Towards the end of production for Rubber Soul — the critically acclaimed 1965 album that propelled The Beatles from a successful pop act to an unparalleled musical phenomenon — John Lennon had trouble writing one more song that would complete the album. On the morning of October 21, 1965, exhausted after a night out and trying for five hours to write a new song, Lennon finally “gave up” and decided to “lay down.” “Then ‘Nowhere Man’ came, words and music, the whole damn thing,” Lennon recalled in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine.

Recorded over the next two days in October, two months before the album’s release, “Nowhere Man” was the anti-Beatle song at the time — a deeply philosophical piece entirely unrelated to romance or love. Also the quintessential “anti-John” song according to fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, the song was about a man who’s feeling a little lost, who doesn’t know what he’s doing, and wondering where he’s going. In Lennon’s words, “Isn't he a bit like you and me?”

Transitioning from a fiercely independent freelance career as a writer and documentary photographer which required me to travel extensively to my first full-time desk job at Homegrown so I could finally focus on my book, I was feeling a lot like Lennon’s Nowhere Man earlier this year. But two weeks in, I feel inspired by the sheer breadth of the work we do at Homegrown, the diversity of the stories we cover, and the people we come across in the course of our day-to-day work life.

From a found-footage film about a woman's marriage, migration, and resilience to a design studio reclaiming and recontextualising a casteist slur, the running thread that connects the stories we covered this week on Homegrown is the idea that although we are shaped by our history, we do not have to be defined by it. If you’re also feeling a little lost and wondering where you are and where you are going, our Culture Bulletin is full of ideas and inspiration. Here's what we have for you this week:

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