keeping a song in my heart

My father always tells me to keep a song in my heart. I used to think it was just a nice piece of advice, a poetic way of saying, “stay hopeful.” But lately, I’ve been using it as a survival tactic. A way to hold onto something human while moving through a world that seems determined to strip that humanity away.

I had an epiphany recently—one that terrified me. I heard a voice utter a question:

“Do you still really want to be an artist?”

It was quiet and fleeting, but it struck me with a brutal wave of self-doubt. For the first time, I didn’t know the answer.

Filmmaking has never just been something I do—it’s how I understand the world. How I connect to people. How I find myself.

So how did I get to this point?

I stepped into a machine disguised as a company. A system that operates on speed, efficiency, and output

My sacred work, something I used to love, started to feel meaningless. And without realizing it, I internalized that meaninglessness.

I didn’t see it happening at first. It crept in, little by little. The feeling of being replaceable, of being just another cog in a system too big to care about the individual. The slow erosion of excitement. The sense that no matter how much I did, it would never be enough. That I would never be enough.

And then, inspired by Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence, the real question surfaced.

If I had to live my life over and over again, exactly as it is right now, how would I feel about it?

Would I feel joy? Or dread?

How much of my life could I relive without needing to escape it? Because so many of us aren’t living—we’re just enduring. We treat work like a necessary suffering and escape like a drug. And then I found another concept that resonated with me.

There are many forms of currency.

Money is one. But so is time. So is love. So is joy. So is art. So is connection.

When we feel empty, it’s often because we’re bankrupt in one of our crucial currencies. But in a space that’s driven by results, efficiency, and measurable success, the only currency that matters is productivity. If you’re not producing, you don’t exist. Your humanity, your emotions, your personal dreams—none of it is considered valuable unless it can be monetized, streamlined, or scaled.

And so, we find ourselves feeling drained and worthless. Because what we actually need isn’t more productivity. What we need is fulfillment. Something that lends even the slightest meaning to life's absurdity.

But can I create my own meaning in the void?

I’m not sure but I do know I refuse to live a life I wouldn’t want to relive. I refuse to be a cog in a machine that doesn’t care if I burn out, break down, or disappear entirely. I refuse to measure my worth in numbers, outputs, and deadlines.

My hope is to innovate and revolutionize a structure that fosters meaningful work, to create a life so fulfilling that someone would embrace living it repeatedly.

I don’t want to reject productivity all together, but I do need to redefine it for myself.

Until I find the answer, I’m keeping a song in my heart. Because without it, I might forget I’m human.