How Long Does It Take To (Begin To) Change The World?
“I didn’t intend to spend more than a year covering human trafficking.
It ended up taking a decade.”
Mimi Chakarova is a journalist who went undercover as a sex worker for nearly a decade. She videotaped the atrocities she performed and witnessed to create the critically acclaimed documentary The Price of Sex.
When I first heard about her on Al-Jazeera, I just thought of two words: HOLY FUCK.
My Facebook news feed is inundated with thousands of people on the sidelines offering quick tips (PEEL AN AVOCADO IN .04 SECONDS! GET THE BEACH BOD YOU WANT WITH THIS DONUT!), chronic complaints, (WHEN IS SOMEONE GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT TERRORISM?!! FUCK GEORGE BUSH... STILL!), and just about every opinion under the sun.
But once and a while, I hear about people who cause change the slow way – by committing to it.
Commitment gets a bad rap. Commitment is hard. But commitment is the bedrock to transformation. Transformation can seem sudden, but a commitment to the transformation is the foundation underneath it.
The length of time it took Mimi to shine a light on the issue she cared fiercely about – sex trafficking – was over a decade.
When I begin a project, the first place I fuck up is that I underestimate the time I need to complete it. I usually begin a project feeling lofty and idyllic, thinking I’ll just get in-and-out (Inside my brain during the making of “The Human Struggle” music video: “THE STRUGGLES OF BEING HUMAN? LET’S JUST MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO AND CALL IT A DAY.” The video’s still not at a final edit. It’s been like 6 months).
I usually need to add at least 3x as much time than I typically expect to complete the project. Deep in the throes of my self-proclaimed commitments, I find ways to procrastinate and avoid them.
“Let me be honest,” Mimi admits. “I never wanted to get on a plane. I was always scared. I would wait until the last moment to pack. I would think of a million reasons to cancel or postpone a trip. It’s not courage that got me to the airport. It’s the fact that I had promised to return and I had to keep that promise or everyone I had involved over the years would think I didn’t care or that I had given up on them.” Bingo.
Who is holding you accountable? For me, it’s fans. It’s the children I educate in my songwriting workshops. But holding myself accountable just simply isn’t enough. My commitment has to spread and saturate others, or it’s just so fucking easy to call it quits or skip out.
I would imagine that Mimi questioned her commitment a lot. I would imagine it was hard to hold her commitment as she was being held prisoner waiting to be raped and tortured over and over again. “My only weapon is my work. My only way of seeking justice is through my reporting and filming. Everything I knew about trafficking went into the making of The Price of Sex. But is one film enough to make a change? It’s a start.”
The Price of Sex ended up being used as a training tool for trafficking and corruption across the WORLD! The mother fucking WORLD! “The Price of Sex was used as a tool in anti-corruption police units in Serbia before we even released it. Then several months later, the US State Department asked to use it as a training tool in embassies throughout the world. Then I was invited by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to discuss anti-corruption policies. And after almost three years of this documentary being shown at film festivals, universities and on television screens across the world, I was finally able to get it in front of viewers in Turkey. CNN Turk reached out and conducted an interview with me about my undercover work in Istanbul. Turkey’s largest daily paper also published a full spread on the film and the women trafficked and sold into prostitution in Istanbul.”
Obviously sex trafficking is not yet extinct -- but look at what Mimi’s commitment brought her. It brought her solid, actionable change that is probably going to change the lives of sex workers and the foreign policies of countries that need new policy.
Sometimes I question participating in the music industry. It’s all so seemingly cutthroat and vein. It can feel selfish to spend daysweeksmonths creating music - even if it’s in the name of changing the worldview of others (it is for me).
Is my success determined by singing at the Grammys, or getting awarded by other people? There must be a better way to impact people on a large scale and still get to make music.
Mimi has been given numerous awards for her sensational journalism. “I was given an award for courage at the Lincoln Center in New York,” she writes. “I said they should have given me an award for anger instead. There is nothing courageous about what I’ve done.”
I deeply admire this woman.
The question I ask today is: What are you committed to? What drives you to live into your commitment? What stops you from living into your commitment?
I am committed to self-expression for every man, woman, and child. The music of AVIDYA questions conventional benchmarks and focus points of spirituality. The work I do with Free Spirits Music provides children with the tools to become free-thinking songwriters, and gives professional songwriters an opportunity to be vulnerable with fresh work. I spend my days unraveling the concept of “creative process” while strategizing how creativity can unleash people into their highest potential of activism, peace, and community.
Write down your commitments to your work, your art, your relationships, and yourself. Write down what drives you. Take note of what stops you. And live into it.
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