I begin TikToking in earnest on November 7, 2024 the day after Donald Trump won his second presidency. I wanted to start sharing my story as an American who moved abroad in search of a better home for her family during the first Trump presidency.
Relocating to Toronto, Canada in late 2019 offered my husband and I many benefits. My company had an open position for me at the Toronto office and was happy to handle all the logistics & legalities of my transfer. Like Chicago, Toronto is a great city on a great lake. And just so happened to be the closest major world city to the Second City, which I’d called home for 11 years.
I had no idea that my decision to move abroad would ultimately return me back to my roots as an influencer and a content creator.
About 15 years ago I started a fashion blog focused on the street-style of Chicago. That decision radically changed my life. Suddenly, a career as a full-time creative was within reach. I’d always been told that less than 1% of artists “make it” and that pursuing a creative career was a recipe for failure. I was pushed hard to pursue a career in academia or as a lawyer.
Lucky for me, repeatedly failing the LSAT got in the way of that. And it was a blessing.
Just like life finds a way, creativity finds a way. Like the grass and weeds that grow through cracks in the pavement, the internal creative drive is always on a mission to break through. To make itself known, to bask in the sunshine of self-expression. There is a reason that many artists compare creating a work of art to giving birth. It’s a natural process that is sometimes painful, but always rewarding. And like artists, parents want the best for their creations.
Now that I am almost 20 weeks pregnant with my first viable pregnancy after 6 previous early losses I understand the fear that parents have for the futures of their children.
Parenting a creative child is scary and unpredictable. Creativity, by its very nature, is scary and unpredictable. Creativity forces itself out and into the world. Creativity has a life of its own. Which is why so many executives in creative industries, especially advertising, are trying to replace humanity with “controllable” artificial intelligence that can generate “guaranteed” creative results.
But the fact is, while a robot may reach AGI (artificial general intelligence) will never have the lived experiences, the references, or the soul of a human being. A machine will never had the internal pressure and drive to express hidden parts of itself through a self-actualizing creative process. Now that I am growing a human myself, nourishing him (yes, it’s a him!) with my own flesh and blood, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the conditions needed for creativity of any form to flourish, and why I feel that Canada is the best place to anchor my personal creative journey.
In Canada, I feel more grounded and less stressed. I feel like I’ve found myself here, in many ways because the culture in Canada is so similar to the USA on the surface but enormously different at its core. Canada, as a culture, prioritizes safety over all else. And like Abraham Maslow, I believe safety — psychological, physical, spiritual — provides the fertile substrate for self-actualization and the creative process to unfold. Canada has held space for me to find myself. And now that I’m growing a little one inside of me, I’m so relieved, blessed, and honoured that he will be born a Canadian.
If my child chooses to be creative professional, I don’t have to be as worried in Canada for his general welfare. Universal healthcare (for now, at least) insures everyone. Despite some gun violence in Canada, I am not worried about school shootings or mass casualty events like I am in the United States, where gun ownership is practically a religion and the Second Amendment their bible.
Canada has not just a strong social safety net, but a strong social fabric. Canadians genuinely care about each other, about people in the world, and the planet. I haven’t yet encountered the callous cynicism and defeatedness that has started to taint the traditionally optimistic American spirit. Thanks to apps like TikTok, Americans are only now starting to wake up to how abusive and coercive their society is to the 99%. And hopefully, organize to shift their society back to a structure that benefits everyone, not just the 1%. Sensing a threat to the existing system that serves only the 1%, the U.S. Government united behind a TikTok ban while failing to address serious systemic challenges that make life difficult for many Americans; a classist & racist public education system; a failing privatized healthcare system; and ongoing school shootings, to name but a few.
So with the TikTok ban looming, I figured it would be prudent to start a substack to keep in contact with any of my American followers.
Life comes full circle, and here I am, blogging again.