Hi friends,
A new letter is ready. I hope you enjoy it.
A couple of my friends have let me know that my site wasn’t allowing commenting. I apologize for that. No wonder none of you has shared anything with me for a long while! I am so sorry. That problem has been solved. You should be able to comment on my posts now. So yay! I look forward to reading them.
How are you doing? We are in year 3 of a pandemic. I think we all need some healthy distraction. I am doing Chinese calligraphy writing when I feel overly anxious and fearful. Do you want to see some of the writings? What have you been doing? Would you let me know?
Okay friends! Until next time. Be kind to each other.
X.Y.Zheng
Letter No. 20
J,
I just came back to my hotel after a full day of meeting with faculty members. Adult socializing is interesting to observe and to take part in. I see so much fear in all of us. We are so terrified of failing and being rejected. Even among what I consider as successful artists, there is a sense of not enoughness. Maybe that’s what has driven human civilization to innovate and step further out to the unknown – a deep rooted belief that the next best idea or the next best thing is ahead of us.
I was a part of that game. Until my world got upended. Now, when I see some of us holding on tightly about a title, I feel sad. I feel sad about the collective unconsciousness. That drives me to get to work everyday: to help reveal something deeper about what a human is capable of experiencing – the joy of being alive and the wonders we get to experience from the overlooked mundane. We see. We touch. We taste. We smell. We hear. And we think. Not many of us stop and be astonished that we are capable of these things. This makes art necessary. It helps people remember that we are on the same team. Some of us have never had a team. We are not taught how to trust ourselves, let alone trusting others.
You had always been a group person. I stood on the sideline watching you playing team sports with imaginable envy. You would curse when you missed a good pass. You would jump up and down with each other when you scored. It is deeply moving to see. I don’t know what that experience feels like in my body. Does it feel like dancing? I wish I had more time with you. I wish I could talk to you about stuff I am writing right now. I want to hear your perspective. I want to experience the world with you.
Creative work does drive one into solitude. I have been very good at that. I think that’s a prerequisite for artists – being able to be by yourself and being able to observe, process, think, and put all of you to work. The creative process is alive. It is a beast that eats me alive while giving me treasures beyond my imagination. It consumes me and it charges me. It is one of the relationships that I will never willingly let go of. I want to cultivate this deep love for creating in my future students. I believe a person who creates regularly knows what freedom tastes like. And the best people I’ve met are those who know true freedom.
It is late now. I am going to take a shower and go to bed. I have a full day off tomorrow to wander around in the city. I wish you were here with me.
All my love,
Hannah