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Evolving
Last Wednesday, I pulled a back muscle getting up from my living room’s rattan chair. Just one lift, and everything is misaligned. I couldn’t walk straight for days, but I was stubborn. I wanted to walk. I needed to walk lest I mentally and physically melt into muck. So, it was. Walking with a constant…
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Life Lessons from a Four-Year-Old
It was Claire’s first time taking the LRT. She was beaming. Holding her ah ma’s hand while they took a photo together in front of a train whooshing by. She points to the signs plastered on the train window. What’s this? she asks her ah kong. This one says, no eating, this one says no…
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A Little Thing
Light enters the body if it allows it to. The source speaks in a gentle voice. It only takes a body to recognise the other without speaking. Realising joy and kindness, even before it meets the eye. So that in a moment, and a very brief one, someone somewhere is moved To something good.
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Here
In Saving Time, Jenny Odell writes: Maybe we could experiment with what feels like mediocrity. /// Some fragments on a Sunday evening: Walking is how I spent a lot of my time in January. Lyn and I walked in the rain from Taman Paramount to Damansara Uptown, walking the roads we used to drive by…
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Movement and Change
I recently noticed that the end of the year marks Koel season. This means you are awaken in the morning with the crescendo of a familiar bird. It goes u-woo u-WOO U-WOO, calling out to mate. There is something comforting about it. Lyn says it is her favourite bird call because it reminded her of…
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October
What we observe is not nature, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. I. During my neighbourhood walks, I’d encounter a black bird with white-streaked wings. I think it’s a common bird, but I like how it looks. It gets my attention everytime. The more I saw it, the more strange and vacuous the feeling…
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Intentional Internet
I was late into the scene. Everyone I know that’s my age has memories of the static teetering of the dial-up, of the chirpy Eh-Oh! of ICQ. Those were not my experiences of the internet. My sister and I finally got our access to the internet in 2006. One of the first things I did…
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Fundamental
The quality of listening determines the quality of speaking. — The weather is good today. Cold, crisp, and a little dewy. The blue hour stretches on to noon. Angus, the charcoal cat and Oliver the sausage dog is asleep amongst the folds on our unmade bed. All is well. I am thinking about certain moments.…
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Making Space
To belong and to be a part of something bigger than ourselves ties us to the magic of being alive. Leaning into both consistency and flexibility is part of threading our humanity into our work, into what we do. Leaning into both structure and space is part of letting ourselves be ever-changing people. — These…
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In the Process
If there is a certain dread in doing– in being– I think it is the call of the universe that you perhaps do two things. First, rest. Once you’re well rested, ask two questions to yourself. 💡 Why do I do the things I do?💡 What do I actually want to be doing? I have…
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A caveat about walking
There’s a lot of literature about walking. I have yet to read it but alluding to Basho, coupled with the famous “philosopher’s walk” in Kyoto and the many historical ones in Japan, then there are the Romantics, and today, many contemporary writers praising and celebrating that very act as one of resistance, liberation, etc (still,…