About The Author

Hi, my name is Janet Akselrud.

I’m 25. But I’ve lived so many stories already in this life. The depth of my experiences, of my travels, of my studies, my explorations- is vast, rich, immeasurable. You’d need 2 hours of uninterrupted conversation with me to get a glimpse of this depth (or you can just read this article), and then many more hours if you want to swim around in it.

I know things. I know things many people do not know. And many people do not know I know them.

I know the true essence of Argentine tango dance. Most people know the stage version, the commercialized version, the red dress, the heels, the sensuality. I know the truth. I know the dance and the history, I know the point- the one that extends far beyond the dance- the essence that is not just of the dance but is an essence of all of life. The difference is in the comparison between a cut flower and one that still has its roots in the ground.

I know what math is. What math REALLY is. Not the story they told you in elementary school, or middle school, or high school. Not the memorization of terminology and formulas, not the likeness of math to science. I know the truth. The one that screams real math is an art that education never let you play with. It’s the same as if kids were made to learn color theory for years before being given access to paper and crayons. You never got to touch the crayons, I have. You decided the crayons don’t belong in your hands because color theory was hard. I know color theory never should have been a pre-requisite for the crayons.

I know true wilderness- the one you might think is confined to books and movies about societies from centuries ago- the middle of nowhere in Siberia undisturbed type of wilderness. I know what it means to cook food on a fire, to let the whole forest be your bathroom, to wash your hands in the river (the same river that took the life of a family friend). I know streams that were safe to drink from and bushes of blueberries that were safe to pick from. I know the taste of pine nuts that my grandma roasted from pine cones that my grandpa gathered by climbing a pine tree with a knife. I know the truth. That all of this isn’t far away, it’s not unimaginable, it doesn’t just pertain to a time unreachable from the one we currently find ourselves in. I can still reach it.

I know the view of an uninhibited night sky. The one that lets you feel the vastness of space and brings on existential dread about your place in the universe. The view that likewise reveals how societal rules are not a given. The rules don’t exist in the forest, they’re not written in the stars. They exist only because we choose to agree to abide by them – and in the grand scheme of things we’re safe to choose to disagree (I was 7 or 9). I know this not just logically, I know it as a wordless feeling in my heart, etched into me by that same forest and those same stars.

I know what it’s like to walk around scared of being alive. What it’s like to be kept safe by the fear of pain that is stronger than the desire to die (I was in middle school). I know what it’s like to have a panic attack every single day for a month (I was in high school). I know what it’s like to give up over and over on the things that society deems to be important in the moments when it feels like my entire body is shaking and my blood is burning. And also in the times when it’s not. I know what it’s like to give up on the things society deems important while I feel well in my body, mind, and soul, because I’ve already gotten further than I ever thought I would. I’ve done enough. So why not give up- on achievements someone else defined, on being reasonable in an average person’s eyes?

I know what it’s like to almost join “not a cult”, to be brainwashed in the span of 3 days. To fry my brain, erase everything I know about myself, and have to start again. I know. What it’s like. That was 4 years ago. Because of it I know the truth of how easy it is to be brainwashed. That it can take as little as 3 days, that it can happen from the comfort of your own home. I know how hard it is when you’ve lost pieces of yourself you didn’t mean to lose. When you don’t know who you are, where you are, or what you are. When the only thing you know is THAT you are. I know in such moments, experiments help. Trying one thing at a time, listening, does any part of me say “yes”? I have learned over and over that it’s true: you don’t need to know where you’re going in order to be able to find your way.

Each time I’ve found myself in complete dark, I found a new way to get back to the light. And in many facets, aspects, and contexts, I have learned to love the dark I once feared. The funny thing is, physically, I don’t see pure darkness. When I close my eyes and look past my eyelids, I see static, blue, purple. When I focus my attention on my mind’s eye (where my visual imagination lives), I see all sorts of 3d images, entire shows and storylines. Sometimes the images can be violent or scary. When I was younger I wouldn’t let my imagination be free because I thought it could hurt me. But I know the truth now. Any monster or demon that makes an appearance is safe, because it’s also made up of me. Sometimes the light of younger me wants to scare me just for fun so she puts on a giant grizzly bear costume and runs at me. I laugh “haha, so scary, good job”, she laughs too, and we move on.

I know the power of the story we tell, about the things we see, about the world we live in. I know the beauty and excitement of a blank page. I know the power of making marks, writing about a myriad of different things in a myriad of different ways. I’ve hand written thousands of pages of journal entries. I’ve spent over 10,000 hours writing outside of school assignments. I KNOW that writing is magic. It is the act of changing energy into matter. The pen is the wand, the emotions and thoughts are the energy, the marks on the page are the matter. Writing has unscrambled thoughts and emotions that at one point I physically couldn’t share. Writing has allowed me to escape school when I didn’t want to be there. Writing helps me remember when I find I forget. And sometimes… it seems… physically writing creates some of the life that I have.

I know the truth that experimenting with writing, or trying small new things, or doing things in small new ways, is enough. I know that physically building new neural pathways in our brains via doing these things, can be fun. I’ve done it for myself. I called it “practicing creativity” and showed up like a warrior engaged in meaningful rebellion. I continue doing it. I know the truth that practicing creativity IS an act of meaningful rebellion in our world.

There’s more than this too. But my point, or one of them, is that the colorfulness, joy, creativity, curiosity, love of life, belief in magic, that you sometimes see in me. It doesn’t just come from innocence. It comes from depth. From Study. From experience. From strength. It comes from looking to bring each of these things back each of the times I’ve lost them, each of the times I’ve given up on wanting to do life without them.

So you can trust me. You can trust that these truths make their way into everything I create. When you read something I write, or do a writing experiment that I curate. When you work with me, let me guide you in a personal creative writing journey, this is the background that you get. Allow me to be this for you. A guardian of the creative realm who opens the doors wider for you to come in.

Thank you for reading.

Here’s where you can find me:

*If you order a decorated creativity notebook before October 1st, I will personally email you a free curated writing experiment of your choice.

  • Oh and, psssttt, I have a YouTube Channel. It’s unscheduled organized chaos, or complete chaos really. But It’s a cozy corner of the internet, non high dopamine content, where we drink tea and move at the real pace of life (or sometimes I dance, or sing…)
  • Curious about working with me now or in the future? Fill in this interest form.