It's hard to make art when there are all these things happening around me, and around the world. Problems in the world, problems that friends are facing. It's hard to avoid thinking that art-making doesn't do much to solve these things.

Yesterday I opened this silly show I had spent months preparing for. In between all this stressful preparation I made a trip to Hong Kong on a travel grant from school. Till today, about a month later since I went and returned, I still think of Hong Kong and of my friends there who taught me the world.

Yesterday I told Ryan I had a newfound happiness and contentment with my art-making. I now know (albeit just slightly more clearly, but yet still as uncertainly as ever) why I decide to make art, or rather why I still do it.

I had spent the day listening to raindrops, the first amidst the haze and a long dry spell that made me worry about my plants. I finished the album before Renée had come home from a difficult day of work and therapy.

While I was about to mix the first song from the album, I recalled I hadn't listened to what Elaine had sent me on Facebook some days back. Her recording played automatically after I had downloaded it on my computer. It played in the background, entering halfway through the first song I was in the midst of mixing.

I often am not sure what to say, or rather what I can or should say. Elaine's voice recording entered perfectly some moments into the first song of this album. It was as if the sounds from my guitar could maybe compensate for my inability to find to words to say. Some way to converse, to empathise, or to console. I still am not sure what to say, when it comes to Hong Kong.

Today I am a little bit clearer about why I make these things.