A week of conversations.
None of them planned to say what they said.
"I used to think spring was such a lovely time of year. It's quickly grown into very anxious time of year, and I'm just trying to fucking let go a little bit. And get back to enjoying it."
Will"On some level, I'm like burned out for life, bro."
Zakk"It's me alone in the kitchen doing the dishes. Not having fun, just feeling like getting through it."
Zakk"I've always been a very creative person at heart and in practice for the first 30 years of my life. And then I was like, nope, put that in a box. You got to go be serious."
Ambra"I don't want to face the fact that I abandoned myself. It's very like Inception of feelings around creativity."
Ambra"How much am I disconnecting myself from the passion of it? And like, will there be a moment where I'm like, I don't really want to do this anymore?"
Will"I was so out of control that I thought I was fully in control."
Farzad"There is no level of validation I can get that would quiet this other than me doing my own thing."
Farzad"I'm witnessing somebody I thought who had their shit together. Really well most of the time. Has been flailing around for the better part of 25 years. And because he was young enough and capable enough, he could keep it together. But at 70, I'm like, wow. You're hanging on by a thread."
Will"I'm modeled to remain calm. Give the appearance of certainty. And everything else. You just smush into a little pit inside and occasionally blow up. And I'm witnessing the origin of that."
Will"I was doing all of these things, but like I was sort of doing all these things from a place of love, but was not actually connected to her. And it was like that, the connection piece that was the scary, hard piece to do that I was avoiding."
Zakk"It's almost like my system can't tell if it's an organ or a cancer. People get these organ transplants and their body rejects them. So it's there, it grows or it comes up and then on some level my body or my system is like, we have to attack this."
Zakk"They kept getting mad whenever I got a piercing. And so I just kept getting piercings. I turned 18, I moved out of the house, I got some distance from them and I was like, why the fuck am I wearing these? I don't like these."
Zakk"So many of the things that I got in trouble for, I look back on them now, and it was like, yeah, I was a boy. I was being a boy."
Zakk"I tried to change my car battery. It was all because trying to prove my dead dad that I'm good enough. And he was the nicest guy. He never said, you know?"
Anthony"He does everything in his life for other people. I want him to do it for his sake."
Will"My tool broke. My tool doesn't work. Now I'm like grieving and mourning the loss of the tool."
Zakk"That level of constriction actually just kind of killed my spirit, and then I don't do anything."
Ambra"Slop is meaningless knowledge. Meaningless information. And so, like, what makes it alive?"
Zakk"Before it's out there, it feels like anything's possible. And I could just go in 10 different directions."
Jacob"I kind of feel like stuck in the middle where I don't know who to make things for that would find value in them."
Shahruz"I found the picnic, and they're like, oh my God, it's a picnic. And then they go to eat it, and it's all covered in Saran wrap. And they're like, I can't eat it."
Kyle"I was asking the question but not answering it. Like, I was only going that far because I'd like to stay up until that point and torture myself."
Kristen"The fears are guardians of a power that you're about to unlock."
Dave"Will I like who I will become?"
Farzad"Right now, Adam feels like I should. But what I really want is for Adam to feel like a playground."
Zakk"I don't care as much about that. I just want to grow really good fucking fruit because I believe that's the most important thing to crafting good cider."
Will"I'm never going to figure this thing out, but I've got to enjoy the process and the renewal and through that it's pretty fun."
Will"It only exists when people play it."
Dave"If I'm not playing with what's most alive, I start dying and my flame goes out, and then things are not good."
Dave"Keeping it quick and not over polishing, I think, is the key to this thing, because it kills alive."
Dave"For a long time, not completing things added up to this pile of stuff on my psyche of, like, oh, you didn't finish that. You're a piece of shit because you weren't that good. That's all gone now."
Kyle"I'm more polyamorous in a sense of creativity instead of being welded into a thing. And like, cuffed."
Pascal"Deadline is good but I don't love the dead part. Having that place out in the future where I am building trust with myself and the project to move it out into the world."
Dave"I started collecting all my transcripts and making insane amounts of notes like eight years ago and had no idea why I was doing this. And some part of my subconscious could feel this thing coming."
Dave"Put out your best idea at 50% done and then let the world tell you what the fuck it is."
Dave"I think you create the rat's nest in a bunch of things so you can hide behind them. So there's no more hiding."
Kristen"The way that I don't hide is by being produced."
Dave"I would love to have built something. And not be responsible for it anymore. That would be cool."
Will"The biggest goal in this whole farm thing. It's like to set something up so that somebody else can really do more than I ever could."
Will"It takes a village to raise a project."
Dave"It's enough. It's just a packaging of you. It's like a sliver of you."
Kristen"We are working on a fucking 40 year project."
Dave"The people who make this are interesting weirdos, are very much themselves and encourage you to be very much yourself."
Dave"We just follow whatever's alive, and then if it's boring and for whatever reason we can't find anything, cool. We'll pick it up again later."
Dave"I have a lot of fun with you, so that's all."
Dave"Give yourself the playground. That's how it comes back."
Davefourteen conversations · one week · april 2026