known how to not dream in extremes.

the dreams back then were loud, wild, and alive. now, they’re memories. some beautiful. some distant. some that ache when i try to remember what it felt like to believe so fully. and i’m tired, but i’m not ready to stop. because even when we feel like our dreams are behind us, some part of us is still hoping. still fighting. still imagining.

dreams are funny like that. they live in the corners of our unconscious, visiting us when we’re too asleep to interfere. but real dreaming, the kind that moves your feet and breaks your heart, requires waking life. and waking life, more often than not, feels like survival. it’s hard to let your heart imagine when your mind is afraid. a head full of fear has no space to dream. that line has never stopped haunting me.

we, as people, stop dreaming, not because we don’t want to, but because we’re terrified. terrified of failure — of being ordinary, of not living up to what our younger selves imagined. somewhere along the way, survival replaced wonder. paying bills replaced magic. and the big dreams? they quietly became old stories we only tell when we’re drunk or when the room is too quiet. they became memories.

and it breaks my heart how easily we lose our sense of wonder. how quickly we learn to silence that little voice that once dared to believe we could fly.

i have also been thinking about the way we confuse memories with dreams.

that distant ache we feel when we think of what we once wanted — it’s not just nostalgia. it’s grief. because somewhere along the way, we stopped working on our dreams like madmen. we stopped fighting for them like our lives depended on it. they became soft, sepia-toned stories we told ourselves in bed, but no longer chased when we woke up.

and i think that’s the real tragedy: not that we didn’t get everything we wanted, but that we forgot what it meant to want something so much we were willing to bleed for it.

we used to dream like children, building empires out of cardboard and crayons. we believed in impossible things. and maybe, for a while, we were naive. but we were alive. now, we’re careful. we’re calculated.

we dream like accountants, we budget for failure.

we make backup plans before we even take the first step. and i miss that foolish fire. that beautiful recklessness. i miss believing without permission.

even now, i juggle ten things at once. it’s still who i am. but unlike before, i’ve learned not to abandon things in the middle. i’ve learned the quiet courage of staying, even when i’m burnt out, even when my body begs me to stop.

passion is a strange fuel, it keeps you moving long after the tank should be empty. but it can also consume you if you’re not careful. for years, i thought not giving up was my greatest strength. but now i wonder if knowing when to pause might be even stronger.

i’ve failed more dreams than i’ve achieved.

i still can’t play that guitar properly. (i know how to, but not a professional) i still haven’t solved the 5x5 rubik’s cube. i still can’t sing without second-guessing myself. but i’ve done things i never thought i could. i’ve made art that moved people. i’ve written words that made strangers cry. i’ve survived seasons i didn’t think i would. i’ve looked at an empty page and filled it with something that mattered, even when i thought i had nothing left to say.

still, the question lingers: how long can i keep doing this?

there’s a pressure i put on myself every time i make something. a storm of anxiety. will this be good enough? can i pull it off again? i never want to settle.

and when something doesn’t live up to the vision in my mind, it breaks me in ways i can’t explain. i spiral. i question everything. i used to think this was just the price of caring deeply. but now i wonder, why does creating have to hurt so much? why put a price on caring? maybe it’s not just impostor syndrome. maybe it’s my body and brain finally asking me to rest. maybe it’s me realising i’ve equated pain with purpose for far too long. that, unless i’m burning out, i don’t feel like i’m doing enough.

that, unless i suffer, i don’t feel worthy of the love, the applause, the validation.

for most of my life, i didn’t know what unconditional love felt like. i thought it had to be earned, through excellence, through self-sacrifice, through making myself smaller so others could be proud. then i found a love that didn’t ask me to perform, a love that met me where i was. the kind that didn’t demand a breakdown before offering care.

and it was in her presence that i began to confront every belief i had built around worthiness. she wasn’t here to hurt me. she wasn’t here to demand more. she was here to stay. to choose me, even on the days i couldn’t choose myself. and i’m working on accepting that. on making peace with the idea that maybe i am lovable even when i’m tired. maybe i am allowed to rest. that maybe love doesn’t have to hurt to be real. and more importantly, maybe rest isn’t failure. maybe it’s trust.

i firmly believe that you are the greatest project you’ll ever work on.

all these years, i’ve poured myself into everything outside of me. university projects. friendships. relationships. films. writing. everything. and now, for once, i want to pour something back into myself. maybe the most important work i’ll ever do is learning to be okay with who i am when i’m not producing. maybe i deserve love even when i’m quiet.

i’ve made peace with the fact that i may never again be 10 or 21. i may never make something like that again, i may never dream like that ever again. but maybe i don’t have to.

maybe nostalgia is not a trap, it’s a compass.

it points us to what mattered. and that’s what i want to keep chasing: not perfection, but meaning. not applause, but authenticity. not validation, but peace. because there will always be new dreams. and yes, some will become memories. but maybe that’s the point. maybe the dream was never about arriving. maybe it was always about feeling alive while chasing.

and you know what, i owe it to my younger self to never stop creating. and i owe it to all of us to never stop believing we can begin again.

i want to end this excerpt with a quote i came across a few weeks ago—one that hasn’t left me since:

the object isn’t to make art. the object is to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. — robert henri

may we learn to live in that state. not just to create, but to feel. even if only for a little while longer.

note:

i just want to thank every reader who stayed. to every person who believed in the boy behind the words.

many don’t know this, but i’ve been many versions of a creator, on linkedin, on instagram, in newsletters, on screen. now, i create because i want to know myself. and i’m closer than i’ve ever been.

this post is for you. for those who choose me, not for what i produce, but for who i am. for those who see a little of themselves in me. for those who dream with tired eyes and aching hearts, but keep dreaming anyway.

i’m shifting the weekly updates to every ten days, giving me more space, honesty, and clarity. it’s a small change, but one that feels closer to how i want to share this journey. there’s a lot on the horizon. a new publication is now live, give it a read, if you’d like. thank you for being here. it means more than you know. much love.

chemical hearts

sometimes about chemicals, sometimes about the heart

By gor