Creativity vs. Productivity(iii)

Sometime this summer, around June, I started having this idea of having a cocktail night. I wasn't sure where to host it, I went to visit a few bars in downtown SF: PCH, True Laurel, Local Edition. For PCH, I liked the drinks, but not the low availabilities of their seats and servers, and not so friendly bouncers who'd flirt with the Chinese girls in front of me, but as soon as you just want to know how long the damn wait is, he starts to say he's not sure. Nice thing is, they do let you in without an ID, sometimes. Local Edition looks like a jazz club, however they also have country music. It's cozy and popping even not on a weekend, however, it is quite loud to be having conversations, it's quite a distracting venue, with all the live music and dancing people. I don't remember too much about True Laurel, i was too high/drunk at that point, but I don't remember myself being impressed with the drinks, or the vibe.

I tried gathering people on instagram, no luck. Around the same time, the boy I went to the above three bars with introduced me to this girl who posts cocktail making tutorials on social media, who has quite a following. According to her, she didn't have that good of an impression on the person that introduced us to each other, but she did have an impression on me. She was working/living with this other person, who later I became friends with, whom she had a lot to say about, whom I was quite defensive against upon hearing his screaming calls to her. But hey, can you really blame me for it?

One night, the girl and I went to another bar downtown. The drinks were good, the staff was nice, we chatted a bit, we asked about what's in the drinks. The girl said the drinks are good, but she could do better. I took another look at their menu, which had cute illustrations of the drinks, and thought to myself, yeah, we could do this too. If not a bar, how about just at my apartment? We went home and started planning the menu, I asked Daiga for designs, she curated a full omakase drink menu with text, and we made it into an experience. The day we posted about the event, she must have gotten fifty or sixty friend requests on WeChat or something crazy like that. A lot later, I got to know that a lot people saw her first post and wanted to come, but couldn't make it until the fifth or sixth event, because there were simply too many people in line.

The first event was hectic, we had gone to Total Wine twice, Costco once, Whole Foods twice, to get all the liquor, syrups, juice, cups, and I fronted all the costs. Daiga designed the "Boarding Pass", since it was travel-themed, and we printed them out and cut them. We got cute napkins, rearrange my living room, and set the table with candles. 7:30pm, we were waiting for people to come, nervously. I had no idea what I was going to do, but just like in college, right before a performance, I don't rehearse, I wing it. No preparation is the best preparation. I do the best when I improvise, and from all the partying experience from back then, I'm sure I'll handle it fine. I was anxious, I started smoking weed, I smoked too much weed, it ended up becoming me puking and a UCSF doctor to help me and clean up. When people left, they cleaned my kitchen, took out the trash. I would call this event a success, I thought to myself.

Half a year later, a lot has changed. Cocktail nights which first started for social purposes, became a profitable business. I broke up apart with my business partner, not for business reasons, but for personal reasons. The former partner is still running it like a business, but it was never supposed to be a business to me. I enjoyed offering a gathering place and seeing friends, however as time went by, it became less and less sustainable. Having regular meetups requires time, space, organization, it started to become harder and harder to keep it up without the proper resources. If I start to consider it as a proper business, everything would make sense. I'd be instantly gratified from running it and motivated to make improvements. If profiting was not in the picture, I wouldn't know how to keep it going.

Last night, we had what I called an OG meetup, the reasoning was simple: people I met in the summer, whom I've became friends with, all came to party. Seeing them, I realized how much time has passed, how our dynamics have changed, how we got to know each other, and became attached. I was going through a long depressive episode when I met them, yet it felt like a lifetime ago. Poet and Eason both asked me what my plan was for the new year, and I had no answer. My plan had been to submit the screenplay to SFFILM, but now I'm not so sure. Writing is a long process that gives me no feedback, other than banging my head against the keyboard, asking ChatGPT, and begging people to read for me I have no way to know if I'm even headed toward the right direction.

The learning curve from producing as a job to being an auteur is a steep one. For the former, I was responsible for a small section of the production. I didn't need to worry about the finances, marketing, law and regulations. However for the latter, I find myself in uncharted territories, switching between a writer, to a financier, to a producer. Will I make the money back? If not, what do I do next? When can I start producing income with it?

Anxieties and fear jumble in my head, clouds my judgement from producing the best I can. I've never ran a business by myself before. For the past decade, money was not a priority, learning was. I'm now entering the second decade of being an adult, it's time to step up, yet I have no idea how to go about it. I can do the technical, but I have no idea how to profit. This scares me, I became hesitant, unsure.

This Christmas break had me thinking all sorts of things. I used to have a strong drive for things I wanted to do. Now, I'm not so sure what exactly it is that I want to do anymore. After a decade of working in film, it became everything I know. On the opposing end of knowing everything about it, is that I don't know anything about anything else. If someday this skill becomes obsolete, how do I make a living? Strange enough, that's a problem I'm least concerned about. I'm arrogant, not that I think I'm better than others, but in the way that I simply don't want to do anything I don't wanna do. Most things in the world are deemed not worthy of my time, and creating memories and art are the only exceptions.

I want to make money, I'd like to make money. But do I really need more money? Yet I feel like need to do it, at least for a little bit, to prove it to myself that I still got it. Not just creatively capable, but also financially capable. I enjoy being flexible, adaptive, ever-changing. Not that I want to confuse people, this is just how life is, I suppose, you start something, and it turns into something else. If this is the possibility life is whispering into my ears, then I shall listen to it.

To me, talking about money has little value, as money itself inflates and deflates, its value fluctuates and is affected by many factors. I'm looking for more creative ways to utilize my abilities, the process of which I enjoy, as I'm curious to find out how much value I can provide. To me, there's money, and there are assets, consumables, liabilities, and there are other things, such as art, experiences, and memories. I thought I needed something more short-term, more immediate return.

So the goal was going to be this: build multiple streams of income. Starting with curated experiences, ideally, the more unique and satisfying the experience, the more people are willing to pay for it. That is, I offer value with these events. Artistic value is less of a concern, social value is the more important aspect. This makes everything a lot more straightforward. People come to events to be entertained, connected, to feel included and understood, to create memories that otherwise won't exist.

Yet something about it doesn't feel right.