Diego Perez—better known as yung pueblo—offers poetic insights on love, attachment, craving, and freedom through his book Inward and on his social media channels. But he’s not a meditation teacher—just a meditator who has something to say, and a way with words. He spoke with Mindful.org’s Stephanie Domet about life before meditation and the hope that fuels his work.
Q: What compelled you to start meditating?
A: I think basically my own inner misery and dissatisfaction. I was just dominated by my sadness and anxiety and I felt a sense of inadequacy with my inability to love myself and felt just generally lost and unhappy. When I started seeing that some of the biggest parts of my unhappiness were related to me allowing my craving to just dominate my action, and I saw how unhealthy I had become by consuming a lot of different drugs, not taking care of myself, using drugs as a vehicle to get as far away from myself as possible, it all came…