The Phantom of the Opera

Watching The Phantom of the Opera reminded me of my days of piano and singing with my sister. Talking about the movie, I don't think it is a let down as said in this review.

My eyes and ears were first opened to Musicals at the age of 15. My dear sister, Agnes, would play the piano, while I'd sing - what a pair! Yes, that was way back in 1986 when Agnes, at the age of 21, was back for the summer break of '86 from her 2nd year at Queen's University, Belfast. She brought back almost all of the London musical cassettes home, plus the piano music.
Even ages ago, I remember telling my sister that I'd drop Raoul for the Phantom if I was Christine Daae, haha! Because the Phantom isn't a fearful creature, you basically pity him more than anyone or anything else for that matter! In my opinion, the Phantom needed Christine in his life more than Raoul. Yeah, forget about the bits that the phantom is a murderer and also a little insane. Who cares? He did it for the love of Christine! Ok, I'm probably half mad myself, and a silly impractical romantic, so? We all make choices to be with someone and be a little bias by closing an eye on his/her imperfections, don't we all? Little intensed selves like my family and I, plus a few kindred-spirited friends would agree to this impracticality, because it makes sense to us. However, each to their own, aye?

Right, my choice in preferring to be with the phantom to Raoul was reaffirmed when I got a chance to watch the London cast for the first time with Valerie in the summer of 1996 (was having a little break away from the Americans). So much for teenaged thoughts, it got carried over into my 20s. Now, 9 years later from the bright-eyed-still-naive-20s, I'm still having the same thought after watching the movie tonight. Surprise, surprise, how little things have changed, even 18-19 years later on!

In my reflection of this, it's no longer surprising how unwavering and wavering people can be in choices they make. It all boils down to choices of the individual self, to decide or not to decide. In not deciding, is a decision to 'not to decide'. There you go! So, words like 'I don't know' has an underlying fact that the party who says this just don't want others to know what's in his / her mind.

Or rather, allowing oneself to be influenced, and even allowing things to take place in time to come... Take for example (I can only speak for myself), between the ages of 15 to now, I see my graph of wavering and unwavering faith in God - steeply up and down, and some constant lines, a graph of faith plotted against age. I don't think I'm especially different from anyone else out there... don't we all have our wavering and unwavering bits in life? Yes, imperfect faith that we all have.

Just by looking at the Phantom, in all his physical distortion, It truly shows that it takes a lifetime to build faith, and a moment to stagger it. Likewise, this applies to my relationships, regardless of those in phileo or eros terms, my eyes have risen and fallen on people, and likewise, I believe some may view me of the same too. People change, I suppose, but 'not that much'... and some underlying things that may disappoint, and expectations slapped on where it veers off from what we'd like to accept or not accept.

At the end of the day, why slap on expectations on others? It's only human nature to do so. Expectations that are not met sometimes puts us in a queasy position, and to the brink of disappointment, or acute devastation... so, in a way, we become judgemental (in a way). In relation to the Phantom, he's painted to be a blackguard, but hey, let's give the poor fellow a chance to proof himself that he's not beyond redemption! Afterall, we all do have a tiny bit of the Phantom in us - a need to be accepted.