Looking backwards.
I joke and call it my superhero origin story, but I love looking back on my past. It helps me realize why I am the person I am today.
The first film I ever saw, my earliest memory was my dad taking me to see Silent Running with Bruce Dern. A science fiction movie with an ecological message. This guy was carrying the last trees on Earth in these giant hydroponic domes, and he was instructed by Earth to destroy them. He and these robots go renegade, taking the last surviving plants through space.
That movie had a deep effect on me. Whenever I see the poster, it hits. It gave me two things: a fascination with science fiction, and a fascination with nature.
When I think about my love of cannabis, I think that picture might be the connecting tissue. Futurism and nature – that’s cannabis to me. It links back to all the science fiction, to my love of Afrofuturism, and to the way I’ve always looked at life. That’s where it all started.
Because of that, I understand myself better. I can dig deeper into who Otis is. I’ve discovered the things I love most about myself: my boundless imagination, my love of the future, my love of technology.
I believe we’re heading toward a point where technology, nature, and us all hit a singularity. If that happens, we’re in for some very interesting times. That’s why I love experimenting, why I talk about cannabis and its possibilities. That movie, that moment – it all led me here.
That’s why I am who I am and why I say what I say.
This article is part of The Human Collective. Each week we take a prompt and create a playlist and accompanying articles. This week we’re wondering: what’s been fascinating you lately? Check out the playlist: Songs That Fascinate You. Learn more about The Human Collective here.
About the Curators
Otis Galloway
My name is Otis Galloway, and I am a beautiful mess.
- I believe in music as a powerful agent of healing.
- I believe a cassette mixtape can carry powerful emotional gravity that tells stories that span generations, worlds and universes.
- I believe in travel, love, cooking, street food, cold beer and gelato.
- I believe in conversations that go until the sun comes up.
- I believe love comes in a multitude of forms.
- I believe in large kitchens and cooking huge dinners for friends.
- I believe we have so much to learn from one another.
- I believe in growing more hemp, cannabis and bamboo.
- I believe we should say, ‘I Love You’ more often.
- I believe we need more justice for the people.
- I believe we can do better, and should do better.
- I believe in a diverse, colourful world full of happy, realized, loving people.
- I believe gyoza is love.
- I believe in musicto.
Find me here: