We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tyler Tittle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tyler, so many exciting things to discuss, we can’t wait. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our readers. So, maybe we can start by discussing optimism and where your optimism comes from?
Go find somewhere in the middle of nature and take a sharp, deep breath and just look around you. Listen to the birds chirp and dance in the branches above, the scuttling of squirrels and chipmunks across the ground. There is such beauty in the world around each of us that if we just take a moment and unplug, we are almost reborn in the stillness that brings. I draw a lot of my optimism in the patterns of nature and the ways the plants and animals react to not just humans, but storms, and the changing of the seasons.
Suffering is a universal language, one that does not need translation and is one we all recognize just by looking into another’s eyes. Hope is another universal language, one that suffering tries to extinguish, but one that always prevails. I think a lot of my pessimism originated from feeling alienated and alone in my suffering and as I grew and connected with individuals across the world, so did my pessimism grow into optimism that this too shall pass, it may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.
Surrounding myself with individuals who have struggled but who have made the decision to not escape from their pain and suffering, but use those experiences to understand themselves on deeper levels through therapy and different mindful practices has been another crucial pillar of support for optimism in my life.
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?
I am Tyler and I am from a little suburb outside of Cincinnati. I have been a creative writer since I was a younger lad and over the last couple of years I decided to take that talent and start sharing it with the world through graphic design, spoken performances, and self-publication.
The themes of my poetry range but they usually end up in the darker, more taboo areas of life and the things we think but don’t become vocal about. I think there are bits of my work that will resonate with just about every reader, because we all experience pain, we all experience grief, and we all experience suffering.
The most exciting part of this journey has been meeting other creative writers, authors, and artists. The community of creatives, especially over on TikTok which is where I share majority of my work, is amazing. I love that a platform like TikTok can bring so many voices together to create masterpieces.
Outside of the creative writing and the spoken performances, I have been developing and laying the foundations for a venture to bring alternative pathways and consultations to every day people. More announcements will come later this year, so stay tuned!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think my technical and mechanical aptitude has been my ace-in-the-sleeve for most of my career. I have always been quick at learning new things, and very adept at being able to figure things out or pull information from out of nowhere.
The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone and everyone is that you have a very powerful tool at your disposal: the internet. You can learn new skills, you can find new information, you can learn new languages, you can watch tutorials, you can watch a video on how to replace a wheel bearing on your scooter; point is, this tool is your most powerful asset outside of the brain in your noggin.
The side-piece of that advice, is properly utilizing your noggin. We live in a wild and wonky day in age where you can easily deep-fake things, so it is up to you to use your discernment with anything you consume. Double check the authors resources, try to see why they came up to the conclusion they did, this is called critical thinking and it’s lacking these days.
Anyone can do this, it takes patience and time, yeah, but everyone is capable of art and I think everyone should pursue some form of art.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I unplug. I let my friends and family know that “Hey, I am doing okay but I need to just take a little break from everything. Check in on me tomorrow please,” and I unplug. I just turn everything off in terms of “outside world” communication. I stop getting on social media, I stop getting on the phone, and I go open my couch and pull out a puzzle, or I go grab a book and get lost in something else.
I think we should make this part of our weekly routine, especially when most of our time is spent on screens.
Life is hard sometimes, especially if you struggle with chronic illness or mental illness. Just being a human being is hard. I think remembering that we are only human, we are not perfect, and all of that is okay is beneficial as well.
But, most of all: b r e a t h e.
I cannot emphasize that enough, just breathe. If you can, double up on that and go outside and just take a big, fat, deep breath of outside air. It helps.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @azurewolf8291
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thirdeyety/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@azurewolf8291
Image Credits
Tyler Steven Tittle
