In my final year of school (2025), the most repeated question posed to me was, “What are you going to do next year?” - The year of actioning ‘the choice of life path’ and making a name for one’s self. My friends have sped off to university to become doctors, engineers, policemen, lawyers - I have elected to be left for the year, pacing back and forth, with the toxic luxury of time to decide what I might make of my life and myself. Farmer, writer, teacher, surgeon, lawyer - nothing ever stuck. Just three months ago, my mind was set to complete a Bachelor of Arts at Victoria University of Wellington because I found various subjects interesting and a BA might be helpful and what else was I supposed to do. This idea has slowly been crumbling, however, as a new one has solidified over summer: my greatest desire is to learn, to understand, to study, to practice, to develop in, to master - the craft of acting.

My final year of drama class at high school taught me the depth and power that drama has. This is my understanding of the craft:

Drama is entertainment, yes - but this is a truly surface level understanding. Drama is the multi-layered pool to dive into to explore life’s scariest questions. It is the equation to comprehend humanity. It is the many pairs of glasses which shift peoples’ perceptions of the world. Drama brings joy and fear, healing and instability, curiosity and resolution. It causes us to unwrap the bandages around our souls and hearts and minds and examine what we have become.

(…)Many choose to pursue acting because they feel they are incapable of anything else (a lie!). For myself, this is not true. I could go to university and become a lawyer or an engineer without strenuous effort. But when I go to the theatre, or I watch a film, I am once more overwhelmed by the desire to perform in place of the actors before me and to become the best. I am genuinely fascinated by other actors, the methods, techniques and systems, the playwrights and directors who have such fantastic ideas, and how actors become instruments to communicate that to the audience. The thought of gaining the knowledge of this world excites me beyond fathom. It is all so enticing, so awe-inspiring, and I want to learn it all. (…)

I believe that those who can make a living from acting are incredibly privileged. To rise above the hundred-thousands and be chosen to practice the craft… it is my dream to join them, and I am going to put every effort into doing so. But, if it is not meant to be that I am famously recognised for my future skill, I will not be unsatisfied. I will have gained, what I deem to be, some of the most precious knowledge in the world. (…)

I know I want my life to involve discovery. Empathy. Challenge. Satisfaction. Emotion. Truth and honesty. Integrity, understanding, and faith. The trail I shall take to experience these things is the path of an actor - the one that lets me master the craft of acting. I know this path is difficult, but it is one I want to courageously march upon.

Perhaps I shall leave this world without my name remembered. After all, my name is only important to me - no one else will care for it when I am gone. But we humans, we do remember feelings. And if I can generate a feeling which changes someone’s life… well, that would be a thing to be remembered.