Ep.5 "Career Confusion – My Attraction to Writing and Art, and How I Tried to Ignore It"

 Artisue Storypod Ep.5 Career Confusion – My Attraction to Writing and Art, and How I Tried to Ignore It

Hi everyone, this is Susan from Artisue. Today, I want to talk about my teenage years — the time when I was deeply confused about my future. It’s a story about my quiet attraction to writing and art… and how I kept trying to ignore it. When I was in middle school back in Korea, online novels were super popular. I used to read so many of them. But after we moved to Australia, the internet was still on those slow dial-up modems — painfully slow. Still, I’d wait forever for pages to load, just so I could keep reading those stories.

At some point, I thought, “Maybe I could write one too.” But when I actually tried… it was terrible. (laughs) I remember going to Korean school every Saturday morning during high school, and even there, my teacher told me that my Korean writing wasn’t very good. So, I gave up on that dream pretty quickly. Around that same time, I started feeling drawn to drawing — especially oil painting. It looked so beautiful, so emotional. I really wanted to try. But I didn’t have the courage. I felt scared — and more than that, I knew it would cost money. And since things were already tough at home, I didn’t even want to bring it up. I didn’t want to sound selfish. Besides, I didn’t think I was talented anyway. I didn’t have that kind of natural gift you can see right away in some people.

So I just convinced myself: “It’s not for me.” I didn’t even try, didn’t tell anyone — just kept that quiet longing buried inside me. When I was preparing for the HSC in high school, I didn’t study that hard if I’m honest… but somewhere deep inside, I kept thinking about art. Still, I told myself not to. Art meant money, and we didn’t have that. So I just focused on math, physics — the “safe” subjects. But even then, I couldn’t concentrate well. During that time, my family went through another crisis. When I was in year 11, my dad was scammed with a visa issue. We almost got deported. We literally received a letter saying we had to leave Australia within 30 days. I used to go to the immigration office with my parents every week, helping them fill out forms and translate things because they couldn’t speak English well. So yeah — it was chaos. And studying was the last thing on my mind.

Honestly, just graduating from high school felt like an achievement. It really did. In that situation, I couldn’t even dream about painting. But after the HSC, I saved up the money I’d earned from part-time jobs and finally enrolled in a small art class. For the first time, I got to draw — really draw. Later, I entered TAFE and studied Product Design. But I wasn’t great at it, and I gave up halfway. Then I drifted for a while, unsure of what to do.

Even so… something inside me never went away. Even after I turned 36, I still found myself drawn to art. Every time I saw a painting, or even a simple sketch, my heart would quietly move. I used to tell myself, “Stop it. This is an illness. An art disease.” (laughs) But honestly, it never went away. In the end, I just… started again. And now, being able to create art — to actually live it — makes me happy. Not because I’m great at it, but because I finally stopped ignoring it. (Soft music 🎵) Sometimes, the things we try hardest to suppress are the things that were meant for us all along. For me, that’s art. And maybe, it always has been.

This was Susan from Artisue. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode. 🌿