I AM IN HERE WITH LANTERNS, LOOKING FOR MYSELF
Meet Aryan, whose work spans content strategy, marketing, artistry, and academia. As a seasoned content strategist, Aryan's adeptness lies in crafting engaging content that hit the mark with the right audience. Aryan is also a multifaceted artist, writer, and photographer who brings their creative vision to life in various mediums, especially when it comes to using art to amplify marginalised voices combining it with their ability for visual storytelling and capturing the essence of human experiences.
Cyanotype created by Aryan Gulati
Note
Dear Readers,
Whether you're riding the youth wave or surfing on the shores of enlightenment, I'm not too bothered, and here's why. In the recent years of my life, I have faced the daunting realization that, despite our unique individual human experiences, we still share a thread of synergy—an almost "invisible string." This string is my proof that, regardless of age, we often find ourselves entangled in many other threads of expectations, societal norms, and the roles we play in the world we are a part of. In the pursuit of carefully moving around this web, we sometimes lose sight of who we are.
Emily Dickinson, in her legendary poetic brilliance, once penned a line that echoed through decades in a letter to her friend Elizabeth Holland about a profound experience – "I am out with lanterns, looking for myself." While Dickinson referred to the disorienting process of moving into a new house, the resonance of this phrase to me extends beyond the physical realm, encapsulating the perpetual excavation of becoming oneself.
My reflections on this have led me to ponder the nature of our existence as a perpetual Work In Progress—not a never-ending but an ever-evolving expedition to become the real self that often remains entangled in strings of societal expectations and self-imposed facades.
To me, "I am in here with lanterns, looking for myself" captures the essence of becoming. In my interpretation, "I am in here with lanterns, looking for myself" encapsulates the essence of becoming oneself. It's about introspection, self-preservation, and epiphanies that might hit you in your twenties or much, much later. Just as Dickinson might have felt like an emigrant in the process of moving, we, too, experience a kind of internal migration as we navigate the landscapes of our own minds and emotions. But the idea is to keep looking, for yourself and for who you want to become as you acknowledge the myriad roles you play in the world around you.
"I am in here with lanterns, looking for myself" is my homage to Dickinson, an ode to the process of becoming, and a letter to you—the reader, the viewer and the fellow adventurer, urging you to keep looking, and keep on becoming be it armed with your metaphorical lanterns or not.