CitizenShip of Mixed Emotions - World Premiere at the DisOrient Film Festival in March, Eugene, Oregon ;)

Happy New Year, and Happy-Almost Year of the Dragon! Hope the rains in California and the difficult weather elsewhere aren't affecting you to severely! Stay safe.

Here's my latest. It started out as an 800 word essay for Psychology Today, but grew and grew til I could only publish my 3000 word take on the topic at East Wind. Hope you enjoy!

MOSF 19.1: Love Your Enemies? Jesus, King, Buddha, and the Psychology of Love  (February 3, 2024)
Jesus, King, Buddha and Gandhi all proposed that we love our enemies. Even ChatGPT agrees! Love helps us heal our own suffering, but loving our enemies is a tall order. How might we do it? What is the role of love as democracy is under attack, and we feel the fire of anger against injustice?

Next, I will brag, lol - my article on humility, first posted on Psychology Today in 2022, was the 20th most popular article (by reader popularity and staff votes) when reposted in 2023 at the Greater Good Science Center! But...it was only the SECOND most popular article on humility last year!!! Hahah - check out the full list here.

The Eight Kinds of Humility That Can Help You Stay Grounded (August 22, 2023, Greater Good Science Center) There are many ways to be humble, according to recent research.

And continuing my streak of ... err... humility - my short film CitizenShip of Mixed Emotions will have it's WORLD PREMIERE at the DisOrient Film Festival in Eugene, Oregon. The festival runs in-person from March 8-10, and virtually the week after. Tickets will be available starting February 16. Hope you might consider buying a virtual ticket or pass! And hopefully there will be other opportunities later this year. My two prior films have been to 4 film festivals, and The Bandaged Place: From AIDS to COVID and Racial Justice won the Best Film at the Cannes Independent Film Festival in 2021. You can watch it on Vimeo.

CitizenShip of Mixed Emotions

This meditative videopoem reflects on recent anti-Asian hate incidents, including one at Wing Luke museum in Seattle and one in Georgetown, Texas, in the context of violence and colonialism that goes back hundreds of years. Psychiatrist, poet and filmmaker Ravi Chandra explores love, hate, identity, and suffering, and commits us solemnly to the fight against racism and violence. The film closes with a nod to Shantideva's "Path of the Bodhisattva": Chandra says, "As long as racism remains, as long as beings affected by racism remain - may I too remain, to dispel the miseries of the world." The poem was written on the last day of the Tsuru for Solidarity social justice retreat in September, 2023, and it immediately felt like it needed to be a film. So... I learned the basics of Final Cut Pro and went to town :)

Psychology Today

“Freud’s Last Session": Theory, Suffering, and Humanity (January 12, 2024)
Personal Perspective: "Freud's Last Session" imagines Freud and C.S. Lewis debating the existence of God. But I question analytic "truth" and technique.

Have a great month!

Warmly,

Ravi