Is it, really? I can understand passion and the quest for excellence. Indeed if there were no passionate, daring, hard-working people who broke through existing boundaries, the world would be so much the poorer. But to descend to manipulating, insulting, bullying and abusing an impressionable youth in the pursuit of his ambition to be ' the greatest musician in the 20th century'? - seems to me the means doesn't justify the end. To be passionate is fine, but where's the line where passion veers off into obsession that drives a person to be so totally self-absorbed that everything else in life fades out? When every moment becomes a fearful anticipation of a slave-driver screaming 'not my tempo' and getting bombarded with curses and demeaning remarks that must literally feel like lashes of a whip upon the heart.
The young man is so driven he practices till his hands bleed. He cuts off a budding relationship because the girl would 'get in the way' of his ambition. He tunes out traffic whilst at the wheel , gets hit by a truck and still rushes, bleeding and injured, to the concert hall because this is the one chance he has to prove himself a virtuoso. Only he is thoroughly embarrassed and shamed in public, for dear coach suddenly pulls the rug under his feet by changing the music score. He has been set up to fail, so that he can succeed. What kind of mean psychological trick is that? What if the youth had buckled under the pressure, ended up in an asylum or simply jumped off a cliff? Sure, in the movie, he rises to the occasion and performs so fantastically, or rather so fanatically, he is finally headed for super-stardom. But it could just have so easily and disastrously swung the other extreme to the destruction not just of someone's dream, but of someone's very life.
I remember frustrating attempts at writing my devotional book in Bahasa Malaysia. My editor was exacting in demanding re-write after re-write. It was either the punctuation, the grammar, the sentence construction, the style of expression, or everything else was wrong. Hours of slaving away at the computer over days and months on end. Unlike the coach in the movie, my editor didn't use foul language, rage or throw a chair at me, but many times I felt like I wanted to just chuck it. What made me grit my teeth, cross out what seemed (to me) such nice lines, rack my brain for another word, try another way of expression wasn't the rejection of my editor but the fact that I was absolutely passionate about finishing what I truly believed God had started in me. Because it was His book, not mine; He inspired it, and by God, I would birth it.
Does it matter that my book would never make the best seller list anywhere? No. I guess if I had an editor like that movie's fictional coach , I would have been classified as a 'worthless...little piece of s--t, an absolute tragedy' because I managed to deliver 'just a pretty good job', instead of being the best devotional writer in the Christian world. But I was sublimely satisfied with just a 'pretty good job' and I guess my editor was too, since it was published finally. It didn't have to be perfect or even excellent. Because there will always be some other writer better than I, some other book better than mine. It didn't even matter if it turns out to be the only book I will ever write in my life. Ultimately what mattered wasn't the accolade of man or the pride of self, but the knowledge that my little piece of work would bless someone somewhere reading it. And God would be pleased, for that is the whole purpose I am given the gift of writing and the chance to write.
If, as touted in the movie, greatness is the only acceptable grade, does it mean 'mediocres' who never quite make the cut are doomed to a life of nonentity? Fame is such a fickle task-master. You can be the toast of the moment for today, yet by tomorrow you would be yesterday's headlines. Give it a year, two, five, or ten and you are all but forgotten, remaining as just one foot-note out of many in the history of time. A king once asked God, "Lord, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them?", recognizing "They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow." (Psalm 144:3-4). The Bible reminds every human, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14) That certainly puts us all on the same level, no matter how great our 'performance' in this stage-show called life. At the end of it, we will all stand before our Maker, irrespective of our beliefs.
Of course there's nothing wrong with pursuing perfection and wanting to be the best, but there's something awfully wrong when in the process we chase it to the point of forgetting life is more than just about being number 1 - in anything. I am glad my self-worth doesn't depend on well I 'perform' as a Christian woman, single mum, employee, occasional writer, neighbor, human being. My self-worth comes from knowing I am indeed fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of the perfect God, by whose grace I myself will be perfected when I finally come face-to-face with Him in heaven. I am glad even when I sin and fail His impossibly high standards, God doesn't hang me up like a masochistic judge, eager to make me suffer for being less than perfect. Actually He can, and according to His law, He should since I would be a complete failure in His eyes, anyhow. Just like the movie hero went through hell because he didn't play good or great enough for his coach. But unlike the movie, God doesn't send me to hell, because Jesus Christ has already gone there for me when He got nailed and hung up on the cross for all my infraction. Because of that, I am freed and free to sing a new song everyday, even if I don't sing very well.
"... he (Jesus) was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. " - Isaiah 53:5
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