ScribblePOP 3.0

When I was in third grade, I used to stand next to my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Wong, during every recess. I jabbered on about my thoughts and my minuscule world of adventures. Words flowed out of my mouth endlessly until Mrs. Wong would peer over at me, lower her glasses, and with an exasperated smile, ask me to leave her alone so she could grade papers.

I was a very eager and happy child.

My best friend in High School, Yanfei, was a quiet and sweet girl. She giggled at little jokes, connected with everyone across class (High School paradigm and the real world), and was just all-around a NICE girl. Every night, we would spend hours on the phone…our conversations usually went in the veins of this:

Me: “How is it going?”

Y: “It’s going okay. And you?”

Me: “Let me talk about myself for the remaining 99% of the conversation, where you gladly listen to me, until I realize how self-absorbed I am, apologize, and get pardoned by you.”

My father passed away when I was 18. This silenced me quite a bit. There was very little to say about the matter. And for a year, Yanfei had a much better time with college than I did. I couldn’t stand my old friends’ happiness in light of my misery. I couldn’t make new friends, either.

Then I found filmmaking. Shooting a story reconnected me with the outside world. It gave me back the control I lost. Most importantly, it gave me a reason to make anything – an audience. Except now, unlike Mrs. Wong and Yanfei, I consider an audience a luxury, a good-fortune, a gift from the divine. It is precious mind time taken from others, who are busy with their own life experiences, with stories to tell of their own.

But I also realize, with great help from recent loss, that I thrive on that audience, that reception, that feedback. That is where anything I do gain meaning. It’s a pretty post-modernist art way of considering work. Creation is love, love must be shared, otherwise, what is the point, really?

This mode of thinking renders several living scenarios unimaginable:

1. Solitary confinement.

2. Bomb shelter

3. Desert island.

4. The beach. Everything is vast, and never bounces back. Unimaginable after 3 hours.