I have recently made a short film, and a few ancillary works (a song, a letter, a lecture) that extend its narrative. It is a sort of origin story of the name Victory of the Soul. When I started publishing this newsletter, it was to make sense of a personal adversity and in the hope that my writing and practices might help another.
“Atmanjeet means Victory of the Soul, and it is my hope for you.”
In my introductory substack post, I wrote “Atmanjeet. This name, neither Hindu nor Sikh, was bestowed upon me by an elder yogi, versed in western spiritual nomenclature.” I also wrote, “As no child hopes to grow up to be an expert in fear and pain, neither did I ever dream of becoming a seeker, a wounded healer sort, or even a person who earnestly uses such language in reference to anything but the foundational archetypes of fictional characters.” Thus far, my writing here has tended toward the theoretical and academic, and the practices I offer toward the somatic, spiritual, or eco-therapeutic. Psychology, spirituality, somatics. I am equally at home, perhaps even more so, in creative expression. In many ways, I prefer working in a lighter, brighter register.
Having substantial depth in multiple fields and disciplines as well as an unusually wide range of reference and a curiosity about nearly everything, I have sometimes struggled with legibility. What I experience as a coherent body of interests and capacities may appear to others as scattered or unfocused. We often understand others by the nameable categories they occupy, and I have rarely fit neatly into one. It does not simplify the matter that one of my idiosyncrasies is identifying more with functioning as a verb than a noun. For example, I am at ease saying that I write, but “I am a writer” is somehow, to me, flattening and incomplete. “Writing” is a discipline, an activity, while “writer” is a discrete category, a professional identity. The good news I have been hearing is that multi-passionates and polymaths are beginning to be more recognized and valued than they have been even in the recent past. My film and its world are a kind of experiment to gauge how much range can maintain coherence and how elastic an audience’s receptivity can be, as well as to see what possibilities emerge when I expand the container. Victory of the Soul is dynamic as a project, and rather than pre-defining its contours I am allowing it to evolve according to its own logic.
I used AI tools to make the film. My stance on AI remains unsettled - there are elements of it I find highly disconcerting, and there are some that I find interesting. Late last year I designed a custom GPT experience because I wanted to explore AI as a medium. AI image and video generation have developed substantially over the past few years, are now strong enough to make a decent quality film, and will continue to improve quickly. As a filmmaker without access to the resources required for human film production, this is exciting for me. My little film had a tiny budget and I was able to do everything on my own. But here is the thing: I was able to do everything because I know how to do everything. I have put in the proverbial 10,000 hours of writing, I have produced, directed, art directed film. I know how to edit video. I have not made music, but I know music, and I know how to score a film. I trust my creative abilities and perhaps more importantly, my judgment.
Yes, I like to collaborate with others and make things with humans. In fact, there is an argument to be made that my most valuable capacities are upstream of execution. I very much appreciate others’ input and artistry and skills. Yes, I make creative work that has nothing to do with AI or even computers. Yes, I’ll continue experimenting with AI. I imagine that cinema might be headed toward a hybrid style of production, with room for AI-only and human-only productions as well. As a viewer, discernment will be important and not necessarily simply as a matter of knowing which imagery is “real” and what is “generated,” but for the ability to recognize genuine human authorship regardless of which production methods were used. At the same time, there is something I find promising in the democratization of film production. There are so many good stories and story-tellers out there who do not fit the established means of production and distribution, and who might not be able to realize their work even on smaller independent budgets. Like forgiveness, to which we have devoted significant attention, creative expression is one of the soul’s victories. And it is my hope for you.
I’ll leave off today with a little tidbit about Atmanjeet, the name and the film. The name, along with its meaning “Victory of the Soul,” was given to me well over a decade ago. I tucked it into a filing cabinet in my mind’s archives, thinking I’d never use it. When I finally recalled it for the purposes of this newsletter, I did a quick search on it, and noting its uniqueness, concluded that it must have been invented by its bestower and the lineage to which they belong, which takes much of its philosophy from the Sikh tradition and its practice from the Hindu. Atman, I knew to mean “soul” in Sanskrit, and “jeet” is a common component of Sikh names. A few months ago, I came upon the document that contained the name as given. It was, in fact, Atmajeet (and will now remain Atmanjeet.) And instead of writing this paragraph, I made you a film.
