1. I have trouble thinking random thoughts. I think it’s because I prefer structure to mess.

2. I like to listen to audiobooks coz I find reading tedious.

3. When I was young, I had to go to the hospital to remove a peanut I had stuffed up my nostril.

4. I only read non fiction nowadays. I started reading self help books when I was in my early teens. The first book I picked up was “how to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie.

5. I am watching Jay Leno right now and just heard a bad joke. Q: “why don’t postmen ever get STDs?” A : “Because they are carriers”

6. I had wanted to visit Iguazu Falls ever since I watched the movie “Happy Together “. I fulfilled that wish last year. It is one of my favorite places in the world.

7. I get bored easily. I am getting bored writing this list already.

8. I want hair like Jennifer Aniston’s. But in black…. Hmm… sorta like Angelina Jolie’s then?

9. I don’t own a proper bed. I like to sleep on plain ole mattresses.

10. I think toned arms are sexy

11. I like to reread stuff I write. I have reread my list at least 5 times thus far.

12. I was thrown on the floor once while dancing salsa with a guy coz he lost his grip. I am still friends with him, but we just don’t talk that much anymore. 

13. I like to procrastinate. I think I’ll complete the rest of this list tomorrow.

I just came across this  quote by the amazing actress, Jennifer Beals and it absolutely cracked me up.  “Remember that politics is a lot like sex – if you want something, you have to ask for it, if they’re not doing it right you’ve got to speak up and show them and if you still don’t get what you want, then there is nothing wrong with doing it yourself!”

Touche.

… with the generosity of my friends and family. Even though I don’t earn alot (relative to my high flying banker, lawyer, doctor friends), and my dad reminds me frequently that he can probably make more money in a day than I can in a year (though in these crazy times, I’m not sure that holds true anymore), I have never felt that I wasn’t enjoying life to the fullest.

I have had the opportunity to travel to many places, the privilege of knowing many wonderful people, and the thrill of many adventures. And all this has enriched my life tremendously. But as I have become more conscious of the need to count my blessings, the accounting has revealed that a big part of the reason why I don’t feel poor is because my friends share a lot of their good fortune with me. In the past month alone, I have been treated to

1. free foot reflexology

2. free meals, including a wonderful buffet dinner at the Raffles Hotel! (still thinking of those oysters…)

3. free 4 yolk mooncakes

3. lotsa lotsa free alcohol – beer, wine, cocktail, wine and more wine.

4. free courtside seats to a basketball game (with more complimentary beer and wine)

5. free rides (coz I don’t own a car)

More importantly, my work makes me happy. When I quit my last job as a consultant, I basically told my boss I needed to do something of greater consequence. He wished me luck. Lots of luck. It hasn’t been easy, since my job now requires me to cultivate partnerships with people who don’t necessarily share the same values, and more often than not, it comes down to “aligning interests” to achieve “common goals”. But I believe in doing what I need to do to get things done. Even though my parents, being naturally conservative, do not rave about my vocational choices, they have by and large given implicit support. The one thing I am most thankful for is that they do not need me to provide for them financially and there has never been any pressure for me to do so.

So I am blessed. And I am rich, even though I am poor. And it is all good.

I looked up the etymology of the word “conscious” and found that its Latin root “skei” means “to know”. Derivatives from this root include the word “shit”. So does it follow that the wise men of the ages believe that to be conscious is to know, and in that process of discovery, the “learning by going where to go”, one can’t help but feel like shit?

On days like this, I feel like that lowly worm climbing up a winding stair. And I wonder if I will ever get there.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

-Theodore Roethke

Balance : (Etymology) Middle English balaunce, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin ^*bilancia, having two scale pans. (Definition) A state of equilibrium or parity characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces

I have been trying to do handstands for a few months now. My yoga teacher keeps telling me to relax, to keep my legs straight, point my toes and to make small adjustments using my core to find the right balance. Sounds easy enough right? Afterall, it’s all about a series of equal and opposite reactions, resulting in a state of equilibrium.

I was relaxing on the couch with my teddy bear this afternoon and I thought I’d try an experiment. I wanted to find out if I could get 红豆 (my teddy bear) to do a headstand (his arms are too short to do a handstand). The idea was to find out if without a central nervous system for coordination, nor core muscles to effect tension, is it possible to find balance?

Ta da….

Moral of the story?

There is a sweet spot. No pushing. No pulling. Where one can just be. One just needs to find it.

Oh, and of course, there really is such a thing as a Yogi Bear.

I really like this ad by Mercedes Benz. It’s about a man called Raymond who has wanted to taste ice cream all his life, but suffers from the most serious case of gratification-delay-osis. So he just keeps wondering and waiting. It’s quite a clever analogy.

Just last night, I was also watching Ugly Betty (Yes, I learn a lot of Life’s important lessons by watching TV, apparently). And so Betty finally gives in and decides to have an affair with Henry, the accountant guy whom she has been eye-effin’ all season. Henry made a girl pregnant and in a few months’ time, he will have to leave and go home to be a dad to his kid. Which leaves them with the question… what do they do till then? Avoid each other? Throw all caution to the wind and have a good time? Yes. The stark choices we have to make sometimes. So anyways, Betty says no, they have to stay apart, then hey, maybe they could be friends, and then finally, let’s date but do it secretly. In any case, they really do try to do justice to the complex emotions involved, even though I’m not necessarily doing that with my writing.

So long story short. She gets busted, but decides, what the hell, let’s live in the moment and enjoy it while it lasts. And that’s when I yell at the TV, “NO, Betty! Nooooooo!!!!”

But then again, this is the kind of person I am. I saw a bunch of coins strewn about on the road ($1.75 to be exact) near my house the other day and I didn’t immediately pick it up. In fact, I continued to walk past it for one whole week. Each time as I approached the spot, I would wonder if it was still there. And strangely enough, there it would be. For one whole week. Then I started thinking, “Who could have left it there? Why hasn’t anyone picked it up? Is there a camera crew hiding behind a bush somewhere? Are people in my neighbourhood too rich? Or do people simply walk around with their blinders on? etc etc….” Until one day, I said, hell, I’m going to pick it up. And I tried. And I could not. Because those damn coins were stuck to the road with super glue.

So what’s the moral of the story? Don’t live life in the abstract. Live literally. Breathe. Feel. Hurt. Cry. Then start all over again. Because really, we are more resilient than we think.

So I finally watched the Last Lecture on YouTube the other day. And what I’ve learned is this – that I am Eeyore i.e, I keep losing my tail. I don’t know why my house keeps falling down. I am an ass. I eat thistles.

Translation : I am perpetually striving, hate it when people don’t try or care as much, am often disappointed by people, and most of all in myself because I have unreasonable expectations, but still, I believe that pain makes me grow so I’m a sucker for it.

Whatever that Tigger dude is taking that makes him so bouncy and jaunty, I’d like to have some of that.

I have been spending a lot of time on trains as I commute to work and the long journey gives me ample opportunity to observe people up close. One thing that perplexes me is how tired Singaporeans seem to be. I mean, for heaven’s sake, can’t people keep awake long enough to make it home before they crash and burn? How is it possible to drift off into a deep slumber in full view of a cabin of strangers, mouth agape, breathing heavily, body slumped over? And what gets me especially riled is when these slumpers slump into my space. A heavy nudge is apparently not enough to keep these somnolent invertebrates at bay. Shooting dirty looks doesn’t work either because these subjects are only minimally conscious. I’m at my wit’s end.

Maybe Eckhart Tolle is on to something here. To resist something that IS, is to suffer. Perhaps next time, when I feel a heavy presence leaning onto me, I should simply just stand up, vacate my seat, and see them truly crash and burn…

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself -
Finite infinity.

Text by Emily Dickinson
Image by Huey Ko (Copyrighted)

I got interested in the work of Edward Weston when I first heard that his images have been used to illustrate Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. That idea of pairing photography with poetry inspired this little project of mine. I have always felt that Ansel Adams would never be surpassed as the master of landscape photography just because of his technical brilliance. But Weston brings out a different dimension altogether. Nature as human with a full-on sensuality. We are talking about a guy who can make bell peppers look sexy. So go ahead. Look. See. And dwell in possibility.

********************

I dwell in Possibility -
A fairer House than Prose -
More numerous of Windows -
Superior – for Doors -

Of Chambers as the Cedars -
Impregnable of Eye -
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky -

Of Visitors – the fairest -
For Occupation – This -
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise -

Text by Emily Dickinson
Image by Huey Ko (Copyrighted)