entry 004. “just figure it out” // brian b-flat cook
Engineering. “Just Figure It Out”. 2025
I think we take for granted how much of a privilege it is to know someone, and to remain in community with them over time.
I’m fortunate to still be connected to people I’ve known for more than half my life. Watching someone move through the currents of life, ebbing, flowing, expanding, growing... it’s a beautiful thing.
Flat is one of those people for me.
I’ve known him since I was 14. We connected through music, cars, and a shared curiosity for anything electronic. We wired a Kenwood radio to a 1200-watt amp and 12“ subs into my first car together in the driveway of his home. No instructions, no oversight. Just a goal, some copper wire, and a box of random tools. Back then, we were just curious; always looking for something to break, something to build, something to experiment with or something to create.
Looking back, it was actually something more.
There’s Levels. “Just Figure It Out”. 2025
It’s a marvel to see the life he’s built. He’s one of the few people I know doing exactly what he said he would when we were young.
Last year, we had two conversations, one in Atlanta and another in Dallas, that stuck with me. Both times we were reflecting on how far we’d come, and somewhere in that reflection, we discovered something else we shared. It was an aptitude that we both picked up somewhere along the way that has been a throughline within our friendship and in our individual lives.
Engineering.
Not as a trade, but as an instinct. To quote Flat, the ability to “just figure it out.”
I’ve always admired his curiosity. He was always looking to learn something, build something. Always tinkering and tweaking. Always searching, just to see what he’d discover along the way. Where something was missing, Flat didn’t wait. He filled the well himself.
I’ve watched him teach himself how to play instruments, produce, rap, and sing. I’ve watched him test, refine, and evolve himself and his sound until they both became something distinct, something unmistakable. That path has taken him further than most, working with some of the best talents in music and entertainment, but the throughline was never access or advantage.
It was instinct.
“Rivers”. “Just Figure It Out”. 2025
We come from places where doing more with less isn’t a mindset. It’s a reality. Some people learn to just protect what they have. Others learn to expand beyond it.
For a long time, I’ve wrestled with whether that difference is a choice or something assigned to you.
I asked Flat what he thought.
He responded jokingly, “Is the choice of no choice even a choice at all?”
That reply reminded me of the 18-year-old version of him, who always preferred the path to an answer over actually finding it.
He was right.
Even when choices feel limited, you’re still choosing. We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can control how we engage with them.
His choice had never been to accept or resist circumstances, but to reshape them. Not through sheer will alone, but through optimism, curiosity, and the creativity to recognize there’s an ocean, even when you can only step into a river.
Where Curiosity Grows . “Just Figure It Out”. 2025
That’s the part I keep coming back to. The driveway, the amp, the box of random tools. Two kids with no instructions and no oversight, figuring out how to make something work because no one was coming to teach us or do it for us. We didn’t know we were practicing for the rest of our lives. We were just trying to hear the bass drop in the opening song of Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter II".
One of the greatest privileges in life is watching someone set out to do something and see them actually do it, in all of its fullness.
An even greater privilege is to see them do it in a way that is consistent and familiar. I’ve had the great fortune of seeing that in him.
Somewhere along the way, we both figured out that you just have to figure it out.
& we did.
Fill The Well. “Just Figure It Out”. 2025
Written, Shot, & Edited By Terrence True
Shot on Fuji X-T5
