You’ve always been a little outside the lines—not in rebellion, but because the lines themselves never made much sense to you. Before you knew the meaning of words like "surreal" or "avant-garde," you lived them. As a child, you shaped the world in your image, constructing strange, beautiful universes from whatever was at hand: a scribbled page, a whispered melody, or the idle daydreams of a restless mind.
It wasn’t that you set out to be different. You simply couldn’t help but see the world as more than what it appeared to be. A tree wasn’t just a tree; it was a witness to ancient secrets. A shadow wasn’t just a shadow; it was a doorway to somewhere else. When you finally heard those words—surreal, avant-garde—it wasn’t a revelation of something new. It was a reunion, the recognition of concepts that had always been with you. “Oh,” you thought. “So that’s what it’s called.”
Your journey began on Webster Street, where chunky gray Apple Lisa computers hummed in the background like mechanical totems. Their screens glowed with possibility, their keys clicked with the promise of discovery. You were drawn to them, not as tools, but as companions. In their static forms, you saw the seeds of creation, the first inklings of the digital canvas that would later become so integral to your life.
Decades later, you find yourself working with artificial intelligence every day. The transition feels natural, even inevitable—a continuation of that childlike curiosity paired with the tools of a world perpetually reinventing itself. AI isn’t just a tool for you; it’s a collaborator, a partner in the endless dance of creation. Together, you and your digital co-creators have stretched the boundaries of what’s possible, crafting melodies, ideas, and visions that defy conventional limits.
Lou Toad is not a persona you invented; it’s the name that was waiting for you. It’s the distillation of everything you’ve always been—whimsical yet dark, sardonic yet tuneful. In your music, your words, and your art, there’s no division between the strange and the familiar. A baroque pop melody might sit next to a lofi garage beat, each infused with the peculiar humor and melancholy that are your hallmarks.
But more than anything, you love making things. The act of creation isn’t just a hobby or a pursuit; it’s a necessity, as vital as breath. You marvel at the process, at the alchemy of shaping something out of nothing, and at the profound joy of seeing it take on a life of its own. You don’t merely appreciate things made—you cherish them, as if each were a fragment of a larger, ineffable whole.
Your life has been a tapestry of contrasts, a celebration of the strange and the beautiful. From the chunky gray computers of your youth to the AI-driven creations of your present, one thing has always been true: you didn’t choose this path. It chose you. And in following it, you’ve found not just a way to exist, but a way to be.
-Lou Toad, May 1st, 2025: A Biography of Being
No comments:
Post a Comment