On moving to study abroad
From my previous blog entry, I am very happy to report that I am now working on a personal artistic project!
It seems that I am in one of the luckier periods of the year where artistic inspiration (see: muse) comes without any effort – as if the project lives in my head in a finished state, and all I need to do is work my hands fast enough with a keyboard and pen.
It’s remarkable how much my routine changes when the muse strikes me:
- I become reclusive and cut about 99% of my contact with the outside world, including (but not limited to) friends, extended family, and people that I pay (accountants) or people that pay me (industry employers);
- I let my hair fester into an unruly mess and grow out my facial hair;
- I pace around my living room a lot, often wearing a contemplative face, studying the tiles of my floor;
- I either eat too much or too little, never in moderation;
- I wake up late (around 10AM to 12PM) and go to sleep around 2AM to 3:30AM.
I wrote that about 6 days ago. I was planning to shift from the above paragraphs into a discussion on performance/endurance/durational art…
…but resistance took over.
I realised that it would be much too lengthy and strenuous a task to write about Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performances, and to broaden my limited knowledge on the topic of performance art beyond the mainstream canon of Marina Abramović‘s Rhythm 0 and the like.
So I deferred. I procrastinated. I resisted.
In this blog I will be sharing some of my thoughts on the concept of resistance, within the context of the arts and academia. These thoughts come to me fresh and are criminally underbaked, but since this is my blog, I’ll share them my way.
We have managed to jam pack our common parlance with more synonyms for resistance than a sentence can hold: anxiety, uncertainty, avoidance, burnout, procrastination, doubt, fear, rationalisation, distraction, paralysis, decision fatigue, and for the most recent additions, the overconsumption of ‘brain rot’ and the state of not being ‘locked in’.
I’m getting the proper definition for resistance from Stephen Pressfield’s book The War of Art – the same book I’ll be making reference to throughout. In my own words:
Resistance is a powerful force that works against any act that rejects immediate gratification in favour of long-term growth, health or integrity.
Pressfield goes on to describe the many activities which commonly elicit resistance; most poignant of which being the pursuit of art. But perhaps Rick Rubin (in The Creative Act) presents an argument that is a touch more cogent: he presents the artist as an antenna, one who does not generate creative ideas of their own, but rather ‘receives’ them – from their muse, the universe, call it what you will.
Resistance, therefore, is receiving an idea and not allowing it to manifest; or worse, sabotaging your antenna by cutting off your reception and drowning yourself in interference.
It would be foolish of me to not address mea culpa and hide behind the writings of others. I will therefore detail what I believe to be my life’s greatest act of resistance – the idea/calling that I am still actively resisting to this day.
In my early youth and all up until entering university, my antenna could never receive a strong signal; unsurprisingly, I was very indifferent to the arts. When I was around 5 or 6, I would bring home my drawing assignments from school and place them in my mother’s lap for her to do. I was an exemplary student, and found no objection to learning the multiplication tables by heart and to writing 10 well-structured sentences about that week’s Ladybird book – but I drew a line on bringing pencil to paper (thank you, thank you).
That same sentiment stayed with me right up until my university days. Art and film couldn’t be further away from my plan at the time, which was to study IT and English so that I could eventually find a well-paid job in computing, abroad and away from the rock. I always decoded the noisy interference that my antenna was receiving as: “James, you have to become a fucking bestial software developer, better and brighter than any mere mortal living in Europe.” And in no time, I was in Phase 1 of obeying that decoded message, finding my way into a Bachelor of Science in Software Development at the University of Malta.
I only had to enter 3 classes in the first week to realise how terribly misguided I was. It’s not an easy task to resist against 19 years of reinforced learning and choose the arts as a life path – some writers might argue there is a strong correlation between the two disciplines. I’ll argue against, thank you very much.
Do you see where I’m going here?
The idea I was receiving wasn’t “study software development” – that was simply a means to an end that I was attempting to rationalise. The idea I was receiving was two-fold: firstly, “you are creative, don’t cheat yourself out of that gift” and secondly, a call to action: “you need to realise your true potential by moving abroad”.
At that socially-distanced college desk during a hellishly boring lecture on computer networks, the frequency I was tuned into sounded clearer than it ever had.
So I shifted my plan. I enrolled into a Bachelor of Communications course and took interest in all its creative study units. I figured: the best possible way of spending a year abroad, doing something I’m good at and finding my community is by taking my Masters abroad. I also figured: the best chances I’ll have at being accepted by good foreign universities and getting a scholarship is by getting good grades.
So that’s what I did. I studied damn hard. I kept indoors (which was quite easy given the lockdown and all) and I toiled to finish my assignments a week early so that I could have time to revise, and revise, and revise… that was my new Phase 1. I was tuning into my newly-discovered antenna left, right and centre. By the end of my first year, I received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence. But that wasn’t enough. So I aimed to get higher grades in my second year. And I did.
But that still wasn’t enough. I thought: grades alone won’t be enough for enrolment into a reputable foreign institution. So I embarked on Phase 2. I started by hustling my way into the Venice Film Festival as a youth jury member. Then I hustled my way into the Berlinale as a university representative. In the interim, I was a film journalist on local radio, during which time I was flown to Serbia for a film criticism workshop.
Phase 2 closed with myself graduating as Class Valedictorian and receiving an A+ grade on my dissertation that studied the use of minimalism in film.
Then came Phase 3, which was surely the easiest out of the 3 phases: make a list of university courses you want to apply to, and start sending applications.
I never did.
I graduated back in November of 2023. As of writing this, 18 months later, I haven’t sent a single application to a Masters course abroad.
Let’s circle back to our original definition:
Resistance is a powerful force that works against any act that rejects immediate gratification in favour of long-term growth, health or integrity.
Moving abroad, even for a year or so, is the calling I feel more strongly than all others, and also (in line with Pressfield’s philosophy) the calling I feel most resistance towards. Here on the rock, within the comfortable confines of my mother’s flat, immediate gratification reigns supreme. Amongst its amenities, the flat boasts:
- A premium a-la-carte lunch and dinner experience;
- A flowing tap of diet coke that replenishes itself automatically;
- A constantly updated selection of chocolates and sweets;
- A convenient clothes washing and folding service;
- A state-of-the-art concierge service that can handle wake-up calls, give advice and cook a mean lasagna (on request).
Resistance makes a damn good argument. Why lose all of this, my life savings, my friends, my family, and all my job opportunities on the island to go and study abroad?
RESISTANCE IS MOST POWERFUL AT THE FINISH LINE
That’s from page 17. It hit me like a semi-truck speeding at 200km/h when I first read it.
I’ll steal these 3 sentences, word from word, from the same page:
The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got.
Resistance makes taking a step feel like running a marathon. It makes writing an email feel like scoring a symphony for a full orchestra. It makes sending a Masters application feel like… the most insurmountable task ever dreamt up.
What I really love about The War of Art is the fact that its not so much a self-help book as it is an elongated WebMD article of sorts, that very lucidly explains the symptoms of an over-consuming feeling that you’ve always felt but never quite found the words to articulate. To me, reading it was a revelation; many great thinkers have come forward to present the cure, but few have managed to reveal the cause.
Luckily, Pressfield is gratuitious enough to provide us with a prescription:
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down everyday and trying.
The louder the signal your antenna picks up, and the more strongly you feel resistance towards that signal… the more you ought to work on it every single day.
Read the damn book. It’ll take you 2 hours. And get in touch to tell me what you think about it. As for me… I have some Masters applications to send out.
Postscript One: The keys to my front door – stay with me now, I don’t want to lose you in this last part – the keys to my front door don’t easily click into the lock. I have to forcefully tug at the handle and push the key upwards for the lock to click and start turning. I could easily fix the keys and get a new set done… but I choose not to. I call this ‘a little act of resistance’ (inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale). Try to find little acts of resistance you can do that remind you with what you ought to be doing, and where you ought to be.
Postscript Two: The thumbnail of this blog article is taken from Cinema Paradiso— one of the best films of all time, and my favourite. In that particular scene, Alfredo tells the young Salvatore, who’s about to board a train to Rome: “Don’t come back. Don’t think about us. Don’t look back, don’t write. Don’t give in to nostalgia”. I hear my late grandfather’s voice, Alfred, in that of Alfredo— the man to whom I owe everything. Knowing that the boy he loved so much was going to leave town for good, he leaves him with a piece of parting wisdom: “Whatever you end up doing, love it“.