This is Thomas Percy Kim’s bi-weekly newsletter, your stories for independent filmmaking, permissionless storytelling, and building a sustainable creative career.

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Eat Sh*t

You won’t know if your films will work for years… can you live with that?

👋 Hey, it's Thomas.

Yesterday, I got off a Zoom call with someone who’s built exactly what I’m building towards — helping creatives find financial freedom, working at the intersection of legacy media and social media, and with a nearly half-billion-dollar portfolio valuation. All with integrity and the betterment of creatives against the Hollywood “system.”

Crazy, I know.

Many years ago, before it was popular, she left a comfy executive seat at Disney and bet on herself… everyone told her that she was crazy for leaving Hollywood to help online YouTubers.

Now, they praise her for being a trail-blazer. But the period of “not-knowing” before reaping the fruits of your labor is the part that nobody romanticizes.

…

In December 1817, a 22-year-old poet named John Keats walked home from a Christmas pantomime and wrote a letter to his brothers. In it, he named the quality he believed separated the great artists from everyone else: negative capability — or "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

Uncertainties.

Back in the caveman era, thunder struck land, and we assumed it were the gods. We were okay not knowing.

But today, we expect instant answers. Modern technology — computers, internet, AI — made information accessible at our fingertips.

We “know all,” and the universe must behave according to our rules… certainty is certain. And thus, we have become increasingly afraid to just sit with a question. To not know. To be uncertain.

But great work, great art, great films, require the risk of something new. Something that explores an untouched cave. Something that may or may not carry the gold you’re digging for.

Will the work matter? Is it any good? Will anyone care? The truth — if you’re doing it right — is that you won’t know yet.

Taking a risk means being okay living in that uncertainty, whether or not it works.

Let me repeat that for the folks in the back: it’s not just taking a risk but being okay sitting in that uncertainty. That discomfort.

I've been trying to coin my own version of Keats' phrase. The closest I've gotten is a lot less poetic: eating shit.

If you write a new script, you will eat shit. If you start a new career, you will eat shit. If you break up with your romantic partner, you will feel like you’re eating shit.

You don't have to be happy about it -- feeling inadequate is valid, normal, expected. But you don’t have to let it poison your day.

Don’t reach for cheap dopamine — social media, junk food, distractions — to escape the feeling. Just let it sit there.

And when you do, you realize you don’t need to give it any power over you.

Last week, I stepped outside to a humid 90° here in New York… and immediately started complaining in my head. Then… I pretended to tell myself, “well, it’s not that bad”… and then suddenly, it really wasn’t that bad.

If I remember my Instagram feed correctly, I heard Erling Haaland say the same thing when he was training for the world cup this year. It’s hard… but only if you tell yourself it is. Sometimes, I’ll even test this when I’m feeling tired or sleepy! It’s wild what our minds can do.

The ugly feeling of uncertainty loses its control over you the moment you stop fighting it.

The filmmakers who last aren’t the most certain ones. They’re the ones who can eat the most amount of shit than anyone else… and keep digging anyways.

That’s how you know you’re on the right path.

Eat shit.

See you in two weeks,
Thomas Percy Kim
@the.vandalist

P.S. If you're in NYC — my debut feature, ISLE CHILD, is having its New York premiere on the evening of August 1st. 6 years of eating shit. Come see what came out the other side… and come say hello to my team and I!

Here’s the unofficial trailer:

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