“Decolonising the Mind”- what does this mean?
We turn to articles. Articles that have the phrase “decolonising the mind” in their titles.
My personal creative project at the moment is about relating to people.
My “I’m a Screenwriter” spaceship has hurtled past its aims and ambitions in the past year.
What am I even doing? At this point. What am I EVEN DOinG? As in, WHAT’S THE MEDIUM?! As in, what’s the medium, I keep asking myself this and being completely unable to provide an answer. Any kind of answer. I have “lost my medium” in various areas:
Diane Bell said I should make a feature film so I was like “yeah okay” like, like it was inevitable. Diane has a talent for guiding you conversationally through the bullshit in your mind chatter and right to the core of the matter. She’s also
extremely
fast-paced. (‘Too fast for me.’)
So, what that means is I have shifted really fast into this world of ‘being networked’- holding a place in a web connected by hearts.
So it’s massive reality shift.
As in, the material, the medium, of reality
FEELS
COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT.
So I’ve “lost my medium” there.
How scary is that phrase?!
Does it need to be that scary?
I literally imagine myself as a seamstress, a tailor, a Victorian tailor, whatever,
and my last ream of fabric is just being whipped away from the sewing machine and it’s like billowing under my arm in this wafty swathe and then it’s gone and I’m just looking at this sewing machine like
‘What are you even for now?’
Just confused.
Looking at the sewing machine.
I am not the sewing machine.
(Immediate tinge at the base of the spine.)
But so, am I actually ready to “make a feature film”?
“I’m a Screenwriter” has to be the part of the ship that crumbles off in the atmosphere (on fire). It has to be. It has too many associations in my mind with nonsense I read on the internet. It was a very tricky field where there was lots of really great advice and also some really shitty, shitty advice. So you had to learn how to lead with intuition through that (which for me is a social activity; I read people for whether they’re telling the truth or not- possibly a trauma response, possibly a perfect divine intervention of reality reflecting the perfect environment in which for my seed to grow, who knows?)
Let me be very clear here, I never
ever
Not once
Took writing advice from a random person on the internet.
I still don’t take writing advice from Diane. (Even though I really should.)
I don’t take writing advice from fucking anyone
And that is what has preserved my voice thank you and goodnight.
Look at this shit!
Look at the format of this.
Who the fuck writes like this?!
No-one.
Only me.
That’s probably not true but, like, yeah, no, ‘advice’ needs to come from a deeply trusted fuckin source like, give me Virginia Woolf, give me Jesus Christ who Is My Friend, give me, okay give me the Save the Cat guy cos, like, he explains very clearly his reasoning and it’s like, ‘yeah, okay, let’s do it your way.’ But I’m just very very wary of those Facebook groups these days, I had really important experiences in them, I met coworkers who really, we pushed each other along, it felt like. I could not have started this journey without that initial network. It’s really fucking amazing, actually, that it’s right there. You DON’T need to KNOW *ANYONE*. You can just chat to people. It’s all good. Like, everybody’s got a shared goal. Not everybody in those groups but definitely everybody when your network starts to thicken and spark up in different places. I feel like this is exactly what Diane says when she talks about film festivals. That’s my next thing. Real people. I’mma go get “real people” BRO
the internet people are real people.
That’s the thing about it.
These internet-erupted relationships become real-world relationships when you have the shared goal of getting to set on the start date with all the shit prepared. They blossom. Like a little garden of roses.
The only reason I’m going outside this week is because my DP, who I’m completely in love with, in that flourishy good-time flouncy way, and a very safe “let’s make a film”, “we’re at war!” sort of- not that, but you know what I mean, invited me to a party ~in London~ ooh la la (fucksake my life- examined that thought, released it.) and how the heck would I ever have met HER without the internet?! WHY AM I JUSTIFYING SO HARD THAT INTERNET SOCIALISING IS A FINE AND NORMAL AND HEALTHY THING?! To whom am I explaining myself?!
It’s also not socialising
It’s *networking*.
It’s working. So mleh.
(I have a complication here. I met Alina through Em’s network after Em posted on their Instagram story and got back like 7 fucking female or nonby cinematographers literally willing to be pitched to to do free work. As in, were actively interested enough in the information “Queer short film” and the colour light pink, to reply to Em’s story to say they were interested.
The relationships I built within the Screenwriting Facebook groups, while valued and sustained with golden light, have not yielded much crop in terms of films actually getting the fuck made. That networking came from picking up the phone on a working cinematographer, who for me was randomly a childhood connection called Em Turner who’s beautiful and amazing and I still really hope I get to work with them. Em opened a door for me to this mental colourful fast-paced world of all these individual film people going about their creative path and cross-crossing with each other zoom zoom zoom trails of moonlight. It’s a Queer network. You understand. Everyone’s fucking lovely. Everyone I’ve met from and through the Queer London Indie Film ✌️Scene✌️has been fucking lovely. Meurig’s partner’s a theatremaker and massage therapist.
All to say, this isn’t a good way to prove that internet socialising isn’t nerdy.)
Why do I think all creative activity and general business for prosperity needs to get an “it’s work” stamp in order for it to be justifiable.
IT EXISTS!
IT IS THEREFORE JUSTIFUCKINGFIABLE.
Okay.
Where were we?
Where have I “lost my medium”?
How can the phrase be reframed so it’s not a scary shape in my head anymore.
The answer is that nothing is lost at all, it’s just that so much new ground has been discovered (make this a New Earth metaphor- if there’s a religion for that, I’m in. Until the bend at the end ;) Stock Market joke.) that the old way of seeing the world- with the head turned to the ground- has been joined by many other perspectives. I’m understanding more and more “how movies are made” and the more I learn the more I discover how much I do not know. I expect this expansion to be pretty much endless and certainly wish it to be.
This is why this focus on developing network is absolutely necessary as a work activity. And it’s okay for activities to be work activities. I think I have a thing that “I don’t work!” “You can’t make me work!” Like a sort of punk aesthetic- I used to stay up late listening to the squat house next door and trying to work out whether it would be a sensorily safe environment to live in. I concluded that it would not be. So now I have this dissonance, and now I do not. It is gone, whisked away on an angelic wind.
Just kidding, I’mma work on that.
By
Working.
Because, again, this dissonance was the perfect environment in which for my seed to grow.
Now I am here, I am ready to work on what I always knew my work was supposed to be, here I am, I’m doing it. I’m being. Connected. Learning. Loving. This is turning into the opening credits of The L Word.
Ok good night whoever read that xxx (and
me x)
Bruv
Are we even gonna get into the “psychic work” we’ve been doing. Gosh, work in so many disparate fields. Time to bring them together.
Headings:
-‘psychic work’
-social network work on social networks
Each individual network point on those, like OurChart; that’s a sub-heading.
(Literally map out who your friends are.
I’m literally going to do this.
Like a Warhammer board. Yesss.)
-body work (not recently been practicing but learned a lot that I imagined I was giving time to integrate but now I’m starting to sieze up lolllll whoops)
((Left it in the freezer too long.))(((That’s a joke about how fucking cold it is in the UK, why the fuck do I live here?)))
-That work. The work of, where do I want to live, where do I want to be, how do I get there? I know the answer to this but it’s a big fucking secret for some reason even though it’s not.
Everybody *knows* you want to be a writer, Sally! Come out about it.
(“Fuck off,” said Sally.)
-nutrition work
-pre-production work
-“financial work” I’ve got no idea what this even fucking means cos I tried Stock Trading and I shat myself everywhere so I dunno what to do now. Probably return to my training in that area. Okay. Financial work. Understanding money, what it is, both vibrationally and… vibrationally. What it is and what it does and how it does it and ‘how do I siphon it off of that strange ethereal ribbon in the sky?’ In the internet, yo. In the internet.
-Stand-up comedy work. (That's a secret.)
-Improv work. (That's not.)
-Meditation practice. (That's also not.)
Full circle. That’s an ending.
Goodnight! X
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