Hey—It's Toffer.
I remember the first time I fell in love with creating. Not just making something, but the act of creation itself—the magic of pulling an idea out of thin air and shaping it into something real. I was a kid, somewhere between being small enough to believe in superheroes and old enough to start questioning if Santa really had the logistics to pull off a global overnight delivery service.
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
Time was different then. Hours stretched forever, summers felt infinite, and a single afternoon of play could contain entire lifetimes of adventure. Creativity, to me, wasn’t a word. It was a game in the TV room (without a TV) with my siblings and whichever kids we met in the streets, where the couch became a rocket ship, the floor was lava, and our imaginations did all the heavy lifting. It was drawing superheroes on the backs of my school notebooks, reenacting scenes from Japanese cartoons dubbed in Tagalog with way too much commitment, and dreaming up elaborate plots for games that could last days.
It was theater—standing on a marble coffee table, draping blankets and using whatever else we weren’t supposed to, transforming the living room into our grand stage. It was the intoxicating thrill of pretending to be someone else while somehow learning more about who I actually was. It was writing stories just to see where they would take me. It was sketching ideas that no one would ever see but me. It was the sheer joy of making something out of nothing, for no other reason than because I could. And time, then, was my biggest ally—I never worried about running out of it. In those moments, time was abundant, generous, and eager to let me explore.
Now, I have kids of my own. And I watch them do exactly what I did. My son builds entire worlds with his toys, while my daughter, despite being just one, has a humor so sophisticated it catches me off guard. Her humor is its own kind of creation—effortless, playful, and oddly precise. The way she delivers a well-timed smirk or an exaggerated reaction feels like instinctive storytelling, turning everyday moments into something more.
They create, uninhibited. They don’t care if the drawing is perfect, if the story makes sense, or if the audience (me) has already sat through their living room performance six times in a row. They just do it.
And I think, at some point, we forget how to be that fearless. We start feeling the weight of time, the pressure of productivity, the idea that if it’s not leading somewhere, it’s wasted.
But what if time is still on our side? What if it’s not about managing time but allowing it? What if, instead of constantly fighting for control over every second, we let ourselves slip back into the rhythm of creation, where time flows with us instead of against us? What if time isn't something we lose, but something we surrender to?
Creativity isn’t a luxury—it’s sustenance. It’s nature manifest in us. If we’re here to survive, we must also be here to thrive. And thriving, it turns out, happens when we get closer to what we love. When we let ourselves create without permission, without fear, without worrying if it’s any good.
So, here I am. Still making things. Still writing. Still pulling ideas out of thin air just to see where they go. Still playing the fool, because the fool is the one who takes the risk. Still trying to bend time to my will, to stretch it just a little longer, to make sure that even in the busiest moments, there’s space for creation. Because maybe, just maybe, time has always been on our side—we just need to let it in.
And you? What did you love creating when you were a kid? And when was the last time you let yourself do it again?
Your Friend in Time,
Toffer