The Artistic Dilemna: or, The Ethics Of Forgetting
18.12.06 - 4:38 p.m.

(Note: I rarely put up MSN conversations, to respect the other party's privacy, and if I do I will select only portions which are not a violation of the other person's privacy and do not give away any secrets. For the same reason, the friends I spoke with are not named. But I was very thankful for these conversations. Anyway, the following snippets elucidate the artistic dilemna that I guess I've been struggling with for years. And have perhaps just ceased to struggle with so much. Some important lines are in bold heh.)

MSN conversation #1 - with a Christian friend who's pretty likeminded in some things haha

well, it seems like to me u're hanging on to *****, at least partially due to pride
i dun mean it in an accusing way

Joanna says:
yeah, but why do people get that idea?
you're not the first person who has said that to me

oh... ok, phew

Joanna says:
HAHA
hey tell me i do want to know
i did ask myself that but either i'm blind to it or else it's not... cos i really don't think so

oh romeo oh romeo, wherefore art thou romeo?
haha, we always criticise romeo for falling in love with love

Joanna says:
and you think i'm in love with love?

i dunno... what do you think?

Joanna says:
haha i don't think so
but i do notice that i have some ideas abt love that NO ONE i have ever met seems to share
hahaha

like?

Joanna says:
like the stuff i wrote lah
everyone else seems to think it's so easy to move on

haha.. actually, i think generally, i agree with ur ideas on love
and i doubt i'm the only one really
though i must concede theory is often very different from what really happens...

Joanna says:
but...??
in love with love???
i mean tt's the impression that a lot of people get when i try to tell them what my ideas abt love are when that is what i sincerely do feel

haha, i dunno, but it seems like you're tryin to prove something to someone

Joanna says:
oh haha. today's entry was written in response to some general class belief that i have gotten over things
which makes me feel as if no one knows me

haha, maybe that's it... what does it matter what people think about how u love?

Joanna says:
haha yeah that's it... i guess this is where pride comes in - cos i feel almost offended that pple could imagine me to be the kind of person who can switch affections so easily
.... i guess i feel almost offended to be thought of as someone who could, like *****, get together with anyone else under 2 years [....]

well, God sees you, and those people who matter would know
right...?

Joanna says:
i dunno
sigh
haha i think i am not yet mature enough to be content with ONLY God understanding me... i want man's affirmation as well

haha, u are like, treating our walk with God like an RPG man...
like, u need to go through TRIALS, to get MATURITY POINTS before u can acquire the ability of CONTENTMENT WITH GOD'S RECOGNITION ONLY
so since you dun have enough maturity points, u still need man's affirmation?
hahahahahaha

Joanna says:
HAHA
yeah i guess
i tend to think of everything in a very quantitative way
[....]
haha yeah anyway... why do i give the impression then that i'm in love with love if pple generally share my ideals too?

haha... but why are you so concerned with the impression you give then?
u see, love is a bit like humility
when u love God, you dun bother with showing pple how much you love God
but u just love God
so if u loved *****, most people wouldn't notice it

Joanna says:
sigh but i think it has really agitated me these last few mths to see everyone so accepting tt ***** has someone else now, and i should move on too, n just be happy and forget tt anything ever happened
it's an artistic dilemna

ARTISTIC DILEMMA!???

Joanna says:
on one hand you know there's no pt remembering on the other you dowan to forget history

forget history?
what history would u like to remember?

Joanna says:
the fact that once 2 pple loved each other a lot?

did he love you?

Joanna says:
i think he did in a way
i guess it wasn't pure & true love

hahaha, 'pure and true love'?
what is love?

Joanna says:
i think love is wanting to be with someone else so much tt you miss them when they're not around and want to be with them forever

haha
honestly, i think love is a lot less spectacular than that
love is a choice, that's all
the 'wanting to be with someone else so much tt you miss them when they're not around and want to be with them forever' is more aptly described as infatuation if u ask me
that indesribable feeling that hits u uncontrollably
but usually lasts only 1 yr at most
haha, i know that feeling very well =)

Joanna says:
haha but then it should settle down into a friendship lah
I imagine married life in the ideal case to be sth like the relationship i have with my best friends whom i've known for more than 10 years

hahaha... 10 yrs...
a lot of times, many of the most important choices u make are done within a few seconds

Joanna says:
haha... i seem to have always given the choices in my life a great deal of thought and planning
even *****
i just trusted him to keep his end up but he didn't tt's all

mmm... and u made the choice regarding ***** based on? 10 yrs of friendship?
or 1 month of infatuation influenced 'feelings' of love?

Joanna says:
erm... 2 mths of good working partnership and a bunch of words tt i thought he meant haha

sigh, then maybe you weren't discerning enough then...

===========================

MSN conversation #2 - a small part of a longer conversation which was literally life-changing. During the course of it God touched me through some of the things this piano-playing Christian friend said so much, I nearly cried at 4 or 5 points - and was even blowing my nose heh. I was greatly encouraged by it as a creative being and as a Christian... and in fact I think it has caused me to start coming out of a certain emotional, spiritual and creative rut which I have been stuck in for the past ONE YEAR and I'm so glad I talked to this friend. But this is only a small extract of it lah... this is the less private bit, when we were discussing this exact Artistic Dilemna about the ethics of forgetting.

* * *

so joey doesn't write poetry anymore?

Joanna says:
i do
but no lah i used to have such ideals abt it
cos there are 2 ways you can use poetry - 1. for your own personal expression 2. to change the world n try to make it a better place
and when i was in sec 3 i read so much of it all and i really thought that 2 was the most noble thing one could do with one's life heh
cos poetry is also v beautiful
and i was really transfixed by it
and the thought tt it could change the world - cos some of it did

poetry to u is piano to me
yes
exactly

Joanna says:
but now i still write poetry but i only use it for 1
not the 2nd reason heh.

yes now i only play for 1

Joanna says:
cos i realised tt pple don't read

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
damned it!

Joanna says:
yeah but i cannot give up writing it cos it is too much part of me
so... write for 1 lor.
heh i'm so happy tt you feel the same thing

for me
i use it to play for God
coz i know he will listen
otherwise wasted

Joanna says:
tt sounds great
i think i should do tt with my writing too cos i feel a lot of my writing is v self-centred
yeah and what you just said made me see sth new
which is tt if i just write artistically gd poems tt no onewill understand it's wasted... but if one does it for God n writes things tt will please Him rather than just for one's feelings it won't be wasted

write hymns
God will read your poetry if its for him

[....]

sighz
in the piano world, there are too many unfeeling people

Joanna says:
hey abt unfeeling pple... i get tt feeling abt pple who read poetry too
i always feel tt they are not feeling it... only dissecting it... as if they don't love it

ya
i get what u mean
its very irritating

Joanna says:
and cos i'm not a literature student sometimes when i hear them talking
i feel as if i'm a guy who really loves a lady who's married to someone who doesn't care for her
[....]
oh yeah hahahah! heh anyway tt was actually one of the reasons i decided to give up the whole literature thing n go into medicine instead
but a bigger reason was tt i was actually inspired by the poetry itself to do sth tt would help society... n i felt that since pple didn't read, writing was not as effective as actually getting in there n doing something
heh i guess i do still have poetry in my head but it's much less now

hmmm there i differ finally
i never thought music could heal
i always thought music is a secret code
as in i always felt humans communicate in 2 ways
language is the formal way
there's the emotion aspect
if u're good with language, u're useless if u can't use emotion
but however there's one aspect which i feel is always through
if u can communicate purely through emotion u don't need language anymore
so to me, emotion is a secret code
music so happens to be a very easy avenue to decode it
[....]
but then again, i know its God's gift
but i must not misuse it
k the danger is that
if u know this secret code, but if others don't
manipulation is very easy
sometimes people use music to change the mood of occasions for their benefit
[....]
Joanna says:
hey haha what you said really moved me
i think poetry is like a code too within language... but it's a code tt's acquired both through feeling n knowledge
cos poems refer to the event that's just happened as well as to other poems in the past which in turn referred to historical events at tt time
so it's like sometimes to get the full benefit of a poem you have to know the poems/writings in the past tt they refer to and the link to history - if 1 of the links is broken because you don't know what it refers to then the effect is not so great
but at the same time you also have to feel the beauty of the writing haha and some poems are a lot more beautiful than others i think... some are more catchy.. some are more useful etc
n i used to be frustrated tt pple didn't bother to find out the links n weren't being moved by poems n didn't even read haha. yeah but also i guess pple can't be expected to go n read up all these literature works unless it's their interest

ya
true
but i find the historic part very hard

Joanna says:
haha me too lah. reading poetry makes me feel like i'm an ignoramus sometimes hee

yeah

Joanna says:
tt's why pple can devote their lives to reading poetry - just to chase down all the links. but then other pple don't understand them also haha.

ya
its the code thing

Joanna says:
tt's why... medicine lah medicine lah then i can help other pple and not be so misunderstood also hee

yeah
tts what i want too
i don't want to try doing something and people dont' understand

Joanna says:
yeah! precisely. but for a long long time i felt tt in a way i was betraying my feelings in a sense
haha actually trying to forget abt ***** has been for me v similar to trying to forget my feelings for poetry in the past... like how moved i used to be.. i try not to be so moved by poetry anymore cos it only makes me unfit for studying n other things
but at the time tt i was making the transition from v moved to not-so-moved i felt like i was betraying myself... as if i was deliberately stifling one of my senses... like a murderer
n trying to forget abt ***** i sometimes feel like a murderer too... like i'm trying to kill off sth tt i once felt so strongly... as if to not feel it anymore is a murder

u know how u can over come this

Joanna says:
how?

u can try being pseudo schizo

Joanna says:
WHAT

ok
ok let me explain
k i dont' wanna look like a joke if i cry when i hear someone play touching music
so what i do is when i hear a touching part, i'll distract myself
so its an excuse, and also i'm not betraying myself coz i didn't stifle my feelings
just distract yourself if u feel moved by poetry by remembering like a previous verse tt was like funny? or a bit of a twist?
its not betrayal la if u do tt
coz by doing tt, u tell yourself tt i still feel for it

Joanna says:
heh. i do tt a lot too lah
but at the same time it feels sad to have to distract oneself n not feel the full feeling

ya la
at least its better than stifling

Joanna says:
i guess i was using my whole medical school as a distraction of this kind in the exact same way heh

======================================

I guess in the end this is the best. I tell myself that I was put on earth to be useful to others. And if I am so transfixed / paralysed by strong emotion for something or someone, no matter how beautiful it is, if it is interfering with my ability to help others, then I should forget about it and throw my energies into something more beneficial to others.

Like that friend, I chose to study medicine to flee my consuming passion for something else which has caused me the most joy and at the same time the most sorrow in my life - which because I felt so deeply about it was destroying my ability to live, my peace, my ability to be a functional person to help others. I wanted to help other people in this short time I was on earth - not spend that time burning up inside over a passion that few others can understand. It was the only course which I felt enough interest in to engage my mind, to draw it away from poetry (and after all, I guess, medicine is closely allied).

And where ***** is concerned, it is the same principle; if remembering something so achingly intense and beautiful is interfering with my ability to help and to heal others, then it is not a sin to distract myself from it, simply because I have a greater duty to the world around me than to myself.

"Maybe God gives some people the ability to feel so strongly about some things that no one else feels so strongly about" - Dawn

That touched me too... because it reminded me that all these feelings are the gifts of God too... the ability to see things that others don't, to be so immensely moved by things which other people can read or touch or smell or hear without being moved to the point of such fierce joy... of pain, I guess, of having to flee.

I guess all this time I have been reluctant to throw myself whole-heartedly into distracting myself from these feelings because of the sense that I was betraying the things that I loved. But from today I will try to change that. As long as I know that I love them, it is not a betrayal, even if outwardly I do not show the extent of my passion. I guess what friend A says is true... "love is a bit like humility. when u love God, you dun bother with showing pple how much you love God, but u just love God"

In the same way,
you just love poetry I guess...
you just love some people...
in a way that pleases God...
without needing anyone else to know it...
because, as friend B said, it's not wasted because God sees it.
And if it pleases God, that's the highest aim we can ever achieve, the one guarantee that it's not wasted.

And after these conversations last night I prayed the kind of prayer which I have refused to pray for the last one year...

I asked God to let me love people again even if it means opening myself up to be hurt by them. (For the last year I've been praying the opposite, trying to numb myself to all emotion, trying not to care strongly about anything, trying not to be bothered by people's choices, even choices which I know will only cause them pain, trying to forget about it as 'their own business'.) To let me be fully passionate about God and about others again. To let me care so much about their joy and happiness that I will feel sad that they do not know God... to once again open up to people and tell them about God with redoubled urgency, because I want them to experience joy, because the greatest tragedy in life is not to know Him.

"We laugh that we may not weep" - But there is an added dimension to Beaumarchais' famous quote.. Sometimes in order to feel joy you have to feel sadness as well... Sometimes you cannot laugh without weeping as well, because it's a package deal when you can FEEL.

We weep that we may laugh. If one cannot feel pain, one cannot feel pleasure either. Didn't I hear this already from Paul Brand and Philip Yancey? The same nerves which conduct pain conduct pleasant sensation. Without one there is no other.

And so why does God allow some people to feel so strongly about things which others don't feel so strongly enough? Why does God give some people emotions which are so intense that it feels lonely being the only one feeling them?

I guess it's because He wants to let those people feel joy like no one else can feel, and only someone who can feel pain like no one else can feel can feel joy like no one else can feel...and this is a fine privilege.

Last year at this time there was a worship song on this blog - I think the time has come to put it up again:

Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's all as it should be
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name