Commitment Issues with Ideas

OK, so, coming up with ideas based on the THBs is a proven process. After months of dissecting stories taxonomically into core elements, I can now identify the various parts and how they function holistically together. So idea generation is not the issue. Nor is taking the idea and recalibrating, or frankensteining it into a new creation using the THB formula (via it’s elements and ARC/PROGs). The question now is – which idea do I commit to? I know, I know. I am overthinking this. I think most people would tell me to just pick one, try it on, write a shitty first draft, and then see if it works. This would align with the 99 pots concept. But that has never been me. I have never iterated on bad drafts, bad sketches, bad concepts. And I need to change that. As I write this, I know I need to change that and I need to accept I will waste a lot of time on bad ideas and put them together in a bad way and I will need to learn how to fix the ones that still have survivability, or show signs of life. Wow, it is really like the creation of a frankenstein, isn’t it?

BUT – regardless, how do I narrow down my ideas. Again, I don’t think idea generation is something I need to worry about here. If I keep creating these zTHBs, if I keep breaking them down and testing them against my ideas, I will have thousands of ideas in 52 weeks. But how do I cull and prioritize and choose the ones I do commit to… even if it’s a shitty first draft?

Let’s go back to the Bryan Cranston quote for auditions. Don’t try to do better, bring something different to the table. What can only you bring to the table that no one else can? I don’t think it’s any one thing, very few human lives are so unique that they have one aspect that makes them special. Humans are interesting because of the combination of their life expereinces, the expertise they were naturally drawn to developing. their cultural upbringing, their interests, their makeup. So let’s rattle off the things that I know, individually, many others share and wouldn’t by themselves make my stories, my viewpoint, unique, but together could potentially be factors that I use as a checklist to pick ideas that have enough juice for me to see them to the finish line?

• Firstborn on the Chung side in Canada, son of immigrant parents. Growing up with a cultural divide between my parents and I. An outsider with peers. Perhaps a little racial microaggression, but very few incidents of blatant racism. It was more like I was someone you bullied because of intelligence and nerdiness, and the way I acted. Yes, definitely some cultural stuff, but almost everyone in Vancouver in the 80s had that. I feel like all my friends’ parents were immigrants. Or they maintained their cultural balkanization back there a lot better? Or maybe I moved to a more hegemonized neighborhood when I grew up and my kids have never experienced this? Regardless… there was a multicultural mix… Hindi, Punjab, Hong Kong, Taiwan… along with poorer Italian.
• So there’s a cultural gap between my parents and me, as I assume there’s a similar gap between my friends and their parents. But why was there a gap between me and them? Was it because they experienced more latch-key’ism? Because they had more TVs and therefore they watched more “white shows” than I did? We had one TV until… geez, until after I moved downstairs to the basement. So I didn’t get to watch “white shows” in the evenings. No primetime. We were watching TVB. I watched my afterschool cartoons, and Saved by the Bell, and whatever, but then dinner and evenings were whatever my parents were watching. It’s one of the reasons why I ended up reading more books. Huh. Never thought about that before.
• But there was more to it as well right? The in group versus the out group. When I moved from Collingwood to Hastings Sunrise. There was the “moving to a new school” thing. There was the “new kid at school” thing. There was the aligning myself with Stephan and Chris thing. There’s a real possibility that as I write this, a lot of this narrative of being bullied is fabricated and perception. But there were also instances where it wasn’t. J, S, L. No, no, this wasn’t definitely made up in my head. This was real.
• Above average intelligence/competency, led to labels, being a social outcast amongst peers, Led to superiority complex, fluctuating in a whiplash manner from high anxiety analysis paralysis (like now) to spotaneous, just-hunker-down action leveraging an over-abundance of energy. Never, rarely, the middle road where it was steady progress. Always bursts of action or nothing. Indecisive until the opportunity or situation passed me by. Bursts of actions gets me in trouble as much as the inaction. Both also have had benefits.
• Intelligence in seeing patterns. Rabbit holes, easter eggs, references, seeing them, making them. Grew up in heyday of The Simpsons, saw parody before original work. Enjoy the layering of themes and ideas and messages in art. Maybe crutch in falling in love with high concepts and meaning, could be reason why basic story elements, construction and craft has been so devastatingly difficult the last year.
• Religious upbringing. Still very much a tremendous influence on my life. The fact that we have belief in high beings and that it’s wired into our brains in a biological fashion. It’s a survival mechanism. But also, because of this, steeped in biblical, mythological, a bias towards these heroes and villains? Do most people grow out of it in the face of real life, of adulting, of raising a family and dealing with finances? Do we escape to television series and whatnot? Most people don’t to the same degree as you do though right?
• That same intelligence, that outlier, that life being an outcast led to this desperate need to grasp on to whatever “uniqueness” you do think you have. That loneliness led you to the persistent belief that you’re special, that you’re destined for greatness, a sucker for portal fantasies, or messianic heroes, or a team of weirdos standing against the world. The introversion added to the interior anxiety and delusion.
• You sought power and control. You have a knack for language, persuasion, and the break from the Church, the ambition driven by lack growing up in a blue collar immigrant family, the hunger to take, to make your own in the world, the grey morals, the get what’s mine, leads to the self-help world, the biz op world, the get rich quick world. The rah rah rah of the late 80s and 90s. The tech boom and bust. Which leads to copywriting, marketing, the ability to use words to manipulate the world.
• But all of this is an armor. It’s you gearing up for war. A defense mechanism. You do it because the system demands it on one hand, but on the other, you simply refuse to not build from the risks your parents took to immigrate to Canada and create the foundation they did. You have this sense of obligation and loyalty to moving the family’s wealth and standing forward and upwards. This causes you pain and frustration and inner conflict. But it also gives you this aggression. Again - a shell. A hardened shell. A shell that protects your insecurity. Another shell is you using your intelligence and humor to bully. To intimidate. This leads to a defense mechanism that’s prickly and bristly and aggressive. Unnecessarily so.
• You had to do it your way. You bristled so much against the 9-5, the normal, the path of school and work, that you went into freelancing. Angry for so many years after Rich Dad, Poor Dad that you kept being stuck, couldn’t break out of the low income situation, angry that progress wasn’t as fast as you wanted. So you did REI, you did MLM, you day traded. And you ended up at eBay in management because that’s what you told yourself you had to do. To build management and leadership skills. And then six years later, after they shut down your department, outsourced everything, and then laid off everyone in Burnaby, you took your severance and ran. You refused to get a job. You refused to play it safe. Despite a young family. Despite your wife angry at you the entire time. Despite how utterly absurd and improbable the venture was. You pushed forward because that’s what you wanted. That’s what you told yourself was the only way. That’s what you told yourself.
• You’ve spent over fifteen years in the trenches of freelancing. You’ve met a huge share of psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, cold, uncaring people, people who fake this amicability in order to get what they want, a game of smoke and mirrors, because the industry you chose attracts those types. It’s results or nothing. It’s a meritocracy for the most part. It’s what you wanted right? You wanted to be judged on results and not those intangibles. Socialability. How well you play with others. It’s why you despised the academic world and tenure, it’s why you hated the corporate world and seniority. You hated the politics of how people who are better at the social game moved up, undeservedly so, who were incompetent but still got the raises and promotions, and you enjoyed the fuck out of the schadefreud when they fucked up, slept with their subordinates, just kept fucking up and making mistakes, lacked accountability. See? Why did you hire them in the first place? Because they were charming? You thought they had leadership? What about accountability and actually being able to do the job well first? How about putting together a basic report and having difficult conversations. So you became attracted to the real leaders. It was a good sifting exercise to see it all there. But then you left it all. You told yourself you didn’t want to play politics and you wanted to be judged on merit. Fine. So you got it. But guess what, you still had to learn how to charm, how to sell, how to network, how to stand out. And luckily for you, you had years of experience, being a door-to-door canvasser, being a front line cashier at McDonalds, being in retail at Chapters, you were not afraid of talking to strangers and selling them on stuff. And you parlayed all that into being able to sell. And hustle. And grind. All of it put together into an advantage for freelancing.
• Possibly two or three periods in freelancing. First is the chaos and uncertainty and drive and ambition and nonstop action in the first period after getting laid off from eBay from 2009-2012. This period is hyper-growth. It peaks with the retainer with EVG. It peaks with coaching from M^x. It peaks with not being sure of yourself with the money you’re making. And your insecurity about it. You blindly push foward and it works. But then you catch the car and you don’t know what to do with it. You invest in a lot of stupid things because again – you want to be different. Like LLPs for real estate, like LB with his side business, like silver, like that fucking documentary, like exempt market investments (that was a ego boost more than anything else… ooh lala, you’re an accredited investor). And attempts at looking into angel investing and private equity. Just a string of bad ideas until I stick to boring DRIPs. 2012 is when you move from Port Moody to Port Coquitlam.
• Period two of freelancing is 2013-2017. Five years in the desert. 2013 is one of the most miserable years you’ve ever had in your entire life. That’s the year I attract a lot of bad juju in my life. K, J, and R. Three people who were nice on the outward front, but never delievered on actual action. 2014 is the drastic swing the other way where you spend so much of your free time with GS and even work time, trying so hard to do film stuff. Thinking you can just check out and do art. 2015 is NM, then ID, then EVG again. Nothing works. Your children are growing up and you’re in this haze of hating work. You have one good year financially due to one promo that does absurdly well at NM. This is also the period where you try anything and everything to keep going in terms of location. You work at Starbucks, the library, your brother’s house. Nothing works. You had to keep pushing through miserably. 2015-2016 is the year of board games. It’s absurd how much you avoid work.
• Period three is 2018-2023. I get a coworking office at CMPNY. I meet real physical people again. I spend so much time with JM and AJM. I start coaching RC. I get everyone into TG. I discover how much being on a team matters to me. I say how this lone wolf thing was just this weird diversion I had the last decade. I still think it is. I think I was meant to be on a team. I need my found family. Regardless. 2019 into the pandemic fluctuates from a lot of work to a lot of goofing off.
• And then you hit the pandemic and your children are all getting older and you’re asking yourself what this was all for and why you still haven’t done anything that was actually fulfilling or fed your spiritually. It was this chase for material wealth, not that you were ever materially driven in physical goods, but more like, the abstract concept of wealth, to have investments, and a house, and corporations. You’ve built safety, but not enough safety that you can quit the game, and that frustration dancing between being a HENRY and dying inside from not pursuing art or whatever you want to call it… that eats at you and you’re weeping at the end of Little House of Horrors because you just kept feeding this absurdly huge Venus Flytrap, feeding capitalism and your obligation and your loyalty to this upper middle class your lifeforce, bleeding into it.

Themes and Patterns I’m Seeing

• Outsider Status and Found Families. It’s probably why Guardians of the Galaxy hit me so hard the first time I saw it. It’s probably why the X-Men, Dragonlance, and any work-family type shows (Mad Men, Newsroom, Money Heist) hit me so hard to this day. It’s probably why I constantly waver between the leader characters (Cyclops, Leonardo, Tanis) and the rogue characters (Wolverine, Raphael, Raistlin). It’s why I create my own groups of weirdos, loners, and misfits.
• Different for the Sake of Different. There are a lot of times in my life I purposefully, consciously or unconciously, put myself on hard mode just to be “different” and unique. Sometimes, it bears fruit, and I think long-term it defines here I am, but I think there’s an accumulation of net-negatives here. It has caused extra work, created unnecessary social tension, social awkwardness, inefficiencies, and avoidant behaviors.
• The Climb and the Cost of It. Seeking power, seeking security and independence, building wealth. Playing the game. The whole self-help path of building. And the cost of it. The imbalance of it. The sacrifice of it. The misery of it. The real friends. The fake friends. The power dynamic between clients and vendors and peers. The chaos of freelancing and the lack of rules. The thrill of the chase and hunt of landing clients. There’s so much here because of the 15 years of it.
• Sacrifice and Neglect. I think this can be it’s own theme. Work life balance is something that ends up in my fiction organically. The tradeoffs. It can also be a misguided sense of serving a higher ideal. That plays in the religion stuff as well.
• Masks & True Selves. I remember watching a YT video on Don Draper’s character once and realizing how much I identify with him and why I love that show so much. No, I didn’t steal a Korean War vet’s identity, but the child of an Asian immigrant status growing up in the 80s meant there were a lot of aspiration towards a white “American Dream”, and if that meant “faking it until you make it”, that meant putting on masks. But even without that “origin story”, most people on this planet DO put on masks as per T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland. How we present ourselves versus who we really are. The Protean nature of the different masks we wield based depending on the different contexts in which we operate (child, parent, teacher/mentor, student, boss/master, employee/servant/apprentice, king/subject, rank, rivals, peers, friends, lovers, allies). How these masks define us. How sometimes these masss define us to the point of us not knowing who we really are anymore. How some of us are much better at leveraging and using these masks than others. The risk/reward systems of these masks.
• Power Dynamics of Institutions (Both Internal and External). I’ve noticed that the two things my parents fought most about – religion and finances – I’ve squashed in my own life. I became an atheist. Problem solved. We can’t fight about religion. I raised my family’s status to upper middle class. Problem solved, can’t really argue about the lack of money now. I’ve also noticed that those two themes play heavily in my thoughts. The THIRD thing though is office politics. I’ve always hated the concept of tenure and seniority. That you’re rewarded for how long you’ve been at an institution. Your loyalty. But that very repulsion is also the exact same kind of drama I enjoy. Leadership and management trying to move a group of people in one direction and succeeding or failure based on the culture and drama of that group. As I have transferred from solo freelancing status back to middle management, I see these dynamics play out again – but at forty-something and hopefully a little more wiser at how the game is played.
• But externally as well – power dynamics is just fascinating to me. I mean, yes, everyone as a child felt helpless and vulnerable and we eventually gather our resources to create a semblance of power. Most of us create defense mechanisms that are unhealthy due to trauma and then we have to go to therapy or some other harrowing event to admit we’re broken but our lives are worth living for or something like that. Others end up playing victim their entire lives and are negative, or lash out, or let people run them over. The other side of that is being aggressive and exploitive and scrappy. The takers and givers dichotomy as per Stephen King. Point is – once we become adults, the predator/prey relationships we get ourselves into continues. It’s why Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite novels. It’s a theme I think I’ve felt more sharply as someone who was prey, but became a predator. I’ve seen both sides as a child who was bullied, an outsider wanting in, a poor minority… but also someone who climbed the management corporate ladder, then “did my own thing” as a freelancer – in which being a “benevolent predator” was required to close sales, close clients, hunt down projects, ask for absurdly high fees, and move fast and break things.