Hope is like a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
(Emily Dickinson)
Serving one’s true calling isn’t always easy, particularly if your environment isn’t the best place to do it. It’s like selling ice cream to the Eskimos. The process can be very tough although in the end, the emotional and moral rewards can beat the satisfaction of receiving money for another job done. (I think Baskin & Robbin’s employee of the century would be someone who manages to sell a scoop in North Pole).
When God struck me in the head one day and pointed out that this is what I have to do in life, I know it wouldn’t be easy. My parents already saw the very grim prospect of this and asked me to quit. So I keep my projects under the table and pretend that I lead an ordinary life as a piano teacher. Every year on my birthday, my college buddies never forget to wish me luck on my projects. They knew I’ve taken that solitary road when I decided not to join them as white-collar workers. Every once in a while my bestfriend gives me a long-distance phone call just to tell me to hang in there. No matter how bad.
But I’m hanging in here, still, though things can be so frustrated sometimes. That thread I’m hanging on to is this invisible things called hope. I just hope. That my camp would go every year. That there will be more piano teachers and string teachers participate in the programme, instead of child prodigies (who will still become prodigies even if they don’t go to my camp). I hope that more musicians would come and visit and share with us here. I hope that some sort of new trends will hit the society and people will start to listen more to classical music and stop watching those stupid serials and shows on telly. I hope people with money will donate more for classical music and stop producing those stupid serials and shows on telly. And there’s not a day pass that I don’t hope that a kind prince from Arabia will visit my city and decides that what it really needs is a proper concert hall.
Of course, it would be a lie if I said I always keep hope in the palm of my hand and close to my heart and thus living a life as a perky homo sapiens. Sometimes it’s so easy to lose hope. Serving one’s calling is, in some ways, similar to falling in love. You can’t stop thinking about the object of your affection, and you keep on figuring out ways to get closer to it, but when you think it’s not reachable, you can sometimes lose it. And suddenly, or gradually, you’re falling out of love.
Two months ago I planned a concert to commemorate Haydn’s 200 years of birth. This should also be a project to help local talents perform in public. In any other case not much of them, especially string players, get a chance to play pure classical music, in which they’re actually trained. So I’ve asked some people who, I think, would commit to their moral urge in playing pieces by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, even though they will not get some financial reward for this. Back then I got 15 people saying yes to this project, and after some time I felt it was time to meet and greet. Three weeks ago I texted everybody and asked them to come to the studio classes I arranged for them so we all can try out and get advice from fellow musicians.
Today was supposed to be our first meeting, and only 5 people showed up. Earlier today, I played for one of the singer who is scheduled to perform and he hasn’t even got the notes, moreover the text (it was in German), and the concert is in two weeks. I’ve heard all kinds of excuses, some were quite reasonable but more were pretty lame. It was quite an effort not to feel forlorn, especially with a throbbing headache because of a dinner forgone.
Sometimes I’m amazed how people can be so careless when they give their words but not their commitments. What empty barrels. And sometimes I thought I don’t need more of such things, yet still I put up with all of them.
However, in every bad situation, there’s always something that builds up hope even after something else has ruined it. Today, I could’ve gotten so angry but then I saw that the people who came are actually people who are extremely busy but still managed to squeeze this into their tight schedule. So, some people do care. Last July, when I thought that there’s no way I’m gonna get music teachers to come to my camp, a friend of mine, who is a piano teacher, enrolled even though she knew what she might face (yet bravely challenged herself!), and a 40+-year-old violin teacher also joined us and coolly shared lessons with a 14-year-old violin student. Recently, when I almost gave up working out ways to make an affordable educational projects for string players, some friends from Singapore and Malaysia wrote me and said they’d love to teach here for a very modest fee.
So one thing I promise myself not to do again in the future, near or far, is to lose hope. I’ve read in a lot of stories that human being can really stand all kind’s of life predicaments when they have hopes within, when they have something to look forward to each and every single day. It’s a crazy concept, but very well divine.
(Imported old blog, originally written on October 28, 2009)
