2009

Sometimes what we end up with or choose for ourselves is dictated by many things...

Cost, what is acceptable, what others would like, what makes sense

This year, I would like to add another criteria of Beauty..

I would like to be able to see the beauty in everything and to also be surrounded by beautiful things.

No particular reason. Am just tired of the ugliness around me.

Running Away

Am fascinated by reports of the New Orleans evacuation for the hurricane.

While a lot of the focus is on the evacuation and the effects of the hurricane. I wonder about the folks who choose to stay. How lonely that must be.... to have the whole world not understand what you are doing.

I can understand why they stay actually.... perhaps they are afraid of what they will find when they do try to run with the rest... that they are truly lonely and alone in the world. Running smack into the emptiness that they have been trying to avoid via work and domestic routines.

At least it is not so apparent when you stay.

Taking Leave of Yourself

I'm taking a break from being myself.
Its a secret break ... snatches of time stolen from normal routines where I drift off.

Or maybe the 'me' at these times is actually the closer to the real me.

Things I've Learnt About Myself

1) That I will walk a bit slower on the street if I am walking next to an old person who is limping along. That is so that he or she won't feel bad about himself.

2) That I can enjoy the Olympics Opening Ceremony if it is a classy, well done affair.

3) That I will feel an extreme sense of desolation if I turn back to wave at the person I just left and his thoughts are already on something else.

Strawberry Dreams!

When I was younger, I always had a ready list of frivolous things to buy. I was a reasonable enough kid to know that it did not make sense to ask my parents to buy those things for me. But there was always this private promise to myself that I would buy those things when I made my own money and was hence was more deserving.

Now I am older, not ultra rich but I make my own money and can buy those things. But the operative word is older now. Old enough to see many other things that I should be buying instead. Old enough to know that I don't like the item so much anymore. Old enough to know that I won't like the item forever.

As we go through life.. there are things that we discard .................memories, friends, habits (good and bad) and our frivolous selves. When do we end up?

What Weighs Me Down

Had this vivid dream where I was sure of what would make me happy.

I wanted to release a balloon from the top of the big ferris wheel. To watch the balloon go up and up in the sky .... how spectacular.. and exciting (imagine what worlds it will see and go to!)

Then as I was holding the balloon and on the bus to the ferris wheel. I realised it was an impossible dream (within a dream, this is quite a feat for me. I am very good at irrational rationalisation in my dreams.) First, the ferris wheel has closed compartments, hence I would not be able to let it fly. Secondly, I remembered an article I read that such balloons are threats to the environment (yes, I am an environmentalist in dreamland). So it was deemed impossible in my dream.

Was thinking about this today.

I could go to the top of a tall building.

Just one balloon will not push the world into ecological destruction.

But I am not sure where I can get a helium filled balloon.

And whether I would be able to let go of it when the time comes.

Art Inspiration Beauty

2 conversations about art, inspiration and beauty these 2 days.

I show a designer (first time in Singapore) the Singapore skyline. He is immediately captivated by one building and keeps asking me about it.

What is interesting is that the building he likes is not one of the usual suspects but the little known Singtel building at the side. Who designed it he asks. Why the metal pillars. I am unable to answer as my eyes, after many years of sweeping that scene, tend to focus on the centrepieces.

I then wonder what it means to be an artist. Is it the pursuit of understanding by another? If so, by one or many? By the one who matters or anyone? There are those pieces that art critics argue about, writing many pages of critique. But as an artist, would you be happier if an untrained eye fixes on it and says the 'I like it'? To be understood is perhaps an artist's greatest tragedy and fulfilment.

A second conversation where someone tells me that there is no inspiration to be had in Singapore. No open fields,vast landscapes to find oneself. But I find it strange. Surely there are sentiments that can be expressed. Surely there must be someone in a concrete jungle who can identify with those sentiments.

Otherwise, we are all lonely people.