I was trapped by an essentially-useless passport and an inconvenient ancestry. To break free and survive on my own as a creative I had to be razor sharp.

Whether a brand needed 'conceptual' art-direction or 'practical' design, print, web, or 2D animation, insight into the actual creative challenge (and the software to solve it) became a matter of survival.

"I slept next to my PD170 under African thorn trees that filtered the Milky Way. Designed motion graphics for Europe's freshest start-ups between Brooklyn couch-surfs."

Settling on freelance video while bouncing between Capetonian dive bars and London's Shard, cutting everything from Volvo campaigns (I had no business taking on) to Olympic edits in Leicester Square took laser focus.

Bungee jumping the world's tallest, slapped bass in front of thousands, surviving student visa rejections (only just) and nailing major ambitions in academia from BAs to MAs. I started realising almost anything was possible as long as I paid close enough attention.

The final piece of the puzzle was stumbling onto centuries-old meditation theory and practice as light-weight, essentially-free, but crazy profound techniques to gain deeper levels of attention, insight, and a sense of the 'only true freedoms actually available to us'.

Using these practices to uncover the poor ideas and bad stories hiding in plain sight opened up new worlds to me: life was a moment, as they say. Only one moment, one precious immediate mystery to focus on completely, that's where freedom sat. My software and video-soaked brain saw it clearly:

"Life was a playhead, not a timeline."

Today, from my North London home studio, I'm trusted with the editing and craft of video, motion graphics, and story for some of the world's most influential, while plummeting down exhilarating contemplative rabbit holes.

Hands-on creative storytelling and practical mental well-being have become my day-to-day.

'The Playheads' is a professional creative video community integrating contemplative inquiry with practical creative excellence.

"The same skills and techniques that make us masters of cutting, key-framing, and reframing can free us from the stories we tell ourselves, and that's the most liberating realisation a storyteller can have."