Meet Devin Mackey

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Devin Mackey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Devin below.

Hi Devin, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.

I think in order to understand where my optimism comes from, I need to first speak about the negativity that has followed me throughout my life. I grew up in a very negative household where hopes and dreams were regularly squashed, and I was constantly “put in my place” via backhanded compliments. There was a daily repetition of hopeless proverbs such as the horrifyingly popular “Life sucks and then you die”, as well as negative philosophies such as the distorted version of Murphy’s law that goes “Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong” (I say “distorted” because Murphy’s law was a remark about safety measures in engineering, it was never meant to be an outlook on life).

These negative outlooks conglomerated into my own personal shadow which weighed heavy on me for many years. These dark thoughts that never belonged to me took over, but through it all I have always had some powerful things on my side: curiosity and sacred rebellion. “There has to be a better way. Life can’t be like this”.

My optimism does not necessarily come from a place of certainty that things are better than they appear, nor does it come from an opinion that people are inherently good. My optimism comes from an almost stubborn determination. Facing my shadow over and over again for 30 years, armed with this curiosity and sacred rebellion has shrunken its power over me, which has cleared space for my optimism to bloom. Deep down I have a certainty that we genuinely have the option to improve things, and we always have the option to be better as individuals. Our dream life and our dream world may never come to be fully realized, but it has no chance to exist if it is not given the opportunity to exist. It can only bloom if it is given the nourishment, the environment, and the patience necessary for the roots to take hold.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My name is Devin Mackey. I am a former lost soul who is slowly discovering and consistently becoming. I am someone who was set up for failure and who persists anyway. I am a creative, and a diviner, and a singer, and a comedian, and a dancer, and a friend, and a writer, and a lover; and I am also none of these. I am someone who has tried many set paths and found that my only sustainable option is to be original and to create my own life based on passion and genuine connection. I am a transmuter.

My platform came about by accident; I started creating short-form videos as a form of self expression and inner work; as part of the process of working through my own feelings. Some are sketches where I blow off steam about frustrating or strange interactions I have experienced as an autistic transgender person, some are philosophical sketches meant to paradigm shift, and some are quite literally me facing my shadow. Sometimes I’m stating opinions, or sharing information I’ve learned. I don’t know how to categorize the work that I do; it’s just me. As someone who didn’t grow up being well-liked, it has continued to surprise me. “Where are you people coming from? What do you want from me?”

The platform itself has forced me to face the part of my shadow that has always told me that I am weird and unlovable, because the more unashamedly genuine I show up, the more positive feedback I receive. This has created what I’m going to call a “positive identity crisis”, which has in part resulted in my new project. This project is one of self-understanding; I am selling all of my worldly belongings, I moved out of my apartment, and I am leaving the United States to pursue a pilgrimage. I want to follow my lineage, and to understand how I got here, and where the trauma began. I want to tie my findings in with the patterns we see in the world at large. To use my story as an example of larger themes. I am vlogging my trek, to interview people, to learn about the world, and to share with my audience what it is that I find. To invite the audience in to join me.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The inherent curiosity that I have been blessed with has helped me to access the best possible outcome when I was not feeling hopeful about its likelihood (“but what if it does work out?”) It has also helped me to discover other places, philosophies, career ideas, and relationships with people that I would never have come across otherwise. Curiosity opens the world up and acts as a gateway to inner freedom. It has allowed me to deconstruct the doctrines I was raised on, which has opened up my world. I was raised to be a quiet evangelical wife, but due to my unyielding curiosity of myself and the world around me, I have grown into a spiritual gay man who will rave about his favorite new discovery for an hour. My sacred rebellion has allowed me the agency to say no, and has fueled curiosity in my search for meaning. These two traits together have kept me alive in my most dangerously dark days. Even on those dark days, my curiosity asked me “what if there is something better?”, and my sacred rebellion told me “the worst people you’ve ever met don’t get to have this much power over you”.
The final trait I will say that has aided me in my journey, is simply courage – and as a reminder, courage does not mean a lack of fear. Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. I have been afraid my entire life. I was deathly afraid of demons lurking in the dark, to the degree of not being able to sleep alone with the lights off until a few years ago. I had a serious panic disorder for several years after my mother died when I was 16. I have not known what I’m doing, the entire time. I do it anyway. With patience for myself as I figure it out. With congratulations towards myself for the little moments of healing and growth. I do it anyway. I have massive fear of rejection, I was taught to experience shame and guilt in every aspect of my existence, and I am still here, and still expanding.

My best advice on how to develop these is to first intentionally develop your own values (what sorts of people, places, and things make your heart flutter? Why? What makes you feel injustice? Why? Who do you respect and align with? The people who judge you, who make you feel small—do you even respect how they show up and how they treat people? Would you trade your life for theirs?) and the second piece of advice that I have is to practice the art of “giving up”. If your starting point in life is nowhere near where you’d like to be, staying on the right course requires you to give up on things many times. Is your hometown draining you? Explore more places. Is that program not aligned with your values or the life you are hoping to bring in for yourself? Let it go and become curious about your next options. Is that relationship draining you and creating a future that doesn’t align with you? Release it. Be single and enjoy the solitude while you recalibrate to your needs and desires. Our culture has an obsession with “already knowing” before experiencing things, but life is about experiencing and becoming. These things that I have continuously needed to release did not mean less just because they weren’t forever. There is always so much to learn from an experience, and love is never wasted. It will always come back to you in another form.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

I see in a lot of people’s stories that they had that one parent or teacher or professor that really inspired them, connected them to resources, kept them on their path, and did not allow them to give up on themselves. This has not been the case for me. Rather than a lot of support from one or two elders, I have had small moments of help from many people. My siblings and myself have relayed information and shared resources with each other as we have been slowly figuring things out for ourselves; I have asked seemingly silly questions at countless reception desks and information centers; I have listened to bits of advice coming through here and there from countless strangers; I have looked up to cartoon characters and archetypes and concepts. I have always had just enough resources to have a roof over my head and to eat and stay clean and clothed largely because of my peers. I clumsily found jobs through friends, and my past bosses would keep me on simply because I am kind and positive and they have valued that about me even though my quirky behavior has often been a challenge for them. My siblings, the friends I’ve made over the years, and individuals in my audience come through in so many ways. Offering me a place to sleep, donations and tips, knowledge on resources, forwarding me opportunities, booking tarot readings. It’s as if my real parents are the universe itself.

What people don’t tend to realize about me is that I was born metaphorically in a ditch while most people seem to be born on metaphorical land. What has gotten me to finally be on land, and has helped me to thrive more and more over the years really has been my authenticity. I show up as myself. I have been turned away and turned down so many times in life, but showing up authentically is what has gotten me to where I am. My friendships and relationships, and my platform have all developed because of my authenticity, not despite it. This is why I am able to go into this new project with blind faith, trusting that I will be supported; in leaving my home behind in order to go all-in on learning about the world, finding myself, and sharing any perspective and information with anyone who may be curious. I trust my community to come through for me, because community is the only way I have made it to this point.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/devinatticus
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@root_systems
• Other: Tik Tok:
  tiktok.com/@devin_atticus

  Linktree:
  linktr.ee/devinatticus

  Email:
  devinatticusinquiries@gmail.com