“In reality, the entire time, I should have just been making what I liked. I should have just been doing it for myself. I think with street art it was a lot easier to realize that something with like music. If I just started releasing music under my name, I would be like, ‘oh my God, what does this person think about it, what does this person think.’ I’d be listening to the criticism, ‘ oh yeah, I’ll change that, I’ll do that,’ whereas with street art, you don’t hear anything about what people think about it. Nobody knows it’s you. You’re anonymous, so you’re basically doing it for yourself.”
-Justin Taylor Phillips
Written by Mingjie Zhai, Told in the Id voice, “I.”
An Open Letter
The best elements of my transformation came from people generous and brave enough to take their “mask off” and show me their wounds.
People’s guilt are hidden by the projections they create on the most vulnerable. Like lessons in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the open wounds one feels are often times projected by the guilty who, by their lack of integrity, have shunned from their responsibility in the admitting of their crimes, and would rather call their victims crazy than to admit their faults.
Perhaps instead of putting all the focus on depression itself, maybe it’ll be important to just put the focus on the root. Perhaps, to honor my inner child, this journal entry must be written. To cut through the heart of the truth.
What if there were a better way to release the pain and the crazy?
What if pain and crazy both have Creative Powers we can tap into?
Do you believe in Love after Love?
-Cher
The Love Story is about discovering Love after Love.
That process of discovery begins with the one real guarantee we have in this world–Ourselves.
Our existence and our creative gifts–two wonders given to us at birth.
Exercising our creative gift is the process of discovering our inner light.
Painting, poetry, writing, dancing, surfing, snowboarding, traveling, building, learning a new language, crying, swimming, storytelling, talking–it all starts from within–with what God already gave us.
Nobody will discover it or do it for us. This is an individual walk.
The Love Story behind [ ] is the gift God gave us.
Discovering it is our walk, and most of the dialogue will be in our head, by ourselves, with ourselves.
Instead of hiding pain, embrace it.
When you embrace pain, like depression, anxiety, resentment, you have the power to transmute it. I’ve learned to embrace my heartbreak by looking into areas where I can transform it into a contribution, that is when my own transformation accelerates. And aren’t we all here just to love and be loved? Consider that love loss is one of the greatest catalyst of true love…agape love.
Because we are all connected in a universal way, this is about you and also not about you.
This is your Love Story and also not your Love Story.
The Love Story Journey
Because we are a collective conscious, co-creating this world in this moment, you are also
The Love Story
The Path of the Broken Hearted.
Our journey here is discovering what True Love Truly means.
A heart is designed to be broken, so that way, when we start picking up the pieces of our broken heart, one shard at a time, we begin seeing others in our own pieces and we begin discovering ourselves in the narrative pieces of another’s love story.
This seeing and being seen between the observer and the observed, the interweaving of our collective stories, of giving and receiving, love and loss, is what heartbreaks are designed for.
To break us open from attached love into agape love is the ultimate mission of a broken heart, but the higher path is rough, long and treacherous, but it is the ultimate reason why we are here to discover.
So, may you begin your journey of self-discovery in your brokenness by journaling your experience in the breaking open of others.
May our tears comfort our souls and our creative expressions lighten our heavy hearts.
Welcome to The Love Story Family.
Love and Blessings,
Mingjie Zhai
Founder & Executive Producer