snippets of conversation on a saturday afternoon

“It’s not the matter of not knowing what I want to do. It’s just that I want to do SO MUCH. So much that I don’t know what to choose. Back in high school, I used to believe we could do everything. But now, I’m realizing that you just can’t. You can do anything you put your whole self into, just not everything. Or you could do a little bit of this, a little bit of that… But you’ll be like slashes. ‘Musician-slash-writer-slash-chef’. You won’t be able to really excel in one thing...”

“You know, I realize that those who become really great? The musicians I admire? Most of them started really poor, down-in-the-dumps. It’s like they could gamble everything because they already have nothing to lose.”

“Exactly. The thing is, sure, even if I believe that when we want something, we do all we can to make it happen. But in our culture, we really have to consider our family, etc. It’s not like we live on an island and we could be selfish and do whatever we want without thinking of how it would affect others.”

“If there’s one thing in the world that you would do, really want to do, even if you aren’t paid for it, what would it be?”

“Write,” I said without missing a beat.

“Then that’s what you need to do,” Anne said.