Why do I write

I seek to learn, I write to connect

This post is meant to be a living space to share the ground principles of my writing. I will edit it once in a while to ensure that it is current and relevant to my evolving value system.

What I value

education, creativity, imperfection, adaptive and iterative processes, creative thinking, open, humble, curious, compassion, deep connections, intentional artistry, poetry, freedom and purpose driven action.

If you identify with some of these, you may enjoy reading my pieces as a fellow vulnerable learner. Maybe we can have beautiful exchanges and nourish a creative outlook of future possibilities together.

Who I am

I grew up in relatively big cities in Brazil, including Belém and São Paulo, in a middle class family of White European descendants. I identify as a cis male, my pronouns are he/him, I consider myself gay, queer, and/or questioning.

I received a scholarship to go to an international high-school in Hong Kong called Li Po Chun United World College. I received another set of scholarships to get a college degree in the United States, Florida at the Ringling College of Arts and Design. You can see more details about what I studied here. I really care about education, but not schooling necessarily, and the distinction between these two is vital for me (I will write about this at some point). In other words, I love being a learner. My friends tend to be very open, curious and creative people, and I take pride in learning a lot from them.

I learned from thinkers like Angela Davis, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Djamila Ribeiro and Sonya Renee Taylor that racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism, xenophobia and aporophobia are all interconnected, systemic issues, and therefore, I will not discuss if, but how I am a part of the problem and I want to contribute towards an equitable future for everyone, for the rest of my life. I know I will make many mistakes in this journey, and I forgive myself in advance in order to keep moving forward with my intention to do better next time. That’s what I am here for: to learn.

Why now?

Because it feels urgent and I feel as ready as I can be. I have many things to say about the way I live today, the predominant values of corporate life, the conflicts with my own value system, my personal development, and the process of outgrowing lived traumas, from childhood, to relationships and work related burnouts. As I process all of this, I have noticed many of my friends around the globe going through similar experiences, and I can’t help but thinking that maybe we are living in a seminal age, as Marina puts it. Processing all of this feels right and much needed to start thinking how I want to live my life, and hopefully provoke my fellow readers to do the same.

How I communicate

I am committed to expressing myself fully. I prioritize raw and imperfect writing, intentionally. English is my second language, and I have my own way of expressing myself in this language. Poetry is my most immediate emotional sacred ground. I am inspired by bell hooks, in her book “Teaching to Transgress” and Audre Lorde, in “Sister Outsider” to integrate my emotional and rational selves. I enjoy making visuals when I am immersed in a topic, so I may use them to complement my written expression. To me, it has been a long way home to get back to writing as a medium. In 2004, as a young teenager, I started blogging in Portuguese and doing theatre. A few years later, I explored audio in radio and music. In the last 10 years or so, most of what I used to communicate was visual language, mostly photography, filmmaking, and some people say I can make some gorgeous slides. Even though I enjoy them, visuals were not enough to digest my life experience in the COVID-19 pandemic, let alone the past 10 years living in Brazil and the United States. As a means of staying afloat and embracing the personal growth I am committed to have, I will leverage whatever I have time and energy to produce.

What I write about

Most of all, I am here to flow ideas around. I had a lot of experiences that have taken me years to understand, like growing up as a traumatized queer boy in Brazil, becoming a teenager education activist, living around the world to learn more about who I am, working in the corporate United States of America as an immigrant, and so on. I intend to make my writing a way to make sense of a lot of that experience as well as what I am living today. Maybe some of the stories and references I share along the way can be handy tools and clues to support your own journey of self discovery. Who knows?

If you’ve come this far, I am grateful for your intentional reading, as I am on a journey to make my own intentional writing. Please subscribe to my page if you’d like to receive updates about my next pieces :)