My GoDaddy site came up for renewal, and unlike other times, I didn’t just automatically renew my domain name. I paused, like really paused to think if I wanted to keep on with Trisected.com or not.

There’s a ton of reasons why I don’t need a domain name. For one, who really comes here? My visiting numbers have been so low for so long. But recently I saw a bunch of people visiting, and honestly I have no clue if its real or not.

But it’s a whole slew of things to manage if there are indeed a lot of page views. I’ve got to change my bandwidth with my server hosting, I’ve got to make sure I don’t have more spam attacks and upgrade my security. It’s literally an increase of things to risk assess, and I don’t know if I want to spend time doing that in the years to come.

Another thing is the availability of other platforms. Like running a private instagram account is more cautious. A select few can see what I’m thinking, comment and interact. It’s a smaller circle with a lesser chance of people taking everything I say out of context.

I could also run a telegram channel, where I could broadcast what I want to say, especially if that’s key for me. I do want to talk about what I want to talk about.

All these other platforms are free, unlike having to own a website and domain name and all that. It’s a continual cost I will have to keep paying as long as I want to own this space on the internet.

But I decided to stick with the site because of the space it gives me. It took me awhile to even own trisected.com, maybe 5-6 years without having it. And one day it opened up and I bought it immediately. I placed an auto-renewal for as long as I could then, and I think it was 5 years. If I recall correctly, I did another 5 years, but I definitely had my website before 2016 (if the 10 years total of ownership).

But the space — a blog, and a website. I kinda own this space of the web. It’s fun. I can do whatever I want here, and whatever it says is what I choose for it to say. Like to write freely about things like this, without anyone watching over me to say it shouldn’t be published. I decide what’s good enough to be published.

I’m also not based on an algorithm for someone to see my things. As long as someone looks for trisected.com, they’ll see my latest post and then get to read what I was most recently thinking about. That’s fun, and I like that it’s not an algorithm.

I want a space somewhere, without ads, and I can just be here. Simple. If anyone wants to look for me, they can find my thoughts here, and I’m happy to pay the price to be here as long as I can. In Singapore I have so many memories of places that have disappeared, just because of a lack of audience and traffic. But here, I write just for me actually. And for the few who had followed me from however long ago, I hope to just still exist here.

But man, the price of owning a piece of the internet is really going up a bit. Like my insurance policies lol.

Over Christmas last year end, a family friend bought the Tom Sachs Caran d’Ache Neocolor 2 for me. It’s quite an amazing pastel because its a naturally dry medium, but if you wet it, it can blend out like watercolors.

And I decided to use one of daily journals I have to draw an image of every day. It’s quite interesting because I’m getting visibly better at drawing with pastels.

The mysterious part is that I’m not post this anywhere. I might do a little zine next year after everything is over. But for now, it’s just something I want to do because its fun.

I struggle with publishing a lot. I don’t know what I should post where, and a lot of the time, I end up with so much work and this whole posting fatigue. I lose track of why I started doing the work I do, and I end up putting things aside.

So without any pressure, I’ll just do my thing, and not show anyone except Clarice for now.

Some notes for drawing with pastel that I’ve learnt so far:

1. Blending is great, I can draw and blend colors together.
2. The line weight is almost negligible. Instead, working in shapes and drawing over with darker colors give the best form development.
3. Keep basic color values, and most images will still come out.
4. Even though the neocolor is water soluble, it doesn’t mean it should always be the case. So far none of the images have water, also because it’s on Hobonichi paper (Tomoe River).

Since the year end, I’ve been thinking really hard about how much I consume, and how much I hoard. The truthful answer is too much. I definitely don’t need any more, and I have too much to use it by the time I die (I think). But every time I see an ad for a new pen (The Wren Write Off is so pretty, and sustainable???), or for a book from authors I follow, or an ergonomic lightweight bag for work, I just add it to cart, and sit there thinking about how fun it would look like on my desk and in my shelves. The trouble is, I’ve done this way too much for the past ten years, and I’m really trying to stop.

Fueled a lot by Tom Sachs’ use to death ethic, and Bill Perkins’ Die with Zero, I’ve been rethinking my collections. There are things I am proud of having, and I consider as long term purchases. However, I’ve got a few too many long term purchases, and not enough space to hold them. The space I have at home to house these things are already organised in shelving, and the excess is spilling over into other places.

I don’t know if it affects mental clutter as much, but I definitely have no-buying remorse. “I should have gotten this bag when it was on sale!” or “If only I had purchased five more of these pens before they went out of production”. The truth is I’ve not even used up the ones I already have. The mental loading works on two fronts: having not bought items to use, and also not using the items I’ve gotten.

So my hope is to minimize buying new items I already have equivalent of. It’s hard because I’ve got multiples of the things I want already. I’m the guy with 20-30 black tshirts, because they’re all different in some ways, but also the same. I think I might not need to buy for quite a number of years.

But I still need to work on my non-buying remorse. I continually delete purchasing apps on my phone, like AliExpress, Shopee, Amazon. But the purchases still come through, and my willingness to jump through hurdles is not commendable.

Therefore, my mantra for myself this year is simple:

Getting more stuff won’t help me make more stuff.

The contextual phrasing would be:

• getting more pens won’t help me write more
• getting more shoes won’t help me exercise more
• getting more art supplies won’t make me create more
• getting more bags won’t make me more efficient at work
• the list goes on.

Alternatively:

I need to make more from what I already have.

The big theme being contentment with what I have. I’ll probably make some stickers of these for the book fairs coming up, and hopefully with the things I already have.

Wish me luck.

Fear is when your 9 month old daughter hasn’t had enough milk for the day, and doesn’t want to drink any milk in her dream feed state. This means you’re just waiting for her to wake up in frustration, and you have to feed her immediately.

Plus you have an early day the next morning, to a location far away.

Dad life is unreal sometimes.

1. The Birth of My Daughter

Easy top of the list.

2. Clarice

My wife is really amazing and I think she’s grown in so many ways, and now as a mother. I’m really so impressed with her, and she’s still so beautiful.

3. New iPad

I had some saving goals for the year, and after all the flipping and flopping, I decided to sink my money into a new iPad. The M3 iPad Air, with the Apple Pencil Pro, Paperlike 3, and a Moft Cover to go with it. The last iPad I had was in 2019, and even Paperlike stopped supporting the screen protectors for it. Everything was slowing down, and I think it was a welcome change for me to draw and create on. Now, everything runs fast, and the only excuse not to create is me.

4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Every year I hit a book from the past that shakes me worldview today, and this book was it for 2025. The world of automatic classism, the cloning of “what’s best”, and the Feelies; it’s crazy how much we’re looking more and more like the freak worlds of the past. Authors and artists have imagined the extreme world we might become, and for some reason, we choose the worst of their extremes in modern society.

5. Fred Again… Live in Singapore

I can’t believe he came down to Singapore, and I’m so glad we got tickets. I can’t believe so many Singaporeans didn’t really enjoy it and stood around for the street cred, and I wish so much for society not to chase things just because. If people would just find value because it is good, instead of value because other people find it important. We should want good things, not our neighbours things.

6. Obsidian and Hobonichi as Thought trackers

I really wanted a way to understand myself better, and to point out my own internal misalignment. I upgraded from a Hobonichi Weeks Mega Sneaker to a Weeks Mega, and then I also decked out my Obsidian so it works in an extremely personal way.

I write, I process, I think through, then every now and then I flip back to see what I’m thinking and where needs some adjustments. It’s not about efficiency for me, but how I could be nicer, or how I could manage my emotions better. I think that’s harder to improve, thus my focus on it.

Looking forward to:

1. Focusing on learning skateboarding properly: kickflip by 40
2. Using the Tom Sachs items I’ve gotten: Neocolor 2 Caran d’Ache set, and the General Purpose shoe
3. Drawing on iPad more (Clip Studio & Procreate)
4. Family Time with Baby and Clarice
5. Group play time with other friends and their babies
6. Singapore Art Book Fair 2026 and MAD Markets
7. The new people I’ll meet
8. Reacher Season 4
9. Attempting to read another 100 books
10. Using my hobonichi A6, hobonichi weeks mega, and my hobonichi 5 year diary.
11. Cycling as a mode of commuting.

Thanks for reading these posts, the lovely few who keep coming back to my blog. I don’t expect to be understood all the time, so having a space like this to try and communicate about one thing at a time is fun. I look forward to it, I just forget to write here a lot. I want to make it a habit to, but I’ve actually got too many journals.

I’m hoping to track more of my creative brain here, so that when people google for me, and find this site, at least it makes sense with the work on my instagram or wherever else.

I had this mantra I made up a couple of years back while doing my Artist Way program. It was “Create not consume”, and I just saw it again this weekend while boothing at MAD Market. It’s nothing crazy, just a reminder to make more than I take in, so that I would always be creating.

Today, as I was taking a chill day to rest from the heavy weekend, I was playing Skate on the PS5 at my parents place. My baby was being babysat by my sister, and my dad was practicing guitar, so the TV was free. (Clarice was at home, she didn’t take leave today.)

Anyway, as I sat there and tried trick after trick after trick, I realised I could not do these tricks in real life at all. In real life, these tricks would have taken me years of practice to do. If I skateboarded endlessly for a few months, I might be able to take a crack at a couple of tricks at most. But everything I was doing in the game was make believe. I wasn’t going to be come a real skateboarder playing a video game.

In that same way, there’s no equivalent of play pretending a role in my mind. If I want to be a creative person, I have to produce creative things. If I want to write, I have to turn up here at 12AM and write a post. Nothing in my head becomes real until I create it.

I am commiting to skateboarding in 2026, that’s for sure. But I am also commiting to creating more in the year ahead. I’m happy attempting to read a 100 books again, but I will also be aiming to create a lot more.

I’m not happy with play pretend, and I can’t be happy with it, if I want to be proud about who I am and what I do.

It’s not that I really want to post a book review, as much as I want to post something up, as a sign of life maybe. It’s been awhile since I wrote, and I think my mental mojo for writing is on an off season. But here goes with a book review to get be back on track.

Funny enough, Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry uses two writers as the main characters in this story. They are writing a biography about a famous old starlet, and her rise and downfall, going through her family history and its scandalous rise to power.

I’m not a romance reader, but I really want to be as open minded as possible, so actually this is my second Emily Henry book I’ve read this year. It’s not even my only romance novel, I think. I projected a very open mind for myself, and I would like to imagine I’ve maintained that for this entire year.

There’s sex scenes in romance novels. I always assumed there was just a lot of talk about falling in love, so heavy characterization. But no, there are paragraphs dedicated to the entire sex act. An interesting parallel, is how some action books are written with that same focus on sex. There’s action sequences in deep detail, but then sex, in detail as well. I find, there’s a lot more in common with male and female readers than we’d have imagined: both enjoy sex in some literary aspect.

But the book also makes me think about how much I would love my loved ones. It’s a moving story, and I question the idea of sacrifice, and special partners with “the one”. It’s sweet, and I think “the one” exists. It’s heartwarming, making me think of how to love Clarice more as well.

Fun book. I enjoyed it.

I spent the entire day cleaning up my room, and just adjusting my physical life around a bit. And the first thing I end up doing are lino prints, as Christmas presents for my close friends this year end. It’s also now past midnight, and as much as it’s my shift to take my baby during this time, I’m also quite energised by the cleaning to do something serious.

But it’s not the right time, because I am physically tired. Excited mentally, but it’s just not the right time to do anything deep right now. Thus, a short post to acknowledge the re-organization of my room, and to acknowledge my own efforts for myself.

I’ve been staring at my mess for the past few months, and I know I’m stuck. I know there are things I could do without, and there are things I ought to get rid of. I’ve talked about getting rid of things, but today, finally I’ve done it. Before the sun set, I already cleared 2 bags of garbage, and I’ve got another one almost filled.

But it took me so long to get here.

I consulted ChatGPT about why I feel so emotionally torn when getting rid of things. A short answer is because I’ve been remembering things. I listened to YouTube clips about how to get rid of things, and so many times, it’s talking about how we have to give space to acknowledge things. But the realities come to: I just need to give more space for myself.

The more space I have, the more bandwidth I have literally. Then I can do more things as I had hoped to, and i get to be more present for the different things in my life. Because I let things go, I’ll have space for Allison to grow, and space for Clarice to use too.

It’s a win win, but it still hurts to lose some memories. It’s not like I’m throwing everything out, but there are small things that I keep some memory to, and I’m getting rid of them.

It hurts to see how short life is. I won’t be able to bring them to the grave for sure. And life has passed far point many of these items. I am living today and now, and sometimes, having the past always front and centre is too much to weigh on my heart. It distracts me from being the most I can be. I have to use the past to stand taller, not to step back.

So the re-org. It’s meant to give me direction, and it certainly has. I have the focus now to make something, and I will seize that opportunity. But not right now, I’ve got to go sleep right now.

There are so many things to do in this world, and yet it’s really ridiculous how I end up doomscrolling for hours. It’s not my own experience, it’s not my life, and all I’m doing in observing it through someone else’s lens. If might be funny, it might be interesting, but it’s not my life.

I’m figuring out how to live the life I choose, and it’s definitely not about how much content I can consume. Reading is slightly different, because I can read and learn how to make my own words. Also the imagination of reading gives me such inspiration to try make my own version of things. It’s just a mental recipe of sorts, and then I become something of my own after time.

I’m trying to choose to make more, to save and buy things I really want instead of things I just find novel. I was just thinking about some of the slightly random purchases I made recently, and if I just made a little more discernment, I’d be able to get something else entirely.

I’m also attempting the emotional challenge of getting rid of old clothes and things. If you’ve known me for just a little bit, you know that I’m somewhat of a hoarder. There’s always a possibility, but I’m learning not all possibilities are for me. I have to choose.

Along with yesterday’s idea of the Creative Standard: I don’t want to have just the standard set of things. I want to have something different. From “Die With Zero”, I want to choose, and not be on autopilot. It’s so easy just to glance past and go for easy. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen easy in my life, but I definitely feel tempted to now, with my baby around. It feels like because of baby Allison, I’m encouraged to just go for easy for her sake. But that’s not true. I have to be responsible, but responsible doesn’t mean choosing the easiest way out.

But today, I decided I really want to choose life wisely, and to not waste my brain space on things not aligned with that life.

One small action at a time.

I’ve been thinking hard about my creative approach, my art practice, and how I decide my portfolio. Some part came from looking at the Boston Modern Collection currently showcasing at the National Gallery of Singapore. Another part came from collaborating with a Singaporean artist over the past year. It’s led me to think if I’ll ever have that kind of life, one featured in a gallery somewhere. Or where my sketchbooks would be placed on display for people to read and see when I’m dead.

As I searched around, I found a whole load of creative videos on YouTube teaching different creative approaches. For some reason, everyone’s work looked… similar? There’s a certain type or a certain vibe of loose lines and impressionist expressionist type brush strokes, and it’s driving the creative algorithms. While this might not be the actual case, meaning there are a lot of other artists not on YouTube sharing their creative practice, there’s a subtle influence this drives as a whole.

I found myself faced with Simply Draw – a drawing software that uses AI to teach you how to improve your drawings. I’m not using it, but the ads keep coming to me. It made me think: what’s the standard now? Do I have to draw a certain way in order to be considered “drawing well”?

A part of the ad shows a young child drawing Mother’s Day cards, and she draws better over time. There’s a comment on how it would be better to receive nicer looking illustrations. I don’t know I would prefer a better drawing or a creative piece with an authentic attempt. I know the difference from someone training my daughter to draw, vs if my daughter drew on her own. The heart behind the drawing would show easily.

Many times, the creative struggle I personally see is a person who lacks the courage to put themselves completely on the canvas. It’s a “I want to be me, but I want to show you in a way Monet would have”. That lacks authenticity, as much as it is authentic. It’s not what Monet would have done, although Monet did draw his family an awful lot.

And this conclusion gave me a firmer direction, which I talked about with Clarice just now: I might not have my portfolio the same way my friends have, because that’s not me. It doesn’t mean I want to follow everyone else, or that I’m trying to stand out for being novel. But I just want to have my own expression in my own way, and I have to decide if I’m happy with that. In some ways, I have to be happy with that. I don’t have much of a choice, because I’m not that famous after all.

I hope my loved ones see my “bad art” and enjoy it still, because it’s not bad, it’s just my own way of doing it.

Today’s weather has been rainy. It’s definitely something when I start talking about the weather. It’s rained since the afternoon, all the way through the evening. As a result, the usually hot Singapore is extremely cool right now. I don’t even need the air conditioning on.

Days like this remind me of Jalan Minyak – my rental spot for three years, about three to four years ago now. We didn’t install any air conditioning, thinking we’d be able to survive the nights. But within two to three days we picked up a portable aircon to survive us through a year or two. It was hot, humid, and I can’t sleep when it’s too hot because I sweat a lot. The portable aircon made things just barely livable, but everything in our living room area would get heated up through the night, because the exhaust from our bedroom went into the living room. We couldn’t face it out the window, because if we left the windows open, cockroaches would most certainly come in. So the bedroom was minimally cool, and the living room area was hot. But at least we could sleep.

But nights like this, the cool ones, were the best. I’d even put on pajamas. Putting on pajamas to sleep in Singapore is like wearing a snow jacket to go to the mall. I’d still put on the pajamas and wake up in sweat. It was worth the fun of it.

The cool air at Jalan Minyak hit different, because it was on the hill for one, and the other was the forest outside our windows. I say forest, because if I were to venture into it, I would either get lost or find a lot of wild animals. Thick vegetation, with lots of trees and leaves rustling in the day or night. There would be birds, monitor lizards, and so many squirrels. Cats too. Just a very crowded, naturally grown spot.

Nights like these at Minyak were rare, but I really enjoyed them. They were moments where Clarice and I embraced our independence as adults, as a married couple. We fought a bunch, but we really grew into each other in many ways. I don’t think I’ve ever understood how much I grew as a person, until I reflect on how the entire stay there changed the way I perceive the world around me. It’s something I would do, over and over again, because life became real then.

Life’s still real now. Unlike then, tonight only my baby is in pajamas. I do feel like putting them on but I’m just a little lazy. I’m happy relaxing, being my chill self as an adult. It’s nice enough to just spend some time on a keyboard writing about it, as I would have before.

What a life we lead, eh?

You’ve probably seen a million ads on YouTube, or Instagram, and they’re these really lame games where you click away at something and it makes you solve these problems before someone dies or something.

My bad habit is downloading one or two of these every few months and I end up playing them for hours on end. It’s not like I have nothing to do. I just have a very bad distraction itch in my head, and I scratch it a lot of the time.

I’m always led astray by advertising. It doesn’t matter if it’s false or not, but if you show me a McDonalds burger on screen in the middle of the night, I think about eating a McDonalds burger all the way through. I might even order it for supper. It works on me so immediately.

But for games, I keep playing it. It’s not a burger where you feel full and stop playing. I keep on going. These games are also endless, where there’s no real end to the game. So I go on playing forever, or until I hit the paywall. Then I uninstall the game and go on with my life being productive again.

I guess the real problem is the ads on YouTube or whichever platform I’m on. Because I realise this mobile game download happens a lot more often then I’d imagine.

Also, it’s the crappy ones I end up downloading, not the good ones. I’ve not played Genshin or Umamusume, but its Magic Sort I’m playing now. It’s really not that great.

I wrote this whole thing out because I’m going to uninstall the game now. With all the identity and clearing things out, I thought to come clean about this really weird brainspace I get into, and how I need to clean up some part of that too.

Ugh, I just got good at this shitty game too. Shucks.

Last year I was going to write a lot about being 35, and what it means to not be a youth any longer. But instead, turning 36 has brought more along the way. For some reason, 2025 has really given me a lot more to deal with, and I feel much of my life adjusting for an older phase.

I had mentioned in a number of posts about the decline of mechanical keyboard companies. I’ve realised I can’t do much to stop it. It’s not as if I have so much money to throw, to sustain a business singlehandedly. I’m only one guy, and I do try to use my voice as much as I can to talk about keyboards, and to introduce people to it. But the current market isn’t set up to help the smaller shops with a very specialised build. Everyone wants something cool, cheap, and easy to work with out of the box. It’s something else to have to build an entire set up, and all I can do is talk about how I find it interesting and enjoyable. I can’t make other people like it, and it’s not my job to do that. I have to do my part, and how people spend their money is entirely up to them.

But mechanical keyboards is just one part. Over the weekend, I watched the last streamed concert of my favourite J-electro groups, Perfume. It was such a bittersweet moment as they recounted how they had spent the last twenty years working on their music careers. They had completed four Tokyo Dome tours, and at least three to four world tours. They performed in so many venues, and even winning a Cannes Lion for their creative performances. It was nuts seeing them recount everything together.

They promised a comeback and this break would just be to rest for awhile, to reset and to level up. But it was still a sad moment to sit and reflect about. I had many memories tied to Perfume throughout my young adult life. Being part of a fan club, contributing and meeting friends through all that. Travelling around the world to watch them perform was also pretty dope. I wouldn’t have done a lot of things if I hadn’t heard their music or get into them.

Funny enough, I got into them because of Last.fm, an early stage music platform that recorded all your music plays and they would suggest related artists. I was listening to a ton of electronic music and japanese indie folk with female vocals, and the intermix of it was Perfume. I didn’t think it would be great, but the moment I started listening, I never went back. Last.fm is quite dead now of course, in the spotify era of music. Or at least I’ve not visited it for ages.

I was also in this whole clearing up phase, and I’ve been tossing out things. It’s just hitting so hard how some of the shops I used to go to had closed down. There were shoes I had gotten from Liang Court on a whim and they were awesome sneakers. There were T-shirts from Threadless I bought when they had $5 deals. There were so many toys from eras past I’ve held all these years.

And it’s the end of an era because time’s moving along and I have to grow along with it too.

I had another friend share once about how it’s sad how we’ve gotten used to places disappearing in Singapore. But it’s honestly a big part of life we millennials are not used to right now. We’ve had our childhoods mixed into the whole digital realm, and perhaps because we’ve been able to see the Internet remember things, we want to keep on having some of these things as well.

I don’t know if that makes sense, but I guess when we hit our retirement age, we’ll bring a whole lot of stuff back. Like how the oldies brought back disco in the 90’s, we’ll probably bring back party rock anthem in the 2030’s.

I don’t know what’s the next era gonna be like exactly, but now as a 36 year old, I’m getting more settled on what I don’t want to be, and I want to be a lot more selective on what I want to keep. After all, nothing is coming with me to the grave.

I had a weird moment today.

As I crossed the road going towards the National Gallery, I found myself passed by a man in a GoRuck pack, with custom IEMs, and New Balance shoes. These are very specific male interests for a certain set of us who live a lot online, and it was strange to see someone who had similar tastes as me in real life. Maybe for females, it would be the equivalent of seeing someone in the exact same dress as you. Does that still happen these days?

Anyway, my concluding thoughts was: no matter how niche and obscure I think I’ve gotten, there are definitely other people just like me.

I was wearing raw denim, Tom sachs shoes, and my goruck is made beaten down, the black has greened.

There’s just something about shoes and headphones. I buy way more than I need to and I just end up having all these things around. It’s even harder to get rid of them, because I take care of my things so well. So I’ve not had them die out on me easily.

I’ve got a pair of headphones from 20 years ago, and I’m still able to get good sound out of them. I’ve got a whole range that looks like earpieces from the 90’s and I just love the style and feel they give me.

Then about shoes, thankfully not as much as before. But the Tom Sachs shoe purchase from the other day really surprised me. I knew I started to move past shoes, so getting these shoes on such a quick notice is actually not what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years. I’ve been intentional to purchase only what I really feel as a gap of footwear in my use cases. Maybe it’s the range of dad shoes I was also looking at. And the GPS fits that style of dad shoes. I had the NB993’s in my wishlists for some time, but the GPS is definitely a win over those. Just by pure scarcity.

I walked by the New Balance store the other day and saw a bunch of New Balance shoes going for cheap, and it just didn’t have the same appeal as it did before.

With my story from yesterday about my earbuds too, today I took one of the sets out for a spin, it’s doing its job pretty well. I can hear things, and it sounds good. But the noise cancellation is what I really need if I want to work outside, or in a very noisy environment. So instead of cheapening out and getting a new set of cheap earbuds, I’m probably going to just replace the battery of my current ones because they’re tried and tested and they work very well.

Some part of me is quite astounded at how I’m learning to save money. Another part of me is disappointed that it took so long for me to get a better handle on my cash, But in all situations, at least I’m doing it now, especially with my daughter in mind.

Along with cleaning, and anti-accumulation, I’ve been trying to figure out how to use up the things I have. The good thing about hoarding since I was 15 years old, is I have things from when I was 15 years old. Not many of those things work well, or at all. I’ve taken good care of them, but sometimes, by not using them, they really break apart.

But, some of the things I have can be improved upon, so that they’re used more often. I have a range of earbuds in this shape called the MX500. According to a search by ChatGPT, it’s referencing the Sennheiser series of earbuds, produced en masse. In any case, I’ve got at least 5 of them, and probably something closer to 12-15. None of them were above 50SGD, but they’re different in different ways.

I had gotten into these simple earpieces during the COVID period, because I was bored at home, and getting into Chi-Fi was interesting. Everyone was throwing money at IEMs, but I changed on the VE monks, and they were so retro looking that I had to get myself a pair. They’re cheap, at about SGD7 when I got them. I went on a spree, and purchased the others with all sorts of bells and whistles.

Now, five years past, the foam tips have all dried out and started crumbing in different ways. I’ve passed on these MX500 shaped ear buds because I’ve not gotten good foams to listen to them with. Due to their simple shape and lack of isolation, having a good foam really boosts how they sound.

So to improve my listening experiences once more, and instead of purchasing a brand new earpiece unnecessarily, I’ve ordered new foams to get more mileage out to these earbuds.

It’s not a purchase, it’s an improvement. Or so I tell myself.

But really, some things don’t keep well after 2 decades. Foam tips are definitely one of them.

Cyber Monday has really been such a pain, because I keep loading up things into my cart, only to remove them later. There are things I’ve been looking and staring at for awhile. But when I look down and see the things I already have, it’s so irrelevant.

There’s no need for me to get yet another pair of earphones, because I’ve already got way too many for all the three heads in my house. I’ve got no need for more keyboard things, because I’ve already got so many keyboard things– I could probably sell something back to the sellers.

My concern isn’t the waste, as much as the deep strange desire to have more things. What’s the point of all that, and where’s my things going to go to after I’m dead? I’m quite sure all the things I have will last me until I die. Not because I’m not expecting to live very long, but because I’ve really just too many. I was looking at pen organizers for the amount of pens I have, and I am seriously looking at the storage types for stationary shops. I’ve got multiples of multiples, and I’m ready for the next lockdown and the next one after that too.

What I can never get back is the time I have wasted window shopping on my computer windows. In many ways, I’d rather be spending the time writing, using up my pens. I’d rather listen to more music on the different earpieces and IEMs. I’d rather use my keyboard and type more.

But I’m still distracted and still tempted to buy more things. I can’t understand myself.

Normally I might write something like this to chatgpt and ask it to dissect it for me. But I thought it’d be more fun to publish it here. Maybe I would find myself rereading my own posts later and relate to myself. Maybe it would help another person.

I’ve been thinking about cleaning up my room.

Yes I know, it’s a mind blowing idea, and yes, for all the friends who have known me long enough, I promise this is not because of Clarice making me doing it. It’s just something I’ve gotten to now and I’m done feeling like I’m stuck in my creative pursuits and how I want to live my life. Being a dad has made me come to certain identity points, and one of those is what kind of dad I wanna be.

I was looking at Tom Sachs (once again) and considering how he manages his studio while having a kid later in life. If that’s the type of artist I want to be, someone producing a lot of work often, then I’ve got to start working on how my space looks like too. I started to order a bunch of things to tidy up my study room. Organizing the decades worth of design and craft tools is really a task on itself.

YouTube had also been leading me towards this direction, with Scott Yu Jan and his desk organizing videos. I sat down to look at the amount of things I have and it’s a long process to plan. Sometimes these videos are short clips of life, and I faced it directly and I knew the hill of difficulty is really a big one to climb.

Anyway, I started by dumping a bunch of markers that have dried, and I’ll be doing more in the time to come. One drawer at a time.

Today, as I was spending time with my parents, I realised how long running parenting goes. As much as I am now a father myself, my mother and father still mother and father me in their ways. As my parents do this to me, their parents would still do this to them, even if they might not agree with it.

It made me think of our approaches in life. Especially in Asian culture, we make a lot of choices based on our parents influence. The work I do today is shaped by my mother directly; she served on the management team for a period of time. But where does my own choice start, and where does their parenting influence end?

This line will always be in question: what was in our own nature, and what was in our nurture? In creativity, our influences push and direct us in many ways. Modern art derives so much abstract influence from everything else, but if we think about those who had made a huge impact, they’ve always drawn from childhood and familial influences one way or another.

I don’t know the exact lines of influence drawn in my creative work, but I know the boundaries set in: no profanity, no nudity, etc,. Simple ones, but it’s made me have to think very creatively about how I want to draw attention, and how I want to make a clever statement.

I’ve also wanted to make a lot more statements about the world around me. Perhaps originating from the amount of books my parents encouraged me to read, along with the worldviews of society and Christianity.

But I do choose to create the work the way I have. Maybe that’s where my own influence starts.

I never knew the day would come, where I would be able to order this shoe directly from tomsachs.com, and to safely say I would have the money to pay for it. I think it is incredibly lucky for me to even be able to buy the shoe in my size.

In case you don’t know, the Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe (GPS) was made as a do-everything shoe. Prior to this, the artist Tom Sachs had made a shoe called the Mars Yard, meant to survive the Martian terrain in the NASA Space Programs. Of course, they were over engineered Nike shoes, and Tom Sachs made a few other versions of the Mars Yard.

Later, he made the GPS as a shoe one could wear around the studio without worry. It’s not meant for Mars, it’s meant for your daily tasks, going to work and running around for errands. It was decently priced, USD110, and sold a lot more commonly than the Mars Yard.

Of course, the shipping was insane the first time it came out, and I had no money to buy it — I was already in debt because of keyboards. Plus, by the time I saw the shoes on the site, they were sold out.

But this time round, things were different.

I was looking at the mugs I had from before, I had two Society6 mugs, because they were so dope looking at that time. Clarice had broke one of them, and the other one is still with me. Since then I’ve bought a good number of other mugs, and most interesting is how my taste in mugs and ceramics have changed.

One mug I’m extremely proud of owning is a Culver 10 Ounce mug. While I was reading Jack Reacher last year, I was really so captivated by the mugs of coffee at diners he would drink. In my head, an American diner always looked like this famous painting: Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/nighthawks-edward-hopper-american-1882-1967/6AEKkO_F-9wicw?hl=en-GB

To me, the mug they’d be holding while having their coffee would be the Culver 10 ounce. It’s white, ceramic, thick. Black coffee looks amazing inside it. I’d know, because I’ve got 4 of them.

Another mug I’ve really wanted to get but haven’t gotten an actual one is the Studio Arhoj Sip cup. I might pick one up by the end of this year if I get my hands on one. Alternatively I’ve gotten one from Bangkok, and it’s a fraction of the price. I think the real one would look totally different.

My current considerations for a mug is how much coffee it can hold, and how it would look on my dining table. An aesthetic, and a functional consideration. At this time, I also appreciate mugs with a ceramic character, meaning either very organic shaped, or a very retro shape. The modern vibes with puns and hip looking colors don’t cut it for me. It’s gotta feel like it came out of a painting itself, or from the 50’s. That’s kinda where I’m leaning on mugs right now.

I finished watching H/JACK on Apple TV. I decided to watch it because I had seen that a new season going to start soon. If it was going to get a second season, the first one was probably good enough. Initially I was expecting an Idris Elba version of Taken, but thankfully it was not.

Instead, it was an interesting show about negotiations, and the human condition. Each character showed how much skin in the game they had, and how much they were willing to bet the others would bail on them. It sounds short when I say it this way, but it was quite a wild ride to see whom would bail out first.

It made me think about the ways I would usually try to get my way around things. I know I can be demanding a lot of the time, and as I raise Allison, I am considering how much this plays into her life. It’s not bad, but is it good? There are many cases where people would fight tooth and nail to get the best for their child. Especially in Singapore, there would be as many underhand tactics and strings pulled to get children into places you would want them to be.

But at the same time, I might only be speaking for a minority of Singaporeans, and sadly this is the minority I’m a part of. I’m learning, and realising a wider range of Singaporeans who are just taking things as they go, and they’re not pushing. They’re upset people are pushing and squeezing to get past, but they’re not going to push. Is it bad that they’re not pushing for their way in line, in life?

I don’t know what the fine line of it would be. I know I was brought up to push, but I was also brought up to be courteous and polite. So what ends up happening 90% of the time, I shove past people, rushing forward, and apologizing “Excuse me” all the way through. Very Joel, Very Singaporean. But if you question my authenticity, I am indeed genuinely sorry about having to shove to get my way through. The hard part is, I don’t know if someone else is behind me, shoving me past too. Because in my 90% of the time, there actually is another person behind me, and not apologizing.

Thank goodness H/JACK is just a TV show, but a good one in making me think how much of my needs I place above others. I hope I learn and really come to a place of grace and patience. Truly a virtue I need to build on.

I think that’s what this is: it’s a blog but not as well. I write for myself for sure, but I do try to have bits and pieces of time sensitive events. There is time passing by, as much as this is a digital recording that will last as long as I pay the bills for.

I have many things I’d say to individual friends, but maybe these are thoughts and ideas I want to share with everyone else. There’s no better way than self publishing on a blog. Although I should turn on some search engine awareness things. In truth, all I really want is a space for my wife to find my mind in some way or another if I lose it. If I lose my sanity, or if I lose my life. If my thoughts and processes could live somewhere, and not be turned into AI of course. But just to be re-read and reconsidered.

I was watching a YouTube video about this young person proclaiming productivity by valuing time better.

I knew that already, but it’s not like my life has changed so drastically in terms of global success or recognition. I’ve watched a million other videos about productivity, and read a whole bunch of others about how to get even better and even sharper.

But the truth is I can’t keep up with it all the time. Having such a sustained focus for so long is really just not physically possible unless you really have a very longstanding discipline. Even then, there are holidays, there are breaks. Curveballs like falling sick kick in too. I have a friend just like that, and he’s an amazingly disciplined man. Successful in many ways, but mostly because he has an extremely low tolerance for bullshit. He can really smell a mile away if you’re leading him to do something he doesn’t want to do. At the same time, if he’s behind an idea, he’ll back it all the way til its natural death. Crazy good guy.

I’ve asked him how he keeps up with it, and he says he just feels weird if he doesn’t do it — his workout disciplines, his talking and processing. He’s got it down.

But I don’t feel weird if I doomscroll for half the day. I just feel like the day’s wasted and I get annoyed with myself, but I do feel totally normal going through it. I don’t get annoyed if I don’t exercise. I do feel weird not running for so long, but I’ve been in and out of falling sick after the Art Book Fair. So I’d rather recover well and then go back into a good running routine.

In any case, I value my time tremendously. But I just can’t do the thing where I’m running at 200% all the time. I also feel weird doing the 20% every day. I can only do 150% for a period of up to three months, then I’m out for a week or two or three. Then I’ll be back up to 3/7 kind of effectiveness? Three days of actual work and another 4 days of down time.

I don’t think I need to follow all the rules other people set, but I do see the need to reflect constantly on my own processes, and to sharpen them even more than ever. Especially as a dad.

Funny enough, yesterday I was in a mental state of fear/panic in the evening when Clarice texted in the family chat about Allison puking out all her dinner and crying uncontrollably. Thankfully, everything was sorted out, and today she was quite happy. Glad that she was able to be okay most of the way through, and the doctors cleared her of everything actually. Now we’re just waiting her flu to recover.

But State of Fear is a Michael Crichton book highlighting the environmental crisis (and there lack of) and discussions about the media and the state of fear the world is generally in. In today’s context, the ideas portrayed in this book are extremely helpful to start a discussion about fact checking, and understanding deeper instead of just talking points and headliners.

There are many assumptions we have about the state of world we’re in. When someone says there’s global warming, what do we really understand about it? Do we agree because it’s hot where we’re at? Or have we actually looked at the scientific data and published peer led reviews about it? Especially with AI, we hover at the superficial and clearer understanding is not properly developed. State of Fear gets its readers thinking about that, as the characters go through a range of scenarios and adventures, dealing with environmental extremists and other people at play.

In some sense, this is a narrative version of Coddling of the American Mind. In Coddling, the authors suggest that Safetyism has taken over, and there is no growth for young people. There are many points of research done showing that overprotection has not helped at all. The authors produced another book after this called The Anxious Generation, which I have yet to read. (I purchased it already though!)

In both books, having a discussion and encouraging dialogue is key. As humans, we have to realise assumptions don’t help, and preemptive assumptions and overly pessimistic takes on anything end up becoming hindrances for many encouraging opportunities of growth for both parties. In productivity and effectiveness, this is the quadrant of “What I don’t know that I don’t know” — a total blind spot we wouldn’t never have imagined, because we cannot be opposite ourselves. Instead, our rivals would be able to spot some of our unknown unknowns, as we might be able to build on theirs too.

I am keen to pick up some of the books Michael Crichton recommends for environmentalism and understanding, but he really gave so many references. I’ll probably spend some time working out the details of them in the months to come, for next year’s reading list.

First time going to a hospital for children’s A&E because Allison was throwing up at home. Short story: she was puking cause of her coughing. She’s been having a bug and it just hasn’t been going very well.

Anyway, long story tomorrow maybe. Just getting a quick post out tonight.

My cousin, CJ, flew back to Singapore for a week. He lives in the States, and its been quite a few years since he’s been back. When I was younger, he was a keen influence in my life, and I really looked up to him in so many ways. I was introduced to skateboarding, heavy metal, drawing and art, because of what he was into.

I would have spent more time together with them, but I’m still recovering from my cough and my aunt is in treatment for cancer. She’s quite vulnerable during this period, so I’m doing my best to avoid going over and getting her sick instead.

On the other family’s end, Clarice’s dad brought Clarice, Allison, and myself out for lunch yesterday, and it was a nice simple meal. We went to Dian Xiao Er, a restaurant specializing in duck. It was tasty duck indeed.

Initially I had considered bringing out an eReader, or my iPad for both days, but I considered that I wanted to spend time talking with family, instead of looking at my devices. Sometimes it’s so easy to want to keep to my disciplines, forgetting that family and people are what keep it the most honest and real. What’s the point of being the most productive person in the world, or having read 100 books a year, if I can’t even spend time with family when they’re around?

I’m glad I decided to keep it real.

Every now and then, I ask myself what’s the point of making things, after passing 35. It’s not that people after 35 shouldn’t make things, or should try to achieve something in life. It’s more like, I expected to do something “big” by the time I hit 35, and I’m not really at that point where I think I’ve done something “big” enough.

I use “big” because I’m not sure if I’ve really come to a good definition of what success looks like for myself now. Success as having a loving family, and having good purpose in work, are two huge portions where I am absolutely blessed to have. I don’t take these for granted. Instead, I’m considering something like fame perhaps. Is that “big” enough for me? I am not sure.

In any case, the expectation was to hit that level of fame or societal acknowledgement before 35, or thereabouts, and I ask myself now: am I done? Am I washed out, and old? There would be so many who would disagree with me on this, but the internal voice in my head asks me these things a lot. There are many messages like this I keep placing on myself, and these are also questions that drive me to still make things.

So the purpose question comes in: do I still make something, even though I am past my prime, in my own eyes?

The answer is yes, and my motivations cannot be driven by societal standards of success.

I am learning how to appreciate the craft and the simple actions of creative work, without expecting or hoping for everyone to understand or accept or approve it. I am learning how to make something for me, and to do with no fears of how it might look to others. This might be common sense for many, but it is a new and deeply personal acceptance and motivation for myself.

What I would normally have done would be to make something easily acceptable by the general masses. Some part of my design thinking brain has come to understand what trends might look like, and I think in that general direction. It’s hard for me to make something not in trend, because I normally don’t see the point of making something un-communicative. Design thinking says, make a solution, and communication design says, the design must enhance communication in some way. Therefore, as a designer before an artist, I think deeply about how something would be communicated before I actually make it.

But if my artwork has no trends based on it, would I still make it? If my art is not understood or doesn’t look the way that everyone else’s work looks like, is it still art I stand by? It takes a lot of courage to do it, and to pursue it.

The next question would be “what is the progression of the art style?” I say this because I’ve seen different styles of art, and some stay within amateur range. There are a few which become a style of its own, but not many end up with that finesse. I would hope to have that space of mind to create, and to develop with all of the freedom, and by the pure work of time, it would develop into a style. Just time, discipline, and to do the work for a personal sense of development and creativity.

Also, Franz Kafka had no fame or little acknowledgement of his writing ability while he was alive. It was only much later that we have his work affect the rest of humanity. It motivates me to just write what I can for myself and for my family. A little bit at least.

I just started reading this book, and it’s because Hailey Pham recommended it so well, quite a while back. But it wasn’t in Kinokuniya in Singapore, and I’ve been wanting to purchase books locally so that the local stores could survive. In any case, I ordered it, and it just arrived two days back.

The story starts off interesting, about a woman turning up on a beach. There’s a family staying on this island where a light house is at, and they can interact with the ethereal in some way? I’ve literally just started the first few chapters and it’s a mix mash of different story points. Something quite close to the other book I just finished not too long ago.

Family turns up quite often in a bunch of books, and I always wonder why that’s the case in modern literature. There’s something about the family unit, and everyone has different takes on it. More than that, there’s an effect of the different parents, and we’re led to different ideas and ideaologies about it.

Which makes me think about about my own parenting right now. My daughter is all of 8 months, and she’s wildly alive for a tiny kid. She babbles a bunch, and is trying to communicate with me. I, in turn, attempt to communicate with her. We just had a discussion about how she needs to put on her clothes, and after I put on her jammies, she smiled and I carried her up to say good night to different characters around her room.

What will life be like when she’s 15? As a teenager I had so many fights with my mum and dad. What are the discussion points, and how do I approach different issues then?

I don’t think Wild Dark Shore matches my direct case, but I’m interested to find out how the Dad character parents his children while on a deserted island.

I’m also reading:

• Michael Crichton’s State of Fear
• Sally Rooney’s Conversation with Friends
• Jane Adam’s Rina Martin series

I really need to get back on track for my reading goals, and if I can hit 90 by the year end, I think that’s a good enough place to be at. I was aiming for 100…

Since I changed the format of my site, to a blog as the main landing page, I guess I should be writing about the things I make, and why I make them a bit more often. Gone are my long rambling and seemingly inconsistent posts!

To begin with, why even make a blog in the TikTok era of the web? My interests in self publishing has been long drawn from the first time I used a blog to write things about girls in my teenage years (worst decisions ever, I was cancelled before getting cancelled was a thing), which pivoted to very personal blog sharings that later became email threads— there were things I really wanted to share with the world, and web based publishing was the way ahead then.

Later as an older teen studying graphic design, I found the wonderful world of zines. These extremely stylish pieces of print were the beginnings of an era I still don’t really understand. The fact that you could print something, not put it online, and yet, people might want to read it? That sounded crazy to me then, and extremely exciting.

Now, I’m in my mid thirties and making zines as part of my job. I see it as a means to showcase creativity in extremely non-traditional ways. After all, if someone was able to do something the traditional way, then why would they have approached zine making in the first place?

It’s a space where anything can exist, just because. If you dare to make it, you can, and someone will read it. Zines and zine culture is so obscure and individual, and some part of it hates to be cool. I know how that feels like with skateboarding in my history too. “I wanna stand out but I really don’t like other people standing out with me.” type of vibes.

I make zines now because I am also thinking about writing and publishing. I like writing, this blog as proof, my Medium account as proof, my lame Substack as proof. I do. I love reading too, my Goodreads account over there. Zines are a first step for me to dare and try with my writing creativity. It’s not always perfect, but having something is a better start than an unpublished idea.

I will keep on making zines, but I hope one day, I’ll get a book actually going. Maybe sooner than I think… maybe!

I made this zine called “How to Talk in 2025”, and I actually wrote it in 2024. The thing is, everything about how we talk now is really strange and no one really talks properly face to face anymore. There’s so much curation and there’s so many things we pretend about when we talk. And the worst part is that if I talk directly to someone now, it might be considered rude or intrusive.

But while talking to Leanne today about the Morning Pages I’ve been getting her to do, there are really a lot of things about writing everyday that really liberates you for just simple expressing. Especially writing in the morning. There’s this huge unplugging, like taking a good shit in the morning and you’re free for the day. Lighter somewhat. Perhaps that’s what leads me to speak a lot more, because I honestly write a ton, but I guess I could always write some more.

I also pulled out my fountain pens again the other day, all excited once more to start the year and run on my new diaries and hobonichi nonsense. I’ve got the five year diary hobonichi running from the start of this year, I’ve got a hobonichi original A6, and another hobonichi weeks mega. Basically I’m gonna have a ton of journals on me, with my iPad drawing all the time.

And I hope through all this, I’ll get more words out of my system in a day. I hope…

I feel so old, because I’ve just spent the past hour trying to fix my website. There was a time where I knew exactly where everything was at all times, and I knew how to make things work, but now life has moved in so many ways. I have no idea where to adjust half of anything anymore. It’s Mad.

Clarice and I spent the day at home with baby today, quite the opposite of yesterday where we spent the whole day out. It was an entire day in. Clarice took baby out for the morning, while I slept in. Another part about feeling older is figuring out that I can’t run as long and hard as I wanted to one go.

Also each day is just a continually pile up from the previous day’s tiredness. It’s really quite amazing how much parents have to do to stay alive as parents. I can imagine why everyone snaps, it’s just such a long continual build up one or another.

Clarice and I decided to bring Allison out today, as part of Clarice’s birthday celebrations. We went to the National Gallery, and didn’t expect to see them celebrating their 10th anniversary. We had such a topsy turvy day going about, checking out the artwork and also trying to be good enough parents.

A lot of the time, it feels like parenting is this strange journey when you can’t do something wrong but you gotta be on your best all the time. And then you’re sleep deprived and always on a knife’s edge.

But when you kinda get the hang of it, it’s easier being yourself. You figure out you can be nitpicking at some parts and not at others. You get a bit more comfortable saying yes and no to whatever you want and don’t want to do.

On a day like today, it was good. The only bad parts are the other people we have to deal with while we’re there. That’s always the worst part; other people. There’s some nice people, but so many rude ones too. It’s a mixed bag.

Today I actually spent my morning writing in my journal, which I haven’t had time to do for quite a while. But that means my brain feels like I’ve done enough writing output, so I’m honestly a little lazy to type.

But I got hungry in bed, and I decided to get out and make some noodles. So I might as well do some writing in the meantime. Now I’ve got noodles AND a post.

I’ve been watching Ted Lasso, and I’ve been quite peeved at the Nate character. I’m sure that’s exactly why he was written in, but I really know people who’ve over assumed their worth, forgetting what life was like before they were given a chance. It really grinds my gears to see things like that happening. For someone to forget what life was like before they had seen hope, I guess ungratefulness is really hard to swallow.

But the way Ted handles it, always to be loving and kind. What a Jesus action to do. I don’t know how to do that sometimes. And I wonder if I’m Nate instead. Life’s really full of reflection points like these.

In one of those ever long debates about what is more important for an artist: their eyes or their hands, I’ve always stood by eyes are more important. After all, what’s the point of the artwork I can make if I can’t see it? But that means my eyes are something really key and important to me.

So, whenever something happens to my eyes, I take them quite seriously.

Today I went for my eye check up, that’s been a rolling visit since earlier this year when I was seeing flashes in my eyes. Based on all the documentation, it looked like I was having a cornea tearing. But after all the initial searches, it looked like nothing was really up.

I was actually going to cancel my booking for today, but earlier in the week, on a Monday, my left eye started acting up really strange. For one, it started to have a gritty like pus coming out when I rubbed my eyes in the morning. My eyesight then got blurry, but there was no itching or anything else. I was actually kinda worried. I thought I was going blind, or I had early onset cataracts or something.

But thankfully because the hospital’s app was bonkers, I couldn’t cancel my appointment, and I went to check it out anyway.

Turns out I’ve got some level of conjunctivitis, which means my oil glands in my eyelid are blocked for some reason. The doctor recommended a hot compress to release the blocked pores, but also got my eyelid wipes and a whole bunch of eye drops. I basically have enough to stock for a few trips out of the country.

Which is technically great because my eyes are important to me.

I’ve always wondered what would be one of my EDC – everyday carry. And now I know, it’s my eyedrops and my eye wipes. These things are nuts, and my eyes feel like they’re so pampered for right now. Totally enjoying it.

I always talk about how time has passed, but I think I see it a lot clearer now that I have Allison growing alongside. She’s growing bigger and smarter everyday, and I am continually growing as an adult, as a parent.

In that aspect, a key moment of change has been my identity. Now as a parent, I ought to be doing and behaving a certain way. Specifically, I have to make actions with the responsibility of my child in mind. I can’t just stay late at work because someone says so, I have to play the role of the father, and make clear indication where and where I want to be present at. And it will cost me in one way or another. I would like it to cost less at home, and I’ll be happy to pay with my career for it. After all, money can be earned, but I can’t undo family hurts after it’s been caused.

At the coming Singapore Art Book Fair, I’ll be having some zines that I worked hard on, and some that have been sitting on my mind for some time. I’ll do my best to write about them, but sometimes, I love how transient my work is. It’s like if you know about it then you do. And if you don’t know, you’ll never see it again.

But realistically, I really ought to develop my portfolio properly. There’s just so many random things, I have no idea what I really want to feature.

Should definitely start with this year’s art book fair items…

We literally just got out of COVID.

I was COVID positive on last Friday morning 25th July, after waking up feeling super fluey. I was thinking of just not going anywhere that day, and over text, my mother suggested taking a COVID test. I did, and found out I was positive.

I went to the doctors, and got myself some meds and a medical certificate, giving me a “break”. But I got back home, and was put into isolation in the apartment’s master bedroom.

Allison was sent off to the grandparents, and Clarice was in charge of taking care of me for that day. Later Allison came back and Clarice took the night shifts for her then onwards. She also had to manage my meals, but I was literally asleep most of the time, just trying to be alive.

By Sunday night, I was still fluey, but feeling slightly better. On Monday morning, I took another test to see where I was at, and I was still positive. But Clarice took a test, and she was positive too. But because my line was a lot lighter than hers, she went into isolation, and I got out. Instead, I had to bring Allison down, and she stayed with my parents for a night, while both Clarice and I tried to stay alive. I had not ordered Grab that many times in a day before.

By Tuesday morning, I was negative, and immediately I started to wash everything down, to prepare for Allison coming back. She came back, and my parents took a break for a day. So I managed Allison, Clarice and myself. Another day of Grab, but I actually walked out to get some groceries with Allison. I thought getting some sunlight would be a good thing, and proved to be true.

Wednesday came and my parents came to assist, but it was me taking care of Clarice for another day.

Thursday came, and Clarice’s line was the faint one now. My parents took Allison again for the day, but by night fall, Clarice was clear. We still slept separately, but at least this time, Clarice took the night shift with me.

And now, Friday Morning, 1st August, Clarice was negative too. So we tidied everything up, took care of baby by ourselves, and cleaned the house.

While I was busy trying to survive, there were so many creative ideas flying in my face. I had zine ideas, thoughts, dreams, everything. As soon as Clarice was okay, and we washed everything out, I was just sitting at the table doing nothing, or just doomscrolling again. It’s crazy how having an extremely stressful and tense time gave me so much creative energy, and when I was free again, I lost it.

It’s something I won’t really understand about my human nature, but it’s there, and it’s weird.

I’ll do my best to catch those dreams again, and to make them in the time when I’m actually free.

I’ve been working on a range of things, but one thing I’ve been really thinking hard about is my CV. There’s the official kinda stuff that I would put in for my regular job applications. But at the same time, I realised that I’ve done a lot more than what my job would ever entail me to do. More than that, it’s because of my job, that I would do things like enter into the art book fair, or to explore arts in detail.

I also think that the type of interactions I get are so unique, and if I were to really put down all the skillsets I’ve actually picked up over the ten over years of work, there’s a lot more than I can imagine.

At the same time, I can’t believe how limited I’ve been thinking about myself. I’ve been feeling the need to do more, and to learn and push harder. But what’s the hurry, especially when I’ve been already doing it for so long? I’ve already understood a lot more than others at my age, and it’s because of the sheer quantity of interactions I’ve forced myself to go through. I hope it didn’t come off as a proud statement, but as an objective comparison of the amount of people I’ve had to interact with one on one, as part of the job, that number alone would make an introvert feel extremely overwhelmed. (I just learnt this today because of my introvert intern. He very kindly explained how it was way too much for the amount of people I introduced to him on a normal day – 5 completely new strangers to him)(Other days he might get another 4-5, and after four weeks of working with me, he’s really getting stressed about his social battery)(and he’s just come from school where he’s had the physical interactions for the past three years)

Anyway, I think I’ve been overthinking, about how much more I need to do. I would like to spend a bit more time to reflect, and to sharpen what I do by a lot. So that it can really be a razor thin skill set that I do with finesse.

That skill being interacting and developing creative youth, or youth in general. It’s really a weird niche skill that I have a huge handle on. I can’t explain it, but hopefully after the next few years, I will.

(I’m thinking of making this into a zine, or a small text of sorts)

Is it okay if I don’t post on my instagram? Is it okay if you can’t find me on my linked in? is it alright that my last seen was a bit too long ago, or you just can’t really get a hold of what I am online?

Is it okay if you don’t really know who I am, unless I talk to you in person, and we have a real conversation? Is it okay that my personal life remains personal, and that there isn’t a really good profile photo of me, because I just don’t really find the point of taking one?

Is it okay that we don’t talk about the economy, and how things are down and don’t seem to be getting better? Is it okay if we dream, and imagine, and just have fun without worrying about how much it costs? Is it okay just to be chill for a day?

Is it okay to be chill for more than a day? Maybe a year, maybe forever?

Is it okay that I don’t really care about what everyone else thinks, maybe not even you? Is it okay that I don’t care that you don’t care, but I also don’t really care about you caring?

Is it okay that you can have all your problems, but I don’t think anyone can solve them? Is it okay that you don’t tell me your problems, because I don’t tell you mine? Is it okay for my problems to be bigger than yours, and it’s just like that?

Is it okay for the world to move on without us in it? Is it okay for me to die without making an impact on the world? Is it okay that I never got to live in Japan like a digital nomad in the world’s most functional efficient apartment? Is it okay that I kept my life here most of the time?

Is it okay that I love my parents, and my grandparents, and that I have a heathly family dynamic? Is it okay for me to feel shock and horror at some of the bad things in the world?

Is it okay that i don’t want to donate to another cause that has no actual cause, but it’s really just effects? Is it okay for me to just sit back and not be involved because of the questions above?

Is it okay that we continue in this world, in the way it works, because it just works? Or is it okay that I try make a change to it? Is it okay if you try to make a change?

Is it okay if I stop asking if it’s okay, and I just do?

Because I have already and I will.

Every day looks different. Not because there’s an obvious change. But it just looks different. It sees with new light. The light that found the earth today is different from yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that too. The day decided to rub its eyes a little harder than it needed to, and for some reason, more light came in. Perhaps it would remove some of the pains from yesterday, some of the residual regret of not having done something. Maybe it slept on the wrong side of the bed, and its neck was just cricked in the wrong direction. Just made everything a pain in the neck for 24 hours. Until the next day came along.

And saw the world different again.

I thought I managed to schedule all my posts before I flew, but apparently not! I missed yesterday, but I’m back in Singapore now. Funny enough, the temperature of Vietnam was hotter, but it felt a bit different. Maybe it was the holiday vibes, and the fun of not doing anything.

I had many great ideas and thoughts on my break, as I always do on all my breaks. One of the key things I ought to start is definitely doing some more voice overs in my videos, amongst a range of other things. It’s a lot I’ve got to work on, but I think it’s something everyone appreciates a lot more. I’m not very shy about my voice overs, I speak quite a bit. But I think it’s the part on having to speak and time it as I do my video cuts. I think that’s a bit of the tough part.

Keyboard videos aside, I had a great time sketching and drawing. I think every time I drew something, it showed different parts of my own sketching and drawing styles. It was quite enjoyable, every page being almost completely different, but still me.

Anyway, more updates tomorrow. The flight got delayed and I’m writing this just before the day ends and fall asleep real soon.

I think – I really am in the middle of thinking – that I am waiting for the perfect time. This time of ideal work and realization that actually never exists. But everyone who has waited for the “perfect time” to do something totally knows what I mean.

I’m waiting for the right time to start work. To start the work there needs to be many things in place. It could be the environment, it could be my mindset. It could be the keyboard I use (and then I would waste another 2-3 hours trying to sort that one out).

But there’s no perfect time. It’s just now.

No one is stopping me, other than myself and the work.

So let’s just get the work done.

I thought to start the work with a motivational blog post to myself.

It’s been awhile blog. So long that I had to go to my site to check when was the last post I made. I apologise for my absence, here’s some updates of what’s been happening:

1. I’ve been trying to post more on Medium, with the chance that I could monetize something there. I mean if I’m gonna write something somewhat helpful for the world, then maybe write it in a place where someone will see, and then I might get a few cents as well? Sounds like a plan to me. Anyway, I found out it’s still tiring to do, and I still need a bit more time to carve out every day if I really want to write. Just as tiring, maybe even more, because on this blog I just wrote whatever came to mind.

2. Still bouldering a ton. I find it really fun to exercise, even if it tires me out. Like running. I really enjoyed running when I did it all the time. Maybe I should go and run again, but just that the routes here are not great. The view is nice, but the running itself is really annoying.

3. Planning for renovations in my new place. It’s not like a lot has been done yet, but I’m looking forward to it, and it’s something I might show here some day.

4. Thinking about the direction of this site as a whole. I know that sometimes people come here to look for my artwork and stuff. Or to look for mechanical keyboard opinions. Maybe I need to organize that, and to keep this blog separate. But these thoughts plague me, along with the thoughts on how to do my instagram as a whole. It’s so annoying how one person can only have that one angle to social media, if not it gets confusing.

There’s probably a few other things that I forgot about, but I think that’s more or less that I’m mainly thinking about in the past month. I’m also learning how to just be myself sometimes. It’s so challenging when there are a lot of emotions based on how people respond to me. I don’t know what I prefer, but I know that I’m not happy with their responses. Is that okay? Probably, but it’s just annoying to go through.

Catch you guys soon.

I don’t think I approached turning this age easily. I don’t think anyone approaches age as something simple these days, but instead, we approach it as if we have ought to have cleared certain milestones, or some levels of some sort by this time.

By this time, my dad who was 33, already had me and my sister, and I can’t imagine how he felt then. I don’t think he was a lot more certain of life that I was, but they had me already by then. More than that, my parents were trying their best then to just have fun in life, not that they were specifically planning for kids. My mum always tells me that they were initially saving for the first Macintosh, but instead, I came along and they had to work out what to do. A lot more expensive than a Mac for sure.

I don’t think times have changed that much. Amongst my friends, my parents are one of the younger ones. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have expectations of myself for I had hoped to be at by now. That being said, the expectations and ideals that one has when they’re in their twenties, compared to actually living out their lives in their thirties is something completely different. It’s always different when it’s your own life.

I am glad that I’m about to own my own house, for real this time. Not just another down payment, but an actual time to receive the keys and call the place my own. It’s something that I’m proud to have of my own. Renting so far has been a learning lesson for sure, but I can’t imagine starting a family here, where I am currently renting.

I might have wanted to be better at some of the hobbies I have, but instead, one of the skills I’ve learnt to excel at is people. And I can talk to people forever and ever. I can go on forever. I love to watch and learn about people the most, including myself. Perhaps if my hobbies gravitated around human interaction more, that would have changed things. But instead, I’m good at talking, but still really shit at skateboarding.

I wish I had documented more of my life. I think that would have led to a lot more interesting discussions and findings for myself. Maybe it would also be a lot of interesting content for the years ahead. Who knows, but at least I’ll start documenting whatever I can here and now.

To more years of doing things.

This week was a real trip, because Clarice was really into the whole sleeping thing. She had just read “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker, and there was a lot of science explaining our sleep patterns and our lifestyles surrounding it. So she spent most of the nights with little lights, and started to limit her screen time.

The result has been us sleeping at about 11PM, and she wakes up at about 7AM the next day. It’s been interesting, and I’m in a weird place of not being able to sleep so early, and also wanting to do other things before I sleep. But overall, timing of my own sleep has improved tremendously, and I’m scoring all kinds of positive numbers for my Oura ring tracking.

A sad side note that for this week in particular: the Travis Scott Astroworld Tragedies. It’s really hard to take in how someone would let things slide so badly in a live performance. I mean, I used to think that Travis Scott was famous for being with the fans, and being like a real stand up guy. I remember he was famous for like joining in on Fortnite, and giving away chains and stuff to fans who knew his lyrics.

But this whole tragedy, and the people surrounding him coming out that he’s got real issues in his own private side of things. That’s really hard news to take in.

A number of people decided to stop listening to him, or to throw his songs out of their playlists. This is one of the hardest parts about cancel culture that I don’t know how to address. Should we remove the artist from the art? I think it’s definitely intertwined, and it’s that person who is behaves in an unsavory way that produces the music or art that we might enjoy. It’s more revealing of us, and it’s a part of us that we don’t agree with. But at the same time, it’s a part of us that we try to figure out, and maybe we struggle with it.

I think of the way that one laughs at comedians who tell dirty jokes. Yes, the dirty jokes are completely different from someone who lets others die while he sings a song. But at the same time, a dirty joke is something we might have wished we could have the ability to say. Maybe we wish we could have made fun of something, but we would also think it would be inappropriate to do so. And that is where the comedian, or critic does it for us instead.

And Travis Scott is that villain inside us sometimes. He raps and shouts things that we wish we could join in and shout about too. But the truth of it is that we could not have produced that same art without that same darkness that he has inside.

I’m by no means defending him, but I would like to separate the art from the artist. Meaning I understand the art of his music. But I do not agree with his actions in any way. The same can be said for xxxTentacion, and Morrissey, and other musicians who have lived very questionable and outrightly inappropriate lives.

Maybe one day, we could have a situation where the artist and the art produced could be totally immaculate. But I have a feeling the art produced would be somewhat boring. It is that darkness, that part of us that is unwanted. That part is what makes art appealing at times.

Maybe one day, there could be art produced that doesn’t center around that, and instead, it could be a glorious expression.

Maybe one day.

I’ve been typing on my Topre board for the past few weeks, and every day its been on the HHKB or on the RealForce. The past few days, I’ve been staying at my parents place as well, so it was really just 100% on the HHKB.

But today, coming back, I am truly happy to be typing on one of my older keyboards that I haven’t touched in some time. It really feels so good, and my fingers are smiling back at my right now, as I’m typing away.

The video of this particular keyboard is going live tomorrow morning, so you can watch it then.

youtube.com/trisected if you haven’t already subscribed and followed.