“Painting is just a hobby”

These weren’t necessarily the words that would echo as a response to my answer to the question of “Reem, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

I loved the art. I loved perfecting lines and figures. There was something compelling in the idea of working, practicing, and improving. It gave a satisfaction that I genuinely enjoyed. I always knew the answer to the question of what I wanted to become in the future. My heart belonged and thrived in this concept of becoming free and achieving goals, and drawing gave me that fulfillment. The people around me where okay with it. I was eight, and for some reason, at that period of time, it was okay to go around and say that I am an Artist. It was acceptable. My environment would just smile to the answer of my question, and say: “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

When I became 13, however, the response to my answer was different. In specific the memory is engraved with my mother’s voice of “Painting is just a hobby.” I remember it clearly. I was struck by the sudden change in tone and words. Maybe for a culture like the one I come from the Arts is not something to live by? Maybe the concept of using the right hemisphere in one’s brain is not preferred over the idea of constantly working your left brain that produces numbers, data, and logic? Maybe because the idea of doing things because of them being merely an enjoyment isn’t a celebrated concept? Perhaps it was that all, perhaps it was none of that at all. I resented the sciences for so long because they overshadowed the art. I like equality and for everything to be given its own space and weight, but the thought of people pushing me towards something I’m not, and claiming that I should do something when my own mind prefers another feels like an act of suppressing my own right to the freedom of choice which inevitably means my right to be a free individual, a free human. In my case, I never found anything more paralyzing than someone telling me that I’m something I’m not. At the same time, it is one of the most inducing statements as it keeps me hassling in order to become the person I want.

So, is paining just hobby? Perhaps to you. But perhaps to you alone.