The bridge between inside and outside

Hello again, I hope you’re doing well, enjoying a beautiful summer (or winter, depending on where you are).

Oh, how long it took me to sit down and write this email. On one hand, I must confess that after three years living in Italy, this is the first year I’m starting to get used to the summer rhythm, where in August nobody works. It’s kind of a silent agreement: everything stops, it’s all vacations.

On the other hand, after writing the Ars in Fabula series, I had a clear process to follow. But now that it’s finished… well, what can I say?

The funny part is, I actually have many ideas and topics I’d like to talk about. When I’m walking down the street or traveling, my mind builds the entire newsletter: super interesting, engaging, witty. But then, once I’m home… puf, it disappears.

Today I want to share something I’ve been thinking about for a while. It comes a little bit from those “crisis moments.” Right after the course, my mind was overflowing with energy, experiments, ideas, and projects. The problem is, I don’t always know how to handle that energy, and it ends up being too much, until one day the battery burns out. Then I feel lost under all the tasks I gave myself to make those ideas real.

Something very hard for me is “doing just for the sake of doing.” I try, but I can’t fully relax about it yet. I always need a goal, even a small one, because my mind moves faster than my process.

In the middle of all that mess, the big questions started to appear: What’s the purpose of all this? The real one, the bigger picture?

Because deep down, I know it’s not about money. Of course I get paid for my work, otherwise I’d need another job to pay the bills, and that would take away time from doing what I love. So, better to be paid for doing what I love. That’s my logic. It’s not perfect, I know, and it has brought me problems. My work and experience have value, and I need to honor that. I’m working on it.

But again, the big question: what’s the true purpose of all this? Why am I so obsessed with “doing what I love”? Why do I want that time to sit down and do it, to improve, to get better, to reach projects where I can grow and live from it? Okay… but why this and not something else?

I’ve been turning this around in my head for a long time. Sometimes you think about it from a work or financial point of view. But in my case, I had to go deeper to find the answer.

And recently, I did.

The point is that, when I do what I do (drawing, painting), when I really give myself the time, sometimes (not always), I enter that flow state. That trance where everything connects, where problems, obligations, and fears don’t feel so heavy. When the joy is real, genuine, deep. It runs through your body, your mind, your soul. Yes, it sounds cheesy, but it’s real.

Have you seen the movie Soul? It’s not my favorite film (I was expecting more, honestly), but I think it explains this very well. The scene where Joe Gardner is playing the piano, lost in the music, and feels that transcendent moment. That’s what I mean: being “in the zone,” where passion takes over and the outside disappears. It shows the joy of simply being alive and doing what you love, without needing a “big goal.”

And at the end of the day, that’s it. That’s what makes me wake up every morning thinking, maybe today I’ll find it. As if somewhere inside me there’s a door to that connection… but I still don’t know exactly where it is. Every day I wake up and go searching for it, because the days I find it… they’re worth everything.

And I’m more and more convinced that this is very important: to find what moves you. It can’t just be money, it has to be something you really care about. Something that matters to you. For me, even if it sounds simple, illustration, drawing, using images to tell stories, to talk about deep things, to express, to connect, that matters to me. I’m always asking myself: how can I do this? How would it feel to try it with this medium? How can I tell that story with my own point of view? How can I improve?

All of this makes me want to learn all the time, to develop my brain. And I feel this is very important, because it gives us a purpose in life. Without it, people get lost.

I believe this connection can be stimulated on purpose. I’m still learning. For me, the first step was letting go of all those rules and stereotypes I carried around. I often think it’s funny: we’re born like blank souls, and as we grow, we fill ourselves with fears, obligations, judgments… and then later, the goal is to strip all that away and return to the beginning.

These past weeks, I started experimenting with materials I hadn’t used in years: acrylics, oils, Indian ink, brushes, stamps, collage. And I felt something really strange, as if I already knew them. Even the ones I had never tried before, like oils. It felt like pressing “play” after a very long pause. The feeling, the memories, they came from my childhood. Like I was reconnecting with the person I used to be.

Yes, I know, it all sounds cheesy. But it’s true. And honestly, I really believe that all this searching, discovering, and chasing makes us better people.

What do you think? Have you felt this connection? Do you have ways to reach it? Do you believe it’s possible to make it happen, or is it just something that comes by chance?

This is an exercise we did in the course, where we had three words and, using them, we had to tell a story in 6 panels without any text.
My words were Poltrona (Armchair), Cane (Dog) and Spensieratezza (Lightheartedness). Spensieratezza is a complex word in any language. I had to look it up in the dictionary. It means: a state of being carefree, without worries, living lightly.

• Out of the Studio: Even if I’m enjoying summer, I’m not really traveling much. So today I bring you something very different. The other day, while talking with friends, they made me realize something about math. I love math, I’m fascinated by its pure logic. This is about the 9 times table. Maybe it’s obvious for some, but for me it was totally new, haha. It’s as simple as adding a zero to the number you want to multiply and then subtracting that same number. And boom! You get the 9 table.

• Seen and Felt: After talking so much about Soul in this newsletter, I think I need to watch it again. While writing, I kept remembering that the movie actually has a lot of interesting ideas. Maybe I judged it too quickly.

• For the Shelf: Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein - Linda Bailey and Júlia Sardà
  Júlia Sardà is one of my all-time favorite illustrators. And Frankenstein is one of my all-time favorite books. This is the story of Mary Shelley, the author, and how she created that masterpiece. Nothing can go wrong here.

• Echoes: Ghost Frame - Episode 5: The Middle This is a new podcast, very interesting. But this last episode reflected me completely. Listen to the whole thing.