EP16: Exploring Existential Complexity: A Dive into 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' with You Kim.

If you've ever found yourself lost in the labyrinth of existence or pondering the multiverse and the many layers of our identity, my recent chat with the talented filmmaker and fashion model You Kim is sure to resonate with you. We venture into a reflective analysis of the film, Everything Everywhere All At Once - a cinematic marvel that masterfully addresses the complexities of subjectivity, truth, and the human tendency to deconstruct our world. It's a film that bears a striking relevance to the contemporary times we live in, and You Kim's insights into the narrative's artful playfulness and cliches are eye-opening.

We don't just stop at analyzing the film's narrative structure. Our conversation delves, in earnest, into the symbolic aspects of the film. From its portrayal of double consciousness and paradoxes and how it paints human connection to its depiction of a younger generation grappling with the absence of collective values and religion. It's a lens through which to view the existential crises that this younger generation, born into a neoliberal world, faces. And the evolution of the mother's character in the film sparks a rich discussion on sublime love and the power of individual agency in a world full of existential uncertainties. 

As we close, our discussion turns reflective - the necessity of fostering a society that acknowledges the intricacies of love and relationships while nurturing the future of humanity. You Kim shares her experiences as an Asian filmmaker and how she connects with the film's depiction of the Asian diaspora. This is not just a film review but a journey of recognizing the power of stories to broaden our worldview. If you're seeking a thought-provoking conversation that challenges your perspective, join us for this riveting discussion.

Transcript

Emeka Okereke: 0:30

Alright, alright, alright. So this is yet another episode of Dots of Thoughts Nkata Podcast. I am here with my very good friend Yukim.

You Kim: 0:41

Hi You Kim, Nice to meet you.

Emeka Okereke: 0:44

Yes, Yukim is a filmmaker, would I say also a model. Is that okay to say you're a model as well?

You Kim: 0:52

Well, that's good.

Emeka Okereke: 0:53

Yeah, a model, a filmmaker and a writer.

Emeka Okereke: 1:00

So the other day we saw this film at a cinema. This film called Everything Everywhere All At Once, and it was actually a film to me and I saw it and I was like, wow, this looks really amazing. And so we went out to see it, the cinema here in Berlin, and we found it very, very intriguing in many ways And I came out of the film feeling like it's one of those films that are very indicative or like a marker of times we live in And, given that we are in the beginning of the third decade of the century, i think this is one film that will be a reference for how this decade is going to be seen and critiqued in many ways. So we thought to have a conversion about the film And, in a flash of some of the thoughts inspired by the film, we had this very lengthy conversation after the film but we thought, okay, let's do this in the context of a podcast. So yeah, that's it.

You Kim: 2:06

What do you think is so special about this film, though? Because I mean, this is fun, definitely, and there are a lot of things are going on And, at the same time, why would you think this is such a special film that it's going to be the mark of the decades of the century?

Emeka Okereke: 2:25

The premise of the film is basically that there's this whole notion of the multi-universe. That is central to the film And the approach to the whole idea of the multi-universe is it's not like to create these fictitious lives. in a way that is about having these better versions of you. It's not like a fairy tale kind of leaving your reality and going to.

You Kim: 2:53

Yeah, and it's different than other general ideas of time travel or, you know, like Dr Strange or anything like that And some typical American time travel film. The idea they're carrying is really not the same as what the multi-universe is about.

Emeka Okereke: 3:12

Yeah, so every time you think of a version of yourself or what it could be, it becomes another universe. So this is actually the premise of the film. It plays with the idea of the I am and who you are and who you are supposed to be. It's almost like this whole question about identity crisis, but this time around there is the added context of embracing all these multiple parts of you within the context of subjectivity. Subjectivity has agency as well. It's basically critiquing subjectivity. So when we say truth has become plural, but what if your own version of truth is so, like, truncated and fragmented into multi-universes and versions of yourself? How do you reconcile all those versions of yourself into Into one person or not? And this, for me, is what the film is about.

You Kim: 4:04

The whole narrative is deconstructing itself while carrying, while delivering the narrative. So in that sense it is anti-film. That's how I found it interesting.

Emeka Okereke: 4:17

And do you think it succeeds in being an anti-film?

You Kim: 4:20

I think the film had so much fun doing that And even if it has this very clear narrative and message, when we think of a film normally would have a linear timeline, linear story, this is the kind of illusion that audience just put themselves into At some point. I also felt this really has too many fragments, like too many different set-up, too many different multiphase, not universes. Everything was out of your hand, just getting very fragmented at some point to the point where the narrative doesn't matter or to the point where every single universe isn't really meaningful or isn't really adding into the dominant, the center narrative. That's how I thought this is the narrative that is deconstructing itself while carrying the narrative. So in that sense this is very anti-film and I think this film implies this idea of anti-film in a very comedy way.

Emeka Okereke: 5:25

Very, very interesting. I didn't think of it that way, but now you're saying it, i see how film performs itself in that way. It was dealing with the material of a universe. A universe that is, for many of us, an imagination. For the scientists is a conundrum, for the everyday person is basically a portal to escape too through imagination. So it's not a real thing in that sense. In other words, it's not something anyone can control. And they were able to give a sense of that, so like it growing beyond the audience.

You Kim: 5:59

Yeah, because the visuals are very interesting, very fun and very strong. Every single universe has a very crazy setup, just like the sausage hands.

Emeka Okereke: 6:13

I mean also like the way they use the notion of kung fu as a point performance, as a point dance, as a point towards the end of the film.

You Kim: 6:22

So there was dance, kung fu and some love family. There was all sorts of how do you say cliche. I would say Every single universe carries some idea of cliche, but not in a way that being really cliche, but it really plays with the idea of cliche.

Emeka Okereke: 6:41

Yeah yeah, and what is beautiful but also brave. brave of them is that they were working with the everyday, mundane things while trying to ascribe it this value, this thoughtful artistic material At the same time, while keeping it playful, while keeping it natural and effortless. in many ways, you see something that came out of the mind of these two writers and two directors, but they made it look like it's a play. It's a play, but there's a lot of thinking behind making it feel that way.

You Kim: 7:18

There are multiple layers in the film itself, i mean, apart from the idea of mult universe.

Emeka Okereke: 7:24

Let's maybe try to see some scenes and see what is going into Evoke for us, right.

Speaker 1: 7:54

When we leave this elevator, you can either turn left towards your schedule audit appointment or you can turn right and go into the janitor's closet. It's so ingenious.

Emeka Okereke: 8:02

Why would I go into the janitor's Not now?

You Kim: 8:07

Are you y'all Why you don't know all these ads on my book?

Speaker 1: 8:13

Breathe in You can feel a slight pressure in your head. You're really crazy.

Emeka Okereke: 8:33

So this is the point where she enters the first universe, right. Yeah. And so at this point I want to ask you, you know, because the castes are all, like, of Asian background, yeah, and this plays out in the US, so there is a bit of that diaspora reality. And so how do you understand, in the context of the casting and the fact that it is somewhat depict the Asian reality to use?

You Kim: 9:06

as a tool.

Emeka Okereke: 9:08

Yeah, as an element in the story.

You Kim: 9:12

I think I mean I can't speak for anyone, especially they are the family, like Chinese immigrant family. I mean I'm Asian. I really cannot understand how they are like American. Asians are very different. They are also very different from. They probably feel different, being different from white American. They will still have the sense of being immigrant and all that, but at the same time if they're in Korea they still are feeling kind of strangers. So they're like really in between beings and I cannot understand that. And then I think this overall film kind of it's in the reconciling of what the director has gone through to his life. I cannot speak for him, but he is probably second generation Asian American.

Emeka Okereke: 10:05

I mean one of the directors, because the dude, i think, is German.

You Kim: 10:09

His surname sounds very German.

Emeka Okereke: 10:11

Yes. Yeah.

You Kim: 10:12

The Khan. So he grew up in probably Chinese household, studying in American white society, growing up there speaking like speaking English outside, but speaking Chinese or other language, something I cannot understand. also, i cannot imagine what it is to be like because you are basically living two different cultures simultaneously. So when you're home you are speaking just like this film, you're speaking Chinese and really carrying the Chinese culture, like food and then the respect to their elderly and all that, and then as soon as you walk out of the houses or something else, like as if it shows the tax authority, it is a kind of mental poor. I think that shows how hard the reality could be like when outside you are collective belief or collective idea. It's almost like the family value against the rest of the world kind of very against situation.

You Kim: 11:22

That's how I feel. And then the Jeremy Jamie Curtis the lady is being very scary and then it's really the metaphor of how things have been harsh for the immigrant Yeah, the lady who played the text.

Emeka Okereke: 11:40

Look at the IRS lady, the lady who was from the IRS, from the tax people FinanZamt Yeah, the FinanZamt for the American FinanZamt.

You Kim: 11:52

For the FinanZamt. It's really like one of the symbol of aura for foreigners which I think it's like Tell me about it.

Emeka Okereke: 12:02

I was dealing with them last week.

You Kim: 12:05

I did it with Deal with it like tomorrow or something like that, And it really comes out of huge fear that individually has to go through because no one's going to help you when it comes to taxes in foreign countries especially. So I have the fear and then probably I don't know. maybe every immigrant knows what that is about, Thanks to authority, how fearful they are represented.

Emeka Okereke: 12:29

And so it's so interesting that they use that as the entry point, as the element of vegetation.

You Kim: 12:39

And the symbol of the rest of the world that no one is protecting you.

Emeka Okereke: 12:45

Yes, no one is protecting you.

You Kim: 12:47

Imagining of the life that Daniel Kwan has gone through. I really cannot speak for him. So, basically, this simultaneous realities that he has been living in Chinese and American, and it's just a one door away. You have to switch every now and then And, like this girl, the daughter has a partner, like white partner. So she's the one that was trying to blur the boundary between her origin and America, where she's her race now.

Emeka Okereke: 13:28

Okay, so let's jump into another part of the film and see what happens.

You Kim: 14:21

Do you understand. No. But that was funny because I saw the other universe and it was beautiful without you. So I should have listened to my dad Because she saw the way she was. you know, film a word in the dress.

Emeka Okereke: 14:45

Okay, so she wasn't the film award on the dress, but he wasn't there. No, he wasn't.

You Kim: 14:50

He wasn't in the picture. Yeah, so she was.

Emeka Okereke: 14:52

That was beautiful without you, yeah, and I should have listened to my dad. Yeah, nice, that is, that is the reality. So at that point also, what's interesting is that she was fighting the tax office lady.

You Kim: 15:07

Yeah.

Emeka Okereke: 15:07

So like beating her up, and that's it. So of course this is part of the metaphor that we clean from the film. But then behind her is the husband That you know in this life. she more or less thinks he is useless. Right. But then what do you make of the fact that the person who comes from this other universe to, sort of like, help her also speaks to the husband? Is this like a double consciousness there?

You Kim: 15:40

Double consciousness.

Emeka Okereke: 15:42

Yeah, or is it like? is it like this space where the same thing that has always been your source of say this appointment could also be what brings you a kind of relief or possibilities?

You Kim: 15:54

Yeah, Yeah, this film on a structural level or on a narrative level or any sentimental level, it I see I keep seeing the, this motive of two pollers that are eventually being connected And the whole story kind of goes like that and every now and then you see the idea someone saying everything is nothing or something like that. So what I just said early is basically showing too many universes and oversaturated images, like image saturated, everything is super saturated And to the end, eventually in the end, it says because nothing matter. That's how I see actually, like having too many things makes you feel that nothing actually matters.

You Kim: 16:48

It's like so everything is nothing in the end. So it's like it's starting from the everything idea and then to the other end, which is nothing, and they kind of connected. they connected or maybe they reconcile. That's how I see. And also there are sometimes the daughter turned into this omnipotent being. She would say everything's nothing. or she would say nothing matters Because she's the one that has every possible power and she's the one that can be in every existing universe, so she's the only being that can exist everywhere. And what she would say is I just want everything goes, nothing because nothing matter. So this is like really strong.

Emeka Okereke: 17:30

And you think that the metaphor there is the fact that she eventually is her daughter actually, and she's a younger generation and she exists across the universe, and you think that's like a metaphor for? for internet, social media or what.

You Kim: 17:46

Not necessarily, but I mean from even this scene where the father was pretty useless most of the time but then when, every now and then, he would be someone really clever and really useful. And also there were some scenes that was saying that how the mom has been failure in so many attempts, that's one of the things that the father would say to her, because you were failing so many things in many other universes, so that's why you can start all over again. Yeah, it's interesting, it's really amazing. The comedy, which is great. So I keep seeing this. Two extreme poles end up meeting each other, making in some kind of synergy or reconciling in some way. It's more like connecting those dots in a smaller and bigger level.

Emeka Okereke: 18:46

As you speak now, as you try to create the image of those connections, i see that what, for me, makes this film very powerful is the fact that something that I've always said, that we begin to see in a few artistic works, those works that tend to want to take care of or tend to the connecting threads of things, to tend to the process of how things connect, rather than dichotomies, rather than focusing on a thing and its opposite, on the binaries, they're much more interested in how things reconcile themselves.

Emeka Okereke: 19:25

So I feel like this film carries that this is basically what you're saying, that it begins from this place of things that disparate, but then it begins to take you through the process of them reconciling At ten times. It becomes a doppelganger, like a double image, like the father, it becomes this thing that you and Enigma We call it Enigma because that's what we say to something that is double Because of the way we have been socialized, the things must have to be singular. So we call him an Enigma, but it's more like multicultural, diverse than all the worlds that we give. That's basically a paradox. Again, that's the thing. The notion of a paradox comes in so much in this film And I feel like the idea of a paradox, is very much the reality of the migrants, or the Sujana, or the person or the foreigner. It's this paradox constantly.

You Kim: 20:23

I mean paradox. I wish there was a better word than paradox to describe this, this motive, because paradox doesn't reconcile. in the end, just like when you are living a life, a lot of things, you realize that you really have to go around detour all the way just to come to the same beginning.

Emeka Okereke: 20:47

The rule that passes through is one of paradox, irony, contradictions, many, many things. Again, when we say that paradox doesn't reconcile, it's also the way we have treated paradox. A whole notion of paradox is that it's irreconcilable, it cannot reconcile. Because, yeah right, imagine that we begin to entertain this kind of way of something becoming taking on this paradoxical nature, but then it begins to reconcile itself not into a conflict but a flow.

You Kim: 21:21

Yeah right, That's the difference. That's what we were also earlier talking about. What I see from this film is two different ideologies, maybe two different ideologies about time. This idea of time that goes linear and chronological is very Western idea. It doesn't exist everywhere. Every different culture civilizes in different, has different notion of time And they're not always going on chronological sense. This film keeps tackling the idea of chronology, which is very Western, linear, centered, hard idea, But at the end of the day they reconcile somehow. I want to talk about them.

Emeka Okereke: 22:15

Do you now see that reconciliation as a sort of like a sucking back into that Western chronology?

You Kim: 22:23

Yeah, that's the limit of this film, because it is still American film. That's what you can tell. That's a metaphor. Even if it has the elements of Chinese, immigrant or different culture than American culture, still it reconciles, as in it gets sucked into very American-ness. And the trait of American-ness, i would say, is homogenization. It's different from Asia or Europe because in Europe or Asia they still individually exist as a spectrum of different cultures, like France, england. They're all different although they're in the same continent, america. There is very interesting idea of homogenization.

Emeka Okereke: 23:17

I was seeing that towards the end of the film, where the dance was happening, where the fight, that was also dance was happening. And that was the point where the film wanted to sort of reconcile things and bring everything together into something coherent, almost like it started taking on that form of living happily ever after. That is always the point of every story And I remember watching the film when we were in the cinema. It was that point I started to feel a little bit okay, i have seen everything I wanted to see. At that point. Now I got it. I got it immediately that they were trying to bring it into one continent.

You Kim: 23:56

Because there was the point that they were really trying to pull everything back in to make an end And the key was the family love, the idea of Asian family love. So all this problem were happening in the reality, were taking places in reality, for instance, western context, and what is going to hold everything back together and making it right is the very Asian idea of family love. That is good. That is kind of a reconciling that we just talked about And I would still say it is. That is still the limit of this film being a very American film, do?

Emeka Okereke: 24:42

you think that they succeeded in giving the film that substance of a much more noble and sublime kind of love, that is, an Asian family love.

You Kim: 25:00

Sublime is a very interesting word, because sublime, as in, we cannot understand. So it's just there somehow, but we cannot reach what, how, the logic behind it. In the end it doesn't solve any problem. It is still a kind of authority like, okay, this is what is called love and this is what we gotta believe. That's also how I felt in some way why they had to bring this Asian element, because the sign here of generation gap is the key, that it's the problem that begins the film and also this is the solution that solves everything. So, like Asian specific generational gap, i mean this modern and contempt between the modern and contemporary generation. That is the main element of this film.

Emeka Okereke: 25:58

You know. but looking at it as a black person, you know, who is also conversant with Europe and all the struggles that Africans in diaspora go through in having African Americans, i would say that what I see is basically singling out the Asian reality and to use it as a to represent or to tackle this larger problem. Because even when you see, you know the struggles that the main character went through with the daughter, who is of a different generation but also who is empowered differently, because this is the whole notion of her being able to cross all the universe at once. She's one person who was able to exist in all the universe and be able to move through them. It's an indication that the younger ones are empowered differently.

Emeka Okereke: 26:56

And I always talk about this whole notion of the paradox again, where you have the younger ones and they feel like they're way of being in the world and they feel like they are always limited by the way the world is constructed before them.

Emeka Okereke: 27:11

Their parents and the ones that came before them don't understand the ephemerality of their lives and the sublimity of it. You know the, the trance sense of it, and this is this whole idea of moving through the universe is an indication on that. But again, in doing that she became this black sheep. You know, in a sense, you know she became this destructive. Destructive because she wanted to end everything in the end.

Emeka Okereke: 27:34

She just wanted to end everything and to start all over again. And so, on one hand, there's pointing to this, this position of the younger generation to say I just want to implode everything, simply because I feel it is not right and because we understand better, you know, because we see you can do better.

You Kim: 27:54

One way of seeing generational gap. But what I want to focus here when it comes to generation gap of this film, because I really see the very strong sentiment of this current generation, current young generation, the daughter representing here, for instance, when we talk about generation gap we always say that the parent generation, i mean their knowledge is limited because they're older. And then young generation, what they just want to be free and they they don't understand. Older generation, they just want to run fast when all generation is staggering behind. But then other perspective that I want to suggest is the older generation has to know that this younger generation is really born in, how to say, like out of ash, because older generation they still have a lot to believe.

You Kim: 28:58

They were so safe I mean they were not safe from poverty and war and all that but at the same time they were really safe from ideologies and ideas and then when you say love, when you say family, or when you say society and future life, all these heavy questions you don't have to question because there are always some ideal which is going to hold you so you're not lost, you're not abandoned by those ideas. Before my generation, like up to my parent generation, they still had very kind of religious abstract ideologies that can always hold them so they don't ever have to question about their existence, they don't have to go through existential crisis because there is name for everything and there is a way, the specific way that for everyone, although they might not be as free as we are.

Emeka Okereke: 29:56

But then okay, so now the younger generation? they don't have that.

You Kim: 30:00

Younger generation, like 90s and 2000s. Everything's gone rapidly, neoliberalized, as in every single person loses the condition of collective value, like religion, family. We don't know what that means. We don't know what this idea of sense of community I mean, i grew up without knowing that. I don't know what that means. Also, being neoliberalized means we all aren't born to compete and we are all born to fulfill our exchange value. Everything can be exchanged with money. That kind of generation, that is what we're born from.

You Kim: 30:51

So when older generations say that, oh, you have to do this and that that family is important and all that, and then like, no, that's, that's all ghost that don't exist anymore. It's all religion that has died a long time ago and I know that's really important for everyone, for you, but then we just never had it and you should understand how suicidal it is to live a world where there is nothing to believe. So when there is no belief that were given to me, to my life, my generation, i have to consider everything, every single thing. I have to define everything by myself, even myself, and how I'm gonna perceive my dear future, our love, family and all this abstract questions. But then what I see from this idea of a generation gap is older generations really don't know that We are really living in nothing, no safety net. You would still need some kind of religion, like everybody needs some kind of religion. Just for instance, when a person die, we feel much more sad than when we see some insect die on the street. It means there's some other value that we have, like when we see some animal dies and when we see a person die, this is carries a very different weight.

You Kim: 32:17

That's a kind of religion also When, if you die tomorrow, then I'll be like sad and I'm going to think I wish you go to a good place, but actually there is no such thing like good place. But I will still keep that religious idea that I hope you go to a better place There. Like protection, safety net for every individual to live a life instead of dying. This is very existential idea. But then I mean, can we really say that living is better than dying? No, no, we can't. We don't know, we really cannot prove why this is better than dying. I'm saying this Yeah, that's interesting.

You Kim: 33:00

This whole sentiments of very existentialist, suicidal, because there's nothing to believe there, because there's nothing to save me from this world.

Emeka Okereke: 33:11

So you think this is so like the crisis of the younger generation?

You Kim: 33:14

She's like really in a crisis And because I just want everything to end because nothing matters. She constantly saying that because it carries the sentiments of this generation, But then parents really don't understand and they just think this young generation are being such a brat. So what I see is it's not us not understanding them, but it's them not understanding us, But we don't talk about that for some reason. I don't know.

Emeka Okereke: 33:43

I mean it goes both ways right. It's like okay. And we see that actually play out in the film where, on one hand, when the camera turns to the daughter, we see that sentiment of you don't understand. We have our own reality, our own stuff to deal with here, but you are busy doing your own thing. And then the mom looks at her hands, like what's your problem? Like seriously, look at me, i've been doing all these things for you, all of you, and you tell me still that I don't understand. So it played out a bit here.

Emeka Okereke: 34:18

But eventually, towards the end of the film, the mother also went through sort of like transformation, yeah, yeah, where she got to a point where she said, look, there has to be a way that I can use this, my adult energy, as opposed to using it for destruction, destruction. And again, yeah, i'm basically referencing what's world war, second world war, because this is really one of the. These are some of the events that actually changed the way the world was configured and even beliefs. There's been really about violence And we see that also when she wanted to solve the problem with violence But then she had to turn around and say it becomes a dance. But also her own transformation started in that sense. But it was also Hannah going towards the daughter and saying look, i'll be here for you, so just do you. So again, there is that letting the daughter to get to that point of implosion and wait for her there, wait for her at that point where she's almost gone, and then she now had to put her strength there to draw her back. And then that's actually this notion of the sublime love of the that doesn't question anything, that doesn't even say this is now. What is most important than this is simply that this love is. This love is, and we don't know what it is, we don't even have to give it a name anymore.

Emeka Okereke: 35:49

At that point was the end of the film. You get the sense that everyone has come to a place where they are equipped, or with all these experiences, to make really clear decisions about what they want to do. So what is now left in all of this nothingness is simply your ability to decide. I find that very interesting, that when everything falls apart, when everything becomes nothing and everything else, will you know? you are left with your agency, you are left with your subjectivity. What are you going to do with it? Even with your own daughter. You cannot say anymore it is because she came out of my womb, that's why I'm loving her. You have to say I love you because I decide to.

You Kim: 36:29

Yeah, well, that's very poetic, beautiful, yeah, and tragic at the same time And tragic at the same time.

Emeka Okereke: 36:36

It makes me think of how, you know, like this whole notion of the self where we put ourselves through all these experiences. For instance, she passed through all these places, you know, like in the beginning of the film. We're still trying to get her to enter the experience of going through the more, to become conscious in these other universities, because she was not conscious of it, she was only stuck in that reality. But this other person, you know, using the husband as a portal to speak to her, was getting her to become conscious of these other universities and other vassals of herself. And by the time she was able to make that journey, i have a feeling that also, it's a metaphor for passing yourself through your own personal process And that that process forges you, you know, as opposed to takes away from you. It forges you Because, if we can look at this universe as a version of ourselves, it means somehow that university is contained in her already, so it has to just manifest.

You Kim: 37:35

Yeah, at some point.

Emeka Okereke: 37:36

And so it will not kill you but make you, will manifest you, give you, empower you in a way, right. And as you went through that process, she came out saying well, anyway, you know, it's like I've been through all of this, you know, looks like it's all the same And everything is just the same. So we might as well just do whatever we want. Yeah, but in that doing whatever we want, are we going to lose ourselves? I think that, at the end of the day, there's so much value ascribed to the ability to consciously make a decision.

You Kim: 38:10

This is the other reconciliation that we were.

Emeka Okereke: 38:14

Yeah, And about yeah. Yeah. Yeah, in a good way, or.

You Kim: 38:19

It makes it look good in the film. but is it good? I don't know. But it's not good or bad. That's the thing. It's just what it is. Sometimes you have to go all around the tour only to come back to where you has started, and on that path there is no good or bad. This whole world and contemporary society is living believing in the idea of efficiency, which is not the universal truth, but still just a aspect of seeing things, which is heavily tied to industrialization, which is not so long ago, of the meaning of human history. It's definitely really not sustainable. And then also decide your efficiency is dying or has died already, but then we're still believing the ghost that has died a long time ago.

Emeka Okereke: 39:20

Yeah.

You Kim: 39:20

Because what does that efficiency mean? This is so simple, like how quickly creating more profit with less effort, less time, less labor, but then profit and the time is put into and the effort. Are there only three axes when we are making decisions. Do we only need these three axes to make decisions? No, we have many more than this, but then somehow this idea of efficiency, which only has these three, that eventually time and labor may be counted as one So profit and effort, profit and labor only has very simple two axes become the basis that we can make a decision for, every daily base and political base.

Emeka Okereke: 40:13

And so now, what is on the other side of things for you?

You Kim: 40:16

I mean, for instance, it doesn't count, it doesn't consider anything about sustainability. We're not only about nature, environmental sustainability. but then this idea of efficiency is very short-sighted. It's basically like how fast we can get the profit, more profit. There is also many different types of wealth, but then in this idea of efficiency, the wealth it means commodity level wealth or corporate level wealth, like monetization. This idea of efficiency is really not considering social wealth, for instance, nature wealth. What actually makes profit is social wealth and nature wealth that we don't count as money. When we are ignoring this huge factor that makes actual profit, which is social wealth and nature, nature resource, then are we still going to say this is efficient?

Emeka Okereke: 41:09

Yeah, we've seen the repercussions of constant extraction without putting back. Nature doesn't work that way. Nature is a same biosis When it takes out a put-back. Central to nature is the whole idea of nurturing. It doesn't take and leave a gap. And yet what we call efficiency today is exactly that We take, we take, we take and we don't care about its sustainability, how it replenishes itself.

Emeka Okereke: 41:35

If it wasn't for this whole crazy concept of industrialization, i think technology would have taken a different turn. I think we would have still invented, maybe invented planes maybe, but then as human beings, we would have invented planes that would term zero carbon emissions. It's possible to do that. It's just that it is not profitable now to do that. But it is possible to do that.

Emeka Okereke: 41:57

It's just that we started out from a place where efficiency meant take more profit but not necessarily create something that is healthy for the environment and the human beings. As long as one person or a group of person or a group of country or a particular country could have that wealth at the expense of others is efficient. But then imagine that we were thinking of a world where first and foremost was how healthy is this for us And our ancestors? I'm not sure that our ancestors didn't know this. Even with the less technology that they had, i can imagine that they knew already what was harmful to the earth and what was not. But somehow we derailed with industrialization and all that. We derailed from there and we build this whole notion of efficiency. As with everything that we are looking at and rethinking and reimagining, we have to also critique that word efficiency.

You Kim: 42:56

Yeah, We have to redefine the idea of efficiency, because public and human mind is very simple and lazy, so the simpler it gets, the more loved the idea is And when you put things into binary, then it's much easier to make people to choose this or that when actually there are thousands of other options.

Emeka Okereke: 43:19

Yes, yes.

You Kim: 43:20

Just like this. Efficiency just made everything so clear and so easy to be. Very intuitively, you can think for everybody. But actually the world is not like that And it's got to have many more accesses than time and labor and money wells. And also this is very short-cycled. The idea of making profit of all the tea is very short-cycled. We can see this idea of efficiency in the very long term instead of if it's making a profit by Q4.

Emeka Okereke: 43:55

Yeah, yeah. And also, for us to be able to imagine that kind of world, we must see ourselves beyond our own lifespan.

You Kim: 44:03

Yeah, at least we got to see to our lifespan.

Emeka Okereke: 44:08

Yeah, yeah Or beyond, because and accept that much of our actions in the world is not about our own resistance only. I've been talking with this idea of why does everyone need to take care of themselves and get one resistance and the resistance of their family, when if every of us have this one idea that we take care of each other, then it wouldn't matter. And I was discussing with a friend and I say let us play with this idea. We have a child Already in Africa. You say it takes a village to raise a child. Yeah.

Emeka Okereke: 44:46

And then the friend says to me well, what if the parents die? I say and so what? In fact, if we have a kind of world we are talking about and we've been calling an efficient world, we already have a scenario where, when the parent of a child dies, all their parents lines up and the child will have to choose Apparent, the child. Children don't care about their parents.

You Kim: 45:08

Really, they really We talk to you about yourself.

Emeka Okereke: 45:14

No, they don't care about their parents. From the beginning, they don't care who is their parent. It is also Tijia that this is your father. This is your mama. This is your papa. This is people who are responsible for you.

Emeka Okereke: 45:27

Think about it. When a child is born, they don't necessarily think of you as this exceptional, absolute person. Anybody can take care of them, anybody can be there for the child And, where I come from, my grandmother was there we were growing up. My aunties were there, my uncles were there. When I was growing up, i didn't see my father and my mother. They were like authorities, but they weren't The only person I could learn. So imagine that we create a society where, when a parent dies, okay, but then there's other parents there, they need to take up the child, and the child will be the one to choose, because we have created a world that says that the child is the future. The child is the evolution of the human species. The world, first of all, should be created to be conducive for children.

You Kim: 46:18

Yeah, yeah, that's also a kind of social wealth, yeah, exactly. But then capitalism really let us blind of the social wealth, where that is actually most of everything everywhere.

Emeka Okereke: 46:35

That's it. I think this is a good note to end this conversation, especially in relation to the film. in a way, you said, when you simplify things and make it a binary, people love it, but when you make it all messy and scattered and make it multi-universal, that's good.

You Kim: 46:53

That was lovely, like maybe into, so not simple, even though it ended a very simple love story, but anyway, So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you very much.

Emeka Okereke: 47:09

Thank you everyone. This is in Kata Podcast dots of thoughts. So what we have done is to take one dot of thought and we expanded on it. Yeah, that's what we did. All right, see you in the next one. Bye bye, bye.