---
title: Kellen
description: User Illusion is SW Hammond’s long-running digital escape — essays, short stories, cultural criticism, memes, and memory fractals exploring the human hustle, the stories we tell ourselves, and the gap between appearance and what’s actually there.
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       Written by Sean William Hammond on 27 August 2015.

#  Kellen 

 ![Kellen Zollinger](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/friends/Kellen.jpg)

[Kellen - Platonic Life Partner](#)

Kellen and I have been best friends since 6th grade. We lived across the street growing up, he lived with my family to finish high school after his family moved away, we were roommates off and on throughout and after college, and then he finally grew up and got a wife and had a few kids. Uncle Sean now occasionally sleeps on the couch! Kellen and I have traveled country together many times, been lost in the wilderness countless times, and escaped death a handful of times. He’s still the first person I turn to talk about everything in life- though now our conversations seem to revolve around homeowner’s insurance, the cost of day-care, and fantasy football.

He’s a great man, a good friend, and most of the experiences and inspiration within my pages wouldn’t be the same without him.