The Flight of the Rocketman

We cannot find the words we need, our speaking parts.
Our voices falter. that age-old silence starts.
- Confidence in Speaking by Peter Abbs

The Rocketman thinks back to all great astronauts before me. Sometimes I think of adding Buck Rogers into the mix but maybe the idea is just too funny. Too playful. And the only astronaut I can name by memory is that Armstrong guy who landed in the moon. I can't even remember the two other people he was with. But I've seen the movie The Right Stuff and I remember the movie quite well. All those fantastic pilots of such great aircrafts. All the great rocketmen before me - exploring a world still unknown. I salute them but it is not their achievements I wish to match or surpass. I am not out to stepping foot into terra incognita rather my mission is simple. To fly through the oblivion and discover more about myself through the journey. Maybe my explorations will yield significant contributions for others. Maybe it will be treated as entertainment. But at the end of the journey, when the gas tank is full and my 'baby' can't fly another mile, I can look back at myself and realise that I've done my part in the world. I did what I can to know myself and make myself happy.

Today I watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and was astounded by how good a movie it was. Russel Crowe is definitely a great actor. Of course, I still think he should not have won an Oscar for his role in Gladiator and instead should have won for A Beautiful Mind. But then, I'm not part of the Academy, right? But he is a very good, very riveting actor. Paul Bethany, though, was even more astounding. There was nothing of Geoffrey Chaucer (his character in A Knight's Tale) or the character he played in A Beautiful Mind that came into his portrayal of the doctor Maturin. He was very proper and was a fantastic contract to Crowe's Captain Jack Aubrey.

It is a very powerful film that illustrates beautifully the decisions of a man in respect to duty, pride, friendship and leadership. At the same time, it was wonderful in its portrayal of the time - the excitement and the thrill of discovering new species and also of the battles and 1800 naval warfare. It was truly a wonderful experience.

Others who watch a great movie or read a good book who have the inclination of dabbling or creating either forms of art get discouraged to do so. How often have I heard people say, what's the point? There's no way I can do something like that. They feel that with the current batch of artists already in steady productivity and they see the standards constantly being raised, they feel that there is no way they can exceed the current productions.

I, on the other hand, get inspired. Watching Master and Commander or reading through Gates of Fire make me want to become an artist even more. The more I feel determined that I have to be able to squeeze my whole being for the words, the images, the situations, the creativity to do something that can equal or even surpass what is being produced now. It is quite unbelievable my desire for creative energy and my determination to make full use of it once I have it trickling through my fingers.

People are struck speechless from watching or reading or even seeing a great piece of art. I am struck into a rabble of words that cannot help but fall out of my lips. Heaps of praises just form and take a life of its own, dancing on my tongue, playing my vocal chords like a harp. I just have to say something. And then, I think how I can take whatever feeling was evoked and use it into my own work. To study the things that make me gasp and shudder and tearful and learn how it was that these reactions were produced and try to incorporate it into my own writing. While some people are carefully guarded forts that allow things to enter but not leave, I am a sponge. I take in everything that I see, hear, feel, taste and smell and then I squeeze it out of me along everything else.

How wonderful it is to be porous!