A repost from YouTube (Patreon)

2020 has been... A rough year. To say the least. But the passing of Chadwick Boseman is a very different blow for me. I have been a fan of Chadwick since before Black Panther, and I was campaigning for his acting prowess to be the Black Panther years before Marvel ever announced it. As a filmmaker myself, he is someone I respected so much as an artist.

I've long struggled with death and legacy. The name FORM OF THERAPY comes from 2009. I had just filmed an interview for a small Asian American band. The very next day I was hit by a truck. The accident was to the scale of something you saw in a movie and the doctors only used the world "miracle" as to my survival as I was thrown 30 feet in the air, landed in the street, and then the car fell on top of my back. But I did not walk away unscathed.

I had torn all the skin off my back. I received extreme hearing loss that has made me largely deaf in one ear that caused me to stutter and I can no longer hold conversations without reading lips. I could not walk. I remember trying to get out of bed to go use the restroom and falling down because I couldn't use my legs, and urinating myself on the floor because no one was home and I was helpless and lying there for hours. I remember sobbing for hours as I lie there helpless waiting for someone to come back home. It was one of the lowest points in my life and one of the first times in my life I tried to take my own life.

I grew an irrational fear of death. I still have it. The experience had left me traumatized. I couldn't drive as a passenger in cars anymore, I stopped going to school, I lost all contact with life. But the interview I conducted stuck with me. When asked why the band makes music, one of the singers Joshua Baek said something along the lines of "we all have hardships in our lives whether it's school, work, family or relationships. For us when we go on stage we can forget that pain and connect with the audience and they can forget it too. It's like a form of therapy."

Those words stuck with me. They STUCK with me.

And so I became obsessed with leaving behind a legacy and helping people. I still have an irrational fear of death. It still cripples me. If I think about it too long it causes me to break down and start crying. But I'm also a person largely driven by logic and my brain refuses to let me give up. So I use my fear of death as my motivation. I keep moving forward, hell, I keep RUNNING forward, trying to outrun death as long as I can and in the mean time do something worth a fucking damn.

Chadwick lost his race. But since his diagnosis, over four years Chadwick has endure great pain to leave behind great works of art and an enormous legacy. Stuff of legends. In comparison, I feel weak. Like I've been slacking and getting too comfortable. For me, I believe the best way to honor death, to honor a person's legacy is to be INSPIRED by his life and do things that would make them proud.

So this upcoming first week of September I'll be pausing filming and releasing videos to reevaluate my life. This channel...it's changed my life. But this... Is not enough. I made FORM OF THERAPY because I wanted to HELP you all find some sort of an escapism from the world's troubles, even for brief moments at a time. But I want to give you guys more, I want to do more. Even if it's not perfect I want to pull the trigger on the projects I've been too afraid to pursue. Because if Chadwick could do all that in four years, I'm inspired to do more with my time.

So a one week break. That's it. Just to reevaluate my life, priorities, and my art. And if the name FORM OF THERAPY has ever impacted your life, if you admire me or I have helped you in some way, all I ask is for you to be inspired.

And start running.

Back in a week, xx PD