Happy New Year!!
I hope you all had a restful December and are ready for whatever 2023 throws your way. I’m excited to see more of my life in Los Angeles settle in. And I missed you! I love talking to the collective you and the royal “we”, searching for ways to make sense of the now and hearing how you (specifically) relate to these interpretations. And we aren’t even halfway done, can you believe it? There are 6 more installments of this organized chaos!
Anyway, getting to the meat, this one jumps around from basketball to jealousy to competition to filmmaking, so please enjoy! The medium for this week is photos taken on a cellphone. Apologies in advance that I can’t name the person here that I am directly speaking about because that would be déclassé, but let’s call her HDW (aitch-dee-dubya, which stands for “hot director writer”).
Did you know I love basketball? Never heard me find a way to bring it up in conversation? Well, in case this essential part of my personality that I hold onto for dear life is new to you, I love basketball!! I think it is one of the most beautiful sports in the world to watch and I played it in school. It continues to teach me a lot about myself, so I will rarely let anyone forget about it.
In school, I was never a very competitive athlete. I worked hard to play the best I could but I didn’t really care much about being the MVP. I chose to play JV field hockey until I was no longer allowed because my friends were on that team and the varsity team was a bunch of blonde girls who had been friends since they were nine. By high school, I was so used to being the new kid, I knew how to make friends with people I liked and not waste my time trying to fit in with people who had never left their hometown. I wasn’t itching to prove my athletic ability, maybe because I was socialized as a girl and I just didn’t think there was much of a future for me in competitive sports. Maybe it’s because I went to prep schools where no one was taught they would play sports after college. Maybe it’s because I just like playing games and it’s so much more fun with friends than it is when you have something to prove.
Classic team pic (my leg is the one with the shaving scar lol):
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because I’ve been experiencing an unusual amount of what one might call Jealous Rage, which I read is a side effect of competitiveness. I recently came across someone on instagram (surprise surprise) who directed one of my favorite TV shows, so I obviously immediately followed her and am kept up to date with her career and relative personal life. This is HDW.
Jealousy is not a feeling I came across often growing up. I have seen it, I understand it, I have thought I was above it, because I’m just so confident and not insecure and please work on yourself before coming at me with that toxicity, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
I’ve chalked this pretentiousness up to having a very fluid lifestyle up until now. I always came to situations knowing they would change, so what’s the point of being jealous? Let’s just have a good time. Little did I know, I wasn’t allowing myself to want things. I wasn’t experiencing jealousy because I didn’t know how to desire. I could say I know what I like, my style and taste well practiced, but allowing yourself to desire and want something as your own requires a certain amount of vulnerability I’ve never truly had the bandwidth to confront. To take ownership of something, apparently you have to give your time and self to that thing! I rarely wanted that responsibility because I knew I would have to part with it and that’s…painful. Self preservation! Not to brag, I’m very skilled at it.
Cut to recently, I’ve entered a new phase of my life where I have a stable, corporate job in my desired industry. With all that that means, it has brought me much security and subsequent personal peace, and I’m in no rush to leave. I’m learning about big picture and I have the time and calm to ask what I really want to do here in Tinseltown. This answer is vast, but what makes me absolutely distracted from my paying job I’m so consumed with insecurity and what feels like hatred is when HDW pops up on my feed and I just see her living her life, talking about work, celebrating birthdays, eating croissants, and hanging out with other queers who have established careers in entertainment. She seems with it and I’m so envious she travels for work and dresses well for it. More often than not, when her little image pops up on my phone, I unexpectedly have to get up and pace around. My stomach begins to hurt and my expression goes from smiling to rage to face palm.
!!
Let’s go for a brisk walk and take a deep breathe, shall we?
First off, the feeling is that of envy, not jealousy. I don’t necessarily feel threatened that something will be taken away, because I don’t have the thing I want yet.
Second, remember, this envy is a reflection of wanting things! Luckily, I’m finally seeing and entering a world where people are rewarded for feeling and reflecting on their internal life? And that of queer people? I want in! Pick me! Put me in coach! Let me help tell stories on a larger scale and open audience’s eyes to the beauty and complexity of queer life to create a more loving and understanding world!!
2.5: Do I earnestly want to pursue writing/directing? I made one short film in 2019 (watch here it’s so weird and was so fun to make) but have since been caught up trying to find a sustainable way to put good food on my table (and to avoid fighting with my family ope). Being just a producer would be a very plush life, and I could be tough enough for it. But obviously HDW has shown me that there is a fire inside me that wants to be lit!! In the past I’ve felt that I wasn’t hungry enough to enter the creative arena. I know plenty of people who are protective and cutthroat about their artistry, while I tend to help everyone get along. And seeing HDW living a regular life, having organized and passionate discussions about storytelling while working as a part of an industry, has made me realize I don’t need to be emotionally unhinged and act like Stanley Kubrick to be a director. HDW seems pretty hinged and I like that. All projects need directors to lead, and I like the idea of working with a variety of artists and business people, talking to everyone involved. And I forget I actually studied visual arts for many years? I love taking photos?? How this is just hitting me I don’t know but how HDW has taught me this is a positive result of projection! I’ve never spoken to the woman in my life…but this unexpected intense envy combined with everything I’m learning at my corporate production job has suddenly pointed me back towards directing. And what a relief! The actuality of freelance work is a whole other affair and this is me daydreaming, not me quitting my 9-5! But can someone show me how to storyboard today, onegaishimasu?
Lastly, I think a lot of the initial anger directed at HDW came from seeing her with her already established community of artists and queers. Many of whom I already look up to and respect. And when the next recession hits and capitalism proves once again to be a lacking life force, communities of support and joy are what will get us through, am I right?! I’m a saccharine baby deep down that just wants safety, hugs, and fellowship, that’s what we are learning. But I was raised a fighter, so it seems naive to think I’m just going to join their little club, sorry I mean MASSIVE AND COOL AND SICK AND DOPE club. I’m also smart enough to recognize what I see online is not the full story, please. So here’s to building our own community, where we will meet HDW and friends on the other side :)
(Ding ding ding! Herein lies the healthy competition.)
I was the captain (giggle) and this was taken my senior year at my last game :’)
When I see these photos from high school basketball, it reminds me how sincere it all was. To be clear, we didn’t win very often. We mostly lost to other teenagers from Gonzales, CA that were so quick on their feet they would dribble circles around us prep school kids. I loved playing basketball because it got me out of my head. I tried so hard and lost so often and felt barely any shame about it. I ran until I was keeled over and screamed as loud as I could. Games were a place I could focus all my attention and fight as best as I had trained to. Especially as a teenage girl, it was embarrassing to see my pale white skin turn tomato red and strut my aggression through contact sports, but the release was always worth it. What did I have to lose?
The older I get and the more I work in an industry that is based on being perceived, it’s hard to cut those voices of self-awareness out and really focus on the training. I’m still learning how to put ideas on screen and getting my bearings in the industry of it all. It’s tiresome to quiet those voices of insecurity and remember to just learn. Now I’m studying and watching everything HDW has ever made and every interview she’s ever given. I actually find it somewhat relaxing because it helps control the voices telling me she’s worthless and stupid and a fake. Voices that come from, you guessed it, my social media interactions with her! Watching her web series from ten years ago takes me out of that cycle of reactive feelings based on her constructed persona and reminds me of all the work she put into getting where she is today. But instagram is where I came across her and began this whole exhaustive process of growth, so. You win some you lose some, I guess.
All this being said and after intellectualizing it to death, my gut is still telling me I want to be her and I want to be her NOW! That’s a feeling that probably won’t go away for awhile. So I guess I’ll have to swallow it until it dissipates or something else comes up that savagely inspires me. And every time she pops up on my feed and I start to feel my little devil horns sprouting, planning to cut down everything she’s built, I have to remember that actually this is a good sign of figuring out how and what I want.
So anyway maybe one day I’ll happen to be at a party in LA and see her and have the guts to approach her and say HI I LOVE YOUR WORK YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO MANY THINGS. Or something along those lines but much cooler and chiller and more professional. Pinch me and I think I could do it. Fingers crossed.
Love you lots, I’m so happy to be back and I hope you are feeling well on this cozy Thursday morning in January! May 2023 be the year to make smart decisions, not just easy ones.
Talk soon <3
Kirsi Myntti
a mostly misc production