Message From Elvina
Two days ago I just told my flat mates that I’d love to find another place.I sat down listed the reasons on my note book. Very soon, a full page of it was full. I felt ready to go hunting for the 10th apartment in Shanghai, even if that means it’d make me crazy all over again to move all of my books from one place to another.
Today, I had a conversation with a Chinese friend. We discussed few things about the SK project, and somehow we ended talking about ‘drive’. I kept thinking about it on the way home.
Sabz and I never expected this SK project to be easy. More over I was a dreamer/planner type (old habits die hard). The idea about it crossed in my mind in a sort of an impulse, and now, after few months talking about it I felt a bit stuck. It’s harder than I thought.
The idea of the project is GOOD (this word has been abused for too long). But the truth is, many things, many ideas look good from a far. But when you really dig into them, you find it hard to control them, or even to control yourself (keep your own sanity). Giving up might occur again and again as the eternal solution. What would hold someone to do what they do then?
The answer is “the drive”.
It’s like a trophy waiting for the athletes to reach, to win..
But only one who focus and play hard can get it.
I could move to a new place, because my current apartment is not up to my ideal. In this case, ‘the drive’ is my ideal. But for this project, it’s almost the contrary. I am like an apartment, if I’m not good enough, ‘the Idea’ would be gone to find a better person to carry it on.
‘The Idea’ itself is bigger than I am.
It is trapped somewhere in the eternity waiting to be unlocked by some one.
I believe I’m just one of the tool to make this happen.
As I have mentioned to some people in a website forum, it would be much easier for me to write, to paint, and to take pictures all by myself and publish them. But it’s not the point (I hate it when people think I am begging! @_@ I hardly ask helps!). There are reasons why the project is called 'Shanghai Kaleidoscope'. As a painter I treasure how dots of different colors could bring out many amazing ‘big’ pictures. Every single person is like a color. And putting our experiences together… would be like viewing the world through a kaleidoscope. It’s colorful and beautiful in the way it is.
This 'Kaleidoscope' is a symbol of an ideal society, where we can coexist nicely and support each other. It doesn't belong to an individual. It belongs to every one… every one who cares.
~Elvina, 22nd October 2009.