Choose Your Genre
In these short weekly notes, you’ll find:
The Well—something I’ve learned about living wildly AND well
The Wild—words from extraordinary minds who struggled with mental health too
The Way—one small experiment for you to try
The Well
Imagine your 2026 is a movie. You don't get to choose every plot point, or every line of dialogue—but you do get to choose the genre.
Psychological thriller? Romantic comedy? Action adventure? Indie character study? Absurdist surrealism?
When you choose your genre, you're deciding how to meet what happens before it happens. Plot twists and setbacks stop feeling like derailments—they're simply part of the structure that makes any film interesting. Genre determines everything: the stakes, the color palette, the score, whether a setback results in a hospital stay or a training montage. It even defines what counts as failure and success.
Most of us default to genres we never consciously chose—inherited from our families, our diagnoses, our worst experiences. Tragedy, when dark comedy would serve us better. Horror, when fantasy thriller would be more accurate—and more useful.
The power isn't pretending the difficult scenes won't come. They will. The power is deciding what kind of story those scenes belong to before they arrive.
My 2026 is an 80s adventure movie—not because I know what will happen, but because I know how I want to meet what happens: with courage, ingenuity, and a willingness to proceed even when the map is incomplete and the treasure is nowhere near where I thought it would be. Stakes are real but survivable. Monumental tasks seem physically impossible at the start, but I'll discover I had the power to achieve them all along. The soundtrack is vintage synth-driven with lush orchestral elements—a collaboration between Trevor Jones and Dave Grusin. There are two original songs, one by Cyndi Lauper, the other by David Bowie, obviously. Finally, there is no CGI, and that's how you know the magic is real—not because you can't see the wires, but because you can.
The Wild
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." — Anaïs Nin
"Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow." — Sylvia Plath
"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." — Oscar Wilde
The Way
Look at your coming year as a movie. Choose your genre.
Then, if you like:
Name three reference films. These become your touchstones—the films you'll channel when a scene gets complicated.
Assign a composer. Who's scoring your 2026?
Write this down and keep it somewhere you can see it often (I tape mine to my bathroom mirror). Let it remind you what movie you're acting in when a plot twist hits.
Stay stark raving sane,
~ EA
P.S. Members of the Asylum Inner Circle are sharing their 2026 genres, reference films, and composers—and I'm reading every one. If you'd like to join the conversation, the Circle is waiting for you here.
