Learned Experience: A Finn Mercer Conversation

(Flame Beanie)

Editor's Note: This is a series of tapping into the minds of people around me to hear about their creative experiences and recent happenings in their lives. I look to uncover what’s been making them excited about life and some things they hold near and dear to their heart.

Background:

Over the weekend, I found myself contemplating what to do for the rest of the evening. With a full day of errands and surfing taking the energy out of me, I had no desire to go out, but I still had this urge to do something new, fresh, and exciting. I gave my friend Finn a call to see if he had any ideas of what to do. The creative one out of us two, Finn suggested we stay in and work on some canvases we had been putting off. An hour later, and a hardware store trip that took too long behind us, we were finally ready to get to painting.

You could say Finn is like the Leonardo Da Vinci of our group. What I mean is that Finn is always doing something or making something. Either through his love for the outdoors or recently working with mice in the UCLA Lab, you could call him a modern-day Renaissance man. I wanted to pick his brain about how he stays creatively engaged. Freshly back from a life-changing solo traveling experience through Japan, Finn has been glowing with this sense of childlike wonder. He has found and is downing the kool aid of life. Maybe this was a new job; maybe he found the secrets to life in Japan during one of those adventures through his new friends across the sea; maybe it was the beers we just had.

(Editor Note: This is a summarized version of an hour long conversation between Finn & myself. I pulled some of the questions from the conversations summarizing them the best I could)

(ANDREW) How Ya Feeling, you feeling good?

(Finn) Feeling good, feeling ready for this…

Before we start, the last 24 hours, without context, have been kind of crazy and remind me of why I am in the position I’m in right now and why I’m happy to be here. A lot has happened in the last four months: I quit my job, solo traveled to Japan, a breakup, and then started a new job. There’s been a lot of change in my life recently, and I feel very confident and I’m very happy with where I’m at now, and I just keep getting reminded through certain things about who I was, what was happening prior to those moments, and comparing myself to the person I was to who I am now. It sucks that I’m reminded a lot of that person I was, but I'm thankful to have that perspective. I’m thankful for the things I’ve learned, the person I'm becoming, and the people I surround myself with.

Honestly, that’s a really good way of looking at it. Speaking of change, where do you find the most growth?

The growth is through all the “new” I have been forced to face. The growth is in reminding myself and experiencing new things. Figuring out what makes me happy. Stepping away from the day-to-day and going to Japan alone was great for that. It gave me a second to breathe, think about my life outside of that, and figure out where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be. With that and applying it to my life being back, I’ve had a lot of really cool experiences being back with myself and friends; it’s been fucking amazing.

Truthfully, I haven’t felt anxiety in a long time. I inherently had anxiety all the time. Day to day, I was feeling that until I realized that was more situational than actually being me. Before this realization, I would have fallen back into old tendencies or thought about situations in a different way. Now I can kind of take myself out of it and carry myself in a different way. Now that I’ve learned, I just need to let go.

What’s been something tangible in Japan that showed this growth through experience?

Yea, I quit my job on Friday, flew out on Saturday, worked in a hostel, and this was my first big solo trip. I kind of did it on a whim. I was there for a month, came back on a Saturday, and started my new job on the following Monday. I’m a planner, as we know, and this trip was honestly very flowy. (There was a lot of unknown). Funny enough, the night I landed and connected to WiFi, I got a text saying that they had actually changed the hostel I would be working in. A lot of this trip was having moments of no control, but taking these moments and people I met as they came. I met so many cool people and went to so many amazing places by doing what I found uncomfortable.

I can plan and I can control as much as I want, but at the end of the day, things are just going to happen, and instead of having that barrier and trying to block those things, just take it as it comes and have it play out. Taking the small moments as they go.

I was told of the phrase Ichigo Ichie. 

Ichigo Ichie: is the concept of being present in each moment as "in this moment, an opportunity".

Quick story on this: There was one night I met up with a friend, and we sat across from this couple that kept looking at us and we started to talk. They spoke very little English, but two hours later, as we conversed about our lives, Japan, traveling, and the U.S. I realized this is Ichigo Ichie. A small opportunity to talk to these people which we could have missed, but led to a beautiful night that was outside the norm as was kind of meant to be in a way.

‘It’s the small moments and the human connection found in the world’

Do you now look for these moments more being back?

I don't think you can necessarily seek them out because I think they just happen as you move through the word.  The difference now is that I'm open to them whereas before I was more closed off. I have found myself pushing those boundaries more and trying to get out of my comfort zone, and I check in on this by keeping those connections I made in Japan alive. I found myself carrying myself differently around people and wanting to interact more. I just feel like I have more of an open mind moving forward, are more present, and am more accepting of a lot of situations.

(Another Finn Project)

Your Job, to me, is so perplexing (Cancer Researcher). I feel like this isn’t as creative role for the person you are. Do you turn this off at work or use it in a different way?

So I build cancer immune therapies, which reprogram your immune system, by taking out a piece, giving it a target on cancer, and putting it back into your system to fight cancer. I’m actually drawn to science and research because I think it’s one of the most creative fields. While a lot of people see science as sterile, there’s really a lot more to it. Every day I’m in the lab and see the solutions to some of the things they are doing. I just think, How did people come up with this? These solutions are so creative; you have to think about these problems in such a big-picture way. It’s so beyond me sometimes. I’m watching people day to day come up with things and test them right in front of me to cure cancer.

Like what we were doing today, painting and drawing are creativity for the soul, while science is creativity for the mind.

Actually, I wrote my PHD applications on this; I feel like I am both the right and left brained. I feel like I’m both detail-oriented and logical and also creative, and I think that’s the reason I really like science. I can take this thing (science) that is rooted in ‘it is or it isn’t’ and combine it with something people haven’t been able to solve yet.

I was thinking about this earlier when we were working on our canvases. I know you have a lot of pieces in your place, would you ever want to showcase them?

(After a little pause) Honestly… no hahah, I think a lot of it is junk. I think my style has changed a lot and I stopped painting for a couple years. I have a couple I still really like, my favorite is back home I made a couple years ago and I still really like it.

Ok Ok, let's say I would set up a gallery for you, do you find yours is too personable to you or are you willing to share?

No, I love sharing it. I used to run an instagram showcasing my art which I used as a way to express what I was working on. I was really hesitant to share it for a while, but that allowed me to open up and share my thoughts on a public stage. There’s a lot of subliminal messages in my art, but I think the deepest I got on that account was in my writing. I was doing this series called thoughts from a balcony, and that is an example of changing media and how I express myself. I realized I needed to focus on myself, but I’m really excited to get back into painting and doing canvases. 

In the car earlier you were just moving in your head and I can see you were working through something and I can see you were ready to get back into expressing yourself through painting again. There’s so much going on; things happen.

It sucks, or it’ll be ok. But you learn and move on from that. The idea is that it’s all good as long as you're growing from it.

So I guess your medium now is ‘you’?

Yea, haha, my medium now is me. I guess, for lack of better words, I’m trying to figure out what colors work with me. I’m trying to figure out what I want to be; I’m a blank canvas right now;'shitty analogy, haha'. I'm trying to figure out what I want to make, and I’m very excited about that. I’ve been trying a lot of stuff because a lot has shaken up, and I’m pouring everything into me.

I think everyone kind of needs a project, not for the project itself, but for investing in themselves.

With the focus on you and perspective, going back to Japan; something you value a lot is the idea of human connection. Staying at the Lost in Translation Hotel, did you kinda have that feeling?

Lost In Translation is one of my favorite movies. It has a very human feeling to it, is beautiful, and takes place at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo. Oliver and I were in Tokyo, and he surprised me by staying a night in the Park Hyatt. Flame beanie hat on, nicest hotel I ever stayed in, just overlooking the entire city of Tokyo. I recreated the scene, funny enough, just sitting in the window sill, going through the same exact shit that the characters were going through in the movie. I even had a call in the bathtub; I oddly felt like one of those characters. Not in romanticizing the movie way, but just having a really intense human experience and realizing, like the characters, everything is going to be okay. If anything, I just have more of a connection to the movie.

Wrapping This Up; As people we’re always chasing the next idea or thought, what’s one word you would use to describe this goal or thing you are moving toward.

Dude, it’s me. I have so many goals, so many things I want to do, and so many things that bring me happiness and joy in my life, and I invest in all of that because of me. I’m figuring out who I want to be, where I want to go, and aligning my goals toward that. A lot of times in the past, I put a lot of pressure on my timeline to do this or that. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned through recent experience is that everyone’s timeline is different, and I take myself out of that because I don’t feel rushed anymore. I'm just trying to figure out my things, surround myself with people I love who love me, and do things that at the end of the day make me happy.