She's emotional. Like, truly. Like cries during game shows emotional. She's friendly and seemingly confident, yet always feels like she has food in her teeth. She has lucked out with the incredible friends and family, so she films or writes to make life alongside them slow down.

Hi, I'm Taryn Arnold. I'm 27 years young with more candles than I could possibly burn in a lifetime or two, but I'm sure I'll die trying. I like pizza and fad diets, which, as you can imagine, makes life interesting.

I'm smack-dab in the middle of my glory days, living in San Francisco with my best friends. I do the words and the marketing things for Patreon, then I do other words and marketing things for myself when I get home. 

Why make things?

Great question, myself. I make things for two reasons.

1. I have to

My memory is bad at best. Probably worse than I'm remembering it to be, honestly. Because of that, I log nearly every day of my life. I've done this forever — I've obsessively carried journals and cameras everywhere I went since I was in elementary school, and I only know that because I have the proof. My journals, pictures, and videos are my most prized possessions in life. They not only remind me of the little magic details you forget in a day, but of the feeling of growing up. They remind me that some things change and some things never ever do, and that is both good and sad and the way it should be. 

So, I make things mostly so I don't forget what it was like to live all these minutes and days and years of my special little life. It's almost like I'm leaving a paper trail for the future me. I can't wait to find it and thank myself 10 times over.

2. Life is hard and life is good

When big bad newsworthy things happen, you hear people say, "Fuck. Life is hard enough. Why make it any harder?"

And I agree. It's terrible. Some people are sick and broken and mean, and want others to be sick and broken and mean, so they do big bad newsworthy things to wreck it for all of us.

Now, that's just the stuff you see happening. That's the plane crash or the open wound or the crockpot fire. But what about the every day pain and struggle and stress you can't see with your own eyes? What about the guy in your meeting who could barely get out of bed this morning? What about the woman at the grocery store on the brink of a panic attack? What about your college roommate who struggles with her sexuality, but can't find the words to talk about it? To even think about it? What about the people who "just feel off" today and don't know why?

I make things for those people. I make things for those people because I am those people, and so are you. 

I make things to try to make sense of the ups and downs and weird and terrible and awesome things going on around me. To my surprise, I've been told these ramblings of mine matter to some of you, too.

So.

I make things because I don't want to forget, but I also make things because I like to think about things, and when I think about things, I think about other people thinking about them, too.

Also, and I don't have to tell you this to make it true, but the internet is filled to the brim with bullshit right now. Creators are optimizing for advertisers and views, but very few are talking about things that matter. I would like to be one of those very few, in hopes that we can make it very many.