What does it mean to feel alive?

Learnings from the life of Andy Warhol

I love documentaries. They provide so much insight into history, psychology and how different people live over their lifetimes.

One of my favorite documentaries of all time is The Andy Warhol Diaries about Andy Warhol. It was created based on Andy Warhol’s private diaries that he dictated over the phone every evening. After his death, the diaries were turned into a book. The documentary series used AI technology to recreate his voice so Andy narrates the series.

The series is six episodes long and goes deep into the different stages of his life. He lived multiple lives - with dozens of different careers, relationships, and even personalities.

Warhol had times of his life where he partied late with the rich & famous, created TV shows and magazines, dated All-American men from Cape Cod, ran popular magazines, and overall was an incredibly famous pop culture artist and trend-setter.

My very favorite episode of the series was later in Warhol’s career when he collaborated with Basquiat, a much younger emerging artist in NYC. The spent a lot of time together just making art and hanging out. They had a bit of an odd relationship. However, you could feel something different about Warhol through the photos and his narrative and voice-over during that time. He was having fun. After all of his successes, he seemed to be the most alive when he went back to his roots making art and spending time with talented creative people.

Photo from Sleek Magazine

I hope you all have the opportunity to spend the majority of your time working on things that give you energy and make you feel alive.