Your heart is an onion.
No. 1 & 2: On self-betrayal, self-trust, and peeling off the layers that block you.
April 20th, 2026
There’s something really funny about self-betrayal.
It’s a feeling doesn’t seem real, until you confront its bared fangs for yourself. It’s somehow so foreign, and yet, so uncomfortably familiar, that you’re probably not going to notice it’s breathing down your neck until you feel its teeth sink right in. Flesh, blood, soul, and all.
I’ll admit, first, that I think about this a little too much.
At least once a day, I look back at all those times I committed self-betrayal, and I have to wonder if this is what Christians mean when they talk about “sin.”
Look, I don’t like looking at the world through a black-and-white lens. I like viewing the objectives, the subjectives, and the artistic merit we can discuss as humans, creators, breathers, and makers. I prefer looking at the world and its citizens this way, with emotional stability and endless curiosity. So, while growing up under (very kind, mind you) Christians who taught me human decency, I always had a problem with the word “sin.”
I didn’t understand how sins like stealing, for example, were considered equal to murder under the eyes of God. It not only didn’t make sense, but it was so comical to me, as a child, to think of someone like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin being held to the same ethical standard as an Oliver Twist-type desperado stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family.
It’s moronic, when you think about it.
Why on earth would I apply that logic at all, and especially why would I apply that logic to other areas of my life as a non-Christian?
So I have to ask myself why it makes a disgusting amount of sense that the greatest “sins” I’ve ever committed are against myself.
I’ve written about this ad nauseam. But, it never felt “exactly” right. Some ideas made sense. Other ideas that came out of the noggin felt like they belonged, but in actuality were connected to something else, and so the canvas being painted ended up becoming a whole disorganized sloughed-up mess.
It’s taken me a couple of years to realize that I was committing self-betrayal because I was in a mode of Deep Searching.
Searching through creation, of course. Reckless creation. Building projects that never saw the light of day. Writing spare lines for fiction that I knew would never be published, but could serve greater ideas. Creating spec projects around branding through the written word that sparked an old love that I through was long-forgotten, from copywriting, to creative advertising, to messaging and voice.
Things that I now realize were never actually things I hated, but elements corrupted by surrounding forces. I was allowing the perspectives and actions of others to dictate my love of the things I did.
God, I fail a lot.
A whole fucking lot.
But, I’m comfortable with that, now. My inner perfectionist is throwing a tantrum at this very idea, but the other part of me that’s wildly chaotic, loves throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and accepts that the chaos might actually create better results than the over-thought, over-framed, over-carved result.
(Here’s the funny thing most AI dogmatics won’t tell you—when you remove the labor, you remove the creative thinking, and if you remove the creative thinking, you remove the human output, and when you remove the human touch, you remove the entire point of using these methods to begin with; just remember the labor is where the magic brews)
The more often I fail, the more I learn, and the more I learn, the more I’m grateful to the bullshit and the witches and the demons who seem like their sole purpose in their entire, miserable little lives is to come on in and fuck with you.
But here’s the thing—life isn’t really worth living if you’re not going to learn how to brave these demons and learn how to unfuck yourself from the fuckery.
So, you just have to move. Move, create, build. Do shit you love. Pull back on what you don’t. You have one purpose on this earth, and that’s to create. What avenues spark joy within you? What can never tire you out, no matter how much energy you pour into it? For me, it’s multiple things.
My brain loves many things, and loves context-switching. I’m at my happiest burying myself in the broad world of writing, branding, and narrative.
Just remember that you’re good at doesn’t necessarily tie into what you actually want to do, no matter how tempting and wayward those demands may be.
Learning this every day, even when I think I’ve figured it out.
Turns out, we’ll never figure it out. That’s cool, too. Live for the adventure, and not the end-result. The labor, not the outcome. That’s what keeps me feeling grounded and connected to my craft, through writing, branding, and beyond. Just have to trust the process, trust myself, and understand that the decisions I’m making today doesn’t have to be the decision of forever. Of anything.
Maybe it’s the same for you, too?
Who the fuck knows…
April 22, 2026.
Your heart is an onion.
I’m writing this with a stupid smile on my face, because this metaphor made a lot of sense to me, and also not at all. It made me think of how we’re so complex and so weird—humans, I mean—but we’re also programmed to try and attach meaning to whatever we encounter in some way, whether that’s designed to build us up or challenge us to improve. We’re hardwired to crave, and seek, progress.
In truth, I hate onions.
Raw onions, specifically.
Unless they’re cooked and sautéed to an oblivion state even the most chaotic devil in Baldur’s Gate would find untouchable, they’re inedible. They make me bawl like a newborn baby over the cutting board, and as a result, I want to throw it out the window and abandon whatever recipe I’m trying out that day. (It’s always unfortunate when I realize that sweet onions, especially, are fragrant staples in some of my favorite dishes, and I would rather throw them out the fucking window than deal with them myself, but here we are… learning).
But, I do like what onions can represent, if you let the thought dance around. Because what’s funnier, and maybe, more adorable, than picturing your human heart as a shy little onion that’s trying to find itself again through all the layers it’s built over the years?
Maybe your onion is made of steel and hard bolts. Or, password-protected with codes only your subconscious knows how to open. Or, it’s a bud. A bud that hasn’t really learned what it’s meant to be an onion, yet, but it wants to know how, and so it will build all the layers it needs, but it’s also not afraid to peel back those papery layers to find the good, fragrant, flavorful goodness within.
I see hearts the same way.
Not the anatomical heart, of course, but the metaphorical one. The one we talk about in stories. With knights and princesses and dragons. With wizards and lost loves and forgotten journeys. With wayward heroes and misunderstood villains. With real villains, too, because apparently Hollywood decided to expose its soft underbelly and take away what it really means to be truly, deeply afraid of something—to have an antagonist with bones.
When I peel back the layers of my heart-onion, I see piece that never died. I see imaginations and thoughts from a girl who just didn’t believe what she had was meant to be seen. She didn’t know what her future would look like—or how life would challenge her with its many, fiery curveballs—but God help her, she was going to do whatever it took to build her Excalibur out of the written word.
I think everyone should look deep into their onions.
Their hearts-that-are-not-actually-hearts. I think this is the case for entrepreneurs, too, because I would be lying to you if I was fully inside this “quiet culture” that rejects building businesses and the hustle and the fast life. I love both. I think we can live in both, and I think we can find happiness and beauty in both.
What are the layers you’ve built? Every onion will look different. Some will be thin and flimsy. Others hard as rock. I think this is factual, no matter who you meet. The one cool thing about this analogy is that everyone has a heart of this variation, and so it connects to an idea that might not make sense now, but will make an unbelievable amount of sense later.
I’m being patient, right now, peeling away at my heart. My onion.
With that patience, I’ve learned rewards. I’ve learned how to manage difficult parts of me that I’ve never really liked, but deserved to be heard and seen, even if it never made a lot of sense, or never felt like it was meant to be.
The onion’s not going away.
Might as well start peeling.
This is the amazing highlight of my morning. I love when you create one. I understand word for word and appreciate this so much…it’s hard to find.