39. Things, things, and more things
Confessions of a willful overachiever
I’m trying to write this letter in the margins between other things. So many things. Speaking of “things” —
Last week I met a friend, an old Meisner classmate, for coffee. We sat at a little table outside, under two mammoth flowering trees, which kept dropping tiny yellow petals into our cups, and reminisced about our traumatic actors’ training. Then we walked to the National Museum of History.
On the first floor there was an exhibit of self-portraits by a few famous traditionalist painters from the last century. The second floor was given over to their landscapes. I especially liked the works of Zhang Daqian (張大千). My favorites were those that were partially covered by splashes of paint, a technique he developed in old age, in response to failing eyesight. The splashes merged with the trees, mountains, and sky, creating gorgeous but ambiguous natural forms that straddled the line between figurative and representative.
Then I wandered to the third floor. Turning left at the top of the stairs, I was surprised by a familiar face. On a big flatscreen hanging on a heavy wire partition was my acting teacher from the One Player Short Ensemble, Hsiang.
I knew One Player Short was having a new exhibition at a museum, but I hadn’t paid any special attention to which museum it was. Coming to the National Museum of History had been my friend’s idea, but she hadn’t known about the show either.
I put on the headphones hanging next to the screen and watched the play. It was a semi-figurative story about tradition and inheritance, performed by my teacher, Hsiang, and another actor from the ensemble, a tall man with long hair and a beard (I recognized him from his portrayal of Koxinga in the ensemble’s recent show at the National Theater, The Dream of Koxinga 國姓爺之夢).
In the play, the two characters fight over the contents of the chest. It’s supposed to contain family heirlooms that have been passed down for 75 generations, but some of the pieces are missing, and it’s not even clear what they once were.
At one point, fed up, Hsiang addresses the camera: “They call me Big. He’s Little. We’re one tiny part of a large family tree. I don’t believe in empty words, and I only believe in whatever can turn a profit; therefore, unless there’s a profit to be made, I don’t speak. Little, on the other hand, does nothing but talk, but his words are all empty.”
After more arguing, Little (i.e., Koxinga) walks toward the camera. “I’m called Little. She’s Big. We’re a tiny part of a huge family. I only believe in things. I either sell things or make things. Anything you can’t sell or make isn’t a real thing. As for Big, don’t believe a word she says, she invents all kinds of things that aren’t real things, just in order to turn a profit.”
(This translation is based on my rough recollection of their monologues).
Over time it becomes clear that Little is desperate to hang on to tradition, while Big wants to cut ties and live only for the present. However, neither can get what they want without the help of the other.
I like the contrast between “profit” and “things.” I like that both characters accuse the other of being concerned with something immaterial, and that they both have a point. I like that I feel as if I understand the play on a certain level, but on the level of rational thought I’m totally mystified.
Class overdose? Everything overdose!
This week was the first week of classes at the community college. Just like last semester, I signed up for three classes: two watercolor classes, and one pen sketching class. One of the watercolor classes was the outdoor class taught by Mr. Kuo, and the other watercolor class and the sketching class were new.
However, as the start date approached I started to feel more and more perturbed. A familiar alarm was sounding, telling me I was walking into a crisis of my own making. This is an alarm I have tended to mostly ignore over the years.
Just for context, here’s the lay of the land for the next several months:
I’m taking another full acting workshop series with Harald Emgård, consisting of five weeks in April and May, with class five days a week from nine till six. As if that weren’t enough to satisfy my hunger for acting workshops, I’m also taking multiple classes from One Player Short Ensemble at the same time. Realist Acting will end in a few weeks, and then Animal Transformation I & II begin, meeting every Wednesday through early June. What this means is that I’ll be intentionally skipping Harald’s class every Wednesday so that I can go have my Animal Transformations.
There’s an expression in Mandarin that translates to “good student syndrome,” and I am a sufferer. I will probably be suffocating in guilt after missing so many classes on purpose. And somehow I’ve managed to half-convince myself that this will be good for me.
On top of that, I’m getting ready for Taipei Shorts 6 in early April. That means technical rehearsals almost every night for one week (I’ll be rushing back to Taipei from Xinzhuang in New Taipei City, where Harald’s class is being held), and then six performances on two consecutive weekends.
Oh, did I mention I’m also teaching again? I’m leading English classes on Friday nights and Sunday mornings, and giving one-on-one Mandarin lessons on Saturday mornings. It’s a great way to pass the time.
By the way, I’m also making a podcast, still applying for acting jobs, and trying to build up a drawing practice. And I’m writing a newsletter, while studying French, German, and Japanese in my spare time.
Yes, go ahead and be impressed. If you thought “this sounds like someone who is trying just a bit too hard, perhaps trying to prove or make up for something,” then you might also be on to something. Listing all these things, I am mostly just aghast that I was only recently entertaining the idea of doing even more.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
My tentative conclusion is that I’m addicted to stress. But that’s only provisional. It could also be that I’m driven by insecurity about not doing enough (i.e., not being enough), and also have a hard time saying no — not just saying no to others, but also saying no to myself, to that inner voice that says, "you should probably be working on your French,” or “you really can’t pass up this opportunity,” or “wouldn’t starting another podcast be fun?”
Yes, it would be fun. It would be fun if I wasn’t so chronically overwhelmed that I actually sometimes look forward to getting sick because it gives me an excuse to finally take a break!
Sometimes people have said that they admire my self-discipline. This strikes me as very funny.
A sunbeam of sanity
I got to the community college fifteen minutes late for class this morning, and went straight to the admissions office.
“Hello, I’m here to drop some classes.”
“Okay. Which one?”
“All of them.”
As I walked out of the admissions office, cash in hand, I wasn’t thinking the obvious thing, that dropping these classes was the only remotely sane course of action in an otherwise untenable situation. I was just thinking, well, I don’t really need these classes right now. What I really need is to invest more time in myself, in my own drawing practice, to learn how to give myself the time I need, and not look to others for permission.
Newfound perspective on stress addiction notwithstanding, I think this rationale also checks out. For instance, I started my “daily self-portrait challenge” groups in Jan and Feb partly as an acknowledgement of the need to trick myself into doing what I really wanted to do, by making internal motivation external.
So, instead of: “I want to draw, but it’s not urgent, so maybe tomorrow,” It was: “People are expecting me to draw today, so I’d better do it.”
There are two questions here. The latter question is about how much importance I place on my own needs, on this thing that I supposedly do for myself. If I really want to draw, then can I actually give myself time to do it, even when nobody’s holding me to it except for myself?
But this also brings us back to the first question: Why do I need to make myself so busy that I just can’t find the time?
Am I afraid what might happen if I actually did find the time?
Right before I dropped the classes, I made a deal with myself. I promised myself I would make the time to draw — real time, the kind of time you can get lost in, not just a few minutes here or there.
Outside the office, I sat on a bench and sketched the hallway (not depicted).
Because I dropped my afternoon class, I had time to go to the gallery where Mr. Kuo was holding an exhibition of his watercolors.
“Ah, our class monitor!” he exclaimed when I walked in.
“Not anymore,” I corrected him.
“Yes! Since you didn’t show up for class yesterday, we voted for you to be the class monitor again this semester.”
It pained me to tell him I’d dropped his class.
Then Mr. Kuo gave me and the other student who was there a tour of his works. There’s a lot more to say about it — what I learned about Mr. Kuo’s story, the evolution of his work, some notes about technique, and some anecdotes — but that’s something for another letter.
As I was leaving, Mr. Kuo turned to me and said, “No matter what, keep painting.”
I love reading your process, your internal voice...
It really had to come to this sooner or later, didn’t it? 😊