Yada! Yada!...The fine art of Begging.



Action speaks greater than words.

There are days and there are days when it all comes to pieces but true to your nature you ramble on just because... I am back at having to find 2K for my daughter's College fees which is as always due pretty soon, more begging around to be done, got to get that Buddha Bowl out and knock on some doors, Such Is! But hey, its life, it is what makes living more challenging and meaningful, the important thing is to keep on trying and never say die. So I sent out a few distress calls like to my son the pilot, my brother Lee Khai and my cousin Zack who this morning came through with 1K, Alhamdullilah. Now just need to to seek one more K and end of that story.
Accepting your lot in life especially when you are on the receiving end is never easy but it is an enlightening experience which humbles your ego and i used to have an over inflated one in my younger days. Today I reach out to my friends and family with faith in mind that i too have always been a giver sometimes to a fault. Frowned upon, yes, shame and lowered self esteem yes, but one has to do what needs to be done when all else fail; my daughter will finish her schooling one way or another and this is her lesson too. If this blogging itself had been paying as promised by Google Adsense I would have had it solved at least part of deal but Google chooses to advertise on my blog free of charge accusing me of cheating or something like that, how? don't ask me. If my art works on show and at various shop  were selling I would be ok but...If I am younger and am able to hold as good a position as I used as a Safety Officer, yeah, that too would help, but...I am over the age limit for gainful employment so i help out at my cousins catering business when needed to keep me alive and less frowned upon by my peers.
My mother at one time in my teenage life warned me of becoming an artist in not so subtle a way. She switched of the light while I was deep in paint and glue while doing a collage in the wee morning hours slamming her door shut and went to bed leaving me in the dark with tears popping out of my eyes. I gave up art yes, I did, for the next ten years of my life only to take it up again while living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States.
I sold the first oil painting to a friend, it was of an old Chinese Junk and then I did a real close up of a patch of undergrowth with dead leaves and sticks and small flowers, it was sold to an African friend who took it with him bach to Nairobi, Africa and the rest was history. I put myself through five years of art school in Green bay, Wis. Graduated with a cumLauda in Bachelor of fine arts, Had several shows in and around the state and I did not do too bad. But I always had a side job because for some reason I was never good at selling my works, I ended up giving them away as gifts to my friends. Perhaps it is meant to be that I will never be rich like my twin brother but it is not that I am unhappy in my life just because I ramble on about it or that i am jealous of others who made it financially in this life but I just wish that sometimes I get what I am worth in my creativity. I am addicted to creating artworks just as i am to cigarettes and i am good at it, no two ways about it, but my pride as an artist often times is the block to my selling my products. My eldest brother once told me that people do not appreciate the things they get for nothing; make them pay for it. I should have taken his advice seriously.
Just got a text from the pilot in Dubai and he has sent 1500 through Western Union, so I am up ahead of five hundred which will go for my daughter's rent and allowances, Alhamdullilah. The Lord said, "Ask and ye shall be given," so I ask and the Buddha's bowl is never empty when you swallow your pride and bury your ego for there are charitable hearts out there in your times of dire need; but you must have a charitable heart as a prerequisite.