spoilers for The Last Kingdom, just in case!

 

 

 

 



 

currently utterly enthralled with The Last Kingdom,

and awaiting Season 4 eagerly.

I've been having a rewatch of this from the beginning,

and can I say: Uhtred is fast becoming my favourite fictional hero of all time.

He's about to dethrone Lymond, and I never thought that'd ever happen.

 

Yes, global quarantine time has afforded me the luxury of consuming entire blocks of television; and revisiting this story has been time awesome-ly spent, haha. Both objectively and fanatically, this show is amazing. I actually don't know why I haven't raved about it here before. I am a true sucker for hero stories, and for a long time, Lymond has topped my chart for favourite fictional hero. But now, I don't know, Lymond. Uhtred is utterly amazing. This story is a masterpiece, and quite underrated. I especially love certain character dynamics in this show, the likes of which doesn't exist in Lymond (not quite). And I think, that's what's tipping this show over for me.

 

The unique relationship Uhtred has with King Alfred is so compelling, and I dare say, is one of the best of its kind I've ever seen on television. Furthermore, acted to perfection. They are enemies or friends or rivals or allies, take your pick. The final conversation between the both of them at the end of Season 3 was so cathartic, and on this round of watching, made me cry like crazy. My goodness, I want to save that scene in my pocket or something.

And the pure, loving friendship with Hild!

I am not Uthred of Bebbanburg, I am not Uthred Ragnarson...

I would say, you're each and all of those men. You will only follow what you truly believe and that is no bad thing. The only thing you're not, is cursed. You're a free man. Your path is your own. You have a choice to make, Uhtred, that is all.

Then I choose you as my greatest friend.

oh my heart! ❤❤❤

 

 

 

Anyway, aside from Netflix, a lot of other times are still spent in front of screens, meetings, reports, and projects. I realised today that I haven't stepped out of my house since Monday, yikesssss. I know it's totally expected of circuit breaker, and I did share with Datin S, that you know, hey, the downtime is actually nice! I get to do the things I should be doing because I have no excuse now. But man, I miss seeing my friends. :( I miss walking out in the world. We had book club via houseparty video conference, and while it did happen, it was certainly not as fun as being physically with a group of people.

 

Ramadan is coming too!

May the times change for the better,

may we all pray better;

may this challenging time hide a beautiful blessing.

insya Allah!

 

Happy fasting, and stay safe and healthy, friends!

In the midst of these chaotic and uncertain times...
one must stay level-headed and zen.

Skill 19: Making Compassionate and Wise Decisions

Level 1:

I am able to make decisions that are compassionate toward myself. I am able to maintain a clear intention to develop and grow in spiritual intelligence, while simultaneously not berating myself for not yet being "perfectly enlightened".

Level 2:

I am able to be compassionate toward children, spouses, relatives, and friends who are not working on their own growth in a manner or speed I might wish they were. I am able to let these significant people in my life grow as they will, knowing that I don't really know what is the highest and best for every person.

Level 3:

I am able to be compassionate toward those who feel they are my enemy or who act to harm me. I set healthy boundaries around behaviours but don't hate the person who is acting out. I use power wisely, carefully -- and with loving intent.

Level 4:

Universal and Higher Self awareness is so strong that my decision-making process always factors in the pain and suffering of other beings. Yet I am not paralysed by this awareness. I take balanced actions that honour all beings.

Level 5:

Universal awareness and strong connection with Higher Self means that my inner guidance is strongly and clearly felt. With steady self-mastery, my inner guidance is translated into wise and compassionate action, which seems to flow through me from Source or Life or my Higher Power as I understand it.

I started watching When The Weather Is Fine...

and it's making me long for a holiday;

to some place quiet and beautiful like Shirakawa-go.

The show has a very slow, nostalgic feel, that isn't usually my cup of tea. But maybe it's Park Min Young, and she makes everything watchable, haha -- and maybe I'm in the mood for something reflective, and sweet. There are cute guesthouses in the story, and a bookstore, and a small town where everyone knows each other. And these friends who connect and meet for book club!

---

I miss this place. Or the feel of that holiday, at least.

It's nice that E and I are always pretty much on the same page on what we want to do when on a trip; also, most of the time, E has a lot of wonderful ideas under her hat and I usually don't say no to them. The most amazing times I had on that trip were literally spent just wandering places, and us saying to each other, "Hey, this looks cool. Do you wanna? Okay, let's!" and stumbling onto places that just turned out surprising and wonderful. It's the perfect type of holiday for our kind of people, I always thought, haha. We plan enough so we don't end up in dangerous places (most of the time), but then we just go with the flow and see what's good. The most classic example was the day we were leaving the mountains and we kept missing the train (because we kept venturing from one thing to another) and thinking we'll just catch the next one, and we ended up leaving in the night later than we meant to. And of course, we were of similar taste on what was deemed good -- random pottery shops, spending hours roaming some garden or park, and reading through the details of tiny museums.

I am due for a holiday, if not for the current global crisis.

Needed to post this tonight, but wanted to separate it from the previous fangirling post :P


This is Rasulullah s.a.w.'s famous supplication at Taif,
which I've definitely posted here more than once before.
But like all things true and everlasting and sustaining,
will crop up as a repeated motif in life, to remind
and cleanse and rejuvenate, and insya Allah
bring you back, closer, to the Divine and to the Beloved.

Ya Allah, to You I complain of my weakness,
my lack of resources and my lowliness before men.
Oh, Most Merciful of those who show mercy!
You are the Lord of the weak and You are my Lord.
To whom will you relinquish my fate?
To one who will misuse me?
Or to an enemy to whom You have given power over me?
If You are not angry with me, I don't care what happens to me.
Your favour is all that counts for me.
I take refuge in the light of Your countenance,
by which all darkness is illuminated.
And the things of this world and the next are rightly ordered.
I wish to please You until You are pleased.
There is no power and no might, 
save in You.

- Rasulullah s.a.w.


Tonight we were discussing about the attribute of forbearance,
or hilm in Arabic, which was exemplified by the Prophet s.a.w..
Just thinking about how amazing this man was and how I suck in comparison
for all the times I couldn't stay humble about my self and all the times I let anger
get the better of me and being horrible to people, it made me want to cry and cry and cry and cry.

And yet, it's not a despairing cry; it's a cry-and-then-I-know, that if I release all my weakness to God,
what's left is but a clean emptiness that can only be surrendered upwards, insya Allah, for the bounties from God.

hasbunallah wa ni'mal wakil

💗

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.
~ Carl Jung

It would be wrong not to post about BTS's latest comeback...

because this is officially my favourite BTS video ever!!! (for various reasons)

And in many ways, I've come to really love and appreciate

the Map of the Soul series so much, even more so than the Love Yourself series.

 

 

Before this, my favourite BTS MVs were Spring Day and Serendipity

(which are just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous):

 

This was one of the most amazing scenes in Spring Day;

I absolutely love this and still use Spring Day scenery as my phone background.

 

 

Serendipity had this simple yellow against blue motif,

with pure skies and minimalist photo composition;

oh my heart aches at the beauty of these shots:

 

 

 

And then, the ON official video came around and offered all these

fantasy/period-themed scenery that floored me;

it's unbelievable the way BTS continues to impress me

(from my early days of stumbling onto Dope

and then gradually falling down the fandom rabbithole, haha).

 

Look at this... it's like a movie!

There are so many possible references (and I like them all, ahah)

like Lion King obviously (Pride Rock!),

and Maze Runner, and people say biblical references.

 

It's just -- guhhhhhh.

Fans await BTS music videos like we wait for movie releases, okay.

 

 

And I have to add this screenshot here,

because I'd never seen a youtube comment get so many likes hahaha,

and gossssshhhh. A celebrity playing along now with within-fandom jokes,

and he used a purple heart! omg, so adorable, and a true fan.

 

I posted that Carl Jung quote above as an opening first, because if you're at all clued in, Jung's theories and archetypes are all over BTS's albums now. And I utterly love ON, partly for the beautiful MV as expounded on above, but mainly because it's about Jung's concept of individuation, which I've been learning so much about the past couple of years. I don't know if BTS truly influenced me to go down this path of discovery, or I've always been predisposed to Jung and all psyche-related phenomena (I'd actually wanted to do psychology after A-levels and had attempted to read Jung even then), and BTS is just a synchronistic part of my journey. Either way, the synchronicity now resonates very pleasantly.

I was just posting yesterday about being in a cocoon of pain and needing to metamorphosize; the theme song to it should be ON -- Bring it, bring the pain oh yeah, Rain be pouring, sky keep falling...

BTS is deep, and totally my cup of tea.
I never knew I'd love a music group this much.







I am sitting at coffeebean as I'm wont to do after my therapy sessions, and trying to ride this rather negative emotional wave that's made its round to me again. My emotional peaks and troughs are not that consistent anymore; in some ways what's left of it throws me more off-guard; there was a time when I knew my valley was coming because the time of the month was as well, and I would arm myself with self-affirmation mantras and social strategies that would tide me through. Now that I've caught brief glimpses of emotional freedom and stable highs (never knew such things could exist), I feel like the schedule is all messed up. This current wave -- the timing is all wrong. It's knocking me sideways, and I see the trigger, and it knocks me further down.

Come on, S, you can do this. Onwards and upwards!

It's okay to feel like you've messed up; life is messy ne.



It's funny, and possibly sad at the same time -- here I am wrapped up in my cocoon of pain trying to metamorphosise, and then I am told I apparently scare other people in a team (mostly men who are older than me, whatttttt); they were afraid they wouldn't know what to say when confronted with my questions. What! was literally my response to the team leader telling me this over the phone.

Guys, humans! however it may seem on the outside,
I'm really struggling too.
Can we all struggle together so life doesn't seem so hard?

It's like that common meme or something right; there are days, like yes, I'm super-pumped and driven about doing things right and doing things well, and going for the big things, and good things. But then there are many, many other days I just want to be a slug and bingewatch Outlander on Netflix and marvel at Jamie Fraser, you know? That's kind of what I really want to do right now.

The emotionally intelligent person knows that love is a skill, not a feeling, and will require trust, vulnerability, generosity, humour, sexual understanding, and selective resignation. The emotionally intelligent person awards themselves the time to determine what gives their working life meaning and has the confidence and tenacity to try to find an accommodation between their inner priorities and the demands of the world. The emotionally intelligent person knows how to hope and be grateful, while remaining steadfast before the essentially tragic structure of existence. The emotionally intelligent person knows that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm... There are few catastrophes, in our own lives or in those of nations, that do not ultimately have their origins in emotional ignorance.

~ Alain de Botton

"... maybe I made a mistake yesterday,
but yesterday's me is still me.
Today, I am who I am with all of my faults and mistakes.
Tomorrow, I might be a tiny bit wiser,
and that'll be me too.
These faults and mistakes are what I am,
making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life.
I have come to love myself for who I am,
for who I was, and for who I hope to become."
-- Kim Nam Joon

This is so unbelievably comforting right now. 💜

It's such a trying time, personally and collectively,
and I've been consulting my books as I'm wont to do.


Skill 13: Keeping Higher Self in Charge

At the highest level, Level 5, this mastery becomes habitual, no longer requiring the kind of effort it may have taken at lower levels of development. My Higher Self "muscle" has been developed by consistent daily practice for a long time -- it is now a habit. Higher Self is in charge, even in profoundly trying times or under pressure from "group think". Because of your consistent daily practice,  Higher Self is like a muscle that has become strong and toned, making you prepared even for challenging times and pressured situations, or moments of fear, sadness, tiredness, and other emotions that would previously have triggered egoic responses. Of course, we are all human, so we may never get to the point where Higher Self is in charge 100% of the time, but a spiritually intelligent person who has worked hard on this skill is someone who can be counted on, even in bad times, to be choosing and acting on the very best part of themselves.

...

"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself," wrote Michel de Montaigne. That is a spiritually intelligent approach. We cannot control the majority of the events in our lives. But we can control our responses. And the way we do that is by creating space between the things that happen to us and our reactions to them. When we are running on autopilot, we are not even aware of any space. There is just stimulus and response. But as we increase our awareness we become conscious of the tiny space that is already there and, most importantly, we can learn to increase that space. I call this "inserting a pause". It's the pause that contains your power. If there is no pause, you have no power. When you insert the pause, you create enough space between stimulus and response to be able to say, "Who is running the show here? Is my ego running the show or is there a wiser way that my Higher Self can handle this?"

-- SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, by Cindy Wigglesworth

It's so hard to stay on course
and not be derailed by the upsetting events of life,
the wobble the ego goes through...

Ganbarimasu! I'm climbing a mountain, and I can't see the top,
nor do I know where this path leads. I just walk, and keep walking,
and keep walking, trusting the need to walk and move, or rest when I need to,
but again forwards, onwards, always; transmuting pain into fuel for the journey.


oh my, it was good to write that out.
I forget how wonderful a process writing has always been for me.
Cleanse and release, S!

---

Speaking of the ego, I'm reminded of the upcoming BTS comeback! yayyy.

absolutely looking forward to a continuation of their Map of the Soul series.

I love how they delve into discussions of inner torments and emotional conflicts,

and present it all so beautifully, as in a dance like this:

so apparently some smarter fans have interpreted that this stage is in the unconscious, 

and black swans are the shadow in the psyche obviously, 

while the water surface they're dancing on 

is the barrier between the conscious and unconscious.

Ocean with all light silenced shut
My wandering feet held in a rut
Every noise and sound's been cut
Killing me now, killing me now,
Do you hear me

Sinking slowly like in a trance
Struggle but it's all ocean floor
Every moment becomes eternity


Fight your shadows, friends!
The other side of our consciousness are always these lurking fears
that stop us from embracing the positive and the good and the brave.

---

Save us from what our own hands might do;

lift the veil, but do not tear it.

Save us from the ego; its knife has reached our bones.

Who but You will break these chains?

Let us turn from ourselves to You

Who are nearer to us than ourselves.

Even this prayer is Your gift to us.

How else has a rose garden grown from these ashes?

-- Rumi, Mathnawi II: 2443-49

The Way It Is
by William Strafford

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

Skill 4: Complexity of Inner Thought

"Can I handle the complexity of life?"

The next skill is called Complexity of Inner Thought. This may sound like something closer to IQ than SQ, but this skill is quite distinct from the logical and linguistic skills sets that are traditionally associated with IQ. Complexity of Inner Thought points to the ability to hold nuance and complexity. As an example, the first level of this skill includes the recognition that "rules are guidelines and sometimes a higher principle requires that I break the rules". Think about someone like Mahatma Gandhi -- a very principled man, a lawyer in fact, who chose to violate the British law in order to support a higher principle. He was not randomly breaking the law for his own selfish gratification. He meditated for a long time before he decided that there was a more important principle at stake, and he was willing to go to jail and to suffer the consequences, including the possibility of death at the hands of the police or soldiers, in order to advocate for that principle. In everyday life, this skill asks if we are blindly obedient to authority, or if we can be law-abiding except  when principle demands otherwise.

Higher levels of development in this skill take us into territory where we begin to develop the ability to consider multiple points of view in decision-making, and understand that "right" and "wrong" are not simple matters. Doctors, for example, need this skill on a daily basis. A patient is being kept alive in an ICU on the insistence of his family, even though there is no hope of his ever recovering. How does one weigh the ethics of honoring the family's beliefs with the ethics of providing that same bed to another patient who may need it right away? Your young adult daughter bristles when she is told what to do, but she wants to follow a career that entails physical and financial risk. You want her to choose her own path and you want to provide the necessary warnings and guidance. You want to support but not enable. How do you do all this?

As we progress to the highest level of development in this skill, we develop the ability to recognize elements of truth in conflicting points of view, embracing and even enjoying paradox and mystery, which are central to mysticism. Holding the tension of opposites can create "third options" which creatively take everyone to a new level.

~ SQ21, The Twenty-one Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, by Cindy Wigglesworth

"Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead. This scarcity makes leadership valuable... It's uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It's uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It's uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. It's uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle. When you identify the discomfort, you've found the place where a leader is needed. If you're not uncomfortable in your work as leader, it's almost certain you're not reaching your potential as leader."

~ Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us

 

 

This makes me grateful for the discomforts I've experienced in life; when you're increasingly comfortable with discomfort, you allow yourself to grow, insya Allah. 

I meant to write sooner, and wanted to have the sort of reflection-type post I've made a habit doing the past years; and this time should be extra-mega right, end of a decade and all that (ohmygoshhh, a decade!).

But I fear I'm running out of time. There's about an hour left of 2019.

I feel sad to leave this year behind. I'm not quite sure yet what gives me this overall sentiment, but I feel like... this year has served me so well as a friend, and teacher. I thought last year was a learning milestone (god, the pain of 2018), and it definitely was -- but this year was a much kinder teacher. I feel somewhat that the turn of the year into a new decade is like stepping into a new world by myself, leaving a beloved teacher I'm not done learning from. At particular times this year, I feel like there were moments when I had been nudged, "See, you thought this, and it's actually this..." This beautiful, beautiful thing. And other similar kind, gentle nudges of, "See, you thought you couldn't, but you can..." Where I had thought of impossibilities, I had been slowly shown otherwise. See, and see, and see... until I felt a subtle happiness, and a hope that I never knew could appear in such form.

Thank You for allowing me to learn to trust the process,
and trust You.

This process; how do I summarise it most simply. We touched on it at book club, and I discussed it with E too. It's very easy to give lip service to the concept of faith and trusting the divine; but the delicate juggling of both work and trust is a skill painfully, painfully, earned and practised. And thenceforth necessarily and endlessly practised. Of the few friends I've talked to about this, it appears that where the skill has emerged, prior years and years of struggle had preceded. One swings from a despairing of fate, and then from an overly-exerted control of one's life (with accompanying emotional upheavals); but what it is that needs to be, is the careful dancing with the flow of life, that in-between space, where you don't control but neither do you relinquish a hold of the helm entirely; you just steer gently, just steer, and equanimity reigns.


Life is a series of moments, which one lives as if one were dancing, right now, around and around each passing instant. And when one happens to survey one's surroundings, one realises, 'I guess I've made it this far'. Among those who have danced the dance of the violin, there are people who stay the course and become professional musicians. Among those who danced the dance of the bar examination, there are people who become lawyers. There are people who have danced the dance of writing, and become authors. Of course, it also happens that people end up in entirely different places. But none of these lives came to an end 'en route'. It is enough if one finds fulfillment in the here and now one is dancing.

~ The Courage To Be Disliked, by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

-- which as it turns out, has become a most precious book I will have to re-read on a regular basis.

2020, insya Allah, you will be similarly amazing in ways I can't imagine now. 💜💚💗

Happy New Year to you, reader!

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
        love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

💙

beautiful things make me cry

Fairly recently, I attended a spiritual gathering that was a cum-farewell party for a lady who I'd met about a year ago at a spiritual retreat. There was recitation of the Burdah in view of the Prophet s.a.w.'s birthday and mawlid; we prayed together in congregation; there was food to munch on; and then we had a go-around to give well-wishes to Lady A and her kids, who were leaving Singapore indefinitely for New Zealand, to do beautiful work there.

When the mic came round to me, I had stuff semi-constructed in my mind on what to say, but after two lines of speech -- the tears leaked out in torrents!!! ahahahhh. Lady A is totally an inspiring person and I had words to say to her that touched me deeply, but I'm hopeless; the moment I said them words, my emotions welled up like crazy and I could barely speak without shaking. I honestly don't know why I'm becoming increasingly like this. Everybody who went on that spiritual retreat has probably labeled me The Cry-er With Secret Issues, perhaps, hahahahaha, I don't know. This group of wonderful ladies has seen me in tears more than any group of friends (or perhaps even family!). I would attribute this to the purity of the space they create in the presence of their beautiful souls. (I told Lady A later in the night: It's your fault. Beautiful things make me cry.) Luckily, I salvaged that speech (because I didn't end up a complete mess of tears, unlike other times) and made myself think of the happy and funny times we had, and enumerated that instead.

Then again, I don't think anyone went home dry-eyed from that retreat, so maybe I'm not so much an anomaly. But generally, these few recent years, my emotional capacity has tripled or something. It gets utterly embarrassing, I am not kidding. I'm actually afraid to watch any even-remotely sad thing in front of other people, out of fear that I'll be crying like crazy and then they would wonder over my health. Haha, it's ridiculous.

Just the other day at Chit Chat Cafe (where we support persons with aphasia), the Aphasia Choir put on their very first performance, and then a caregiver gave her reflection on her husband's progress since his participation in the choir. After that, the music therapist came on to say a few words and got slightly emotional at how proud she was of the choir; I, in the audience, had to hide my face behind a piece of paper because the tears were uncontrollable. I need to learn to control the tears! Haha, seriously. I don't get it myself. I like the fact that maybe I'm learning to be more empathic.... but!!! I have decided I should not speak on birthdays or weddings or any sort of commemorative gathering, unless I'm ready to cry in front of an audience.

Speaking of which...

This made me cry AGAIN tonight.

Kim Namjoon, you special human being.

The number of people you inspire.

---

The year is reaching its end, and we're approaching a special-numbered year!

2020; 

everytime I think it, I remember the catchphrase from Malaysian TV, 

years ago when I was a small child: Wawasan 2020! 

God, as we step into a new decade,

let my heart grow to contain all that is beautiful and true of Your creation.

Help me put my full trust and faith in You, and help me see even more beauty

in this world, and insya Allah, the next.

I've been feeling how strange it is, that the bigger and truer the love,

the more detached it is from this world.

The more it is released into the universe, into Your hands.

The less I write, the less I know how to, it seems.

It's a struggle to get the right words out; 

then I remind myself, 

inspiration is not a valve you switch on. 

It's more like the rainbow you wait around for, 

amidst/after the rain.

It already says something, that I manage to blog only because I've fallen ill enough to have MC for three days consecutively. It crept up on me slowly, but my exhaustion levels are reaching the roof; and it's a long, deep-seated tiredness that's not really about how many hours of sleep I get at night. It's about the need for replenishing in a soul sense, I guess. I want to revisit Kamikochi, for instance, and breathe in the pure, clean air, away from the harried-ness of this city life I live, that seems to be all about haveyou's and whyhaventyou's and shouldntyou's. I want to live life with a lightness, and a peace, and a deep love and gratitude, with no concern for timelines and social rank or status or money-making schemes. I am aware it is not impossible to keep a state of mind like this despite the environment, but it's so bloody hard.

Hence I am noting this down here (I've already noted it down on a hardcopy notebook):

Fighting Your Shadows

1) Recognise what your shadows are

2) Don't get complacent about the shadows (especially when you're in a good place and think you've fought them all off); how do you usually keep up the light? Do those things!

3) Shadows will come at your Achilles heel, or the crack in your armour; it WILL happen

4) Partner with other souls on the soul growth journey

(Courtesy of a youtube podcast I was listening to.)

This was lovely.

And as we swam, or played, or talked, a feeling would come. It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright where they were dull. I had known contentment before, brief snatches of time in which I pursued solitary pleasure: skipping stones or dicing or dreaming. But in truth, it had been less a presence than an absence, a laying aside of dread: my father was not near, nor boys. I was not hungry, or tired, or sick.

This feeling was different. I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This and this and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin.

He played my mother's lyre, and I watched. When it was my turn to play, my fingers tangled in the strings and the teacher despaired of me. I did not care. "Play again," I told him. And he played until I could barely see his fingers in the dark.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

~ The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Self-worth; it's not tied to anything external. Not your body, not your house, not your income, not your family, not your lineage, not the amount of money you have or don't have in your bank account, not the grades you got or didn't get, the schools you went to or didn't get into, the certificates you attained or failed to, the job or career you wanted or never managed to, the marriage you have or have not, the children you have or have not, the lovers you found or never did. None of that makes you.

What will be interred with your bones -- that's you.

You have value because you're human.
And that's enough.
Thank God for the life you've been given,
and the chance to knock on heaven's door.



We had a book club meeting tonight, when we started discussing vulnerability (our text was Brene Brown, so duh, haha). And we reflected.

I had a little epiphany tonight: I realize that, no matter how justified, no matter how right I was in my anger, it never felt good in the end. The cause of my upset might even still persist; but my let's-assume-thoroughly-justified anger only serves to exacerbate the negatives. It truly does nothing to improve the situation. I find that in the end, it's not worth the fall-out, or the hurt feelings of the other party. Which leaves one with the question of having to still deal with injustice... but perhaps in the wisest, kindest, and best possible way?

I think it's like that thing about integrity I read about before:

If you fail to confront, you will lose.If you confront poorly, you will also lose.
So, you must confront, but confront well.

That means that the truth-telling side of your character
must be integrated with the loving and caring side of your character.
When you show up to deal with a problem,
you must bring both of them together.
Confront the problem, but in a way that
preserves the relationship and the person.

Honesty without love is not integrity.


I think we spoke about this too, just yesterday at book club: people in general (or we were thinking Singaporeans the worst of the lot, haha) have such an issue telling others clearly and honestly about a problem. Instead, when we see something we dislike or hate or frown upon, we call management and make a complaint, write a letter in the papers, gossip and backbite etc. etc., instead of just telling the person in question, "Excuse me, could you _____? It really upsets me." And the problem would be settled then and there. Instead, we go around some crazy bush and stir up issues greater than the original, and in the worst case scenario, we have a war on our hands. We all hate it, when it comes to us in some roundabout way that we did XYZ wrong or such-and-such person dislikes us; so let's be honest and kind from the get-go. Have the kindest and most generous assumptions of people, and tell them when they're stepping on your toes. Don't step on my toes, okay? You can stand this close, but not on my toes. And I hope people would do that in return, so I can also, say, "So sorry, I didn't mean to step on your toes!" It comes up again and again, how true it is, that true compassion and generosity can only be sustained with the clearest boundaries.


La taghdab, la taghdab, la taghdab.
God, help me be kind and strong.

I had dinner out with K tonight, a friend I hadn't seen and sat down with for quite a while (the busy lives we live as an excuse). And I don't know, some part of me from the past came back, maybe, in a mostly good way... I just felt a different exuberance when I got home. And then felt the urge to write. Which is something obviously I have left behind for a while.

It's not like it's been a year since my last post (it's only last month); but it is certainly far longer than that since I have had the process of just sitting and writing -- people seem to think the writing of a short post or long post or however length of writing it is, is just a quick typing out of words on a screen. It is emphatically not. It is a stewing, a brewing (haha), a long communion of some sort with my inner thoughts until at some point I feel properly satisfied with the authenticity of what I wish to convey within any moment in time. And the reality is, this takes times; lots and lots of it. I used to spend hours and hours rereading what I wrote, rereading what I read, thinking over what I thought until some level of catharsis is fulfilled. And the reality is? Obviously this is a luxury. But perhaps it is also at some level a necessity?

I don't know. (A necessity because... this is me. This is necessarily me and how I've been routed round to this point in my life.)

My doing this now feels like some sort of revitalization inside me, like a rediscovery of some part of myself that had always truly served me. And this seemingly circular process brings to my mind the nature of... reality? time? fate? (And currently I am obviously utterly influenced by the 12 Monkeys tv show which is absolutely gripping with its insane time-travel concepts.) It's just... I've been contemplating how true it is, that we create the very problems we attempt to solve; that as you go through life, and pay attention to the subtle details, you realize there are patterns that you are living out and perhaps, the beauty of life is when you catch a glimpse of how the dots connect. And that then proves the existence of something even more beautifully organized and planned.

To put in simpler layman terms, people would say: God has a plan for you. You can roll your eyes at the cliche if you're not spiritually-inclined, but what a beauty it is to catch moments when there seems to be something manifestly greater.

It's like that line scattered repeatedly throughout the Symbol and Archetype book that I'm currently chewing on:

I was a Hidden Treasure, and I loved to be known,
so I created the world.

Help me pay attention to the details.
Help me see things as they are.
Help me have faith and trust when I can't see.



I sometimes really wish I talked more about my outer life as much as my inner one, because we do both, don't we. But I'm so inwardly focused, I forget to balance it out. In real earth-life today, in addition to running around SG serving therapy cases, I placed my foot into a shoe that contained a cockroach -- (let your horror and disgust sink in). This was a historical moment for me, I'm sure. I am surprised I didn't react more violently; but I did remain barefooted under a block of flats in Bukit Merah knocking my shoe repeatedly long after the roach had left it, shuddering at the thought that my skin made contact. The funny bit was, I was torn between processing the reality that it really didn't feel all that bad and the horrifying thought that I had made contact with it to begin with. Something in the mind often becomes amplified a hundred times than the earthly version of it. It's scarier in your head, nicer in your head, more beautiful, more awesome; and we wonder what's real. (And I don't mean this sarcastically.)

If one refers to Plato's realism, or perhaps Islamic mysticism (I've yet to truly delve into this), all earthly representations are merely reflections of the bigger and greater Real. So the ability to perceive beauty in something mundane, and feeling overawed by it, is you connecting with a true beauty in the cosmos, or the Ultimate Beauty (i.e. God again). To be felled over by the beauty of a landscape or even a person, or to be severely repelled by a crime, is a reflection of our responses to the bigger abstractions of Beauty and Evil.

Okay I shall say goodnight now before I keep spiraling down this rabbithole.
Why do I do this, haha. I will confuse myself and I will confuse you.

Oyasumi!