Kissing the things I will never be, goodbye

I was really reluctant to see my Master's project supervisor today. Try as I would in the last few months, I just could not get any of the film schools in the city to give me access to their former students for the story I am writing on the experiences of starting independent filmmakers in America.

Truth be told, I would always avoid him if I know I don't have anything new for him, because I would feel guilty I am not doing enough. He's one of those professors that everybody likes so much they don't want to disappoint him.

But I should have known better.

As always, I left Shaps' office today learning so much about myself, particularly how my own life shapes the kind of stories I want to be writing about. He told us at the start of the semester that our stories have got to be something we need to be writing about, not just what we should or ought to be writing about.

Today, listening to him tell me how he writes about baseball so much because it is something he needed to do because it was his way of coming to terms with how he was never good enough to be a professional player, everything I have agonized about in my almost 5 months in the Big Apple, just came together for me.

It helped me made sense of the frustration with my old topic which was something "serious" and "of consequence" and how I decided that it was not worth my while doing something that made me unhappy for an entire year. Sure it is a topic that needs to be done because it is important, but it did not resonate that deeply with me. I didn't need to chase the story down, so I switched to writing about indie films. Writing something I have been assigned is vastly differently from writing something for myself.

I realized today why I stuck with this topic despite a very strong temptation to change it again. I realized I needed to tell myself about myself. I needed to tell myself what the struggle to put together a film is like because I had never gotten down to putting a film together myself.

Not pursuing film is something I have asked myself many times in the last few months. I looked back and realized there were so many points in my life that I could have started on film making.

Like how I rejected my place at Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Film, Sound and Video diploma course after "O" levels in 1999 because I was so intent on journalism and gave that up after missing out on Mass Communications by a single point. Like how I interned on a film set before college in 2004 and had to decide whether to join the NUStudios as an extracurricular activity.

On both occasions, I turned the other way for different reasons, but guided by a sense of pragmatism.

I wanted to do "A" levels because I wanted to go to university because a degree is more valued than a diploma and an FSV diploma, I believed, "would be hard to qualify me for a degree program anywhere in Singapore". I ended up not joining NUStudios because my obsession with school work meant hardly any other time for anything except for VCF and later, Campus Observer.

I may still eventually make a film at some point in the future, but I know I will probably never sing or act professionally, two things I thought I wanted to do at some point in my youth. Thinking about the other possible things I could have done in my life also brought to mind my long-standing desire to perform and how I am probably not good enough to do so.

Unlike film making, performing artistes have a shelf life and a lot of hard work is required to train one's singing or acting ability. Watching 超及星光大道, a popular Taiwanese singing talent show, I realized I am probably not good enough. It could be that I never tried hard enough to know, but I never took my singing, my guitar playing or acting seriously enough to risk it all and take lessons.

Before today, I was lamenting and wondering why I did not do that. I remembered wanting to be the next David Tao and being really upset when my singing range could not match his when I could reach a falsetto in his song, 普通朋友 (Ordinary Friends, for which the MTV is at the top of this entry). That was more than 10 years ago.

But today, I realized, for whatever reasons, I probably did not feel compelled enough to go to such lengths for acting or singing. But I did go to extraordinary lengths with journalism in college, and those efforts got me to where I am today.

There might be some very real mitigating reasons that would merit maybe another attempt, but I think I made all those decisions for a reason and I should probably stick to them. Revisiting my past and remaking decisions made in my youth might just prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

After all, if I can't be actually doing those things I wanted to do, I can find out what it feels like to be struggling to actualize those visions of oneself and live vicariously through people who did and write about them. That would perhaps explain why I suddenly wanted to go work in Taipei in the last few weeks. I realized now I wanted to do that to write the stories of actors and starting singers whom I like and respect, struggling to do the things I wish I could.

I came to Columbia with so much baggage on so many levels I cannot even begin to describe or enumerate them. I am glad I am beginning to sort them out as I receive professional training as a reporter and writer. I am beginning to re-imagine the whole notion of "sorting" to include moving on and not harping on the numerous what-if's in my past. For better or for worse and whether I like it or not, they have happened. Dealing with it would therefore mean just coming to terms and stop wondering what-if.

And maybe when I clear up the issues that have burdened my soul in my growing up years, I would finally be able to write clearly. After all, unclear writing is not a sign of a bad writer, it's a sign of a writer whose mind is cluttered and uncleared. As somebody once said, 我们必须摆脱成长的负担. Clear writing is a product of clear thought and perhaps, a sound existence.

After almost 27 years, I am only beginning to realize we don't have to live a perfect life, but we can lead a life recognizing and respecting the way we lived back then and stop regretting and wondering what-if. We will never grow up that way.