Let me tell ya'll a story (Patreon)

I came to Hawaii having given up on my dream. 

I've had this dream of being a filmmaker, a director of movies for the past eleven years. But in the past decade I've felt lost. I like editing, shooting, directing, writing, taking photos, etc. and I've been GOOD at it. But I've never been great. 

I never went to school for film or production. I learned how to use cameras by just buying one and starting to use it. I learned how to edit by just getting an editing program and messing with it. This was before YouTube was an infinite library. 

But I never had love for photography or editing or writing, etc. I just learned to do it but never furthered or deepened my training into any of these things because I didn't have a passion for any of these things. I always considered my passion to be in directing. But over the past six years now on YouTube, I've finally come to terms with it. I don't want to make movies.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun. And I'll probably make short films every now and then, and I still want to actually make a feature film at some point. But it's not my dream. 

To know what my real dream is, we have to talk about why I even wanted to become a director in the first place.

When I was 17 years old I was in a car accident. I'm talking the kind of car accident you see in movies. I was in a jeep with my friends and the perfect shitstorm that could possibly happen, happened. I was in the trunk, therefore had no seatbelt, my friend who was driving accidentally ran the red light, and then a drunk driver in a big pickup then t-boned us and sent us flying.

I still remember being hit. My friend was driving then suddenly the car started spinning out and I hadn't realized we had been hit and thought my friend was fucking around and I looked over at him and yelled "what the fuck are you doing?" except all I could manage out was "what the f--" before everything in my vision was tumbling in circles like a washing machine cycle. Then everything was black.

I woke up, my vision blurry, on the ground. I'll never forget that moment, near death, thinking how beautiful everything looked. There was shattered glass everywhere on the ground and it was sunset so the light rays were hitting the glass perfectly in such a way that it cast a shimmering rainbow hue across everything. 

But my survival instincts kicked in and I realized my vision was blurring because I was losing oxygen. I realized then I couldn't breathe. I just physically somehow was not able to inhale. I could see my friends in the distance walking away from the car and to the sidewalk. And with the very last of my breath I roared, "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE".

It was like something out of a war movie. Suddenly my friend David turns and yells "He's still alive! Go go go we gotta get him outta there!" And everyone rushed over. So it turns out I was pinned under the car which was upside down and it was crushing my lower half and pressing down on my lungs which was why my breathing was restricted. So my friends, along with random pedestrians from the street, about 20+ people all came over and LIFTED the car off me. My friend dragged me out from the car and oxygen began flowing unobstructed once more. I looked down at my feet and the first words out of my mouth were "Where's my other slipper?"

I felt fine. When the paramedics arrived they asked if anyone was seriously hurt and as I was saying "No" all my friends pointed at me and said "HIM". I kept insisting to the paramedic that I was fine as he checked me out but when he lifted my shirt and looked at my back he said to the other paramedics "We need to get him on the stretcher".

I didn't find out until after that I had torn most of the skin off my back. A mix of road rash and just gross fleshy open skin. When I tell you how gross it was having a GIANT SCAB ON MY BACK FOR MONTHS (ugh).

I was in the ambulance, drugged up by the paramedics at this point, and they cut up my jeans and I thought to myself "aw man why did I have to wear my favorite jeans today". I was in the ambulance, slowly fading out but I was scared that if I passed out I would die. The fire fighter who was at the scene had accompanied us and he was holding my hand. I remember I said to him, with tear rolling down my face, "Please don't let me die".

From that point on I went in and out from being strolled into the hospital, rushed into the emergency room, and them taking me into the operating room. I truly woke up some time later in the ICU, unable to move (I was in a neck brace and had all these other straps preventing my movement). 

I woke up in the ICU after near death and there was no one by my side. I'll never felt how alone I felt. How no one cared. I remember crying just from how alone and scared I was. It's a whole 'nother story but at this point in my life I was 17 and living on my own and hadn't lived with my parents since I was 13, and I was such a piece of a shit of a human being I had alienated everyone in my life I could call a friend. The people I was in the car accident with were guys I had just barely started hanging out with because I had burned all my bridges with everyone else. 

I was bed ridden for two months and couldn't walk. I couldn't afford PT so I forced myself to start walking again eventually. But during those two months not a single person called me. No one checked on me. No one asked where I was. Nobody cared. Not even anybody else involved in the accident. It was a real eye opener. You've got to be a pretty big fucking asshole if you suddenly disappear from school and nobody contacts or checks up on you.

This loneliness was a big wake up call but it was also when my suicidal tendencies first emerged and would continue to carry on even to this day. And during that time, I couldn't even walk the first month, all I had to do in bed was just watch movies and tv shows. And man... I tried to kill myself so many times during this period, never being able to bring myself to do it. And this is also the time when I developed my crippling fear of death. You really don't realize how much you want to live until you survive an event like that.

During this time I watched a show called SCRUBS and it changed my life. It SAVED me. It taught me how to deal with death and it taught me that we can't ever win our fight against death, all we can do is our best to make it last as long as possible.

It wasn't just Scrubs but several other movies and tv shows that helped me but this was the catalyst. These shows and movies healed me so much and I just wanted to help people the way these shows and movies helped me. So that's when my passion for filmmaking was born and I've never wavered since.

But as I was becoming increasingly frustrated with what I'm doing, I was wondering why I was even doing this. And through it all I realized I love directing films and making art but that's never been the main goal. All this time, all I've ever cared about is helping people and changing the world.

After the past six years on YouTube, I feel like I can confidently say I've helped a few people. I normally wouldn't believe comments online and just think "they're just saying that" but over the past few years I've had the privilege of getting to meet some of you and I've gone back to my hotel room and cried thinking about some of the people who came up to me holding back their own tears telling me how my videos made them not want to kill themselves.

Me? Shitty little reaction videos? I mean I get it but at the same time I don't get it. But clearly there's some value and healing power to it.

On my first day in Hawaii I went to this private beach and... God the breath taking view of it all... No one in the water, just me and the water, the kind of clear water with that beautiful blue-green color? I stared out into the never ending horizon and thought about how this was a dream of mine. Since the days of my suicidal tendencies began, I dreamt about being in a far away place, standing in the ocean alone with my thoughts. And I just started crying. At this point in this fucking novel of a post you might be thinking "Jeez PD you sure do cry a lot" and to that I say "you bet your ass I do".

I started tearing up thinking about how long it took to get here, and how far I've come, and how long I've dreamt of this day. Actual tranquil peace. I cried and did something I've never done before. I thanked myself. I spoke to myself in the past and thanked them for not killing themselves, for not going through with it over the many times they held a knife to their throat. I told them to hang on for just a little longer, and that the pain will truly be worth it all some day.

That was my motivation this entire journey. The pain will be worth it. The pain will be worth it. And guys?

It was worth it.

So what's my new dream? Well I joke and say "it's to be rich" and yes, that's part of it. But if we're getting down to the specifics of it all... Well, we've helped some people and gave folks some healing and a form of therapy. And what I always wanted to do was help people and change the world.

So really all that's left is to do is change the world.

You might be asking, okay what the fuck PD why the sudden opening up about your past? 

Because there's some exciting things on the horizon and before we get into it throughout this year, I just wanted to truly thank you all and share with you my reason for continuing on. I know this sounds super melodramatic for a little reaction channel but as other people have been passing me in views, subscribers, all these crazy milestones over the years, I've just been quietly working on my own thing. 

Sometimes I'll lose sight of things and be envious if someone gets more views or more subscribers or they get some collab I can't but ultimately at the end of the day I never cared about being famous/YouTube famous, getting lots of views or subs. For me, it's been about building an empire.

An empire? That's a long ways away, but dope shit, exciting shit is coming. So as I spent my last few days in Hawaii, I come back truly renewed, inspired and more in love with life than ever before. I'm sorry I lost sight of things, I'm sorry if I worried any of you, it's been a rough year but an even rougher eleven years. I've just been so tired I forgot why I was even doing this anymore.

But I remember now. So let's go change the fucking world together.

And for anyone who's still struggling, for anyone who finds it hard to hold on... I promise you, the pain is fucking worth it.