Here is an an excerpt from a piece Ananya Bhalla, our CEO, wrote. We found it fitting for the type of agency we are, and what we hope to do in Austin, all of Texas, and beyond. 

I once visited this little town carved into the ice of Northern Europe, painted with red homes against pale snow and a silence deep enough to drown in. I fell into conversation with the tour guide. A small origami star hung over his dashboard, lit aglow from a bulb hidden within the folds.

​One of his wife’s students, he told me, had made it as a gift for her. Their village lives in darkness for at least two months of the year; this was a sun to keep when the real one went hiding.

“How can you live without the sun?” I asked. 

“I don’t.” He shrugged. Gestured at that glittering paper ornament. “Here, we make our own suns. It’s a tradition—even the little ones know how to make stars.”

But aren’t you afraid? To rely only on old wire and paper?”  

He told me about diving into the Norwegian Sea. Asked if I was afraid of ice sharper than glass and water cold enough to burn. “Yes”, I’d answered, “of course. Aren’t you?”

“I was.” He described the plunge as a live wire held against one’s skin. In the first second, adrenaline burns through your veins. In the fifth, your chest seizes and your vision sharpens and for a precious few moments, you’re not thinking about anything at all.

By the tenth second, it hurts more than anything you’ve ever felt—it’s your flesh and bone against the great cold. The only way to last is to make your own warmth. You force trembling lungs to expand. You think of burning wood and hot chocolate and summer bonfires. You convince yourself that you can be warm all on your own.

“And by the fifteenth second”, he finished, “you’re so deeply alive you forget to be afraid.”

***

​If I’ve learnt anything from paper suns, it’s this:

It’s not the end of the world to get lost in the playground of What-Ifs. To gather a few scrapes and bruises along the way.

​To do the foolish thing, just to see how it feels.

Perhaps it’s brave to reach for things we’re not quite ready for. To be a little reckless in a society that worships control.
To hang our own stars while we wait for the real ones to come out.

Perhaps it’s even graceful to stop waiting for the right time, the right person, or the right season.

​To have courage, take the cold plunge, and fold own suns—even if they’re nothing but wire and paper.
​
To live so deeply that we forget to be afraid.”