So I just finished watching The Promise, a movie that chronicles the Armenian genocide in Turkey in World War I. Cried buckets. It made think of what the Rohingyas are probably going through right now -- and it enrages me so much.

Why is it that at any point of time in the history of humanity, some groups of people are always trying to kill off some other groups of people? What is wrong with humans, seriously! Why does anyone think it is okay to kill off masses of innocent lives? It's unbelievable and completely baffling to me, and therefore entirely enraging.

Every human being is a human being. Can we all, for goodness sake, for God's sake, please just look at each other as human beings? Even in YouTube comments, you see people then doing the same stupid racist things that result in the dehumanizing that makes genocide possible in the first place, you know? People insulting Turks entirely or the Japanese entirely. Just stop hating people for no other reason than them belonging to some arbitrary group!

There's this other amazing, amazing movie:

which is awesome in an all-round way, really: captured all the horrors of war,

and yet managed to have beautiful, light-hearted moments,

as well as dialogue and action scenes full of oomph 

(I don't know how else to describe them, haha).

Not to mention it stars Song Joong Ki (who took forever to appear on-screen),

who can do no wrong at the moment -- 

at the peak of his career and marrying arguably Korea's most beautiful woman.

I am digressing -- these are great stories,

not entirely novel, sure;

but that apparently humanity doesn't appear to ever learn from...

😢

I need to go watch something happy now.

I'll probably sound elitist and egotistical, but I can't stand it anymore. It infuriates me.

What I've been realising as I've interacted with different groups of people throughout life, is that most people are incapable of having a true and deep discussion about matters, because before they can come close to probing the deeper issues, their ego or their emotional baggage besets them and gets in the way. Such people have probably never had the pleasure of having enlightening conversations with others.

I think it boils down to having good listening skills, having a good opinion of others, and a striving to understand the other person's perspective, rather than making conclusions about them prematurely and shutting them down before you've really understood them. Stop being pompous all the time and thinking you know all the answers! It's exhausting to have to converse with you.

God help me if some people drive me up the wall, the way they talk.

💙

Spiritual recharge is pretty much the equivalent of a happy pill, Alhamdulillah. 😌

Four gifts come with closeness to God, with connection to the Beloved s.a.w.:

💜  Rahmah Qudrah, the will and ability to overcome the formidable and achieve the unimaginable
💜  Nur Tamsyuna bihi, a light with which to discern truth from falsehood
💜  Syafaqah, increased compassion and tolerance
💜  Maghfirah, forgiveness from God


---

I love this so much I am going to post it again.

(Yes, I love it that much.)

The universe has moved for us

There wasn't even a little miss

Just let me love you

Still on a John Oliver binge 

(although thankfully not pumped on coffee; 

such previous 2am-posts should not be repeated).

I re-watched this:

And it brings me to the topic of just public anything: if you're a professional in a public system, chances are you are at the very least frustrated with the way things work. The above is an extreme example thankfully not from my country (although who knows how things really are in my country; we don't have a John Oliver equivalent and even if we did, he'd be jailed on Day 1 of his show), but listening to it brings up all my latent rage at the way some things are done in the systems and institutions that I function or have functioned in.

To be fair and not completely ungrateful, our local system and the government tries; it does. But when dollars and cents are the bottomline in our inescapable capitalist world, something always has to give. And often, it is quality -- because we all know KPI are the golden nuggets we aim for instead. This, more than anything, I realise, is what drove me out of the hospital into the community -- I may get into trouble for this but goodness, it has to be said: if I had a child who needed language therapy, no way would I rely on therapists in our public hospitals. Not because they are terrible therapists to begin with -- hey, I'm one myself, and one parent actually told me she felt therapists in the hospitals always seem better to her, true or not ahah -- but because they have to work in a system that is difficult, if not impossible. Absolutely crazy waitlists and enormous caseloads which meant that we saw children with such poor frequency, we may as well not see them at all. I had little confidence that I was making a difference to my children other than being a general placebo effect. I shall concede that parent education was a bit better -- because what little time I had with parents, I tried to make them understand the gravity of the disorder that their child had and how to interact with them better, and that sometimes needs less than a few therapy sessions fortunately.

I have to put a disclaimer here though, that I am speaking mainly with regard to language therapy, although I'd say most other communication disorders including speech, voice, and stuttering are not invulnerable to the same problem. When the system that you function in chokes the very thing you do, there are only rightfully two options: either you change the system or you get out. The hospital was an impregnable fortress whose systems are so entrenched and far too entwined at high ministerial and managerial levels to make any major change; it felt like a hopeless case. I mean, when we had a dialogue with our team director once, he expressed his understanding of our woes i.e. 8-session workdays with concurrent ongoing multiple projects that burnt us out, but insisted that his hands were similarly tied unless we could prove that having 4-session days for instance could tangibly raise outcome measures e.g. percentage consonants correct. Ludicrous in every sense; in what world and with what time would we have the luxury to do such studies. We were already maxed out as we were.

So now I'm out of the hospital, happy to do what feels like better-quality speech and language therapy within the schools -- until... I realise this is still Singapore, and crappy systems with stupid KPI goals still exist. But! The system is so new, so young, and so uncertain, I feel like it has the potential to change and evolve into something better -- before it becomes set in stone like archaic, old, immovable systems. A healthy philosophy needs to underpin the system if it needs to be sustainable in the long run -- doesn't Google have the winning formula? I've been to Google! They treat their people like royalty, and they're the most prominent cyber company in the entire world! You would think other companies and other systems might get a clue by now. If you have quality brains working for you, you feed it quality input, then you're more likely to get quality output; you don't treat it like crap, simply apologize, and tell them to deal with reality. It's not rocket science.

I will try to push for change, I will. Ganbatte, S! Because while the hospital appears impossible (and I have to say I salute those people who stay to make things better!), where I am right now may be more amenable to change.

thoughts / anecdotes from tonight / today:

• (cleaning the kitchen while listening to Shaykh Hamza:) apparently, ibn Abbas r.a. related: The only similarity between this world and paradise are the names of things. Paradise must be truly unimaginable and I hope (it must be, of course!) wonderfully, wonderfully so.
• I seriously need to start working with time, instead of against it. come on, S, you need to stop being in denial about the nature of time. It's like I'll have actually a gazillion things to do and I leave it all to after work or after dinner, which means inevitably, I will stretch it beyond midnight -- because obviously my brain conveniently does not think what having to plan 4 sessions of therapy and also completing 10 freaking reports actually entail, and therefore how much time is needed. There must be a better way to live life, S, so that you can actually achieve your intended lifestyle goals.
• yes, I'm 30, and as a woman you start thinking you'll never be beautiful ever again -- not that I ever considered myself as much to begin with -- but I occasionally look at myself, and I think, hey, come on, S, if you make yourself even that little bit slimmer, you'll be gorgeous. oh dear, I crack up at my own optimism sometimes because where the heck is it coming from, right! I've been harbouring a burning flame to make myself gorgeous; I just need to sustain this outward vanity long enough to actually make things happen. (I just know I will totally regret this entire bullet point tomorrow when my coffee-high from tonight fades; yes, I drank coffee tonight to tide through the work, someone please save me from myself.)
• I've been catching up on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on YouTube -- and every time, I keep thinking how awesome it is! and how I wish we have this as a necessary (independent) adjunct to all mass media in all democracies of the world. And while I also love Jon Stewart's and now Trevor Noah's The Daily Show, it doesn't quite do what John Oliver does on his show. What John Oliver does is break down the news for you -- which is honestly, confusing as crap most if not all the time -- into understandable, essential bits. Of course, the humour is an added bonus, but I would still watch for his content even if it was delivered in a monotone! Because despite the sometimes over-the-top crude jokes that appear, the content is so good. You see, being a crazy busy person in this crazy capitalist world, you do not have the luxury to sit down and read every single news on the planet, much less analyse them deeply to get past all the crap to the core of things. John Oliver however, does it for you -- he summarises the news for the week in as layman terms as possible, defining words and acronyms bandied about by news pundits, and eventually, ends his segment with a So What Do We Do From Here? Which is essentially what the rest of us want to know! Not all of us are political scientists. And that's why I feel news media in general feels disingenuous most of the time because they tell us things but I get the sense they're not telling us things really, and if you're just not smart enough or don't think enough, you're really going to be duped! And essentially that's how positions of power control the masses in supposedly democractic societies, isn't it.

Here's an example of how John Oliver 

tries to break down a week of chaos in the US 

with some basic questions, haha:

(i) What the f* is going on?

(ii) How big a deal is this?

(iii) Where do we go from here?

(iv) Is this Real Life?

• Last but certainly not least, BTS just dropped this trailer for their upcoming album. I must be super-biased because I'm starting to almost love these boys unconditionally or something -- but how is this not just heart-thuddingly sweet? Look at the visual aesthetics and the symbolism, and the meaning of the lyrics! I just--

💜

Once, during a book club discussion, we had talked about how much we were shaped by our parents -- both genes-wise and through parenting -- and how to this very day, the very actions we perform and the people we are, are reflections of the emotions that were wrought while we were in our early childhood (and perhaps later as well) in their presence or lack thereof. And it is not uncommon, when you talk to your friends, to find how much of their life philosophies can be traced back to how much they wish or don't wish to turn out like their parents.

I hope that I have learnt to no longer resent or blame my parents as teenagers are wont to do -- but it does not negate the fact that I realise there are some things in my life that are a result of how I have interacted with my parents. It makes me feel horror, more than anything else, that one really cannot escape one's ancestry and upbringing.

I just realised today that my mother has unintentionally taught me really well not to care for others' opinion of me. Because she was the quintessential example of someone who did care. And I suffered under her scrutiny and approval for the longest time in my childhood, until one day, it came to me that maybe what she thought might not matter; that her benchmark and her measure of me did not have to be my world; and that maybe her word was not necessarily law. And I was slowly and surely liberated from the prison of her expectations. I have realised that from then on, subconsciously I had learnt to very finely and adeptly sieve out people whose opinions do not matter to me, and they are effectively out of my picture. I believe I was generally impervious to bullying and gossip growing up (on top of the fact that I was so blur to begin with, and pretty much did not care what everyone else was doing or talking about). But I think this is what scares me now.

I have found that I am so good at disregarding certain people because I actually think so little of how they think; I judge them quickly and subconsciously whether they fall into the particular category -- to be accorded respect as any human being, but whose opinions I feel hold little weight and impact on my life. I really am not sure if this is a positive skill, but right now, because it includes my mother in one fell swoop -- I wonder if in essence it makes me a terrible, terrible, dismissive person.

I have discussed this with E before -- when we had concluded that she was frequently so riled and bothered by other people because she expected so much more from all of them -- but I on the other hand appear so tolerant and accepting only because I have already pre-judged them: people are generally terrible, rude, self-centered, so don't let's get bothered if they're mean to you. And I appear so awesome and tolerant on the surface, right? I have so little faith and expectation of people. And that's what gets me by in life unbothered.

In my true style, all of this reminds me of a fictional character: the Mord-Sith Cara from Terry Goodkind's Legend of the Seeker. 

Wahhh, this should be like compulsory consumption for me every day.

My favourite take-away from this is the 5-second rule from Mel Robbins:

which basically means counting down like a rocket (5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Move)

and then moving yourself into action instead of hesitating.

Apparently, why it works is that

doing this disrupts your autopilot habits and behaviours that is driven by your basal ganglia,

and diverts activity to your prefrontal cortex instead.

can't believe some people can still think like this

in our globalized world.

love yourself;

that's the theme of their next comeback,

and if you're at all clued in, there's been a series of 

short little sketches as a prelude.

ohmygoodness, I am so stunned at what happened at the end there. Did they just reference Spring Day -- the scene of the ocean comes into view just like in Spring Day's music video -- on top of Run and I Need You? And also Blood, Sweat and Tears? 😳  I am internally gasping at the connections. How are BigHit and BTS doing this??? And ohmygoodness, are all of the characters representations of Jin; are they all the same person?

I wish I had the time to pick this all apart.
As it is, because my brain has been elsewhere, I saw this later than most fans.



Why is it that the happiest of moments usher in sudden fear?

If we could turn back the clock, where should we go back to? 
Once we reach that place, can all our mistakes and errors be undone? 
Will happiness be ours to stay?

Though many seasons pass, 
there are places that cannot be reached
Yet another storm to be faced
and to be weathered head-on
Loving without fear
Hesitating and parting
Merely living as the person I am

Today, I had a session with Gee: my adorable, unicorn-loving, American-accented, high-functioning Asperger's child. After a rather chatty, hyper session, I walked back upstairs to send her back to her classmates... only to have her rapidly change from hyper and cheerful, to broken and in tears by the time we reached her classroom.

Teacher Sham, I will miss you! Tears were streaming down her face! and she was struggling between sobs.

My first clinical response was to model to her some emotional regulation, you know. So I spoke calmly and didn't match her increasingly agitated behaviour; I told her slowly and repeatedly, I would see her again next week, there's no need to cry. And to be honest, I was still half-analysing how much of her behaviour was attention-seeking rather than instinctive. But after a while, looking at her increasingly wet cheeks and hearing her sob whilst rummaging through her backpack for her naptime things, my heart couldn't tahan anymore. My little adorable darling.


How the world must be to you.

It's not an uncommon thing for persons on the autism spectrum to feel emotions in absolutes and swing from extreme sensations; you would think they had mood disorders the way they change in an instant (ohhh, wait, is that what happens when they're adults? they get diagnosed with other mental issues as well?) There's no in-between. One moment it's I'm sooo happy and excited, and the next, it's like the end of the world. And I was just reading today too, about Matt Savage who has autism and is a musical savant; and he'd said, "When I was a kid, I would throw temper tantrums, just when I couldn't deal with something. I would be positive and bouncy one (moment), and then just getting angry -- like not feeling disappointed, or frustrated, or even sad, just angry. Nothing in between. I didn't know how to feel some other kind of emotion. That was true of everything, whether I was feeling happy (or some other emotion), it would just be like, this is an eternity, this is wonderful, that was all I knew. (The idea that a mind or mood could change), that it's flexible and people can be subtle and not literal, that was the hardest part (of social interaction) for me." (From The Power of Different by Gail Saltz, M.D.)

Thinking about little Gee, and other special people like her, I wondered how it must be to be told how to feel. And that isn't the world strange, making everyone not just think the way we expect them to, but ensuring they feel the feelings we do as well. Why do we all grow up learning to fall into line about how we should think, and feel, and live our lives? Is that what life is all about, that we all learn to fall into the norm and live up to some set of expectations (who set them anyway)? Extremes like Gee suffer the most because they are apparently most disparate from the mean but don't the rest of us struggle to conform as well? Must we all suppress our inner states to appear placid and consistent on the surface?

I don't know. At moments like this, I wonder if this is how therapists should think; how can I supposedly fix her if I don't think she should be fixed? ohhh, fixed is a bad word. People are not to be fixed, are they? They are meant to be understood, and loved, and appreciated, and allowed to flourish. Sometimes... when I catch myself thinking like this, I realise that if I can't change the world or change even the systems big or small that I function in, I can change my own mindset and at least have a little idealism around me.

---

Speaking of emotions and emotional regulation, I've said, haven't I, that I'm an emotional junkie? I feed on emotionally-rich stories. I feel emotions intensely; and though my experience is probably nowhere near Gee's, I do feel an external pressure that I'm wrong for being so intense. That it's not normal, S. Would you just chill and be a little more normal.


I've realised just tonight that this year has had a rather sad dearth of dramas so far. It's already July, and no particular drama has properly captured my heart. And now, I'm recalling last year's excellent batch of kdramas, one of which was W -- which as I think on it, despite it's slightly disappointing end -- is really one of the best things ever to be made on TV.

It's calling me for a re-watch.

If nothing else serves after a while, even Poldark,

I probably will succumb.

I sometimes wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.

-- Graham Greene

I badly want to write but I can't because I have a pile of reports to get through, guhhh.

I will be back at a better time.

But oh yes, Happy National Day! What else is more Singaporean than being overworked, right?

I didn't update earlier how Running Man's cancellation was cancelled, haha -- apparently due to sheer force of will on Kim Jong Kook's part especially -- he'd persuaded all parties to reconsider and reconcile. So anyway, Running Man has been running but with a revamp since 2017 began: two new cast members who I thoroughly approve. They both meld nicely into the team's dynamic.

I wanted to post this episode only because the race portion at the end of the episode was a super exciting one that I haven't seen in a while on the show! And it is proven once again that Yoo Jae Suk is really one smart cookie, don't let his looks deceive you, haha. I forgot that this was what made Running Man so famous in the early days; a good chase plus mystery plus psychological mind tricks make a seriously awesome combination. The closest I ever came to that kind of excitement in real life were our endless games during SLP NUS days (god, I miss my class so bad) and one of the escape rooms I played with my colleagues once.

I finally watched Ex-Machina;

and as it is one of Christopher Nolan's, I was already anticipating stuff 

(this makes things less surprising in general for me -- 

cause I saw a few too many things coming), 

so it isn't one of my favourites.

Interstellar remains my most mind-bending favourite.

But because he has mind-bending dialogue littered here and there as well,

it was still good!

And this Jackson Pollock one got me.

I have long suspected this:

falling in love is an art too, 

and if you're questioning why too much,

you won't fall in love.

In a strange mood; feeling incredibly tired after such a packed day but refusing to sleep because I haven't had my dose of a book/story/show/song/video/something that satisfies me -- and this is what I am addicted to obviously. I am an adrenaline junkie of the emotional sort. Super exciting stories are what appear to be my drug, and right now, it's been somewhat a lull and I've been jumping around looking for quality content.

Okay, I should give up and strive for an improved lifestyle. I will retire soon, but here's what I'm reading now: a review of Game of Kings!


And this line from Lymond is hitting me tonight. It's lighting a fire inside my heart, in a good way. Alhamdulillah! To a future of striving and not giving up.

“I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands.” 

I started watching Poldark -- mostly cause the production team is who will supposedly be working on the Lymond TV series; I'm surveying, apparently, heee. Intermittently, I feel horrified at how they might butcher the Lymond Chronicle's characters, Lymond and Philippa especially. They are my precious pair; I would be quite enraged at any miscasting, I think.

Right now, Aidan Turner is doing well as Ross Poldark (not that I read the books to really know the integrity of this adaptation). I kind of like him so far. What I don't like though is the general romantic direction of the plot: it's a DT!Hermione-thing, isn't it? Every time this kind of romantic plot surfaces in a story, my blood simmers and boils.

The DT!Hermione trope is the kind of woman (or man too, I suppose) who attempts (or if I'm being ungenerous, pretends) to do right by the men she loves. Yes, men; by some stupid circumstance, she has somehow accidentally won the heart of two different persons. She doesn't mean to. (Oh, don't bullshit me.) So she supposedly tries to do what is right, picks one of them, but doesn't exactly properly let go of the other. She will try to. (Bullshit again. I have no sympathy for this kind of person.) How enraging the character is usually depends on how she really tries to let go of the other person. It drives me crazy that this character is not evil enough for me to be justified in hating them (oh, you know, she is trying to stay away from said other person) but clearly not so blithely ignorant of their actions that they are blameless. DT!Hermione was beyond annoying; which is why for me, she has become the benchmark for this kind of character.

It is easy to confuse this with a typical love triangle, but it is emphatically not. And good writers know the difference -- thankfully there looks to be another love interest for Ross Poldark in this romantic plot, which means this trope is done as it's meant to. We're meant to dislike this person. The worse situation is when the writer means for us to root for this trope instead of disliking them; the travesty! I can't come up with an example from the top of my head at the moment (mostly because I will trash the story out the window if I came across it in a book), but Bella from the Twilight series strikes me as a possible example. I might be wrong! because I obviously could not stomach the movie, much less the book, so what do I know.

I get passionate about this I think because I'm an... absolutist? ... a purist? Maybe it's quite mean of me, because we are all human; but I have little sympathy for people who get themselves into moral quandaries that appear obviously preventable, given a little more prudence, level-headedness, or simple loyalty earlier on. What, you didn't know if you spent that much time together you would get involved? Really? In the case of Elizabeth in this story: what, Elizabeth, did you think him 100% dead, that you were not willing to wait for 100% evidence, before you broke a promise and went on with your life? The way I see it, your love was not great enough, period. You don't deserve any sympathy.

Come on, Ross, yes! You're not a halfwit. You're better than this!

This line won him over for me.

I went for a philosophy discussion thing earlier this week about Plato's Symposium, 

that left me more or less mind-blown -- 

and then I started seriously looking up Plato's Theory of Forms 

and The Allegory of the Cave. 

Which if you have no idea about, have a sampling here:

I feel somewhat vindicated now as a professed idealist. I didn't know Plato was an idealist (or apparently, a realist, if we're using proper philosophical terms), and I find myself very compelled by a lot of his ideas. He makes being an idealist sound like absolutely the way to live a good life because it means you are striving towards the Real. And if you're not, you're basically blind; content to live life knowing only phantoms of what is Real.

I think I understand now what The Theory of Forms means,
but it's really difficult to put it simply, or to summarize it satisfactorily.

But I shall try:

The modern world puts a lot of stock into materialism. In other words, if you can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell something, scientists will say it is real. If we can't measure or detect it by our senses, the modern world will say it isn't real.

Plato says that everything material is in constant change and flux. You, me, the screen you're looking at, the food you just ate, the clothes on your body. Everything material is impermanent. How can something so impermanent and temporal be real? How can they be true? He posits that only the permanent and eternal are true and real.

An example of what is real: mathematical truths. They will always be true. The concept of a perfect circle is Real. The perfect circle has the same distance from every point on its circumference to its center. A circle that exists in our material world however can only at best approach this concept of a perfect circle. Plato calls such concepts, Forms. Forms have to exist outside our material world; we can refer to this world for the moment as the abstract world. (I'm sure there's a name for this world but I haven't learnt that far.) Plato is thus a dualist (I just learnt this today!), someone who believes in two separate worlds (unlike Aristotle's idea that came later, I think, that tried to combine both the material and the abstract -- hm, I'm not sure about Aristotle yet).

Everything material, like our circle, has its essence in something more Real, i.e. the concept of a circle. A circle you draw out, or the circular shape of a plate you hold, is never the perfect circle but it is built on the concept of circularity i.e. the Form of a circle. In other words, the abstract is the cause for the physical.

Since abstractness is the cause of the physical, it is therefore more real. This totally blew my mind when I heard it that night. Because obviously it overturns popular modern thinking, where we only value the physical and the material.

And this Platonic idea totally corroborates Sufi poetry that often talks of God as the only Real etc. We are all contingent on God; only God is Real.

Fireworks in my brain yay! Sometimes thinking on philosophy feels like my brain is in danger of exploding.



Plato comes insanely close to Islamic theology; this is amazing (no wonder at the discussion, they were saying how Muslims have speculated if Socrates was possibly a prophet of God -- oh wells, an outsider would be inclined to think Islam took it from ancient Greek philosophy instead):

(I quote from my battered 17-year-old copy of Sophie's World -- I can't believe we were made to read this at Secondary 2; what did I know at the time):

Plato believed that reality is divided into two regions. 

One region is the world of the senses about which we can only have approximate or incomplete knowledge by using our five (approximate or incomplete) senses. In this sensory world, 'everything flows' and nothing is permanent. Nothing in the sensory world is, there are only things that come to be and pass away. The other region is the world of ideas, about which we can have true knowledge by using our reason. This world of ideas cannot be perceived by the senses, but the ideas (or forms) are eternal and immutable. 

According to Plato, man is a dual creature. We have a body that 'flows', is inseparably bound to the world of the senses, and is subject to the same fate as everything else in this world -- a soap bubble, for example. All our senses are based in the body and are consequently unreliable. But we also have an immortal soul -- and this soul is the realm of reason. And not being physical, the soul can survey the world of ideas. 

Plato also believed that the soul existed before it inhabited the body. But as soon as the soul wakes up in a human body, it has forgotten all the perfect ideas. Then something starts to happen. In fact, a wondrous process begins. As the human being discovers the various forms in the natural world, a vague recollection stirs his soul. He sees a horse -- but an imperfect horse. The sight of it is sufficient to awaken in the soul a faint recollection of the perfect 'horse', which the world once saw in the world of ideas, and this stirs the soul with a yearning to return to its true realm. Plato calls this yearning eros -- which means love. The soul, then, experiences a 'longing to return to its true origin'. From now on, the body and the whole sensory world is experienced as imperfect and insignificant. The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body.

As Muslims say when one of us passes on from this life,
إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ
To God we belong, and to Him we shall return.

While watching fan reaction and discussion videos of BTS,

I found out that the organ piece played by Suga in their Blood, Sweat and Tears music video,

was the piece played by the character Pistorius in the book Demian by Herman Hesse.

(Which means Suga portrays Pistorius in the book is it!

-- and now I have to re-analyse everything again hahaaaa)

It made me gasp. The detail, ohmygoodnessssss.

We all know a lot of the WINGS album was based on this book (which I read last year in preparation for their album release), but to discover little precious gems like this littered so subtly throughout their work is one of the joys of being a fan. Seriously, this fantastic layered artistry, wins me over more than anything else.

It reminds me of Lymond. It's the mark of good art, isn't it! It's like, yes, you've read/seen/heard it once, but you're nowhere near done understanding the depth of this piece of work.

I'm supposed to be an introvert and all, but sometimes my life appears to imply the opposite: the entire week, I was out and about either for work or social engagements and sleeping little. I was so exhausted and depleted that I finally and utterly crashed the whole of today. Slept the entire morning away, missing my Arabic exam, and now I'm finally spending a day proper at home, and couldn't muster any energy to get out of the house. Luckily, my scheduled events for the day (other than my missed exam, gah!) were cancelled.

Seriously, S, somehow, someday, something has got to give.

I have actually started a separate journal to reflect on my lifestyle, and work on my daily healthy and spiritual habits. Apparently, it takes an average of 66 days to develop a habit. Please, God, I have to learn to strike a balance.


Re-watched this movie today: He's Just Not That Into You.
I have decided it's one of my favourite romantic movies ever.
This is romantic realism, if there is such a thing.
Watching this movie feels like being doused with cold water,
but then being held to the sunshine after.

Yes, a lot of real life isn't romantic, and a lot of the romantic stuff or fluff we see or read or believe will never ever be true for us. but! there are still exceptions to the rule. And though being smart means you understand that you're probably the rule, perhaps living happily means you still hope despite odds that you can be the exception.

one of the best stand-up-for-women scenes in a romantic movie!

and then we have this satisfying ending for this pair in the movie (:

and here Gigi wraps it all up happily for us 💜

It's been a while!

Here are some videos I've been watching:

Some thoughts:

This whole being the author of your own story -- I mostly agree, but I've felt in recent times that the analogy is slightly off. As I discussed with a friend the other day, we're not actually the author, we're only the protagonist. You have no control over the setting of your story, the characters of your story, and the plot twists of your life. And in so much as you are able to direct the movement of your plot as the protagonist, that's the extent of control you have in your life. Little, in reality. Or not very much, at least.

As the protagonist, you then start to understand that your role is being the best protagonist you can be; not to force your hand on fate. The plot twists are not up to you. You won't be able to help it if a war happens, or if someone you love dies or leaves, or if you contract a terminal disease. You just try living life as the best human you know how, no matter the weather, event, or music, and pray that your author treats his protagonist kindly (and thank God, we are not Lymond and Dunnett our writer, because how Lymond suffered). God is the writer of your story; your job is to change yourself, and God will change your condition, if He so wishes.

This is how I've learnt and am still learning to live life, with equanimity and peace, and insya Allah, with a fervor to be the best kind of protagonist I can be. Because, man, I love stories. And I certainly want to be the kind of protagonist I like.

And here, I finally watched Shaykh Hamza's talk 

when he was in Singapore a few months back! 

Apparently it was a public lecture (that obviously got snapped up in mere seconds, I bet) 

but I knew nothing of it. Breaks my heart 💔, I tell you.

Lastly,

when I need to destress and blank out, 

BTS cheers me up:

Hola! and bye.

So I've been getting excited about revisiting Japan (soon-ish),

and I stumbled upon this book on a library shelf:

It's awesome!!! Basically, it's a graphic memoir

of a French artist, who spent half a year in Tokyo back in 2006 -- 

he drew various spots in the city, 

adding cute-sy amusing comments,

chronicling his time there.

There are maps like this:

Descriptions of Japanese pedestrians (along Takeshita dori, Harajuku) like this:

Of buildings and everyday neighbourhoods like this:

And he also drew JE! 

Who I have missed, now that I am waaay into BTS.

Hehe, Kame in his early twenties was very alligator-like;

(he looks better now in his thirties)

SMAP (with Shinzo Abe being extra) when they were alive and thriving!!!

So sad that SMAP is officially no more :(

I've been contemplating getting a hard copy for myself for keeps.

Hmmmmm.

---

On other matters:

Datin S and I were talking in between work some time this week (yes, we are working together now, woohoo!), and when our endless conversations started getting really heavy as per our usual way -- I suddenly felt, and said as much to Datin S, that she should go read some storybooks (which she hadn't in a long time). Reading books, and specifically FICTION, gives such perspective, brings you out of yourself and so deeply into others' lives, that you will inevitably be better informed, equipped, and emotionally-armoured to battle your own life.

I witnessed some other human problem tonight, and while talking it over with my sis, she was the one who brought up, "This would not have happened with someone who does literature." Perhaps it's pompous, overly-fallacious, or misguided because I am no expert -- but it feels increasingly apparent to me that the nuance, the empathy, and the perspective that makes a gracious human being can be gained via reading stories. You could gain it elsewhere, maybe -- like living a difficult life, living among people who struggle, living among the poor. But otherwise, born into privilege and the lap of comfort or luxury, how else would you get it?

Suddenly, I am reminded of the hours of CIP (Community Involvement Project) we had to do for school so as to cultivate a civic-mindedness in students; oh come on, how much of it was just surface grade-fulfillment and how many of us truly succeeded in planting the seeds of compassion and care in our hearts? What is it that builds great character at the end of the day, right? Isn't that always the question.

For me, reading. It's still reading. And then you go and do your CIP.