Have you ever noticed that the lead roles in films have completely unrealistic jobs? Like, obviously they never seem to work, have perfect colleagues, don’t seem to work 9-5, have massive lunch breaks etc. ok, I get that it’s for the purposes of telling the story and not their job, but it’s ironic that creators and writers of films and episodic series… don’t have “real jobs”.
Actually that’s pretty cool.
When I look on Facebook, I check out other peoples profiles for signs of their work; bitching, pride, colleague talk, clues… it’s a weird habit because I never knew what I wanted to do so I always looked people up to see - how they fit into the world.
Most are standard jobby jobs - nurses, web designers - civic servants, infact, I check out all my classmates that follow me now from like 27 years ago of ostracized outside survival days, and, they are all pretty dull. Nothing really interesting. No outstanding jobs. Infact, the opposite was happening, many classmates I think around 40 of them now - are following me. Because for whatever reason they are watching what I’m up to.
I do put out stuff I’ve made/thought about/designed/sketched/self portrayed/stunts and athletics/ -yeah that does seem quite diverse from the little ghost girl they all taunted.
I remember watching a video or something, like decades ago, I can’t remember what it was exactly about - probably some magical thinking about “the force of attraction” and there was a clear, clear, infographic in the beginning part of the film:
How you could take a hundred stick men kids from school, they would all be the same colour except one in orange who stood out. And the narrator would explain as the blue stick men fell away from the grid while the frame zoomed slowly in, that there will only ever be ONE who would stand out from the rest, and become a force for change: entrepreneurship, inventor, genius or whatever.
I was arrogant enough in those days to actually quietly think, that has to be me. THAT HAS TO BE ME. Hmmm yeh that’s gonna be ME. But I didn’t say anything to anyone, I kept that thought to myself, because I was too ashamed of taking that for myself, and after that, I watched my school friends for any signs that set them apart… but none set themselves apart.
I have for some unknown reason set myself apart intentionally, subconciously, without open admission to anyone, but there was a thing inside me, that always FELT - there HAD to be something better!
And this feeling is what I grew up with and his all my life. It kinda started with my mama telling me she was daughter of a princess who was murdered, and that we; her children were therefore special - but had to keep that hidden, incase whoever murdered princess would come after us, especially if we reached out to make contact WITH THEM.
Of course I was too young to really understand the truth of it- that my mother was completely delusional and wanting to reclaim her stolen heritage which had been purposely and politically denounced to save their own lives. It was therefore an agreement, that princess grandmother obviously provoked in the political climate by becoming too powerful in her outpost.
However, having these kind of survivalist stories taught me, that I WAS in actual fact something different from everyone else. And that, there was so much to learn to become responsible for my outside position. That a position of this nature was not just inherited but came with a massive amount of respect for learning and duty. It wasn’t just a cultural thing but something like; you have to know and act enough on surviving for everyone, not just self.
Hard to really explain but that is a very Chinese ingrained thing, which as opposed to Western values, is really an asset to set yourself apart from the other hundred people. You are like everyone else, but with their concerns around their lives, instead of the courage to set yourself apart, and take care of the future, whatever that is the way you see it, you will never become that 1%
I knew that I was a 1 percenter. I was ashamed to think of myself in that way, as to be special in any way without deserving of it, without earning it, was nonsense! And my mother HAD NOT EARNED IT. Therefore I WILL EARN IT. Not to show mama or to put her down, but to prove I am right. My mother had a thing about revenge, and feeling entitled to her title, and reclaiming inheritance stolen by the regime, her mansion was her legacy and THEY HAD IT! so she became so focused on this entitlement, rather than the history of the family that were wards of the role and position in society.
These roles in society were leadership, and out of the 7 children, there would be one who would carry that responsibility forward, not by birthright, but by assessment over the years of their performance for the family and community and study, who would take over.
The family owned haw fruit factories, candle factories, palm oil plantations, plant plantations (I don’t know what) they tutored their children by sending them away to the Netherlands and being friends with the house of Orange and queen Juliana; except mama, because you know she was number 4 UGLY DATE CHILD. (Representative of living wild as a tree urchin for the first 7 years of her life with peasant mama).
So ugly date child (my mother, and her nickname was retained from birth as the spirit name to prevent the spirits from stealing an ugly baby) learned 7 languages in the community, learned to make gold and silver jewelry, learned embroidery, learned stewardship of the courtyard business of shops lining their streets. My mother became a hands on serving assistant, outside of the duties with servants to look after the household. (As a rejected child she lived in outside servant quarters that were not inside the house)
So my mother grew up callously rejecting what had happened to her as unfairness and kept on ruminating into escalating rants about her stolen heritage, position in society, wealth etc. she was an extremely bitter delusional woman, who sacrificed me as a pawn to try and win back title and money, or ANYTHING to bribe meetings with the ambassadors of Indonesia and China to GET.HER.TITLE AND PROPERTY. BACK.
And she sacrificed me to do this.
However, it taught me that, I was not special because of this waning heritage. As look where it’s got my mother - a bitter whingeing decorated hag who would never lay eyes on that fortune ever! It was GONE! Accept it! I knew even then my mother had not earned the level of respect the community had for Princess grandmother. Mama always felt like an imposter to me. And I pitied her, even at 10 years old I knew this. Because at 10, I had surpassed the crafting skills and engineering and maths of my own mother! And she knew it.
So back to the film, surely was 20 years ago I saw the intro like a documentary on the ingredients of Entreprenuership, leaders, and successful people. And I knew, that had to be me. But I was unworthy of thinking about it or dwelling on it. I just had to keep on searching and learning and travelling away from this narrow minded world in the grey miserable naval town of Plymouth at the buttfuck end of the country where there were NO SPECIAL PEOPLE, and NO WAY OF MIGRATING to a position worthy of my skills.
The only person I had a love for was the homeless artist Robert Linkeweitz, who walked the town of Plymouth in a theatrical vampire gown and top hat. And painted murals of homeless people, venerial disease of women, death and purgatory, on the town walls for everyone to see and piss off the Plymouth city council. For allowing the torture of these witless people and suffering to go on. I loved linkeweitz for this. I really wish I had the balls to meet him. But, you know, he looked like a vampire and was always visiting the prostitutes so I was afraid I would become one of them as so far my mother had pawned me off already. And I had this fear of just being pawned off, which actually became true in the end anyway from a cross-dressing sex addict pimp. Anyway that’s another story I think I have told already.
So, this documentary I silently paid attention to, and the one thing I latched onto, was these one percenters lead because they solve a huge problem, for themselves and for others. That is what makes them special and attractive and constantly surrounded in success.
And I now realize, success isn’t the goal, success is a series of milestones of relative realization where the prior was another Cow pat to keep you hopping to the next. You don’t make success and stay there, you use the momentum and spring to take you to the next Cowpat of shit to solve, by attacking it, and making the purse out of the pigs ear.
Being a Chinese Mongrel I was not accepted into either community as lacking breed and culture and generally being brown amongst my peers of pasty white British folk. I was different, and that had a specialty I could USE. I used it well, I moved to a provincial island off the coast of England with a cut off economy, dead end, and made national news for being an artist in the middle of bumfuck. I used that notoriety to get me leadership roles in carnival production (which is a fucking awesome job by the way - creative community, eye opening, celebratory woo woo shit) and I used the carnival successes to get me into film production and leave the fucking country.
Like it almost was a plan.