Katieann Vogel, an ocean poet, speaks with Kahran this week on the path from computer science to becoming an ocean poet, what it means to spend your life in nature and creating, and how to find a sense of stability and centeredness.
You can find Katieann on her website, https://vogelian.com/
Theme music is by Akshay Ramuhalli, you find him @btrptmusic. Editing by @beatnyk.
Coming out of these strange, isolated years, I'm very tuned into literally just how people are speaking. Is somebody speaking fast? Is somebody speaking slowly? I hear the passion.
It wasn't even the word choice — it was the tone and the mood of the conversation. The mood and the tone is extremely inviting.
Hi, I'm Divya. Hi, I'm Karn. And this is... Thinking. On Thinking.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Thinking On Thinking. This week, we talk with Katie Ann Vogel, and it's an incredible conversation. We talk about the creative process, what it means to be a poet, what it means to find your path. Katie Ann is someone who has explored so many different parts of life,
having been an outdoor adventure guide, and even building a professional limerick writing business early in her career. It's an incredible conversation, and we can't wait for you to hear it. Your podcast is amazing, so, yeah, I'm like... Well, I was just gonna ask what your favorite episode is.
Do you have a favorite episode yet? Yes, I have a favorite. It's one I went back to, so I guess that's why it makes it my favorite. I don't know if she's been on multiple times with Sam Arnie. Yeah, yeah, that was like two episodes ago, yeah.
Yeah, it was very recent. Yeah, just a very, very inspiring presence and person, and it was just exciting to hear how you two think about thinking. Surprise, surprise. Yeah, she was an interesting one because she wrote a book when she was like 12,
which was like a New York Times bestseller. I think no, she wrote it when she was 10, and so it was a bestseller when she was 12. And it would just be so crazy to have that kind of success so early in life. Was it the success parts that you found so interesting? That was, I mean, it was such an interesting conversation,
but I just felt like some of her thoughts on success were so interesting to me. I think for me, this is, we'll speak to where I'm at in my life. I think even just coming out of the past for kind of strange, isolated years and maybe being a poet as well, right now I'm very tuned into literally just how people are speaking. So is somebody speaking fast?
Is somebody speaking slowly? And I could just, I guess what fascinated me was I just heard a lot of passion and how you two were speaking to each other. And for whatever reason, I was really, really drawn in by that. That's so interesting.
Yeah. So not even so much the word choice is what you're saying, right? It's like the way of speaking is kind of what you're saying, right? Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, like not the vocabulary, not the diction, but it's like the tone and the mood of the conversation. And I just, I feel like that's something that happens a lot on this podcast. The mood and the tone is extremely inviting and a little bit different than anything else I'm listening to. And I think I'm really, really drawn to that right now.
You know, what am I hearing here that I literally couldn't hear anywhere else? And I feel like that happens a lot when you have these conversations. That's really cool. I've been kind of worried. I've been telling them that I feel like we need to have some unifying threads.
So at first I was like, oh, I'm going to ask everyone about identity. And then it just didn't work because not everyone thinks about identity the way I think about identity. Whereas I'm not sure if you heard some of those episodes, but I feel like there's almost like an artist identity, which I feel like is part of, for me at least, of being an artist.
I feel like I have to, I don't know, both grow into that identity, but then also grow that identity within me. There was so interesting talking to Sam because it just felt like Sam was not so much in that identity place. She was not so worried about it. It almost felt like to her that looking for an identity wasn't even a thing.
Do you feel like resonance with that? I mean, as an artist yourself, do you feel like it's an identity to you? Or it's like, I don't know, how do you feel about it? Yeah, I think I aspire to not think about it so much. I think the reality of my life is thinking on thinking and like my aspiration would be like,
not thinking about not thinking. I think where I'm at at the moment is that I try to use my fixations and preoccupations or obsessions about identity, for example, as artistic tools. So I try to identify the thing I'm interested in and either identify, okay, is this something I want to take an actionable step to develop in my me life
of the physical body of myself? Or is this more of an art project that I am painting about or writing about? And I think that helps me not kind of spin on an endless loop about it. Or, you know, I could leave it alone, but I guess it helps for me to identify when I'm hung up on anything.
It could be identity. It could be. Was it fair to say if it's an art project, it's more like an experiment and then that's like less of a big deal? Wow, that sounds right. I like that. Can I use that?
I like that a lot. How about for you? I'm curious. Well, at least for me, it feels like there are certain things that are like good things to do or the right thing to do. I think it starts to become these big questions of like, oh, if I do that,
will I not be a good person? Or if I do that, will I still not be the person I think I am? I was thinking about it earlier today that if people are crossing, like pedestrians are crossing and I'm cycling, I'll try not to go, even if I'm clear that I'm not going to hit them because I really don't like the way cyclists
will take cutoff pedestrians in New York City. And I was thinking about where, like, for me, it's almost become an identity thing where I'm like, oh, I can't be, it would be hypocritical of me to run this red light because I would scold someone who did this. And I was like, well, who cares really?
Well, I'm curious. Who does care? Like, what happens for you? Like, who does care? I mean, because obviously somebody does and it's you, but I wonder what in your head is instructing you to care, you know,
what are the influences that say, I need to be very rigid about this with myself? I think for me, being hypocritical just feels like the worst, right? I feel like it undermines your credibility and it means you're someone who can't be trusted. That makes a lot of sense.
So I have like really strong feelings about like, like people who are not true to themselves, right? If you can like be differently in all these different situations, that just feels to me like really wrong. Like you should understand yourself. That is like the great work of life is to understand yourself well enough
that you can do these things like be consistent. But then I like, I know that's an impossible standard, right? Like we cannot all be consistent all the time. Like sometimes you're tired. Sometimes it's whatever happens, you know, you're not the perfect parent
because you were frustrated that day and you yell at your child, right? There's a million ways we're not going to be perfectly consistent or perfectly the person we want to be. I don't know. Sometimes it's very hard for me to like accept that.
Well, yeah, yes. I think your extrapolation is appropriate. And it's just interesting to me that, you know, when I asked you, what are the influences that tell you you must be consistent? I guess I was expecting you to say like my parents said this
or the place I grew up said this. And it's so interesting that there's this kind of amorphous idealistic angel that or devil that is sitting. It feels like morality. Yeah.
It's like it's a moral thing. Yeah. Yeah. Does that resonate with you? Like do you feel that way?
And sometimes in these questions it doesn't really reach that moral dimension. I have gone on a long morality journey in my life. I think just the way I was raised religiously and spiritually. And so that is a question I asked myself a lot.
But at the moment it doesn't at the moment it doesn't strike me as moral. So it's interesting that that it rings really moral for you. Yeah. Because I think the thing that I struggle with is like almost questions of shame, right?
Where like it would feel shameful to not do these things or to like behave in that way. That makes sense to me. But see that's interesting in a way. You know, of course, shame and morality are so intertwined. But just in the moment for me there and maybe this is something I'm doing to help
myself work through these emotional things. I feel a separation a bit between morality and shame. I think I've done this to again help myself like work through whatever I'm working through. But I shame for me, I think these days is almost like sneezing or something. It's almost like in my brain like a shame light goes on and it's just like, OK,
bless you move on. And oh wow. So you're like, oh, you can acknowledge it's there and kind of accept it. Yeah. Yeah.
Because I think for me, I am a person who has kind of an allergic reaction to any emotion, especially a negative emotion. And so I've learned for myself to be kind of my own anti histamine. You know, it's like, OK, yep, I see. I got it emotion, like make a decision about it and then just move on.
That's great. I mean, honestly, like it feels like the theories I read and like some of the things that really resonate with me, it's like the way to deal with your emotions or to engage with your emotions is like to acknowledge them and validate them for yourself. That this is legitimate to be feeling this way. And then if at all possible, like kind of engage with it or kind of return to what you were doing.
It sounds like you really do that. God bless. I'm down in my therapist. I think those are the two people we have to thank. And I will say a specific book that I have two specific books that were helpful to me.
Have you heard of the chemistry of joy workbook? No. This is my understanding. It's kind of a classic mental health workbook, whether for anxiety or depression. Kind of focuses in on those kind of what you're saying.
Those interrupting those pathways that it helps to kind of take a look at that pathway and kind of make decisions about it. And then another, I'm a big fan of workbooks, apparently, very, very helpful on my journey. The book Mind Over Mood. Oh, I don't know this one either. These are, well, I don't, chemistry of joy, I don't think is like thick, but mind over mood looks like whatever, like,
hooked on phonics, like thick workbook you had is like an elementary schooler. And it's kind of that same thing. It kind of puts a numerical assessment to things that you're thinking or feeling and then lets you look at things in a bit of a slowed down way. So I will credit those books as well. Do you feel like you're someone who like, like structured learning works well for?
Or do you even feel like that is structured learning? Or do you feel like, I don't know, because you can do it on your own time, but I guess it's somewhat structured because it's in a form. I feel like I go to different things for different learnings. I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this as well. I feel like for me, a big teacher in my life and a big part of my professional life and my personal life has been being in the outdoors and also creating art or enjoying art.
And I feel like a lot of being in the outdoors and being an artist or enjoying art is unstructured. It's so vital to both of those experiences to just take everything in and be improvisational about whatever is happening and to really fully accept whatever is happening. But in art as well as outdoor work, as well as anything else, there's also technical skills and experience that I feel like for me, structured learning is really good. So there's that kind of disciplined aspect of learning and the experiential side. And I feel like for me, I get the best sense of how something works when I can touch both of those.
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Like you never found creating art to be like it was always an outlet for you, if you will. Is that fair? Is that the right way to say it? Like I was just trying to think about that. Yeah, I think it is. Well, I mean, it depends on the art, I guess. I don't remember. What kind of art do you create for, yeah.
Well, there was a period of time in my life when I ran a wildly successful limb rick writing business. Not kidding you. There was one, I think it was just a few years in my life, but one season where this felt more commercial than expressive, for example. I had clients that, you know, okay, I want a limb rick to give my aunt because it's her birthday, or I have limb rick for my cousin for Hanukkah or whatever it is. And so that there was like money and a task attached to that.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's so interesting. And you made them rhyme. Sure, yeah. Or you made like also, I mean, I remember some of your limb ricks. Unless requested otherwise, yes. Wow. So you're being creative on demand and you mentioned it.
Yeah, I think for some ways, I can say for like limb rick, I can be creative on demand, graphic design. I feel like, you know, kind of for me, smaller things, like if I were to write like a short song or a short, like if it's, I don't know, if something is like a minute long in a metaphorical sense, that is like where I can be commercially successful about it. Or like easily prolific. Is that maybe? Yeah, prolific. Yeah, yeah. And then I think the things where I can't, I guess I'm talking about like timelines and deadlines.
I think I can be deadline for shorter things, but often I am surprised about if I'm creating something for myself, I'm usually surprised about how long or short of time it takes to create. Interesting. I feel like when I'm creating things, I don't know, I feel it felt a lot of resonance what you were saying just now, because like creating short things is very easy to me. Like I can write short poetry, I'll just write it, right?
And for me, most of my artistic outputs are in words. But for longer form, it's just like it really can be hard. And I, for some reason, I don't look at the short form as valuable. Like I have a lot of trouble appreciating my shorter form works, because I'm like, oh, it didn't take me that long. It's not that cool. Like I should revise it more. Like, I was curious, do you feel that way? You kind of don't judge your art.
Hopefully you do. Well, you're talking to me. You've caught me at like, I'm so happy we didn't do this like last year. I feel like a lot has happened for me. I sound to myself at least so centered in the moment. Wow. You sound great. Thank you so much.
I feel like I was going to ask you to do an introduction at the end, but I feel like we keep like running into your background that we really need to have if you're doing. So maybe you answer the question first. I'm asking you to give yourself an introduction. Any good. Yeah. I like your question about do I feel like my shorter, smaller works have value.
Yeah. And I think I actually fall. I'm too precious about my small works. I often will become kind of so either enamored with these little things I've done that I won't push myself to make to keep going. And like, that's not the final thing. Like that cute little thing you did, you're actually capable of more.
So I actually think I am overly precious about, you know, I'll make a small, I like to use oil pastels. And I'll make a very small piece of art, you know, five inch by five inch or something. And I'm like, Oh, it's perfect. And it's like, okay, maybe like get a bigger canvas and try something bigger. But, but that so yeah, to your point, I guess I'm undervaluing the little thing.
Well, that's what I wonder. Yeah. Because why would you need to make it bigger? So funny. Yeah.
Maybe it's exactly your bottom. I guess I do. That's interesting. Yeah. But you feel like you really appreciate them, at least is the feeling you feel about them.
Like you don't feel like, like, like working with Divya for as long as I have now, I, she's really helped me realize that I have this tendency to be like, Oh, I made it really easily. Anyone could do that. And it's like, no, just because it's something I could make easily doesn't mean other people have that capability or it's not. I realize that now, but it doesn't sound like you have that same struggle. Like that's not how you're, you're not undervaluing your small works because of that.
You don't think they're easy because it was easy for you or you don't think they're not value. Well, you know, I think it's, I have for whatever reason, kind of a dual view. I think usually I do think anybody could make something. And then I also realized that anybody didn't, you know, I did like it's like when. Oh, that's a really cool way of thinking.
Yeah, just a dual way to look at something. Because I wind up thinking that sometimes about works of art that I experience, I go, I could have made that. And then it's like, you know, but I didn't that person trained or that person put in the work to get where they got in whatever way and they succeeded. And that success is amazing. So yeah, I think applying that to myself is helpful too.
I did hear a podcast a while ago where they talk specifically about that emotion and as an artist, that emotion. And it does tell you something about at least like yourself as an artist, right? Because it's not like every piece of art you look at and you're like, oh, I could have done that, but there'll be certain ones and there'll be, I don't know. And first I don't remember it well enough to recount it for you, but it tells you something about yourself and how you might. Yeah, I'd be curious if that emotion had a name either in English or another language, you know.
It's not even, I mean, it's like the reckoning. Is it called jealousy? Yeah. Maybe it's called jealousy. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to put it in your mouth. I mean, you may have just solved the mystery.
Well, I think, yeah, it might just be jealousy. I think what I was reaching for was something like, it's like a twist on jealousy. And I think there's, I'm too embarrassed to say this out loud. There's a word that I can't pronounce that I see like written about in popular culture all the time that I think is very popular right now. Shadenfreude.
Oh, Shadenfreude. What is that? And I feel like it's related to what we're saying, but is that not related to what we're saying? Can you just explain it to me? It's not, it's kind of, it's, so I know it because there was a musical called Avenue Q when I moved to New York. Have you ever heard of Avenue Q?
I've heard of it and never seen it. Okay, so Avenue Q has puppets for like half of the characters in it. Part of the conceit of Avenue Q. And the puppets at one point sing this song called Shadenfreude and it's a German word. And so it's taking pleasure in other people's pain or misfortune.
And so, yes, they're singing it about like how sometimes you feel bad about it or do you feel bad? Do you just find yourself being like, ha ha ha. And like, yeah. So I feel like it's related because... I see what you're saying. Yeah.
The feeling I'm describing is feeling kind of neutral. Like not even being happy for somebody's success. I think that's a different thing. But I think as an artist or even as a person, just being able to feel neutrally happy without mixing your own self and ego in somebody's success. Maybe that's literally just being happy for someone.
I might be making this, but as this is a lot of the work I do as a writer, I'd be curious to hear if you do all. I spend a lot of time, like instead of, you know, with paints mixing red and blue and white to make some sort of lavender. You know, you play with all the words and say, okay, is that a different thing or is it not? Oh, how interesting. So you find like sometimes you're chasing nuance, like to think of the different... Oh, that's so interesting.
Yeah. And different languages do it so well. And so it's kind of fun if you're working in a specific language, you say, okay, that other language does this well. How would I say that in this language? Oh, how cool. But as someone who doesn't speak the language, how do you do that?
Well, I think people can speak most languages, right? I mean... How many languages do you speak? You know, I only speak a few well, but if I think if a person can speak two languages, averagely, which is probably where I'm at, you can kind of make enough patterns together that you can at least amuse yourself with kind of teasing out little puzzles of other languages.
So maybe I can't speak it at all, but I can make... Could you give me an example? Yeah. Yeah. Let me... Well, this, you know, Shoyd and Freud, is that it? You just taught me that.
And my last name is Fogel. It's a German word for bird. So you would think I would speak German. I do not. Yeah.
Or maybe you would think I speak German. I don't know. So without even knowing too much German, I guess I just start with how the word makes me feel coming from my native languages, which are Spanish, English and Czech. And so I guess I kind of put it through my own filters of do these words, does those sounds, not even words, have any association for me? And so I hear Freud and I think of...
Why can I think of the famous psychoanalyst? Freud. Freud. Okay. Yeah.
Okay. So I just, that's what I think of. And then Shoyd, I don't really have any... I guess the way the word is written, I think is S-C-H-A-D-A, that's right. Yeah.
Or there's an E in there too somewhere. Yeah, S-C-H-E-A or maybe... When I was reading it and didn't know how to pronounce it, it kind of looked like shady to me. Yeah. So I guess in my head, my own kind of linguistic and cultural biases led me to, in my head, just make this kind of connotative assumption that it was like somebody's being a shady psychoanalyst, which is not at all what the word is.
But when I learn what the word is, I can amuse myself and say, okay, I was wrong, but not all the way wrong. You know? Yeah. So maybe that works best with Germanic and romance languages and wouldn't... Because you're a multilingual, so I wonder if there's bridges.
Not nearly as well as you. I mean, I feel like I can speak like English and some amount of Spanish, but like really that's it. I cannot speak any Hindi or Punjabi, which are my mother tongues. I mean, maybe a little bit of Hindi at this point because I've done a lot of Duolingo, but not like a credible amount. But it's just interesting to hear you because I don't know if I told you...
Actually, I'm pretty sure I did tell you, but last summer I went to a poetry workshop in Boulder and I ended up working with this person who had us write in books. He had us write in languages that we hadn't mastered. And so we were writing poetry in all of these foreign languages and it felt so alien and difficult to me. But I think I wasn't able to bring a mindset like you kind of just had, which was let me tease out what I know. And also, so much of language is an interpretation, right?
Like we have a certain cultural context that we're bringing to bear to say like, oh, you know, a cup means this. Now, did a cup mean this like 200 years ago? No, there was a different mental image of what a cup is. And so I feel like in some ways like you're doing a similar thing, you're unpacking the definition of the word in the context that you have. And then that maybe context has full meaning of the word or it doesn't.
That's really interesting. I feel like that's part of like your artistic voice. Yeah, and I think there can be a danger in that when taken too far, it can be arrogant and culturally appropriate. You know, if, okay, I could under, you know, I can make of this other language, whatever I want, or I can make of my own language, whatever I want. That's not going to be everyone's experience or benefit oneself or anyone. But I think there is, I mean, that's where the art and the beauty of being an artist in whatever medium, you know, you have to, we take up space on this earth.
We have a voice, we have a vision, and we are allotted that. So I can take up my own amount of space in the way I see things or the way I hear things. And just as you said, it changes with time anyway. So it can be really fun to twist it. It's just interesting the way you answered me, right?
Like that you almost think about it as part of kind of living your fullest or truest self almost is like being true to yourself in that way. If I may. Yeah, in a weird way kind of reminds me of, I think I'm revealing where I have my morality judgments about stopping for cyclists. That's what I was just thinking. Yeah, for me, I didn't realize it even, but I think this is where the little devil sits on my shoulder and says, I don't even know.
But it's like, this is the way to think kind of. It's interesting because I feel like in my conversations with Divya, she almost has a similar, I don't know if we will call it a devil or an angel, but being like, you must create things like you must produce art. And it's so important to her that it's very central to who she is. And it's just really interesting to me because for me, it's such a struggle to produce. Oh, it's so hard for me.
Like I have so many kind of reasons and I'll create so many things of like so many impediments to myself. Divya actually had a funny thing she said this morning where she's like, it's kind of amazing watching you sometimes because it's like you're a 200 pound weight on you, but you still manage sometimes every now and then. It's yeah, and it's so inspiring to me sometimes to hear people like just in the way you've managed, you have a very different relationship with creating things and with looking at, you know, what makes you feel like you've done useful things and what makes you feel like you're living, you know, as you said, the kind of like the space and taking up the space that you want to take up in this life. That's amazing. Well, and it's interesting as your when I hear you say you have this to or Divya, are you saying this 200 pound weight on you?
You know, I'm picturing it just as this big cartoon anvil. And I think, you know, if I were to visualize my own weights, for me, I think it would be 200 individual one pound weights that are like a minefield. And so I think part of the joy of talking artists to artists is seeing like, oh, like, I don't know, it's kind of all the same. And this looks easy for me or this looks easy for you, but we're kind of doing the same thing, you know, because you make to me, you make what you do and you're writing and your art look very easy, very effortless. But that's obviously not your experience, you know.
Yeah. And it's interesting. It's kind of goes back to what we were saying a few minutes ago that that I can write poetry or like do things that are almost like reactionary, if you will. Right. But like when I like want to sit down and work on these longer term projects, it's so difficult. But things that are very like small and like, you know, oh, this only took me five minutes that is just like, oh, that I don't worry about as much. But then now that I've spent more time with other artists, I've also realized even the fact I write a few poems every week or every month is just like, it's actually very prolific. Like, there's many people who don't write like that at all.
The whole like the whole phase as an artist of do you consider yourself an artist or a poet or a writer or whatever and clearing that hurdle and there is such a long time in life. It's different for everybody. I'm speaking for myself, I suppose, where, yeah, you're not actually producing a poem a week or something. And so you don't consider yourself a poet or an artist yet. And then at some point you kind of hopefully cross over if you want to and you're like, oh, yeah, I'm that. Maybe I'll grab that as a segue because I want to just be curious about it. Like, because, you know, as you know, obviously, no, but maybe I'll share for our listeners. Like we met on a hike in the woods right before college started.
It was amazing. We had an amazing time. And then later we both kind of shared the same advisor. He wasn't officially, I think either of our advisors. And I kind of knew us as person kind of like interested in computer science and like was doing some things there. I'm curious, like, when did you start to think about yourself as an artist? Were you already thinking about yourself as an artist in those days? Or was that kind of a journey? That is so funny. I, you know, this has been popping up. I've been seeing more and more college friends lately and my computer science days have been popping up more and more.
And the community kind of the circle I run in now would be surprised to hear that. So did I? Yeah, I considered myself as an artist then, but in a pretty aspirational way. You know, we also, you and I also knew each other as dancers. I don't know if that's like something you share. Yes. Yes. I feel you should give a little segue about the fact that Katie choreographed, I guess you didn't choreograph, you directed the dance. And choreographed.
Yeah. Sorry, you directed and choreographed multiple dances, but directed one major production that has like 300 people dancing in it. It's incredible. And like thousands of people come to watch it. The entire school comes to watch it. It's an incredible production. It was an amazing experience. I still remember that experience. The highlight of those years.
A little wild times, tough dance collective. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I definitely consider myself an artist and I actually studied calligraphy in at Tufts in undergraduate. And I kind of, I was studying a little bit of everything. So it was a history of the sea and ocean history major. And so I was studying, that was writing, it was nonfiction, but I was writing all the time. And then I was taking some literature courses and calligraphy courses and meanwhile spending a lot of time in the woods. And then when did you start computer science?
You know, it was to fulfill, I think it was sophomore year potentially. And my advisor said, well, you need a math credit. And I was like, no, thank you. And he said, why don't you try computer science? I actually, I think I tried a math course and it's not that I don't like math. I just think there are other things that captured my attention. And I took, started taking computer science courses. And I think just like there are patterns in art and poetry. I think the patterns in the computer science was something that I was easily able to pick up on. And I liked, I liked the technical and applicable product and kind of the scientific side of things. And I could more easily see at that time how to kind of commodify a computer science product than I understood at the time how to basically make a living from art.
So I was kind of diversifying my academic portfolio. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that was a huge thing. I remember when I was trying to decide my major, I was like, well, because I had taken, I had taken a lot of political science classes. I had taken, like, I, I can't remember if there was something where somehow there was like creative writing counted to like a fine art minor or something. There was something right. So I almost had done that. And I was like, but what are these is actually going to like be useful to me. So I ended up declaring as computer science and minoring in economics. I didn't know that. Wow. So you are very like 2009.
Yeah. I'm going to get a job that will make money. That is really, and here you are. I mean, you chose really well. Yeah. Well, I don't know. You could, because I thought the way I could think about it took me like 12 years to get to this point, right? Whereas maybe if I had indulged more of the like artistic sides of my personality, it wouldn't have taken me so long or been so hard.
You know, I don't know. I mean, wait, so but hold on. You didn't answer my question fully. So did you? So did you see you thought of yourself as an artist then, but you were like, I'm going to choose the like I'm going to choose things that diversify myself. Is that the right way to? Well, no, I think I just I've always felt about art that it's kind of the I'm struggling for a more clever metaphor. So I'll just say the umbrella that includes all things. So I think computer science can fall under art, you know, for me, like there can be so many influences in a person's life. And I think that umbrella can change, you know, art can fall under computer science as well, if that's how your mind is working on that day. So yeah, I think, yeah, I think different. It was never like as much of a dichotomy. Yeah, sorry if I may, like you weren't so much like, oh, I'm an artist or I'm something else, like I can just be I can create art as part of my life.
Yeah, I think you're teaching me something about myself in this conversation. Much like I kind of you can play with words and languages in a certain way, I guess I see art and science, for example, not so much as this or that two sides of a coin. I see there's different subjects form maybe the sides or individual cubes of a Rubik's cube and you can put all the cut you can solve the cube and say, OK, red is art and yellow is science and green is business, or you can kind of mix it up a bit and it's not as clear cut but it's still all there. And so I guess that's to say there. Yeah, I don't see it as much of a dichotomy. Yeah, that's really interesting. And also you don't feel like it necessarily should be in a certain way. I think it might be. Yeah, well, I think so it's funny. I'm a role that I play currently professionally. I work with a lot of university students in arts and sciences.
And I guess both what I would have found helpful and what I did find helpful when I was a university and high school student as well as what I'm seeing in students that I'm working with now is that it's much more helpful if the subject comes to meet the student whether or instead of the student going to meet the subject. So I think of it, you know, every person, they're just kind of their own world and they can do whatever amazing thing and deserve all the support that they need to accomplish that. And it's in my opinion not very necessary in the end to make it fit neatly in something, but it is along the way helpful to stop and touch different things so that you can kind of see what rubs off on you. The music is by Akshay Ramuhali of BTRPT Music. Editing is by Beatnik. Hi. I'm Katie Ann and I am an ocean poet and I have spent many years personally and professionally in the outdoors as an outdoor guide and educator as well as in the arts.
Doing calligraphy and poetry and visual art and some dance, a little bit of everything I guess. So ocean poet seems to sum it up whether it be creating my own work or leading expeditions or working with groups of people. That is who I am and what I do.