Reflection: Art and the Search for Greener Grass

The Dream That Wasn’t

In the quiet corners of my childhood, art was my secret portal to worlds unseen. Crayons in hand, I’d sketch adventures where I battled mythical beasts and, naturally, emerged the hero. I loved being able to invent a world and invite other people into it. For a while, I thought I might do that for a living.

Yet, as the years passed, whispers of doubt began to cloud the vibrant landscape. It didn’t take long before the vivid scenes I created were overshadowed by the looming shadows of reality. The dream of becoming an artist and inviting others to my world quietly retreated into the background, replaced by the more “sensible” paths that adulthood seemed to demand. And without the courage or confidence to stand my ground, I could only watch as the treehouse of dreams was replaced with iron bars that drew a line across the horizon. The artist inside me was boxed up, sealed away, while the world told me it was time to “grow up” and “get real.”

Get in the F*cking Robot

When you grow up doubting every decision, the world has a way of making choices for you. Computer science came pre-packaged with stability and parental approval. I went along with it, and each calculated step forward made the next one seem inevitable. It felt safe. But in the background, there was always the nagging feeling that I wasn’t being brave enough to make my own choices. I wasn’t living; I was just existing in a box that someone else had drawn.

I couldn’t trust myself to take big bets. While others chased dreams, I measured cliffs, calculated the drop, and convinced myself that staying put was wisdom rather than cowardice. I’d become very good at rationalizing my own fears.

The Other Side

My internship at Hanwha made that harder to ignore. I met students from all sorts of backgrounds, including people pursuing the arts. They had the training and talent to go after what they wanted, but what I envied was their confidence. They spoke about those futures as real possibilities, even without a guarantee that things would work out. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up thinking that way.

One friend had moved abroad to attend an art high school in America. It sounded like the premise of a Hallmark movie. My family moved frequently when I was growing up, and I remembered moving rather differently. Each time, I left behind friends and whatever little life I’d managed to build. For my friend, moving was a choice made for something they loved. For me, it was something that happened without warning. You could call that a difference in perspective, but there’s a world of difference between choosing to move and being told you’re moving.

Naturally, I started thinking about the “what ifs.” What if I’d asked my family to move for my own artistic ambitions? Then I remembered a recent conversation in which I joked that, if I ever won the lottery, I’d major in the arts. My family laughed. Maybe they didn’t mean much by it, but I couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if I’d said it seriously. Even in a hypothetical world where money wasn’t an issue, art was still the punchline.

The Grass We Water

But here’s the thing about looking over the fence: you miss the garden dying at your feet. I remember a time when I was so caught up in “what-ifs” that I nearly forgot to water my own plants. Literally. My poor houseplants were wilting while I daydreamed about alternate timelines where I’m someone I’m not and do things that, deep down, I know I would never do even if the opportunity came up. But reality has a way of snapping you back—like when you realize your once-thriving fern is now a crispy relic of negligence.

It was then that I realized, maybe that’s okay. The imperfection part, not the houseplants. Maybe the point isn’t to bemoan the paths not taken, but to understand why we chose the ones we did. Sometimes, it’s easier to fantasize about being a different person than it is to embrace who you are and the decisions that led you here. Maybe the real challenge isn’t in wishing we were someone else—it’s in accepting who we are now and finding ways to bloom where we’re planted.

That doesn’t mean I was wrong to mourn the paths I never got to explore. Some choices weren’t entirely mine in the first place. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life arguing with the person I might have been. I’ve still got the person I am, and that person could use a little attention.

I used to think the grass was always greener on the other side. Maybe it’s greener where you water it. My fern would certainly have appreciated that insight earlier.

I may have traded my crayons for a bunch of zeros and ones, but I haven’t entirely lost what I liked about art: making something that didn’t exist before. Computer science gives me some room for that, and art doesn’t have to be my career to have a place in my life.

So maybe the grass I once dreamed of is no longer the one I water. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make this garden beautiful, in my own way, with the tools I have.