shuck the shell, follow the funk

Photo by Renaat Peeters on Unsplash

Some foods are born half-cooked begging to be eaten, but others require delusional levels of faith. Look inside your fridge—how did we discover these culinary treasures?

Berries and mangoes make sense. We see them blushing bright red and green in nature, wearing thin skin our teeth can penetrate. They look sweet and nutritious. The user experience is obvious too. Berry vines look like chopsticks preloaded with dumplings—you see them and understand the assignment.

Plump mangoes fall from the sky—telling dummies lunch is ready—this happened to me a week ago. While eating grilled guinea fowl outside a live music lounge in Lagos, a chunky mango plopped onto my thigh from above, as if to say "Here buddy, you're running low on Vitamin A, you need this more than me!"

Coconuts hide in stubborn shells enforcing their "hard to get" personality. It's not immediately clear they're delicious. Hairy, round, and fatal if one falls on your head—this trifecta doesn't scream "eat me". But they're so common in the tropics, humans were always gonna pry inside. 

But oysters? They are silly looking rocks hiding slimy pieces of snot. Don't they look dangerous? We shuck them open, and zap zap, they shock us in return. Yet many swear fresh, raw oysters make life worth living. They crave that "pure essence of the ocean" taste. Every year, we lose thousands to infected oysters, but zealots argue it’s worth the risk. 

How do we find our own treasures? Whether it's the culinary ones outside or our creative ones within? You know those creative projects that ooze life and sustain us? The ones that give meaning and necessary escapes to both artist and audience. 

If we find strange rocks on our wandering path, how do we know if there are oysters inside? How do we adjust our sails to find our treasures?

We shuck our shells and follow the funk. Shucking is how we shed our skins from the accumulated nonsense we absorb—hours of doomscrolling, endless "opinions", waves of worry, tsunamis of self-doubt. It's ridding ourselves of unhelpful exoskeleton lingering past its use-by-date. Sweeping away labels no longer applicable, and peeling dead skin so new tissue can emerge. 

And where do we go? We chase the funk. Imagine you're the first person to ever open an oyster. You crack it open and see this soft, wet, squiggly, vulnerable mess inside rocky exterior. It looks odd and it won’t sit still—much like a novel creative idea. But something tells you this is treasure. Maybe you've seen wild animals gorge on them. Or your curiosity won't let you walk away. You see the silhouette of a baby seed in rich soil—huge potential but poor visual fidelity. 

You've never done anything like this before. You can't articulate why you're attracted to this funk. What's tempting you to taste it? Tough to say. Intuition travels far faster than the electrical signals your brain depends on. But the funk prods you closer and closer to your groove where your fire burns unrestrained. Your groove is where time stops and you’re dancing through space, free-styling without worrying what moves comes next, you just know you’ll make it look smooth and sweet.

This process—shucking old shells and following the funk—is how creativity has unfolded in my life. When I listen, this dance exposes new surface area to explore. If you told me at the start of 2024, I'd have published a book, designed and hosted a 75-person experiential event, performed spoken word, created a magazine, and taught an online course….I'd have laughed at you. I had no plans to do any of these! They were all firsts! 

Buttabasted started from a fuzzy observation—I want to write sensory, lyrical pieces with repeat value vs rush to write disposable weekly newsletters. My event was a bet along two axes—people want novel IRL experiences–I didn't want to sit on stage talking about my book—I wanted guests to live inside it! Both paid off better than I could've imagined. The course came from my beautiful friendship with Michelle Elisabeth Varghese, while chatting on the phone, we realized people always ask us for sabbatical advice.

But for each of those projects, the initial seedling was vulnerable and uncertain. These projects—writing a book, hosting an experiential event, teaching a course—each one hosts its own universe of mini adventures and side quests and admin nonsense that needs doing. And it’s so easy for ideas to die before they see the sun. That's where the muscle of self-trust comes in. I couldn't have published the book without making the magazine the year before. Following that funk fueled me with the delusion that I could figure out all the steps to publish a book even though I’d never done it before.

This very essay you're reading is a microcosm of following the funk. 500 miles off the West coast of Africa, while flying back to San Francisco, I felt "shuck the shell" arrive in my mind. I can't explain where it came from. I definitely wasn't eating oysters at 30,000 feet. (Remember the conscious brain is always playing catchup.) I liked how this phrase sounded so I wrote it down in my journal. I wondered: What does it mean? What shell? Why are we shucking? The WiFi connection died before I got an answer.

I scribbled a few paragraphs exploring different meanings of that phrase. Getting rid of the "shoulds" in your life and becoming the most authentic you. Code-switching and thriving in multiple cultures. Divorcing your limiting beliefs about who you are and what you can do. But I didn’t love any of these until "follow the funk" nestled in my brain several days later. This felt much more resonant to me. I'd love to tell you how this second phrase entered my mind. But I worry I’d be playing detective forcing clues to tell a plausible story that’s untrue.

As someone who has lived many lives—software engineer, biotech researcher, chocolate factory intern, author, technical consultant, events organizer—I've always struggled with long-term goals and New Years' resolutions. That form factor doesn't jive with my brain. Especially because I know my interests will change over time. I thrive when I'm chasing something resonant—but what do I chase? Signal reveals itself to me when I’m doing things!

Over the past few years, I lost some people who left us too young. Grieving made me reflect on what matters most to me. If I was 60 looking back at my career, what would I be most proud of? Aside from family, my working answer is an evolving body of work—zines, books, documentaries, IRL events—each one taking bigger creative risks and unearthing more possibilities. We truly don’t know what we’re capable of, and I worry labels and titles and fears stop us from finding out.

I’m most energized by following a fuzzy feeling and willing that thing to life. Nurturing my creativity used to be a “cute idea”, now it’s oxygen, life-giving and essential. The three hours of my event last year were the highlight of my year because of how it made people feel, and because it validated my silly little idea seedling. It built a few more millimeters of creative muscle on this lifelong journey.

So as the year starts, I'm committing to shucking more layers of shell, and following the funk. There’s a lot about 2025 I don’t know. But I know this won't betray me. I know it will open doors.