There was a time when life felt beautifully ordinary — filled with dreams, deadlines, and late-night ideas typed into my digital notebooks, Google Docs, and screenplay software, stored on my devices. My world revolved around storytelling through acting, writing, and directing. They were not just ambitions; they were extensions of who I was. I lived for the thrill of creation — the magic of transforming a thought into a scene, a feeling into dialogue, a blank page into a living moment.
Every day was a balancing act between survival and imagination. I spent countless hours crafting scripts, developing characters, and mapping out stories that spoke to what it meant to be human — love, loss, loneliness, courage, identity. My tiny flat was a workshop of ideas: storyboards taped to the walls, camera equipment leaned against the wall, screenwriting and filmmaking books on the shelf, stacks of screenplays on the dining table, etc. I wasn’t waiting for permission to begin — I was learning by doing.
I wrote screenplays and treatments, short films and feature concepts. Some scripts came alive on screen; others stayed tucked away, waiting for the right time. I taught myself how to write and direct — from shaping the story to framing shots — using every opportunity to learn, fail, experiment, and grow. Those early scripts and short films were raw and imperfect, but they were real. They were mine.
There was a sense of quiet hopefulness then — that if I kept going, kept believing, something would break through. I dreamed of seeing my name in the rolling credits of films that would move people the way cinematic storytelling had always fascinated me. I was chasing something pure — the art of telling captivating stories through films.
I had no idea that behind the calm of those ordinary creative days, a storm was gathering. That everything I had built — every dream, every piece of myself shared on screen or online — would soon be hacked and stolen for others to make profit but me – the real owner of my ideas, creativity and creation.
But before the darkness came, there was light — the kind that burns with purpose, with love for art, for storytelling, for life itself.
This was who I was before the storm.
