May 29, 2025 by Emanuel Perez

All my life I’ve loved to express myself and play, until I aged out.

It’s what children do naturally without being told. They are wired to create things and make a mess along the way. It’s the most primal method of learning. And sadly, most adults become hesitant to exercise this natural gift as we get older. Other folks’ rules, commonly followed standards, never ending listicles of do’s and do not’s, and constant consumption of viral content on social media has a way of sapping our natural-born creativity.

I got got, too.

I was going through a wretched depressive episode in late 2024. Depression, from my experience, lives on the opposite end of expression. It’s the act of holding something in that needs to go out. Not watering the seed inside you and blocking it from ever sprouting to one day see the sunlight will make anyone sad. Diurnal plants will grow erect and find a way to seek the sun no matter which direction they are planted, even if the pot is sideways. That’s science.

If a pipe backs up and does not release what is flowing inside of it, it will eventually explode. That’s physics!

The ruminations of things I wanted to do but halted on began to haunt me. I had short film ideas that never seemed to die down. App ideas to help folks dealing with the same chronic condition I have wouldn’t stop tugging my soul. I wanted to teach better workshops than the dry ones I attended and believed I could do better. There was still a novel I considered my life’s work that I hadn’t finished.

In reality I wasn’t doing shit about it. And unsurprisingly, I felt like shit most days because of my inaction. I didn’t feel like I had what it took to bring these dreams and ideas into life.

Tell me if you’ve fell in the below pattern before:

go about your day get hit with random idea get excited about idea visualize how idea will work out plan out idea begin work on idea random obstacle arises, wrench gets thrown your way idea seems out of reach now avoid working on idea out of fear become depressed friends/family ask about idea you were so hype about come up with convenient excuse depression worsens oh look a new idea!

Ideas are seeds that want to be brung into life. We humans are vessels. Most ideas have an expiration date before they find a new vessel who will bring them to life. They provide us with dopamine, boosting our energy, and in return they need our energy in order to be made tangible on this plane of existence. It’s not fair for this relationship to be one sided and to get high from our own supply w/o putting in the work, or by giving up too soon. This would take me a while to understand.

I listened to and read The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, knew more about the importance of finishing the ideas you start, and still wasn’t getting my projects done.

I paid hundreds of dollars to learn about shadow work and integration through a legit teacher, finished the course, but was still stalling on the things that mattered to me.

Then one night everything changed.

I was driving during January of 2025 when I made a turn and got side swiped in a hit-and-run accident by a pickup truck. By God’s grace myself and my passenger came out unscathed. Something told me to turn slow. If I sped up even just a tiny bit during that turn, I would’ve met my maker. The accident made me think deeply about what was really holding me back in life. I pondered about what I would’ve regretted more had my time on Earth been cut short:

A. living empty because I was frightened to try something and fail B. living full while creating something I’m proud of - no matter the results

Living life fully became my answer. I decided when my time was up on Earth that I’d give God the biggest smile and proudly say I squeezed every last drop of talent he gave me, just as the good brother Chadwick Boseman did faithfully. Putting in shots in the midst of attempting to do something you think is dope despite failure has since become an ethos of mine.

Damage from the accident. Grateful to still be in one piece.

Me posted up w/ my rental car after the accident. Shout out state farm!

A few days later, I sent my boss my 2-weeks notice and went all in to build a creative lab to act as an umbrella where all my crazy ideas would launch no matter what. I was not allowed to negotiate with myself if an idea that came to mind brought me joy and could be of service to others.

It would be my own experimental playground to blend the childlike passion and adult discipline together into making things.

All I could think about were bringing my ideas to life, and all the verbs that sent my serotonin soaring through the roof from childhood to present day adulthood.

Express. Experiment. Explore. Experience.

Play.

Explay was born. It’s not a real word (chatgpt reminded me of this many times), but wordplay is something that makes me happy so who cares!

Over a phone call I mentioned this to my best friend Miguel, and he told me all about the Spanish word Explayar. The connotation meant something along the lines of expanding yourself, taking up space, and doing you. I love that meaning. To me, explay means bringing what you want into life in the way you believe is best.

I went to work, and began explaying.

I created a logo. Booked a photoshoot at a museum in Maryland. Bought a budget cinema camera. Watched a crap ton of videos about everything cinematography from a range of youtubers. Learned how to vibe code from spending all of my free time on twitter.

Explay stamp logo, signaling the importance of coloring outside the lines. fun fact: This was made in apple notes!

As I began to leap, the ground rose to meet my feet.