Generating Concepts

EXERCISE – Generating Concepts

Experiment with the different ‘ways-in’ to ideas.

Can you think of a fantastic ‘what if’ to base a film on?

Idea First - what if a girl mechanic living in a pirates den fell in love with the cyborg she was mysteriously employed to repair?

what if a detective who is supposed to be cracking down on illegal street racing fell in love with it instead?

Can you think of a unique, odd or engrossing character?

Character First - my core heroes (Caton, Zahara, Moscow). Need idealistic protagonist with hurt past, he/she wants to make the world a better place/fight injustice/seek redemption for what was lost. Strong female core also important. And wiser, older "mentor" can also be a source of comedic relief and gives lesson of not taking life too seriously.

Can you think of a setting which hasn’t been used before, or one which is full of conflict?

Setting First - must be places I'm familiar with and can describe easily (Nevadan wasteland, Silicon Valley, Almaden, Davis, China)

Maybe beginning with a lighthearted adventure story that traverses fantasy world that mirrors these places? Settings can seem good or bad but heroes discover value in every place and culture they visit...after helping them solve crime/injustice/etc.!

Can you think of a theme which resonates with you – maybe even a social issue?

Topic, Theme or Emotion First - societal issues tugging at my heart

• class warfare: human greed, secularism creates fear and mistrust, people are suspicious, cruel and hateful because of fear, a tale of two cities, rich get richer poor left to fight for the scraps
• feminism: its not just gender inequality, its sexual violence and exploitation, its systemic. A generation of broken women and girls in the hands of society and non-present (or even abusive) fathers and male figures
• racism: again it all comes from fear and mistrust of what/who you don't know or understand. people assume and stereotype others, but its all just a shell to protect ourselves & defend our biases. It's systemic & terrible (eg. black woman arrested and sent to psych ward because racist police and drs could not believe a black woman could have a good banking job and pay for her own BMW)

Try to develop a short paragraph idea for a film from a different starting point. Don’t worry about how ‘good’ your ideas are at this stage – the aim is to be freely creative and explore your imagination and story possibilities. 

Robotic limbs are not always necessary if you have all of your arms and legs, but as Silver Pete so wisely recommends, it's really up to you if you want to upgrade matey! Sometimes you get your leg chopped off in a sword fight and sometimes you don't. And it's all a very bloody, painful affair, he allows, but at least you're not stuck with a stinkin' peg for the rest of your life haha! Well at least not since Miss Silver came to Port Wale Blubber that is! She's a prosthetic mechanic you see and a damn good one. Well you know how pirates are...you don't really need to give them a reason to get MORE violent and rowdy than they are, but Miss Silver did just that and got a great laugh out of it too!

Now you see, nobody and I mean nobody makes them quite like her. If you got the gold dubloons for them expensive parts, she can attach anything you can dream of on that new titanium appendage of yours! People sure do stay away from Surly Curly after he replaced his rusty old hook with a 28-inch chainsaw... not that they didn't avoid him before, haha! 

Now the story that I want to tell you is all about our little pirates cove christened Wale Blubber and how we really turned things around. 

Wearing another pair of shoes

Forgiveness is something I really struggle with.  It's easy to extend grace to a good person.  An honest mistake, hurtful words in the heat of the moment, followed by a sincere apology.  It is painful in the moment, but the healing is straightforward and reconciliation is easy.  You accept and move on.  But what about those people who despise you, disregard your feelings and make you feel worthless? They offer no remorse or apology, and they think they are right. And suddenly forgiveness seems impossible.  The angry feelings get knotted inside and the never ending thoughts of doubt -- what did I do wrong? how could they have said/done those things to me? And then the back and forth between feeling bitter and trying to block out the hurtful memory from your mind. But today, I think I felt a slight inkling of the answer.

I have been mad at my dad for a long time.  His love for me is very conditional and I often think he only cares about me when it feels good to care about me, so long as it does not inconvenience or make him feel bad in any way.  When I misbehave or disobey, when things are not the way he wants, suddenly I become a tumor that can be cut away easily.  He pours out his anger as if he is the only one who matters. He cuts me with his words and break connections with physical and emotional distance.  There was no money to give when he was poor, just like there is no love to give when he is angry.  

Today, my mom told me I need to be understanding of him.  Of course, this surprised me to an extent, because she had always been very mad at my dad since their divorce.  An endless back and forth between bitterness and trying to forget.  It was a long journey, but it seems like she was finally able to let go of some of what he did to her.  It seems that the first step to truly forgiving the self-satisfied turds in your life is to put yourself in their shoes.

(According to my mom) My dad grew up very very poor, to the point where he almost never had enough to eat and didn't even have enough money for a pair of shoes in winter.  His feet were always blistered and cold, and he had to fight/take from his own family members to get enough to eat.  Because his parents were weak and sickly, the people in his village would steal and bully his family. In short, he grew up in an environment where sympathy for others and emotions were a luxury he could not afford.  Selfishness in every sense was necessary for survival.  

Now, when I imagine what it must have been like to grow up like that -- a little baby version of my dad not having enough to eat, a skinny child getting out-muscled by his older siblings in a mad scramble for food, and a tiny heart already starting to harden against others.  A shell of selfishness growing around him, his only protection from the harsh world and the people who mistreat him.  I put myself in his shoes today and I could only feel sadness and pity.  And perhaps, an inkling of empathy as well?  

Now I am not saying I forgive him, or that I am okay with the way he treats me.  I may still be far from arriving at that place.  But maybe today I made a stride towards understanding.  The first step of many... towards letting go and forgiveness.  I wore his shoes and it evaporated my anger.  If only just for an afternoon.

"Sea Rocks"

(Not sure what to call this one actually. "Searocks" sounds a little lame)

Fleeting "dreams" are whims that fade away.

A glistening sea rock by the shore, it cannot stay.

Oh how many sea rocks I've entertained for a day.

Only to be washed away...

By the gentlest of tides...

To my humbling dismay.

Eating Disorders

The day I first noticed the hole, I was alone.

Though I suspected it had been growing for quite some time, the hunger gnawed at my sides especially today.

I craved everything and nothing in particular, but the impulse to fill myself was strong.

I emptied the pantry of its contents and began to eat and drink.  After a few minutes, I think I already knew that my futile attempts were not working.  But the T.V. was on and I was distracted.

A desperate thought crossed my mind -- If my stomach is full, maybe the gaping space would be plugged ever so slightly.

So I kept eating. And eating. And eating.

Until I felt sick and could take no more.
Until I felt dizzy and like throwing up.

I remember crying to myself quietly at the table. In front of the mound of half eaten scraps.

Guilt and hurt welled up inside and pour out as hot tears.
My chest heaved and I cried wholeheartedly without knowing why.

The garage door sounded and I scrambled to clean up the mess and dispose of the evidence.

The darkness that had surfaced quickly retreated back inside of me.

I went to my room to pretend to study.
But really, I was desperately trying to cover my hole.

Worst Care Scenarios

I think there is something good about always expecting the worst.  When people and circumstances inevitably let you down, there is almost a sigh of relief like "ah I knew this would happen" or "I don't feel as bad about how things turned out" because I have been anticipating the worse all along. You are never disappointed and things are always "okay" no matter how bad it gets.  There is no end of the world feeling, because it could always be worse.  You could be stranded in the middle of nowhere and all you think is "this isn't so bad, at least it's not raining."

I guess the problem arises when things start going well for awhile.  You are in your ready mode to handle any crisis, but disaster never hits.  Instead of busily extinguishing fires, all distractions are removed and you are expected to be happy.  Isn't this what you have been dreaming of all along?  Except when you have finally made it, all you can anxiously think about is how life is trying to lull you into a false sense of security. That the moment you allow yourself to be truly happy and enjoy what you have, the universe will decide to snatch it all away from you.

So what do you do? You anticipate the worse and do not let yourself be happy. You are like a wild jungle man who has been removed from the Amazon and put into a comfortable life in civilized society.  You are sitting on a sofa, but the stress of an non-existent python jumping out is just killing you.  It would almost be better if you were back in the jungle and the snake did jump out, because that is what you know and what you can handle.  Everyone says they want peace and comfort, but for us worst-case-scenario thinkers out there, it is a lot harder to embrace than you would think.

For people who have lived in broken homes, were abused growing up or suffered a number of battle bruises the world can dish out....survival mode is all they know.  It is fight or flight and finding ways to hide and cope all day everyday.  When you live like that your whole life and one day your circumstances improve, can you really start to be happy?  How do you fully embrace peace, when all you know is business,  fire extinguishing and coping?  Are you sure the one who is making you miserable isn't yourself?

Now I won't say that my life has been so traumatic or anything like that. People go through much worse and I feel like I don't have much right to complain about anything. But what I do know is, the first step to coming out of survival mode is to stop hiding and be honest with yourself.

At times I've felt that I'm not entitled to express my grievances because they seem like nothing compared to those who have been brutally raped or abused by their family members.  And in many ways, this was my excuse to hide and avoid examining my own feelings.  Theodore Roosevelt once said that "comparison is the thief of joy."  Well for myself, comparison stole my truth and unvalidated my struggles.

I am still not sure where to go from here exactly, but I hope that I can find the courage to be honest and that God will lead me in the right direction from there.  Amen to that sistah! haha

Filled to the Brim

A while ago Seri told me that I needed to mourn over what I had lost in order to fully accept/embrace my life now, and I admit I didn't really understand what she meant. Now, I think I have an inkling.

When I look at the choices I've made in the past year and a half and all that has happened to me, I really have no regrets or hesitations about whether I made the right choice or not.  The fact that everything turned out above and beyond my expectation makes me feel blessed and (at times) undeserving of what I have.  And in a way, this thankfulness (though a great thing most of the time) also blind-sights me or makes me feel guilty to think about what I have "lost"by not making a different decision.

For example, this is often a daily phenomenon -- I see people, mostly my peers from school, posting about traveling to exotic places and starting cool new jobs on social media and I feel bad that I'm not doing the same. Then I feel frustrated at myself for feeling jealous, because I already have so much... aren't I just being greedy for wanting more?  I feel a deep guilt for many things: not happily embracing my role as a mom, the sense of loss of who I am and my own dreams, and wanting what others have when I already have so much.

Seri told me that whether a person works or stays home with their children, whatever life they choose to lead, it does not make one path more valuable than the other.  Though maybe I try to convince myself that just because I made the best choice for myself, that it somehow devalues everything else that "could have been." I think it is easier to live with yourself when you feel assured that your lifestyle is better than how other people have it, but when you consistently have that "the grass is greener" mentality, it just feels like an uncomfortable nagging feeling that doesn't go away.

I know that a lot of church moms believe that being a mother is the highest calling for a woman, but it is hard for me to accept that.  Whether it is because of how I was raised or what I've truly come to believe over time, I guess I want to believe I have a greater calling than bringing up Avery, however noble and wonderful it is.

I got a little sidetracked but I guess what I am trying to say is... The losses I feel are real and I think I understand why I need to take a hard look at what has happened and deal with my grief head on.  Though I am fully satisfied and filled to the brim by my new life with Ethan and Avery, I will not be able to fully embrace my role and truly appreciate what I have in front of me, until I make peace with the past.  It takes energy to resent people who have done me wrong, to be jealous of what others have, to continuously think about what could have been.  And if you add guilt on top of all of that (as well as acting as a block for me to face my real feelings), it really is a large burden indeed.

Dealing with all this won't be easy and the idea of opening my own mental pandora's box is a hair shy of terrifying. But at the end of the day, it must be done.  I think the only thing scarier than facing my processing my problems now is the idea of letting the mess fester for 15 years and then having them explode out of me because I just can't hold it in anymore.

.... And so this is where I am now.  Feeling down and blah and sometimes quite terrible. I'm moody and Ethan is putting up with it. Today in the shower, my heart really did feel like exploding, because it just hit me how good he is to me. Patiently keeping me company through all this.  Not getting angry back or taking it personally when I snap.

For the first time in my whole life, I think I understand what it means to have "my cup overflow" the way Pastor Dean described.  My heart is literally overflowing with love because someone cares for me and pours into me every. single. day.  I still feel terrible, but its so amazing I really feel like I can get through this.

The light is already peaking back at me from the end of this very long tunnel.

Thoughts on Forgiveness and the dangers of Idealism

Truly forgiving someone is something that I (and probably many others) have wrestled with for a long time.  In the past, it was easy to convince myself that I had forgiven someone for a trespass when things were going well and it was not on my mind. But when the issue resurfaces in my head, as they inevitably do for over-thinkers like myself, I discover that there is still a lot of anger and hatred toward that person hiding inside of me.

Of course, growing up as an Asian American complicates the issue even further.  For a long time, I did not even realize that I had been sweeping my real feelings under the rug because I did not think it was right or "appropriate" to have bad thoughts about others.  I was raised in a way where my entire life was run by the "should"-principle, where it was always about where I should be and not where I am at.  My goals were lofty and I was the tireless horse who never won the carrot.

However this never-good-enough attitude is not all bad. It is not the healthiest motivator, but I do think some credit for my good grades and work ethic should be attributed to it.  But while it is possible to achieve a perfect score on a test, the same scale does not really apply to relationships.  The mark of a good relationship is not about treading so carefully that you never make any ripples or step on any toes.  In fact, conflict is necessary for growth and deepening friendship -- of course, this conflict has to be resolved in a healthy, open manner or else the bad feelings will fester and you either stay together with an unhealthy dynamic or walk your separate ways.

Now I know myself well enough to understand that I am not the type to tip-toe around people. When I have something on my mind, I will say it and I will say it to your face, so it is not a surprise that my main issue is how I deal with conflicts rather than how I avoid them.

Because I think of things in terms of how they "should" be rather than how they are, I have a tendency to idealize how relationships should go. When conflicts inevitably arise and I cannot seem to resolve it, I feel like a terrible failure.  Oftentimes, I turn the situation into a test -- of my communication skills, my patience, my ability to empathize with others, etc. And when things do not go according to plan, I am upset, dumbfounded and bitter.

Now there are two famous idioms that say "it takes two to tango and two hands to clap" and I think that is something every type A personality should take to heart.  In the midst of plowing forward with my "best effort", it is easy to forget that a conflict between two people is not a one-sided affair.  Resolution takes cooperation and wondering what you did wrong to provoke such dislike or malcontent from the other person may inherently be the wrong question to ask.  You can do everything in your power to communicate and be open, but sometimes the other person is just not willing to resolve things and you have to let that go.

So I threw out "let it go" in a very nonchalant manner in the last paragraph, but let's not take for granted the gravity of just how difficult letting go actually is, which is the whole topic of this post.  This is something that I am still struggling with every day.  When I think about some of the people I have broken relationships with even now, I am still unsure of how to start forgiving them and stop avoiding the issues that still hurt so much to think and talk about.  I am so thankful for the wonderful and supportive people who make me feel safe and able to finally voice my thoughts and hidden pain.  I am thankful for Highway that helped me get therapy and counseling to work through the scary place that my mind had become.

I did not know how murky the water was until it started clearing up.