Documentation of a Life

It seems to me that passion is not given enough credibility. It certainly took me a long enough time to realize that I wasn’t entirely being true to myself, though certain patterns in my life propelled me, for decades, to the inevitable conclusion.

Service to god and country was always a strong part of my upbringing, and I was one of those people raised to be a high achiever. It was always expected by the people around me that I would assume the kind of leadership positions I held throughout high school and college, if not earlier, in life. When you’re young and repeatedly told that you’re brilliant and accomplished, you can do anything and the world is yours. The problem is in sifting through the non-sustainable and non-viable options to focus on the kind of life you want to lead and the legacy you want to leave. 

I saw no need to explain myself to anyone. It was never about money. I had opportunities early on to end up as a high-powered corporate executive or lawyer or entrepreneur. But having had considerable exposure to many areas of endeavor—partly opportunism and partly as a means to discover the commitment and compromises I was willing to make to reach these milestones—I realized that my passion was a very simple and potentially narcissistic one: to articulately express myself and my thoughts in word and image and to surround myself with my family. In my purest essence, I wasn’t interested as much in becoming a conventional master of the universe as I was in remaining a uniquely free spirit, a very disciplined and discerning soul.

And so, at each turn, I subconsciously made the choices that would potentially take me to this point. Because I grew up in an extremely sheltered and protective environment, it was important to me that I had a connection to the secular world, to navigate my way around complexity, rather than to seclude myself and keep all ugliness and complications away. I avoided servitude in hierarchical structures, yet I’ve participated in public life through a portfolio of creative and personal projects, as well as professional projects in higher education, media, government, and business: if judged by the kind of company one keeps, then my amplitude and networks were certainly to a very high level and degree.

In Strange Tango, my first book, I asked the question, “What remains as documentation of a life?”

The quote seemed prescient given the Millennial generation’s preoccupation with viral media. In fact, not only did I document my life and the lives of various family members through words, photographs, video, and cds, but I also documented for posterity the friends, people, and world around me in the anecdotes, characterizations, and analyses I have shared.

And now, I am ready to make what is for me the ultimate commitment. While using my home as my base—in the comfortable, stylish, and streamlined lair I have created—I am going to craft my books. I’d like to fulfill my destiny as a literary stylist, a belle lettrist, an essayist, a multi-platform, 21st century journalist. I am going to produce a critical mass of my memories, thoughts, words, and images as A. D. Tejada.