Date Archives → August 2024

30 August ’24

My Dearest T —

(news reel)

I started working out again.

I missed boxing.

(My bones felt like rods wrapped in rubber bands and rope then.)

Feeling that strong felt good.

I can’t jump rope (shin splints) but I row instead.

I hated sports as a kid.

(go figure)

Writers are fighters, though.

+

(short)

I love my new job.

Especially the writers.

(they are insane)

Imagine a writers’ room at any film or television studio.

(yeah)

Whatever they think, they say — unfiltered, unselfconscious, unhesitatingly.

(Puns, analogies, ironies, metaphors, similes, jokes, references — obscenity.)

I laugh all day long.

I belong.

+

(feature presentation)

I thought I would try to write something light this time.

(I can’t.)

So then I thought, why don’t I share with you the second most valuable thing I’ve learned.

I don’t remember who suggested it but in college I joined a pottery studio.

For some reason, my girlfriend who came with me and I would always go at night.

We would walk — in winter, in Cambridge, Massachusetts — 

from the North Quad…

through Harvard Yard…

past the River Houses…

across the bridge and over the river…

along the Business School, and then…

into the warehouse-like building that housed the studio.

I don’t know which I loved more — the class or the walk.

At that season and hour, it was an entirely black and white world:

The black of the sky and the water and the white of the snow and the streetlamps.

We snuggled as we went.

The teacher looked like a Mother from a 19th century religious order.

(I never saw her without her beige smock.)

I loved everything about it — the smell, the feel, the quiet.

I don’t know why I quit.

To make a pot you use a wheel. It’s called throwing.

Set the clay. The wheel spins. You shape it.

It can go haywire but —

Keep a steady hand and the clay will go where you want it to.

(Like a rock in a river, ushering the water, it goes where it must.)

I won’t over explain but —

It’s not, stay true to your dreams; it is, you can shape your life.

We are both clay and hand.

This made me.

(if anything did)

+

(epilogue)

I’ll visit Boston soon.

I haven’t in years.

I wonder, will it feel familiar, foreign, or freaky?

I had the best and worst times of my life there.

Perhaps it will feel new.

+

(bonus material)

I go to this coffee shop.

The other day I saw an elderly couple, mid 70s, there.

They stood at the bar with the cream and sugar.

He carefully added cream to his wife’s coffee.

She stood and waited patiently beside him.

She could have done it herself but —

He wanted to do it for her and she wanted him to.

He gave his love and she received his love.

They positively glowed.

It didn’t then but writing about it now made me teary.

—I’ll have what they’re having…

— All my love (plus cream and sugar), D

P.S.

I think you picked the right career.

Until you feel it, fake it.

— or —

Fake it to feel it.

P.P.S.

As a kid, I felt free, unmoored.

This evening, I watched the yellow-gold light climb the wall.

Nothing else mattered.

Nothing else existed.

Finally it disappeared.

I knew then, I was fine.

+

(teaser)

Click here.

24 August ’24

My Dearest T —

(feeling supersonic)

+

Two nights ago I watched a film so well written I wanted to read it.

(I will.)

Again I realized how high the bar sits; how low mine sags now.

This didn’t demoralize me; it inspired me.

Genius isn’t always lofty; it’s sometimes goofy.

(—The fish was a poem.

—Tell him to go peel an eel.)

It made me question why I want to write a silent film and if I should.

(Although I have my reasons.)

It also reminded me, writing is everything.

(I can write that well and I will write something that good.)

I thought, —He got lost in the words and forgot everything else.

I need to do that.

(really do that)

It’s all I want to do.

I must remember — everything is a letter — I must pretend.

Mind to mind. Heart to heart. Soul to soul. Person to person.

(As hokey that sounds, I mean every word.)

—

Last night I watched a movie so good I got hysterical.

(They did not fuck around.)

This business comes with responsibility — to the craft, to the audience, to yourself.

It hit so hard because it told the truth.

Give it all. Then give more. Then let go.

Leave nothing behind.

Truth requires love.

Love well. Work hard. Live well.

Above all, love well.

—

A week ago I rewatched another film.

(I planned to watch just five minutes then go to bed.

I watched the whole thing.)

Again the writing hit me, hard.

The protagonist was a writer (—No one can put words together like you) but the star was the writing.

They clearly understood what writing means: —I’m aware in this moment of feeling…, one character says.

Writing is awareness: it is not the feeling; it is seeing the feeling.

In that, it frees us.

It frees the world —He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Here are the greatest lines though:

—These inner battles, they have actually trained you for this moment. You are strong because you are imperfect. You are wise because you have doubts. From this uncertainty, the wisest words will come.

—

I’ve started teaching again.

I decided to start or end my lessons with:

—What is the most important thing?

—Saving the world.

—What will save the world?

—Language. Language will save the world. Only language can save the world.

—Who will save the world with language?

—You. You will save the world with language.

(I’m joking and I’m not.)

Thinking — Writing — Speaking: Nothing matters more.

They teach kids they have to write.

They don’t teach kids they need to write.

They don’t teach kids people need writing — like air, like water, like food.

I think, therefore I am.

I write, therefore you are.

I speak, therefore we are.

The Greeks knew this — the 3 D’s: Democracy — Debate — Drama.

+

How do we know other people?

Language.

People are language: the larger your vocabulary, the stronger your fluency.

(eg, Shakespeare)

The better you know others, the better you will know yourself.

The better you know yourself, the better you will know others.

You cannot become yourself by yourself.

You cannot learn everything from a book.

(I’m a great reader.

It’s why I think I know you so well.)

—

My last house had an old water heater. It heated 50 gallons all day.

I replaced it with a new one. It heated only what came out.

It saved energy.

Mimic the latter. Give all your energy to the present moment.

You waste what you spend on hypotheticals. What matters is what happens.

(then magic happens)

+

I recently learned this term.

yetzer hara, from the Torah.

(With 3 Hebrew first names, I love all things Jewish.)

(especially delis)

I learned it and it changed me, altered my thinking.

It means, our natural inclination towards evil.

(more than that)

The explanation continued: the misuse of our gifts.

For example: hunger becomes gluttony; desire becomes promiscuity; striving becomes greed; etc etc etc.

The power we have — which we should use to protect people — we use to damage them instead.

How can I accurately describe how this affected me? I felt, almost instantly, a sense of relief.

The problem no longer existed outside me but within me, hence, it felt controllable.

(Even if —The greater the man, the greater the culpability.)

This describes only the evil we do.

—

If this is the what, then what is the how?

How is evil easy?

You’re right (evil is structural) but crucially:

Evil rejects relationship.

Evil works when:

—we deny relationships with others

—we deny others their humanity

Love embraces relationship.

Love recognizes:

—we are separate but connected

—what I do to you affects me

Real love transcends relationship.

Real love accepts:

—we are the same stuff, inseparable, indistinguishable

—what I do to you I do to myself

Real love is the truth.

(Living towards this truth matters more than fully living out this truth.)

—

How do we live with inexplicable evil — especially evil we’ve suffered?

(no easy answers but a few thoughts)

A Christian phrase came to mind:

We must reject the sins of our fathers.

We must pay love forward, beginning with ourselves.

This sounds glib, but:

Do not ask —Why me? which implies a reason exists, that it has something to do with you.

Ask instead —Why not me? which implies no reason exists, that it has nothing to do with you.

It has nothing to do with you: it could have happened to anyone.

You were, are — and forever will be — innocent.

So this pain does not belong to you.

Send it back.

(you can)

How?

It is happening to someone somewhere right now.

Perhaps, if you cannot prevent it, you can comfort them and help them heal.

You can in any number of ways.

(Another reason you must heal.)

Remember —You are strong because you are imperfect.

—

One man isn’t all men. An evil man is no man at all.

Love surpasses all or nothing would exist. Our pain invokes our humanity.

—

A bad man came into your life once. Now a good man has come into it.

(One preyed. One strengthens.

One took. One gives.

One denies. One accepts.

One discarded. One keeps.)

If you consider the bad, you must also consider the good.

Maybe everything comes in twos. Maybe everything has its opposite.

Maybe that’s nothing. Maybe that’s something.

(Anyway, no man is an answer.)

—

I read something recently about addiction. It was:

—To overcome its pull we must commit to something greater and opposite.

The time to heal is always now because you will do it eventually.

(Why wait any longer?)

If you don’t believe you can, then stand beside someone who knows you can, believes in you, and will help you.

(Why deny yourself this?)

You will not make this choice once. You will make it a thousand times.

Each time will make you stronger — take you farther — bring you closer.

Your existence proves your capability.

(irrefutably)

+

I always give you lots of advice.

You can always tell me to shove it up my ass.

(I’ve learned more from you.)

+

I prayed yesterday, for something specific. Today I got it. 

(always freaks me)

I told Sarah who shared this:

—The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

(I love Sarah.)

(As a friend.)

— All my love (or it’s wasted), D

P.S. By the way, I never lost my job; I just thought I would. Actually, I got a better one! (fate smiles)

P.P.S. All booked. Hongdae, here I come!

P.P.P.S. I want to stroll Jongno, stalk Director Hong…

P.P.P.P.S. Fuck neutrality.

P.P.P.P.P.S. I missed you.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. You know what I want to say next…