(Hanoi paragraph that shows how pessimistic, passive, and fatalistic of a lifestyle I was having)

Then I learn the guitar, and I find some nuance in that view

Playing the guitar gives me the agency to continue forward in a leading, more active role.

The essay focuses on this active role

I grew up in an old house in an old neighborhood near the heart of a chaotic labyrinth called Hanoi. I
remember the street vendors on the sidewalks till 3 in the morning, lined up worn and irregular houses
with weathered walls, faint aroma of burning incense every day when the sun sets, and local cobbled
outdoors markets where you can find everything from raw pork belly to shark fins to golden rings. I
remember being able to hear almost everything that goes on in the neighborhood – my neighbors
chattering and gossiping, their kids running and chortling, families quarreling – privacy was a luxury
nobody could afford. I remember Hanoi summers when the humidity just greedily swallowed everything
whole – another drug raid on the news, another prostitution bust in the market, another domestic
abuse case on our street. I remember heavily rainy days when the water would leak through our ceilings
and dampen our walls. And I remember my parents’ divorce. All the memories of my childhood seemed
to indistinctively merge together like a collage – I remember everything vaguely, but just vividly enough.

As I embarked on the first journey ever of crafting a dream-like script for a short motion picture, I felt
the necessity to immerse myself in its lead character - one who seeks remedy for his broken family, one
who deceived his own daughter into her last ride, and one who administers the container carrying 39
migrants having frozen to death on their unlawful way to the United Kingdom. “What vivid memories
could I have used for the inspiration?”, I questioned myself. The more I sought deep into my bits of
memories still lingering vaguely, the more I figured how unremarkable events had actually been to my
younger self. I was one who accepted things as they came. As my 7-year guitar teacher always reiterated
for the sake of my practice methods, “what you take the initiative to do is what to last”. Three years
into learning the instrument, days after days without missing out his quote even once, I eventually came
to appreciate what it meant. Gradually, and in a hard way.

I let music dominate my emotions, and I made it embody the beauty of art. As much passionate about
pictures and sounds merging impeccably together as I was, I could not resist the meaning of music

Hardly could I have known how learning a single music instrument was capable of shifting my fatalistic
lifestyle to an all the more active role I deemed myself playing. It could be said that I found myself
mused and engaged every moment the guitar strings vibrated under my hand, yet the true excitement
sparked right the moment I found some nuance in the prospects of a guitarist. No, an artist. One that
works with pictures and sounds. One who crafts frames and music.

Every once in a while, morning would find me musing with my guitar in front of the screen playing
Chung Mong-hong’s “A Sun”, muted. It was the motion picture of choice for how dynamic yet uniformly
provocative every of its scenes is. As the screen unfolds, the strings of my guitar radiate. Laughs. Cries.
Ironies. Thus goes my way of training: mute the sounds of the film, and play in a particular manner that
suits the mood at any given instant. 

In the beginning, I felt as if the ability to manifest those melodies representing peculiar sentiments was
exciting. I believed in how accomplished it must have felt to comprehensively deliver the full emotions
packed in every single frame, especially ones that could speak a thousand words as in “A Sun”. The
stories in which one character’s every action, visage, or muscle, is rooted, are the exciting factor and
what makes it challenging to convey a journey through mere musical notes.

As demanding and rewarding as it might sound, the act of practice itself turned out to be, probably to
someone’s disappointment, not the most thrilling, not even to an artist if I were to call myself that way.
The premise seemed to pack promising adventures and discoveries of my inner self through the art of
sounds, but it would quickly turn repetitious to the point of being dull and tedious. One time after
another, new tunes would need to take place for one single scene, somewhat getting on the nerves of
the musician who could not find an ideal craft for his visions.

Then I realized, there was no perfect craft of music for a picture. The work of music is delivering, and
delivery is solely a means. Perception is what generates one viewer’s interpretation of and emotions
from a scene. The same thing goes for our own lives. An event is understood in drastically distinct ways
of different individuals. We are malleable beings, liable to change from every single instance no matter
how slight. I have long seen the fascination the world can offer, yet I also realized the folly in assuming
the role of the protagonist and the director.

However, I have invested a large part of my life, and would continue forevermore, to examine every
waking moment, discover layers of meaning and emotions behind the slightest of smiles and the saltiest
of tears. The true excitement lies in the agency guitar gives me to continue forward in an active role.
Then, I would turn feels into music – to animate and amplify the experiences, as if it were watched by a
massive audience. To make every living second worthy of a standing ovation.

Must life be a masterpiece movie made by a higher being, I want to be is modest maker of music,
though imperfect, but exciting.