Category: Creative

장래희망

돈, 명예, 권력 없어도
뭐 큰 인기가 있지 않아도

억만장자가 되지 않고 커다란 맨션에서 살지 않아도
주님의 사랑을 매일 느끼고

여유있는 곳에서 자연에 둘러 쌓인 곳에서

식물과 동물과 친구와 사랑하는 사람들과

하고 싶은 일을 하고 글을 쓰고

모두가 함께 창조해나가는 의미있는 일들이 있으면

자유롭고 만족합니다.

나이가 들어가니까 할아버지같은 생각을 하네요.

창의적인 사람

무언가를 찾아내고 발견해나가는 자기자신의 호기심과 소망이 없으면 인생은 언제나 똑같은 틀안에서 살아가게 된다. 내가 새로운 것을 시도하고 새로운 일들을 배우고 새로운 책들을 읽는게 중요하다. 지금 당장 코앞만 생각하면 절대로 원하는 창조적인 일이나 아이디어의 발굴을 해나갈수 없다. 오늘부터 더 내 자신의 장래성을 믿어보려고 한다. 창의성. 새로운 것은 가만히 있는다고 생겨나는 것이 아니라 매일 도전하는 사람들의 두뇌에서 생겨난다. 너무 틀안에서 만족해서는 안된다.

The brain is like a sponge, especially with pictures and images. It speaks directly to us. It absorbs and remixes in its own head. It’s easy to consume and see pictures. It’s another thing to make and create pictures. In a way, movies and pictures are a gift that jumps from one brain to another.

Self-Doubt Stops Your Progress

In a cold winter day in 2011, I attended my first open mic at Broadway Comedy Club. An older gentleman came up to me after and said “hey, if I got half the applause you got today at MY first mic, I would have been ecstatic!”

A friend whom I met at that mic (Lawrence D) is still in the standup comedy community today and thriving. 99% of other people from that mic? Probably moved on with their lives.

That first night was my ray of hope. That night really started everything. Now 9 years later, I think about that 23 year-old kid going up on stage with a piece of paper, with a sense of pride. My jokes were horrible, and it was mostly attitude stuff (as most 20-something kids do) but once I got hooked, I couldn’t stop.

Over the past 9 years, I’ve stopped many times along the way, too many times. I’ve been moving at a snail’s pace, and my progress to be honest, sometimes, is laughable. I really attribute it to self-doubt. And once you let negative momentum creep in, it becomes that much harder to muster up the courage and inspiration to get back on stage, it’s weird. But once you are on that positive momentum going out to mics and getting up on stage, you get high from it whether you kill on stage or not. As long as you get one laugh and your ideas out there, it’s a win, and you feel good and alive. It’s that feeling of growth. My brain gets happy from it, doing it, being in it. And craves it afterwards.

I just get pissed off about how many times I’ve stopped in the past. Job issues. Job loss. Relationship breakup. Depression. Rent. All kinds of life stuff got in the way of me going out every night, while other comedy peers were doing just that: dedicating themselves to the journey and the craft no matter how lowly their position and status was.

If I had unwavering confidence in my own abilities, I wouldn’t be going back and forth between “should I be doing it?” vs “should I not be doing it?” Those who make it far in the business, and those who have made it since 2011, are those with a steel mind that doesn’t get easily shaken by doubt or even seeds of doubt from others. That firm belief in their own abilities: “I won’t let anybody talk me out of this. I won’t let anybody else stop me because they don’t know what I know. They haven’t seen what I can do. But I believe in myself and going to see this through.” Those kids have made it now into LA, Late Night, Jimmy Fallon, Colbert, Conan, major leagues, Hollywood.

I don’t want to be on the bench anymore. For most of my life, I’ve mostly been observing others who are more accomplished and doing better than I am and wishing “what if?” Option A, Option B, Option C … One day I was pursuing the creative freedom side and other day somebody (most often people closest to me like my mom) was talking me into settling down and playing it safe. More time I waste in that fence straddle back and forth, worse I get at standup comedy.

It doesn’t matter anymore. I am not getting any younger. Soon, people will call me that old guy who’s been hanging around comedy way too long. I gotta risk it.

That realization that I’m getting old is definitely lighting a fire under my butt, which was much needed. Otherwise, life will go on as usual and nothing will happen. I will probably turn into an old man filled with regret, talking about the glory days all the time, not having achieved anything creative in particular while envying the guys and girls whom I used to hit open mics with in the past and now thriving and still chasing their dreams.

One advice for all aspiring comics and artists out there, don’t let doubt creep into your head. Once you let it take hold, it becomes harder and harder. First a seed of doubt. Then it grows bigger into a force that stops you from taking action. And once you are blocked, you stop taking action toward positive progress and growth, and then you are at the losing end of the law of momentum: “Things in motion stay in motion, and things at rest stay at rest.” And you can’t afford to be blocked. You can’t afford to rest. Your brain needs to be ON at 100% if you want to kill it on stage, as you know. You need to be at that 100% for days, weeks, months and years until that right opportunity strikes.

Nobody said following your dream and passion is easy. It’s probably the hardest thing. You risk your whole life on it. Many do give up. Many don’t get it.

But what would you rather do? What is God telling you to do?

I choose the path of self-belief. I cannot afford to let other people make me doubt myself anymore. Any worse than I already have, I will have completely lost my opportunities to do anything with my life before I’m too old and tired.

If you keep wavering because person A is telling you A and you follow that, and then person B is telling you B so you get back to that, you won’t accomplish jack shit with your life. That’s not the life I want to live. I decide to choose a path, and believe in it wholeheartedly and no more second-guessing that objective until the miracle comes. If you want all the glory and rewards that comes from that path, you can’t fucking do it as a “hobby” and expect to rise above thousands and thousands of others who are chasing the same thing. That’s not good enough for me. You might as not well do it if you are going to half-ass something.

You put in the daily pain, the superhuman effort it takes to achieve that over days and days and days. You build up the wall one brick at a time. One brick at a time, one joke at a time, one mic a time every day as best as it can be laid. Once you have that wall, you become unstoppable. And boom, you strike an opportunity.

No matter what people say, or naysayers or over-worried parents who want you to play safe, you have to block it out. It’s your life. And nobody can stop you, as long as you believe in yourself 100%. Because at the end of the day, people who love you the most and care about you will be very happy when you achieve your biggest dream. And they will be just as sad if you end up doing nothing with your life and sit home as a man full of regrets. They just can’t imagine you being something bigger than you because they are not you, and lack vision and imagination. Say “This is who I’m meant to be.” And put up a big “Fuck you” to everything else, and everybody else who refuses to let you. You prove all those other motherfuckers wrong. That’s the real prize. And once you do that, nobody can take that away from you.

I believe in God. He will lead me the right way, and not lead me astray. He won’t lead you astray either.

The War of Social Media Domination

Bill Gates was right in that “Content is King,” and that it’s not exactly the engineers who create new hardware, applications and messaging protocols that have revolutionized the digital landscape.

You would think so, but that’s not exactly how it works. Yes, the engineers get their kudos for introducing something brilliant into the world, as they should. But then a new game begins. It’s a game for dominion over the new game. Who will leverage the strengths of this new platform, and become king/queen? And the interesting thing is, the game is open to the whole world, thanks to the Internet, and thus open for anybody who wants to fight for a claim to that title.

Imagine that an innovative engineer invents a new tool, maybe a new axe. And this new axe is so good that it can cut down anything. So the inventor sells a ton of these axes to regular people. And you would think that’s the end of this story. But no. Among the thousands or millions of these regular people who now have this amazing tool in hand, they can do whatever they want with it. In fact, it’s the one who creates the best “Use Case” with the axe that will win the most.

Whether the person uses this new tool for selfish gain, self-promotion or the good of the public … now that’s up to the person’s ethics. But most of the time, people just are fighting for the top spot … to claim all the rewards that come from being the top dog in this game. Individuals play. Businesses play. Corporations play. If you asked me, it’s a tool that shouldn’t be wielded lightly, and definitely not something that should solely be used for monetary gain.

Once somebody creates a new social world, like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok … it actually gives a whole new group of people “opportunities” to capitalize on the invention. And these people who create content don’t have to do anything with technology or messaging protocol or application development, or any of that nitty-gritty engineering details. They work with a different set of rules. And that game, to be honest, in essence is a game that has been played as long as we can remember. The game of “Impression Management.” The game of “Branding”. The game of Public Relations. The game of “Image Creation.”

It sure is interesting. The one that I wanna play and master.

Uniquely in my case, I do care about the impact of media toward its viewers, and am personally keenly aware of all the negative impact that can come from irresponsible movie producers and TV creators. That whatever people watch impacts them on a cerebral and neural level.

To create the kind of media that impacts people beneficially in all levels and guide them toward the path of truth, freedom and creativity