ABOUT ANDY
Who are you and why the hell should I believe anything you say?
Just some guy with serious ADD and OCD who reads a lot and writes everything down. Everything. My memory is shit, but I take better notes than anyone and do a damn good job connecting the dots. That said, I won’t ever claim to know the truth. I’m not 100% certain about a damn thing I say. It blows my mind how often I see certainty expressed by others over matters that are impossible to know 100%. The only thing I am certain of, is that I know nothing. Every year I look back and realize just how big of a dumbass I was the year before. Anything and everything can change. My goal is to always be open to this change, be as honest as I can with what I know in the present, and try to be a little less wrong than yesterday. This is the only way I can know that I am always growing. So believe what I have to say, or don’t. That’s up to you. I am going to write what I see and won’t distort reality for some bullshit sense of appreciation found in the likes and comments of the masses. I hope you like my work, I really do. But you won’t find me losing sleep either way.
But to answer your question. I’m Andy. I’m 27 from Cincinnati, Ohio. I got a Spanish degree at the Ohio State University in Columbus but couldn’t really speak the language until years later. I hated school, but life outside of class was a good time. I started my first business in 2013 with the creation of Dream Cartel, which originally operated as a design and branding agency. At the end of 2014 I graduated and traveled around the US for the next three years living on the couches of friends and family. Most of my 2018 was spent in Mexico and Colombia and I have since fallen in love with Latin America. Now, I am living in Tri-Cities, WA and have no idea where I’ll be in a few months. But with any luck, I’ll have a few more words on the page.
Why Andy Cash?
If you don’t already know, my real name is Andy Ash. My middle name starts with a C. I have a shitty memory and so does everyone else with the amount of things screaming for our attention every second of every day. And so, I am always trying to make things easier to remember. Boom. Andy Cash... Also, who doesn’t like money? If you say you don’t, you’re full of shit, and you probably don’t have any.
How do you know all this stuff? Why do you write?
I know this stuff because I love it. I know this stuff because I have made more mistakes then I can count. I know this stuff because I have had some great mentors.
I love reading and I am always thinking about what things mean and how they connect. Always. Sometimes I wish my brain would stop running a million miles a minute, but that’s how it works. Since I was a kid, I found that writing things down helped me make sense of what I was going through. I could write something, then a month or year later look back at it and better understand what I was thinking and how things came to pass. With the constant information overload we face in today’s media landscape, it has become increasingly difficult for me to make sense of anything in the moment. There are simply too many variables. The media may be true, or it may be playing you. Or it may think it’s true but actually it’s playing itself. For this reason, I never accept anything at face value. And often I never come to a conclusion later either. Many things I am forced to simply ignore, because there is never a way to be certain. For those things that I can figure out, writing is my way of understanding how and why they came to be. It’s my way of learning from my mistakes and discovering what I need to grow. Writing is my way of staying sane.
As I’ve grown, I’ve begun to write more and more. Every thought I have, every good piece of writing I find, I record it. I then take these bits of information and organize them with everything else I’ve come across. Whether it be an idea that came to me in a flash, something I heard, read, or saw, I write it down. I have been doing this for six years. My instagram @dreamcartel was my first attempt at connecting the dots. This was years ago. What you will find in my upcoming writing is six years in the making and it will go far deeper.
Do you have a day job? How do you make money?
Good question. I have tried and failed various business ventures over the last few years. Some of my ideas had success in the short term but ending up being unsustainable. Others simply flopped or never made it past the continual late night drunk and over excited conversations that you wake up from hungover and too lazy to actually pursue. I am really good at these business ideas. One of the best really. Getting past the dreaming phase is hard, and sustaining growth in the business is even harder. And what I found with every business venture I’ve tried to pursue, I got too focused on money and had no passion for what I was doing. I was overworked and unhappy. The businesses never even stood a chance.
In 2017 I finally found work that fit the lifestyle I want to live. I was able to give up my 60+ hour work weeks that were barely making me enough money to eat and get back to myself and my dreams. I worked as contractor conducting investigations of Latin American and Spanish companies and their personnel until early 2019. I am legally bound from saying anymore. If that is confusing, think of it as professional Googling. It’s not glamorous and the pay isn’t anything to brag about. But what it did give me was freedom. Freedom to live and work when and where I wanted. And for that I am extremely grateful.
In March of 2019 I lost this contract, my girlfriend, and my apartment in the same day. I was alone in another country. Five days later I got an email for a job I had been gunning for for 6 months. I still can't believe it.
I now work as a QSE rep on wind turbine projects all over the US and hopefully back to Mexico soon! Clean energy baby! It's been a weird ride. I never saw myself here but I'm in a good place now and the writing is flowing again. I hope one day I can find a way to invest all my creative energy in my writing. I believe the writing I have compiled can affect the world. I believe I am one of the greatest thinkers of our generation. At the time of writing this, it has been two years since I have published anything. It kills me. If I ever want to know for sure what I already know in my heart. If I ever want any chance of being able to write full time, there is only one thing to do. Sit down, and get to work. And maybe a drink a beer or six for the crazy overwhelming anxiety that I feel about my writing, and the world, and everything. Here goes fucking nothing.
That's about it.
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