Yin and yang. One cannot exist without the other. Both, in perfect harmony, create the whole. 

Human beings are energetic creatures, each existing on their own unique point on the spectrum, adding up to a perfect mix of yin and yang. 

When we start restricting human beings to boxes and labels, we restrict their energetic flow from shining. One is both feminine and masculine, athletic, intellectual, social butterfly and pensive observer, dark and light. It’s the shadows that give something dimension. 

When you’ve grown up seeming to not fit perfectly into one box, you first don’t notice.. until you do. What comes intuitively and naturally to you is shown otherwise. 

That was at least, my experience. The tomboy girl is told she should be wearing dresses and doing ballet when she wants to play basketball. The first-generation American is told they don’t look or act “Armenian enough” to belong with their peers, but media tells them they’re not “American enough” to belong on the screen. And it doesn’t get better with age. My varsity basketball coach told me I couldn’t be captain while also performing piano concerts (and vice versa), and my acting coaches have told me I couldn’t be an artist with a degree in economics (to be fair, everyone else didn’t say the reverse wouldn’t work, they just told me I’d be throwing my life away). 

What happens to the kid who’s never fit neatly into any category? They keep trying, uncomfortable in every box. 

 Until they eventually flip the narrative. They fluidly embrace both the masculine and feminine, working on gender-fluid fashion projects with icons like Matthew Rolston, and create their own films on gender identity and expectations. They turn their athleticism into an asset; channeling their competitive drive, ability to remain calm under pressure, and push past their limits into their career in entertainment. 

They use their different educational and cultural experiences to add nuance to the roles they bring to life, adding in a color not seen by others, and creating more empathy through shared experiences in humanity. 

As artists, they find their voice. They bridge the gap that’s created divides and restrictions. They eventually become the examples they so desperately needed growing up. They feel enough as they are, finding beauty and dimension in the balance of yin and yang. 

 Art is a yin and yang. And I think our job as artists is to find and embrace that color in a world fixated on just black and white. In that color, we let humanity shine.