The Luxury of Trying Again

I stood in front of an installation at the Singapore Night Festival titled You and I, Believing, presented in conjunction with the Yellow Ribbon Project. Visitors were invited to tie yellow ribbons onto the installation, a symbolic gesture of support for giving former inmates a second chance. It was a simple invitation, really. Tie a ribbon, make a wish, perhaps leave with a little more hope than you arrived with. Yet, as I stood there looking at the ribbons, I felt a certain heaviness in my heart.

I wondered how much of what we were doing represented something we were actually prepared to believe in. Were we tying those ribbons because we genuinely believed that former inmates deserved another chance, or were we hoping that someone else would be willing to give them one? It is relatively easy to support rehabilitation when the people we are talking about remain distant figures in a social campaign. It becomes a little more complicated when that person is someone we might employ, work alongside, live next door to or introduce into our social circles. Would our willingness to believe remain quite the same?

I also noticed quite a number of people taking photographs and videos of themselves tying the ribbons. I suppose that is not particularly unusual these days. We photograph almost everything, from our meals to our holidays, and sometimes even the things we do for other people. I do not know what those individuals were thinking, and perhaps some were simply documenting a meaningful experience. But I found myself wondering whether the photograph had become part of the experience itself, almost like a little memento to show that we had participated in something good. The photograph captures the moment we tied the ribbon, but it tells us very little about what happens after we leave the installation. Whether we would actually extend that same generosity when faced with the opportunity to give someone a second chance is a different matter altogether.

Perhaps I am being a little cynical, but I cannot help thinking about how comfortable we have become with expressing support for things in principle, while leaving the actual responsibility of making them happen to someone else. We want rehabilitation, but we expect employers to take the first step. We want inclusivity, but hope that someone else will make the necessary adjustments. We believe in giving people another chance, provided we are not necessarily the ones who have to take that chance. It is a rather convenient arrangement, if you think about it.

This brings me to something else I have been thinking about, and it might seem like a rather unusual connection. I wonder whether we extend the same reluctance to giving second chances to the arts in Singapore. Not necessarily to individual artists, although that is certainly part of the conversation, but to the arts as a whole. How willing are we, as a society, to invest in something that might not succeed the first time? More importantly, how comfortable are we with allowing something to fail, learn from that experience and try again?

I remember during the pandemic there were conversations about whether the arts were essential. At a time when healthcare workers were stretched, businesses were struggling and people were worrying about their livelihoods, it was understandable that the arts would not occupy the same level of urgency as healthcare, food supplies or public safety. There were more immediate concerns, and rightly so. Nobody was expecting a theatre performance to take priority over a hospital bed. But I remember feeling uncomfortable with how easily the conversation could move from acknowledging that the arts were not an immediate necessity to questioning whether they were necessary at all.

Perhaps the distinction matters more than we realise. Not everything that is important to a society has to be essential to its immediate survival. We do not question the value of education simply because it does not put food on the table that evening, nor do we dismiss the importance of preserving our history because it cannot solve the problems of tomorrow morning. The arts occupy a similar space. They allow us to make sense of our experiences, question the world around us, preserve memories and give expression to things that might otherwise remain unspoken. They allow us to encounter perspectives that are different from our own, sometimes making us uncomfortable in ways that are necessary for us to grow. We might not need a theatre performance to get through the day, but I would argue that a society needs the arts for reasons that go beyond simply getting through the day.

I suppose this is where I become a little concerned about how we understand the value of things. Singapore is rather good at measuring outcomes. We measure productivity, performance, efficiency, economic contribution and just about anything that can be translated into a figure. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. When resources are involved, especially public resources, accountability matters. We should know whether something is working, whether it is reaching the people it is meant to reach and whether there are better ways of doing things. I am not suggesting that every arts project should be given an unlimited budget simply because someone has decided to call it creative. That would be rather irresponsible too. But I sometimes wonder whether we have become so accustomed to measuring the value of something by what it produces that we have forgotten the value of allowing something to become.

Take an experimental theatre production, for instance. Perhaps the audience turnout is disappointing. Perhaps the artistic approach does not resonate with the people it was intended for. Perhaps the production is simply not very good. These things happen, and artists should not be exempt from honest criticism. But what happens after that? Do we examine what went wrong, consider what could have been done differently and allow the people involved to develop their ideas further? Or do we simply conclude that the project did not deliver the expected results and move on to something that looks more promising?

I find this particularly interesting because we often tell young people to be creative, to think outside the box and not be afraid of making mistakes. As someone who teaches drama, I spend quite a bit of time encouraging students to experiment with ideas. I tell them that their first idea does not have to be their best idea, and that sometimes an idea only becomes interesting after we have spent enough time exploring it. A scene that does not work during an improvisation might eventually become the starting point for something quite wonderful. If I were to dismiss every idea that did not work during the first attempt, I would probably have very little to teach. More importantly, my students would learn that creativity is only welcome when they get it right the first time.

I wonder how much of that encouragement survives when we step outside the classroom. We want artists to innovate, but innovation is an inconvenient business. It involves trying things that have not been done before, working with unfamiliar ideas and occasionally producing something that does not quite work. We want fresh perspectives, but sometimes prefer the comfort of familiar artistic approaches. We want new audiences, but expect artists to know exactly how to reach them before they have even had the opportunity to explore. We celebrate creativity, provided it comes with a reasonably predictable outcome.

Perhaps this is why I find the relationship between investment and failure particularly important when discussing the arts. An unsuccessful project is not necessarily a wasted investment. Its results, including the disappointing ones, can tell us something. A production that struggles to attract an audience might reveal that its subject matter was unfamiliar, that the publicity did not reach the intended community or that the artistic approach needed further development. A community programme that takes longer than expected to establish meaningful relationships might tell us something about the time and trust required to engage that particular group. These are things we can examine, learn from and improve upon. Of course, learning does not happen automatically just because a project has failed. We need to be willing to reflect honestly on the experience and do something with what we have learnt. But if we are too quick to abandon something simply because the first attempt did not produce the expected results, we lose the opportunity to discover what might have worked with a different approach.

And perhaps that is what makes failure so expensive in Singapore. It is not merely the money spent on something that did not work. It is also the cost of losing the knowledge, experience and possibilities that could have come from allowing it another attempt. When we become too focused on immediate returns, we risk repeatedly investing in what we already know works while leaving very little room for anything unfamiliar to develop. We might end up with a great many successful repetitions, but not necessarily much progress.

I suppose this is not entirely different from the conversation about former inmates. We encourage people to rebuild their lives, but rebuilding is rarely a straightforward process. Someone who has completed their sentence might still struggle to find employment, establish relationships or regain the confidence to participate in society. There are practical and emotional challenges that cannot be resolved simply by telling someone that they deserve a second chance. They need opportunities, and they need people who are willing to see them as more than the mistakes they have made. It would be rather pointless to speak about rehabilitation if we were only interested in the final outcome while remaining unwilling to participate in the process.

Of course, an unsuccessful artistic project and a person trying to rebuild their life are not the same thing. I would not want to equate the two, because the human consequences of reintegration are far more profound. But they do make me think about our willingness to accept that the present is not necessarily the final version of something. A person can become more than their past, just as an idea can become more than its first attempt. Both require time, and neither comes with a guarantee that everything will turn out as we hope.

I wonder whether we have become a little too uncomfortable with this uncertainty. We speak about lifelong learning, but often measure learning by how much more employable someone becomes. We encourage children to explore their interests, but conversations about their futures can quickly turn towards grades, qualifications and career prospects. We talk about innovation, but are sometimes more comfortable investing in things that have already demonstrated their ability to succeed. Even when we talk about giving people second chances, we often look for assurances that they will not make the same mistakes again. I understand why we want those assurances, but I am not sure that personal growth, creativity or human development can ever be made entirely predictable.

Perhaps the problem is that we have become so accustomed to looking at the finished product that we have forgotten how much uncertainty goes into making it. We see the successful artist but not the years of experimentation, rejected ideas and unsuccessful productions that came before. We celebrate the former inmate who has rebuilt their life but might not see the many people who were willing to give them opportunities along the way. We enjoy the finished performance, the polished production and the beautifully presented cultural event, but rarely think about the countless attempts that might have preceded them. It is rather easy to appreciate something once it has become successful. The real test is whether we are willing to support it while it is still trying to find its way.

I keep thinking about those yellow ribbons at the Night Festival. I wonder how many of us will remember the installation after the festival has ended, and how much of what we felt while tying those ribbons will remain with us when we encounter someone whose past might make us uncomfortable. Perhaps the real meaning of You and I, Believing is not found in the ribbon itself, but in what we are prepared to do when there is no longer a ribbon to tie. Believing in someone is not simply hoping that they will change. It is also being willing to make room for that change, even when the process takes longer than we would like.

The same generosity should extend to the things we create as a society. I would like to think that we can value the arts without constantly needing to defend their existence through economic returns or audience figures. I would like us to recognise that some creative work takes time to find its audience, that some ideas need several attempts before they become meaningful, and that an unsuccessful project can still contribute something valuable to the wider artistic community. This does not mean abandoning accountability or refusing to acknowledge when something has not worked. It simply means understanding that the absence of immediate success is not always evidence that something was never worth doing.

I am not asking for unlimited second chances, whether for people or projects. There must still be accountability, reflection and a willingness to do better. But perhaps we should be more careful about how quickly we decide that something has had its chance and that it is time to move on. We might pride ourselves on being efficient, pragmatic and forward-looking, but I sometimes wonder whether we have made the space for failure so narrow that we are also limiting our opportunities to grow.

Perhaps the luxury of trying again should not be reserved only for those who can afford to absorb the cost of failure, or for ideas that have already demonstrated that they are likely to succeed. Sometimes, we need to give something another chance simply because we recognise that its first attempt should not be the final word on what it can become.

And perhaps that is what those yellow ribbons were asking of us all along. Not simply to believe that someone deserves a second chance, but to consider whether we are willing to be part of the reason that chance exists.

Written by: Adi Jamaludin