The Hotpot | By Lisanne
6.1
I love Disney.
The princesses. The men with perfectly combed hair.
The success stories that seem to have suddenly appeared at the snap of a finger.
It’s a love-hate relationship.
Because real life is much messier than that.
I admire certain creative people who seem to have a bit of this spark. But if you laid out their childhood stories, you’d struggle to find a single common thread.
Some became soft-spoken mentors who make everyone feel seen.
Some became sharp rebels who refuse to color inside any line.
Some were bullied into toughness. Some were bullies who later learned softness.
The only constant they seem to have in common is that they all moved something. They have changed the culture around them, even if just a little.
So if you ever hear an interesting story about my childhood, it’s a trap. Not because it’s untrue, but because it’s so easy to confuse with the reason I became who I am.
Two people can live through the same earthquake and walk away with opposite interpretations—one decides the world is unstable; the other decides they are unbreakable.
A creative I know attributes her resilience to being pulled from city to city as a kid—constant reinvention, new schools, new rules.
Another swore his resilience came from staying in the same place for too long—feeling the walls close in, forcing him to build exits where none existed.
Same craft. Opposite childhoods. Both true.
Maybe after all the event isn’t the story. But the meaning we attach to it is.
When we analyze success, we often mistake correlation for cause. We look for a logic that isn’t there. But if the same experience can produce two opposite identities, then identity might be a creative act, not only a historical one.
We all inherit stories.
But the opportunity might be to choose a version of our origin story that supports us.
Not to live in a fantasy, or a lie. But just in a truth that helps us ship the work instead of staying stuck in the logic of who we used to be.
