During my dad's stay to Singapore, he talked to me about how professionalism is what determines success. Of course I agreed with him, it's the standard that sets companies apart, say Courts (oh they win the best service attitude in hell) versus Harvey Norman.

I've been thinking of what professionalism truly is. It struck me today that it really is about making lots and lots of effort, but making it seem effortless, as natural as a breeze. Which is probably why people say that good actors/actresses are 'natural' in their acting. It's because they have such great acting skills that people don't even realise that they are acting and they make the characters they play believable. I'm not talking about Singapore's acting, because looking at the Channel 5/8 dramas they are just playing up caricatures and stereotypes, which is pretty low-level acting to me. Not Hollywood's action blockbusters also because sometimes I feel that it is just a lot of action, very sensational, the challenge will lie mainly in the stunts and I'm not quite sure about the acting part. I like acting that stirs, truly stirs the heart, like the boy who acted in Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence (A.I). Till today I remember the scene when his robot friend fell from a building opposite his, and he is looking out from the window which is reflecting the friend's fall that seemed like a tear falling down the boy's face. His silent sadness that penetrates through to the audience is truly memorable, and it seemed so natural, so fitting although the cinematography is well-crafted. Well I'm sorry that I can't find the picture, I really wish I could coz it really sticks in my mind. Haha.

It's the same for those dancers like Sylvie Guillem who leaps and splits as if it's the thing that she's meant to do, so effortless and almost enchanting. But at the back of your head you do know that there's a lot of training behind the leaps and splits, but only at that split second at the peak of her leap that u find yourself being lifted from the chair with such amazement at the effortlessness of the movement in the moment. Don't mix effortlessness with neglect. Effortlessness is an elegant lady who moves with such poise as if she's sailing. Neglect is like those girls with butt-skimming shorts, spaggheti straps and flip flops running all over the place, slouching, dragging their feet. Those girls do make a lot of effort to fit/match the top and the short and the flip flops, I guess, but they just don't make it seem effortless. It just seems neglected.

So there then, that's my view on professionalism. Back to Duchess of Malfi.

"Let good men, for good deeds, covet good fame" -Bosola, Duchess of Malfi