20081111

TUES

FREE

This morning, I spent two hours interpreting and recording my dreams. Now, I will begin my journal entry.

There is simply not enough time in 24 hours for me to do all the writing I need to get done. It is my Oxygen, and I cannot live without it.

Yesterday was one of the most poignant periods of my life.

To clarify this moment, I need to provide a back-story: because people new to my blog won’t know whom the “characters” are.

I’ll try to keep it consolidated (brief):

About less than a year ago, I decided to cut a documentary about my life in film school.

It was a very painful procedure and project to take on because I really did not intend to do a doc about it.

Basically, I was assigning myself a “exercise” to free up my creativity: to cut documentary in a total stream of consciousness—freeing, non-industry, no-influence kind of way.

But this exercise forced me to look at A LOT of footage in the past that I did not want to see…and then the story and relationships in my life began to unfold.

One of the things it forced me to realize was my bond and natural friendship with my best friend, Jack at the time.

I didn’t realize how artistically lonely my life was without him—when we stopped talking ten years ago.

When I looked at the footage and started cutting the piece: I realized how rare and precious this gift of friendship was.

Jack, who is also a filmmaker, is my “Partner in Crime.”

No one thinks like us, no one understands aesthetics or views the world like us. We are like Twins, telepathic in both the creative as well as personal sense. We mirror back to each other everything… and although Stylistically, our work is very different: we “get it” without words and admire each other’s work.

His style is very comedic and on the perverse Satire spectrum; dark, funny but deep. My style is very stoic and human, and in the drama side; very deep  but funny. We balance each other out because we compliment each other’s strength and weaknesses.

When Jack and I were together—we developed VERY FAST as Artists…we think, breathe, and dream the same dramas…We see hidden meanings where others cannot.

We were always there to defend one another. When everyone would tell him something was wrong—I was the only one who would say it was right. So on and so forth.

And although we did not speak to one another for over 10 years—we were living synchronously.

We were suffering the same processes in life, overcoming the same obstacles, and healing and metamorphosizing (sic) in the same way.

Hence, it felt terrible to me that when I finally got a hold of him—I learned that he was ill from HIV and literally left to die because he could not afford Health Care.

To make a long story short: I had left my life in NY to return to my parents in Colorado—in order to spiritually heal and start my life over. He had gone to Maine to live with this parents to heal from HIV.

Both of us have been in Recluse for a long period of time. For him, it was four or five years—for me, it going onto a year and a half now.

I was very happy to finally reach out to him. At first, he refused to give me his address or phone number.

Much of it is because he developed severe phobias that resulted from his fear (or social allergy). And I was going through my own healing process—going through a “detoxification” of society and deconditioning myself.

He has very serious eye issues—which saddens me. For a filmmaker to have eye issues is like worst than Death. He can barely read emails because blood vessels would pop behind his retina.

His resilience is incredible. And I am trying to help him heal. I send him my thoughts about life, about society. I told him this:

“Everything I believed as a child was right. It’s society that has gotten it wrong. It has taken me this long and this much trouble in my life to realize that I had always gotten it right.

Now I am living the life that I felt to be True as a child. I see that when something looks right it’s right—and to never let anything tell you that (your inner truth, your innocence) is wrong. Because the truth that you feel is the only thing that is real…and is true.

I believe that your illness is Symbolic. Society made you sick (the sick values of society) and then when you got ill they don’t want to help you heal. Instead they call you fag and a leper and hope that you will die.

But you cannot let them make you sick. As Artists we must heal ourselves in order to heal the world. If we die, our visions die. So we must heal, we must become healthy and never let others make us sick again.”

In short, I started to reach out to Jack again and we are cultivating our friendship in a very slow but meaningful way. We do not see or speak to each other: other than email every two or three months—but we are closer than ever.

He emailed me once and said, “I was have always thought that if you and I were to ever make a film together, it would be like FAT GIRL? Have you seen it?”

He knows that I don’t like to watch movies so it wasn’t surprising that I hadn’t. He told me that I would really identify with it.

I asked him to give me list of all the films he thinks I would like. I am very picky about movies and would rather have recommendations by people whom I trust.

My friend Joseph has exceptional tastes in films—but Jack: Jack knows me inside out and just gets everything right on target.

Jack is a walking Encyclopedia. He has thousands of films and absorbs tremendous amount of detail. He confessed that although he sees and studies loads of both conventional and esoteric stuff: there are only a handful of movie that he revisits over and over again.

That is what I do. I only watch the same films over and over…and other films, I may watch for “entertainment” or curiosity: but I literally throw the DVD in the garbage or donate it to Goodwill afterward.

I asked Joseph to rent FAT GIRL (À ma sœur!; “For my Sister”) from Netflix so we could watch it together.

Seeing that movie for the first time with Joseph was magical and priceless.

I felt like I was in my Natural State—and the Highest State an Artist or any human being can feel.

Jack was not kidding. FAT GIRL changed my life.

I wrote him my whole analysis of it, “Almost Perfect if it were not for the trite and annoying implementation of the Music; scores to incite emotions…I hate that shit.”

“I am the best director when it comes to Sex—sorry to say. I would not have shot the sex scenes that way. I could tell everyone was afraid: I would have gotten the Actors to overcome their Egos—their bullshit and to do the sex scenes much more explicitly…more naturally.”

Okay, I am a bit Egotistical. But I mean what I say. No one can direct Sex the way I can. I can bring Sexuality to its fullest meaning—without Ego, without Censorship, and without Actors’ attitudes getting in the way of Innocence and purity of a scene.

That is why although FAT GIRL is so inspiring to me; it cannot go on my “film shrine”—because there are too may imperfections….But the movie is Near Perfection.

A few days ago, I opened up my email and saw this:

Jack said he was ready to “reenter” the world again and gave me his Phone Number!

So yesterday, November 10th, I decided to call him.

His mother answered the phone. The funny part is that she didn’t ask who was calling.

I heard her as she carried the phone to the door, knocked on it, Jack answered…and picked up the phone.

The moment we heard each other’s voice: it is as if Time Closed its Gap.

Nothing changed between us…No distance had ever separated us.

We still bitch about the same things, shared the same worldviews, advanced in our worldviews, changed in very similar ways, and laughed about the same things.

When Jack and I just laugh endlessly without ever explaining why we’re laughing: it’s that Telepathic moment that is so unique to our friendship.

When I called him, there was still daylight in the room.

The light grew dimmer and dimmer and then I found myself sitting in the dark.

I turned on a lamp.

We had talked for Five hours!

We talked about so many things.

Jack is one of the very few people whom I get to share my artistic vision with. We love going through that mindscape…where he travels with me as I describe to him scenes that I would imagine making one day…and he does the same.

Then he would add his film knowledge and all kinds of practical insight into my ideas.

He told me stories he started writing but never finished….

And then we would return to FAT GIRL….

We would return to scenes from FAT GIRL over and over and over again….

Because he was right: if he and I were to make a film together, it would be like FAT GIRL…it would have the essence of what that movie was about, how it was done and so on.

I told him that there was one scene in FAT GIRL that I find so “Unremarkable yet is so uncomfortable and I can’t get it out of my mind.”

I would revisit this scene over and over and over again…it was like Oxygen…it fed total Awareness in me—about something hidden, truthful, precious and innocent in life.

And without even describing the scene, Jack had guessed it.

I couldn’t believe it.

No one would have ever guessed which scene was I was thinking of; because it was the most common place, misplaced or unordinary (least prominent or unexciting) of all the scenes.

That was another one of those Telepathic moments.

“Did I send that to you?” I asked.

“No, I never got an email about that.” he said.

“No,” I said, “I meant, did I send that to you Telepathically…did you receive it while I was talking…like a mental image?”

“No,” he said, “I just had a feeling that that was the scene.”

Jack told me that I’m the only person on earth he knows that gets Physically Sick watching films: meaning, I am so sensitive that I get literally “violent” and upset when I feel that a movie is degrading my Intelligence.

I hate it when sound or music manipulates my feelings and I hate expressionistic character acting: people “acting.”

I get violently ill, sometimes my heart would beat really fast…I get shortness of breath. Sometimes I’ll sit in front of a TV and scream aloud.

When I told him this he laughed because he does the same thing.

I have been known to walk out the middle of movie theaters all the time. I find it to be purely Torturous, to have my senses and human sensitivities, Dumbed down and Degraded like that.

I find most movies to be so fucking Stupid and incredibly Abusive.

It’s like worse than Rape—because you’re actually paying and buying Popcorn for it (voluntarily subjugation).

So how refreshing it was to speak to Jack again.

The only human being on earth that feels the way I feel, that knows my loneliness; that understands my hopes and is familiar with the darkness.

I do not know where fate will lead us, but I told Jack that films—the Reality of films—the way we see it is already Completed: already “light years” ahead of us.

I said,

“Not to worry. The way we think the way we do, is because what we want already Exists.

It’s just that the journey to get there has not arrived.

We may not get there (implement these visions) ourselves with our bodies or in our lifetime: but the fact that we See how things should be; means that it’s already there—and everything else has not caught up to it.

But just because it hasn’t arrived, does not mean it’s not there.

In that regards, that is what gives me Faith…my faith comes from the fact that I have already arrived there: simply by knowing what really Exists.”

We are in a period of Darkness, the Dark Ages or what Hindus call “Kali Yuga” (age of darkness, age of “vice”).

What that means is that is it is like the human race is “living submerged under water” (or darkness).

It is like trying to see Light while you have a dark hood over yourself.

If you can see the Light—then that means you experience (or have) Faith.

If you have Faith and can see beyond the darkness that means you are Liberated.

You know how the World should be and even if it hasn’t reached the light—you have already Arrived there.

With that said, I no longer feel the suffering or pressures caused by the trials of life…of this life that tries very hard to base everything on the Attainment of “Goals.”

All the goals that people (society) have in this world are False.

They are led by (this period) of Darkness.

All their Goals are ways to mislead you and take you further into the depths of Acceptable and Conformed Darkness.

There is no Comfort in this darkness for me; and that is why I don’t want those Goals.

Jack and I have abandoned them.

We are Free.

—

Additional reference:

The Satya Yuga (Devanagari: सत्य युग), also called Sat Yuga, Krta Yuga and Krita Yuga in Hinduism, is the “Yuga (Age or Era) of Truth”, when mankind is governed by gods, and every manifestation or work is close to the purest ideal and mankind will allow intrinsic goodness to rule supreme. It is sometimes referred to as the “Golden Age.” The average lifespan in the satya yuga was 100,000 years.

After the perfect Satya Yuga, a decline marks the Treta Yuga. Further decline brings about the Dwapara Yuga, and after it comes the final and dark Kali Yuga, a time of wickedness, when man kills another man. At the end of the cycle a Divine Being is said to take birth and reestablesh righteousness, thus beginning a new Satya Yuga. –Wikipedia