on whimsy
ep 9: a case for rewilding
One thing about me: I am whimsical AF.
As a kid, I wrote and illustrated fantastical stories. I ravaged Enid Blyton books the same way I ravaged this cake.
At my most unbridled—or perhaps my least bridled—I fall in love with everything. I am a hopeFUL romantic. Not just in relationships, but in the way I move through the world. My natural state is awe.
But here’s the funny thing about growing up: the same whimsy that’s adored in children gets pathologized in adults. What is imagination at 7 becomes naïveté at 30.
And yet, I still believe my naïveté is my superpower.
When I started Rootless, I didn’t know shit about business. Truly! I’d pause the narrated version of Shoe Dog every few minutes to ask my dad questions like, “Wait—what is equity?” Shoutout to my parents, my brother, and my best friends for teaching me business without flinching.
Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that you can learn anything (especially now, with the internet and AI), and skills aren’t the differentiator we think they are.
To me, what actually matters is your point of view. Your theory of change, the thing you believe in enough that your life orients around it.
The quiet animating force behind my theory of change is whimsy.
It’s what made me believe seaweed could change the world when our food, climate, and health systems were unraveling. It’s what made me think a food-as-medicine brand could help rewrite parts of the hormone health story in a world that thinks gummy vitamins will help you live long and healthy lives (they won’t). It’s what made me believe that hope is a strategy, not a delusion.
And yet, along the way to becoming an operator—learning cohort analyses, understanding CAC payback periods, building a unit-economically sound CPG company—I feel like I’ve hardened some of those soft, whimsical bits. I do wonder:
Is endless production a cancer for creation? Or is there a healthier relationship between the two—one that allows both to thrive?
Today, I’m trying to find a way to be both whimsical and efficient.
Soft and sharp.
A creative and an operator.
Because I do believe this is the tension of adulthood, entrepreneurship, and being alive under the tyranny of productivity: How do you nurture whimsy in a world that only rewards output?
How do you create for the sake of creation?
I write this from a little surf paradise in Punta Mita, where I’ve been surfing, eating tacos, spending quality time with my best friend Malini, haven’t worn a stitch of makeup, am covered in bug bites, and am inordinately happy. And a little feral.
So if you’ve made it this far, I’ll ask you the same question:
What is your relationship to play, to whimsy, to all things wonder?
How do you water your whimsy?
Because I’m trying to grow mine back. And maybe we can grow it together.
❤️