The Artist's Dilemma

I cried this morning while reading a story.

I croed not because the story was sad but more like it reminded me of certain emotions. I felt the same when I watched Step Up and cried at the last scene.

It was a scene between a father and daughter getting to know each other. The father was a painter and was dying of disease and his daughter was spending his last days with him. They had not known each other for years so he started to talk to her while painting, sketching and doing pottery.

I totally understood and visualised the scene where they were just painting quietly with classical music painting in the background. I could totally see the house in front of the sea with easels spread along the walls and papers scattered around.

I could totally see it because it would be a house I dream to have. At that moment I felt, a dream house is not one that is fancy, but one that is filled with love, not just love between people, but also love in yourself.

I realise how much it always hurts me and stings me with regret whenever I get reminded that I never pursued art or dance further.

When I watched the last scene in Step Up, I cried even though it was a happy ending because the thought that I could have a showcase of my own just like her would never come. The truth is that age and my current body limits stands in my way. I can feel it. It is something that only as a dancer myself can feel.

I loved that scene of them painting in that house. Innately, I feel that should be the house I am in. There were times I thought, what if someday I really gave it all up and just turned to a life of painting and writing?

The Singaporean and coward side of me asks "What will I live on?"

I think my current work is the one that gives me the most freedom I can imagine. I like it and I like the satisfaction of it. Yet slowly, you realise there are things that simply touch your soul in deeper ways.

There are people or perhaps everyone who has this hidden dream of being a sportsman, an artist, a singer and so on, but only to shut it all out in the name of making of living. It's not that we can't do it in our free time yet sometimes one just gets so carried away by living that one forgets to live.

Pursuits of one's loves often takes so much energy and thinking that it is almost impossible to reach a deep stage of development without devoting yourself to it. Maybe I am not talented.

I am over-Singaporeanised.