There’s always been a tension in me, though “tension” might be the wrong word. Tension implies something fighting. This feels more like two people who occasionally forget they’re on the same side.
One part of me wants to follow the feeling. See where it goes. Stay in the fog a bit longer. That’s the part that sits at the piano without knowing what will happen, that chases something half-seen, that starts a piece of work from instinct rather than brief. The other part wants things to make sense. Wants structure. A framework. Clean lines. A way of holding all that feeling so it doesn’t spill everywhere.
For a long time, I thought I had to choose. Be the emotional one, or be the capable one. Depending on the room, one side would step forward and the other would go quiet. But the work never felt right when one of them was missing. Too much feeling without structure and everything drifted. Beautiful, maybe. But hard to hold. Too much structure without feeling and everything worked… but felt slightly hollow.
There was a moment — the first time I performed my own music live — where I understood this more clearly than I ever had. I’d never felt more like I was in exactly the right place. More alive. More myself. Walking offstage that night, I genuinely wanted to throw my design business in the bin. Not out of logic. Just out of the sheer aliveness of it.
But I’ve come to understand that what I felt that night wasn’t a signal to abandon one thing for another. It was a signal about what happens when both parts are fully present at once. When I design, the part of me that loves grids and systems is very present. But so is the part that notices mood. Texture. Subtle shifts in tone. When I write music, it might start as instinct, but it ends up shaped. Arranged. Given form. My piano playing has discipline in it. My brand documents have rhythm in them. I didn't plan that. It's just how I'm built.
The tension, I’ve realised, was never the problem. It was pointing at something. These two parts don't cancel each other out... they complete each other. When both are present, something shifts. There’s no questioning every decision, no paralysis, no performing one version of myself while the other waits in the wings. Just alignment. Flow. A state of being, rather than doing.
That’s the place I'm working from now.