In the Absence of a Soundboard - Letter Five
A letter exchange with Lara Atallah on the realities of being a solo creator in the digital age
This is part 5 in a 6-part correspondence between artist and writer,
, and me, Farrah Berrou. I’ll be writing parts 1, 3, and 5 here and Lara will respond in parts 2, 4, and 6 on her Substack, blue metropolis.Links will be added as the letters get published: letter 1, letter 2, letter 3, letter 4, letter 5, and letter 6. A final recap post will be shared on May 31st.
Hey Lara,
I got stuck on “coddle” but I see what you’re saying now. OWE is the keyword and the shift to a transactionality of relationships has been one ramification that comes with our current way of existing. Everything is a trade. I’m beginning to see the America you described in Beirut too.
I can’t speak for every nook and cranny of Lebanon but we’re in the aftermath of the 2019-20 multipronged collapse and society seems to be closing in on itself. The place has been dysfunctional on a state-level for eons but even neighborly camaraderie feels rickety now. There has been so much loss (physical, monetary, familial, etc) with no signs of reforms, reparations, or recovery. People are holding onto whatever they have even tighter, and with heavier suspicion. The trust in the system was absent before but now there’s a lack of trust in each other. I don’t blame anyone, we haven’t been given anything we are owed. Nothing is by the book, nothing is reliable, contingency plans1 are the norm. So after a series of force majeures, when there’s talk of revolution or moves for a better future, folks are at full capacity, tapped out, or simply mish edreen.
I see this irritation in myself when someone new makes vague proposals to work together. What do you want from me? It’s almost like a kind of paranoia.
The romantic in me who has met many doers in Beirut over the years wants to believe that that drive to build together is still out there hiding in empty warehouses that become idea hubs, workshops, and incubators. But maybe that trust between us was all an illusion to begin with. Maybe it got blown away with the grain silos. Maybe we need to be a little delusional to keep trying anyway.
As you said, we do the choosing but the criteria is the rub. So to bring it back to our theme as we’re coming close to ending this correspondence, how do we make sure the people we’ve chosen to be in our corner aren’t just clones of ourselves?
I believe my introduction to you as a creator was through
- and thus, it was as a designer - but then I started reading your ruminations. That’s where I learned about your way with words and that’s when we connected as internet buddies. I keep forgetting that we’ve never met in person so the interweb’s promise of connection must be working after all!Twelve years is a proper chunk of our lives. Other than your accent, what do you think America has given you? Is it the reason for the softer parts that have been lost as you say? I ask because, if I go back 12 years, I also feel I’ve hardened but I’m in the same city I was then. I’ve spent about 9 of those 12 here. I wonder if it’s simply a part of aging, aging in this age, or a Lebanese-American process of molting through layers of our own identities.
I’m doing stuff that aren’t technically what I studied in uni (biology and graphic design) and yet, everything has been informed by both degrees. I worked at Leo Burnett back in the day and emblazoned across the conference room wall was the company philosophy: “Creativity has the power to transform human behavior.” In the ad world, that means using creativity to invent a purpose so people engage with your brand. In my world, it means using creativity to understand and communicate with (design) and through other lives (biology). Can you then transform behavior? Sure.
I haven’t given the same answer to “what do you do for a living?” since I left the family business in 2020. For four years, it hasn’t been a straightforward response. Like you, my Substack is the most consistent thing I’m invested in as of late but it took a couple iterations to get here.
As for what I’m looking for, I want to do more immersive things like this. I’m rewriting working on a short video-essay about romantic love/partnership but it’s not coalescing. I want to find the whisk needed to whip it into something warm and comforting. I think.
Love & olives,
Farrah
Please look at the example for “contingency plan”: