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Looking out--走出象牙塔 (英文)
By Chua Chong Jin
In a recent column for Asiaweek magazine(Dec 22, 2000), the writer notes, "We need to decide what creativity is not. I'm appalled at what is presented as creativity. My suspicion is that we've been taken for a ride by those who don't always know better." Here, he looks back at his journey from being an ardent lover of the arts to someone who is now more selective about what writers, film-makers or playwrights offer.
Gladly, I've forgotten quite a lot of the stuff I learnt as a literature student - especially those inward-to-the-core bits, complete with angst and those me-against-the-world pontifications.
And I sure have decided that, for my pleasure and for some good advice on living, I need to move beyond slackers, cynics, drifters, malcontents - however brilliant their novels, plays or films. (Now, I'm not saying those of us in the arts are all like this. Think, for instance, of the good works someone like Kuo Pao Kun has done. But, let's face it, we get more than our fair share of whiners in this circle).
Growing older (and simpler), I've looked out. Slowly, I'm learning - not always successfully - the beauty of engagement with the world. That means folks in one-room HDB flats I meet who're struggling daily to make ends meet. Or workers for whom the kind of "mundane existence" literary types fight against is all they'll ever know in life - but who learn to be happy all the same.
Not that there is nothing of enduring value in the arts I grew up learning - and liking, up to a point. There is. Till today, I remember some works partly because of the sheer beauty of the language or images but more because of their gems of wisdom.
In his poem "The Second Coming", for instance, William Butler Yeats laments, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." (来源：英语杂志 http://www.EnglishCN.com)
Looking at the much-celebrated (and much-publicised) arts scene, one must at the very least ask some fundamental questions. What exactly are "the arts"? Where does experimentation end before madness sets in? What good does stretching the limits serve, if at all?
Should private pain or angst be thrown at the public in the name of "giving a performance"? And are the time, money and resources put in always worth it? (No, I don't mean this in a cold, calculating "rate of return" way; I only mean to suggest that good works of art must go beyond self-indulgence and address issues we care - or should care - about).
Against such questions, how have we measured up? Not always very well, I'm afraid. Take a recent local play. A write-up describes how an actor "stripped to his G-strings and had starch, milk and wet soil smeared all over him for publicity pictures." It adds that audiences too will have "anything but a conventional laid-back theatrical experience." They will squeeze into specially-constructed 'pigeon holes' and the story will be fed to them through earphones.
Now, let's not attack this example too much. We get the plays or movies we deserve. It's arbitrarily highlighted just to give a flavour of some of the stuff that passes off as art these days.
Suffice to ask: Have we shortchanged ourselves? Are we hearing only the voices of those of us who're simply intense (as opposed to truly creative), who're still sorting out our inner demons?
If so, maybe it's time to take stock. Less (plays, books, movies, etc) may mean more. Let the truly creative ones seek their Muse, I say. For the rest of us, the Drama of Life beckons.
（The writer is an assistant professor at the NTU'S School of Communication Studies.）
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