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MELINA T. - INTERVIEW #2
HOW TO ENAGE: WATCH by clicking the video up top, LISTEN by clicking the audio link above, or READ the interview by clicking here.
THE BREAKDOWN
0:00 - Shout out to Eva C (and other brilliant women with strong opinions).
2:00 - The world is ending.
3:30 - Melina teaches people to care (about nature).
9:40 - Intuitive cooking with sexually charged teens.
14:00 - The kids are angry.
24:00 - Melina kills a bird.
30:00 - Come down from your soap box and learn a little.
36:00 - Melina is a performer.
40:00 - (Male) comedians need therapy.
43:00 - Melina is a hero.
DEBRIEF
Think about what you care about. Not what you are supposed to care about. What do you genuinely care for? Now, sit with that, and then think about the stories that you cherish that hold that caring in place. That’s it. That’s how it all works. So simple. What you care for you move towards, and the ways in which you move (or don’t) is based on your stories. Always with the stories!
Melina is a facilitator of stories and in that sense, she’s a facilitator of the future - what we move towards. She works with kids, teens, the youth and helps them care for nature. She sits with their anger at a legacy of choices that have left them with a future not guaranteed. It can be hard.
But they have fun. They garden, plant seeds, grow cool shit, ask tough questions, engage in outdoor adventures, and bury the dead (when appropriate). The kids are cool, I‘m not worried about them. And if I was in their position I would be pissed too, how could you not be? They just wanna have fun. I mean, I just wanna have fun, so I can only assume.
I suppose there is something in here about collective hope and action, but also the individual.
So ok, we’re fucked. Environmentally speaking, it’s not looking good. If you are interested, then talk to a person, learn about it, make a change. But you know what? If you just wanna dance OR you want to get up on that stage and tell fucking jokes while the community garden gets pummeled to death by a land developer…THEN DO IT. Not sure what to do? Overwhelmed? Lost?
Then do as Melina tells the kids, FEEL INTO IT, and then interrogate those feelings. What are you trying to tell me crippling panic?! Learn to trust yourself and remember that no one will ever give you permission to do your thing.
Ultimately, no matter how conscious or aware we choose to be, there are two hard truths to swallow here: 1) you are going to die (maybe sooner rather than later), and 2) there are a lot of people who DO NOT(know how to) CARE ABOUT YOU - and many of those people are in positions of power. That’s the truth and there’s not much you can do about it (sorry kids). But, YOU CAN give yourself permission. YOU CAN tell a different story. And, YOU CAN learn to care - because that’s the first step to giving a shit about other people, let alone global environmental collapse. Or, you can just hug a fucking tree and hold on tight.
Regardless, Melina is here to help. :)
LIST OF THINGS (Special Edition)
In the past couple of weeks I have seen both HARD TRUTHS (Mike Leigh) and MEGALOPOLIS (Francis Ford Coppola). This has led me to entertain a thought experiment that asks: which of these old white guy filmmakers’ storytelling worlds would I really prefer to live in? (NOTE: if I could pick any old white guy filmmaker I would probably choose to live in a Verhoeven storytelling world because it would be sexy and fun, but that’s not on the table today.)
My assumption is that everyone would say they want to live in Leigh’s (so very real) universe but the (hard) truth is that I think that they would secretly be hoping for a Megalopolisian future to sweep them off their feet. I think that’s why we couldn’t just let that fucking movie flop. We needed to soften the blow, for the sake of cinema, for the sake of art, at least he has passion! Feels a lot more like scrambling to protect a very big ego that many people are invested in. I think that’s why I went to see it, because I too pretend to want Hard Truths but really just want magic magic silly silly dumb dumb (disguised as art) to save me.
Anyways, I’ve broken these two storytelling worlds down via three different questions. They are as follows:
HUMAN BEINGS - are we really interested in them?
Hard Truths: YES. We love them, those little vulnerable monsters.
Megalopolis: NO. Wait, do they own a bank? Did you say human or AI?
TRUTHS - do we really want them?
Hard Truths: IT’S COMPLICATED. In theory yes, but in practice truth telling is unbearable much of the time. But in this world we try. We fail most of the time, but we try.
Megalopolis: NO. Here we want Scientology level philosophical pseudoscience literary nonsense jargon all the way everyday. Never make sense but always go big and take yourself very seriously. NO ONE WILL KNOW. NOTHING IS REAL. WE STOP TIME.
HAPPY ENDINGS - can we really live without them?
Hard Truths: YES. In fact to ascribe one here would seem to go against the rules of this (very human) world. We’d rather just sit with pain and uncertainty for a minute - because what other option is there?
Megalopolis: NO. I mean I want to think that the intended ending is supposed to be a happy/hopeful one? Elon Musk’s wife stopping time so that their baby can go on a magic carpet ride. That’s happy right?
Ultimately, I understand that I have no real business comparing these two films. However, for me, they represent two striking directions for cinematic storytelling and, as such, our future. Two “realities”, presented by two old white guys. So if you had to choose, as you sit there, in this precarious moment - which world do you want to live in…really?
TO CONCLUDE
Thanks for sticking with me here. I have absolutely no idea how to end this other than with my favorite quote from Jamaica Kincaid (novelist, essayist, GARDENER). It is quite a puzzle trying to stay positive when the truth so rarely is. But who knows, maybe if we can face some of it (the truth) like fucking grownups, we won’t have to leave so much of it for all the kids to deal with. Just an idea, lol, the future.
P.S. Props to Marianne Jean-Baptiste for such a righteous display of anger (/sadness).
Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are inevitably looking for a happy ending. Perversely, I will not give the happy ending. I think life is difficult and that is that. I’m not at all - absolutely not at all - interested in the pursuit of happiness. I am not interested in the pursuit of positivity. I am interested in pursuing truth, and the truth often seems to be not happiness but the opposite. – Jamaica Kincaid
Thank you for reading A LIFE BASED LOOSELY ON REALITY! Share your feedback in the comments below and please feel free to forward this to a friend who you think would be interested. Right now all of my posts are free, so any paid subscriptions will go towards helping to support my work and develop this project. More about me here.
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