When I was five I attended art classes, an effort my mother made in order to prevent me from drawing on walls. I also was enrolled in swim class, music class, and a dance class. I quit piano in first grade but picked up violin from fourth to tenth grade. I sang in the chorus in middle school. Between six and eight grade I used to read on average five books every two weeks.

Sometime in my high school years, I stopped it all. I quit orchestra because it conflicted my morning practice schedule. I stopped reading for fun because I didn’t have time due to schoolwork. I stopped making art due to my reallocation of free time to spending it with friends and there wasn’t art class to force me to make things.

Last summer my aunt, an artist, asked me if she could present one of my work when I made when I was younger as part of a National Taiwan Family exhibit. I agreed. I attended the exhibit and felt really out of place among professors and experts of art. However, my duck that I painted when I was four was placed proudly in the second floor corner, far away from the main highlighted pieces. Yet in the end of the summer, I had a call that I had a buyer. My dad didn’t want to sell it so our family still owned it.

What is interesting is that I have been away from creating anything of artistic nature for at least five years. Last weekend was the first time that I drew a drawing, and not just simple doodles that I made on top of my class notes. I was surprised at what I drew. I created an image about a person who was daydreaming. About a world in which every person’s identity and perspective is built upon their perspectives and experiences on life. About a city that was built upon the lives and blood of those who came before them. My art has became surprisingly…dark.

This experience has taught me that art and the courage to give yourself one hour to break free of the rules of the world can reflect how your personality has developed over time, how you have come to realize the world. In its own way, it is a method of self discovery, your consciousness portrayed externally in a way that you may not always be able to express in words, transcript reports, or athletic medals.