trisected

Tag: daily writing

  • Now Reading: The Forest of Lost Souls by Dean Koontz

    In thinking about what to write, I thought about the book I’m currently reading, and maybe to give a deeper POV instead of my normal short and superficial reviews.

    I’m currently half way through this book, and it’s getting better as the story comes along. A key point of the book is about fortune telling, and the identity formed when someone says something over you. This is not the main story line, but a key plot device. The characters have interacted in some ways with a fortune teller who used to live in their town. And the fortunes told had impacted the young children who later became adults.

    I’m not one for fortune telling, but I do think that what we learn when we are young does set an identity that we take one. Sometimes this push us to do good and better in life. Other times, we’re not really encouraged, and instead we have a bad label placed on us. It’s harder to work through because we are young, and easily influenced.

    It means how I decide to take care of my own kid also matters greatly. How do I reinforce good in her life, for her to choose good next time, and to do good to others too? Maybe just giving her a good label will shape her identity in more ways than I’d imagine.

    At the same time, I have to be very careful about the bad labels. Things said in anger or frustration might be incredibly damning and painful, causing a lot more hurt and pain than help. These are careful boundaries to be aware of and to avoid.

    Another 100 more pages on the book, but that probably means I’ll be done with it by tomorrow. So many books late on the reading schedule.

  • Short Review of Adolescence

    I watched Netflix’s Adolescence over the weekend, because an older colleague suggested me to watch it. I concluded my view of young people is technically in line with what the show had portrayed. But I also saw other aspects I previously did not consider much about — like family life and the wider scope of stress in the family.

    The older colleague had related that his son had told him to watch the show, and he came to some new insights about how young people think and behave these days.

    In the years of social media work, I’ve actually been introduced to some of how the social media rigging has been. I’ve not watched the Social Dilemma, and maybe that’s the next show I should watch. But I’ve used King Kylie’s account for posts before, to see how it works. “Like for Like”, “Grid” are terms that I get. And I would expect nothing less from teenagers to each other. The amount of under coding that happens between young people is already immense, and now to fly under the radar entirely in front of adults is telling about how youth culture will always be. There are unspoken rules that will be created, maintained, and enforced by the majority.

    But where the social majority plays into the hands of the group leaders, everyone can run away to their homes, their families. In Adolescence, the saddest story I really felt about was the police officer’s son. He was being bullied because of his dad’s job, and he had no way of properly communicating with his dad. He was learning how to, and his dad struggled to listen. It took effort. The main suspect as well had issues with his family, and at the end of the show, the family unit feels the pains and hurts of the son. They hurt together.

    It makes me think about my family: the one that I am the father of, and the one where I am the son of. How do I play my role in either, and how do I play it well? I don’t commit murder or crime, but my work takes up time, and I have time allocated for work and ministry. I might not be listening as much, or I might not be communicating much either. It’s a moment for me to stop and reflect— am I being the father or son the people around me would like me to be? I might be finding my own identity but I could definitely do it with less pain.

    I actually just started reading this book called “The World Needs a Father”, and this show is good motivation for me to finish it up. Especially when my 100 book challenge is still underway. It’s really not that easy to read so much. Thankfully parenting isn’t about being able to read 100 books in a year. Instead, it’s really a lot about listening to the young person in my house. It’s also a lot of communicating with my parents above me, to explain the changing world.

  • The Allure of Daily Posting

    Every now and then I get this big hope to post daily again somehow. I think Seth Godin’s blog brings me to it. Another part of me just wants to do something often with my new piece of tech. But right now, I just want to write and to post it somewhere, anywhere.

    The first time I posted daily for a period of time was when I had my first iPad in 2019. This wasn’t my first first iPad, but it’s the one I bought for myself, with my own money. It was the year I was going to leave SYFC and go into bible school, and I wanted to have something portable, and I wanted to draw on the different Reach editions coming through my hands.

    The daily writing only started in Bible School, or maybe it was even during the COVID period specifically. I remember being super inspired creatively to just write everyday, and I did it for a period of time.

    The second time I posted daily was after being super inspired by Seth Godin. I thought it was so cool to have a daily blog that was a small little hint of some wisdom or another, and to have that as a part of the internet somewhere. So I had short posts for a period of time.

    I think this is my third time, but I want to post now because I think I like the discipline of writing daily. I say that, but in my physical hands I have a 5 year hobonichi, and I have a weeks mega, and next year I’ll be starting the actual hobonichi A6 size. In non-geek speak, it means I have 3 daily diaries to maintain.

    So why the digital one to attempt once more? My thoughts are different when I post them here, and I want to have a portion of my brain that is willing to just express something for online use and understanding. I also miss being courageous enough to just post something again. I lost it for a bit while making posts for Medium, thinking about monetisation and all that. My physical diaries are totally for personal use, and I don’t think I can actually read most of what I write. It’s just for that brain dump, the physical release of writing by hand.

    I hope to come back tomorrow with something to share at least. Just one idea or thought. Whether it’s worth it, it’s up to whoever’s reading it. I hope it’s worth something.

  • The End of a Week

    It’s been a few days of writing these posts as a day by day, blow by blow type of blog. I’m used to being a lot more reflective on my own self. It’s the most I’ve ever openly shared about my week because of this event based blog.

    It’s a little crazy to see how fast and how packed my week at times. I don’t think my time slips by in any way, and it’s a clear sign for me to take real good time to chill every now and then. Learning points for myself for sure.

    Today, Clarice and I attempted to wake up for the F1 races, but it was not very successful. I managed to stay awake long enough for the Sprint Race, but I definitely missed qualifying. Clarice woke up at the end to tell me that we were both asleep, but at least we could see the confirmation screen of which were the first, second, and third place drivers.

    I might attempt to watch the race itself, but it starts at 3AM, and it’s supposed to end by 5. Technically, I would be able to watch it, but it’s definitely going to take some part of my brain away for the day of work. I’ll decide later I guess.

    Had a catch up mentoring lunch with two friends I meet monthly. We’ve been meeting for the past two years at least. It’s been a good journey, and I look forward to talking with them. A social space existing out of my normal circle of friendships, and I would like to think we learn from each other quite a bit.

    I also caught up on my Game of Thrones reading. It’s a lot of book to carry around, and because of the week of moving about, I haven’t had energy to carry the book all over. Today I caught up at least 40-50 pages worth of reading. It’s really such a trashy story, but really good at the same time. What a fun read.

    Let’s see how the rest of this week goes along.

  • Celebration Break!

    I was not updating for the past few days because I was happy celebrating my birthday! This breaks my streak, but guess what, who’s really checking? I’m super happy about how I have learnt how to manage my own expectations about myself, including how to tell myself to chill out if I don’t do something I’ve set out to do.

    I mean I have already been able to run the marathon distance. I’ve already read more than 52 books this year. I have been writing consistently for a good amount of time, and now I’m also getting my work properly put together for the coming Singapore Art Book Fair. So it’s all coming along nicely. Just because I missed three days of writing here doesn’t mean the world is going to end. I am okay with that.

    The past few days has been a fun time. I went camping with Clarice and Mark, and my parents crashed for lunch on both days. Wallace came along too. It rained out in the middle of the night, so that was pretty darn fun. It was so pleasantly cooling, but just before the rain, I was sweating buckets through and through.

    When we got home, I spent most of the day playing games actually. Just having a ton of fun. What else would you want to do on your birthday?

    Also, this is the last birthday without a baby. Who knows how the next few years of birthday will be, but I just know it will not be the same. Not that we can’t do the same things we did this year, but it just would be a change for myself to go through. One year at a time ey?

  • A Month In, and Bad Sleep

    It’s been a month of daily writing! Or at least a month of intentionally planning for it. It’s not been easy, I recall 2 nights of rushing at 1155PM to push a post out. It’s not difficult rushing because I’m trying to hard to write something out. It’s harder when I have the whole day to write, and I am torn between the million topics I can think of.

    I remember enjoying writing daily, and I think I do look forward to it, but truthfully, it’s not easy.

    Last night, I had really bad sleep. I slept late, and woke up early today, because Clarice’s alarm went off. Bad sleep triggers me worse than anything else in the world. Internally, I need a way to manage my emotions and thoughts especially when bad sleep is definitely on its way with the child coming and all that.

    Growing older, sleep has been something I look out for, and trying to keep my lifestyle around it better. I have my array of tasks to do before sleeping, and I need to schedule and plan my time better. The rant about doomscrolling the other day was in view of this, with a total frustration at being annoyed about how time slips away whenever I just stop focusing properly, and allow distractions to just pull me away.

    In any case, we’re in the month of my birthday! Truly, the month of me losing my youth, including the lack of ability to function at 110% with little sleep. Rough stuff, but let’s make the best of it.

  • Moving writing

    Writing this post on the move because it’s late and I think by the time I get back I would be too tired to write in time.

    I used to write on the train to work. It was a nice way to get some creative words out of me in the morning. I’d write about transit in Singapore, and my feelings about it.

    I probably wouldn’t be able to write about things the same way again. I feel like my writing needs to have a point of learning or something. Like this post is about how I learnt that I wanted a bit more meaning in my posts.

    On my way to work today, I heard the sound of beeping, and I honestly thought it was a bomb about to go off. No one else in the whole train even flinched. I kept glancing all over and no one even cared. It was wild.

    Nothing in Singapore really excites Singaporeans. Maybe a sale, a long queue, food, or financial injustice.

    But a bomb? Nah, it must be an alarm of some sort.

    I don’t think that’s right, especially after National Day. Our independence was hard earned, and I sincerely agree with that nationalistic sentiment.

    So when the beeping was going off, I angled myself, prime to move to be Clarice’s cover on either side. I gotta protect the people I love and especially if Clarice is next to me.

    Gotta be ready to move.

  • Stories From Phone

    It’s really something to keep writing these stories from my phone, maybe in my head I couldn’t ever imagine how people like Virgil Abloh from Off-White (R.I.P.) managed his company and direction from his phone like half of the time. I always felt it was because he had a huge phone with the latest things inside but maybe it was purely the limitation of time and convenience, he had no other choice but to make the world work at his finger tips.

    That’s kinda driving me to keep on at it, and also because my finger isn’t completely healed yet.

    When someone really wants to make something happen in one way or another, it works out somehow. It’s not manifesting as much as it’s making it happen. I appreciate the way I get to think through many ideas but really I wish I had all the apps to make my ideas become as real as possible on the fly. I do think AI helps as that assistant, but honestly, I wish I had an assistant so much of the time.

    Maybe everyone on their phone texting is actually busy working, writing to their assistants. And I’m just busy on my phone when the day is over writing these posts out.

    (Also just to be clear, I’m writing on swipe gestures on the keyboard because I use one hand instead of two.)

    Another story from the phone is the amount of people on the phone these days. It’s great to find out everyone is introverted, but I wish they were a bit less ignorant. It makes me highly conscious of how and when I use my phone in public. I keep myself at an angle to allow the best face to phone breathing space, and also I try never to use the phone when moving because I’d hate to get in the way of other people moving. Some people just really don’t care though.

    I’ve actually also tried dictation into these posts. But it lack the thought speed I slow down to when I write. Speaking gets me going too quick and I end up not understanding myself.

    Oh well. I’ll be happy to get my finger use back soon. It’s still very tender.

  • Another one

    Happy National Day Singapore, it’s another year passed, another year of figuring out why we continue with the life in the way we have chosen to.

    I remember two or three years ago, I watched the parade, and realised it was my batch mate who was now the parade commander. Meaning he was the dude shouting the commands for the whole National Day Parade contingent to move.

    It feels cool, but at the same time, it really makes you think, how many times will we just keep on doing this, and for what purpose?

    Is it just another one?

    I do believe in nationalistic pride, and my resolve has been to do things like working in a local company working with Christianity at its core, but for the Singaporean youth of today. But it’s hard when the rest of the group feels disillusioned about Singapore, even though we’re a pretty good country. It’s not really just another one is it.

    It might be, but I think it could be a little bit more.

  • Worked OUT

    “Seems like you made a series of bad decisions today”, said Clarice after listening to the physical strain I put on myself from the morning until night.

    Today started extra early, getting out of the house at 7AM, squeezing onto the morning train and reaching Ang Mo Kio by 8AM, and catching up with an old friend. Then getting myself to Bras Basah by 10AM, and picking up a 25KG load of paper back to my office at Geylang. Struggling and sweating like mad with this load, in this Singapore heat, I brought everything back by bus, and worked in my office until 1130AM, to reach Dhoby Ghaut by 12PM. A lunch with another old friend until 130PM, to get myself to Kent Ridge by 2PM with another friend. It was an afternoon climb ending at 5PM, and we enjoyed this climb until we squeezed onto our evening train for our dinner appointments, mine at Farrer Road, and my friend went off his way. I was early by an hour, reaching at 6PM. Then I worked at the coffeeshop, and another old friend joined me at 630PM, and then we met the rest of the friends at 7PM. I found out I was missing my power charger, and I texted the climbing gym about it. The dinner ended at 915PM and I went back to the gym to pick up the charger. There were no more buses from the MRT to the gym, so I walked for about 15mins to the gym from the MRT station, reaching at 10PM. Then I took the nearest bus going home, without taking the train , and I reached home at 11PM.

    I should have:

    • not gotten so much paper at once
    • not planned for so many friend meetings in a day
    • not bought so much paper on a day I had planned to climb
    • not forgotten my charger

    There are probably deeper learning and adjustment somewhere else, but honestly, I’m just tired from recapping the day. It was really a long hot day.

  • A Big Day

    Today was one of those days where I sat down and I just couldn’t believe what was happening.

    At work, I have been getting a RISO printer within our offices. I’ve been working with creative youth, as part of my Christian work, and my hope was to make avenues for creative youth to create and start their creative careers in some way or another.

    A RISO printer is quite a trendy way to print now, but its method of printing reminds me of silkscreen printing, where a negative is made, and then pressed onto a page. Stamp making is another way of a similar method.

    But today, the RISO printers finally arrived. Two of them, wheeled into my office building. It was really quite a moment.

    I sat there and just stared at the printers, because they were finally within my hands to print as I wished (somewhat). I still need to work out costing among other things, but I can’t believe that it’s finally finally here.

    One of those Really Big Days.

  • Dressing Up

    Back to work today, and I always look at the people around me as I’m on my way to work. I do my usual judgemental glances of the multitudes of people just staring at their screens. But today, not that many people were looking at their phones. It was quite a welcome surprise when the lady next to me pulled out a book. Then she pulled out printed web articles in A4 paper. I thought that was taking it a bit too far.

    Currently I’m reading Artemis by Andy Weir. It’s got some interesting points to it, but I don’t know if it’s totally my thing. James by Percival Everett just came in my mail, and I’ll be reading it next. But in my head, I really want to read the next installment of Game of Thrones. It’s a great read, and maybe more people should read it instead of just watching the TV show. But TV shows bring in the money, and then authors have a little bit more food to write more stories. So there’s a give and take I guess.

    I like to dress up and wear my denim at home sometimes. My Momotaro Jacket gets the most home wear, because I am not so sweaty by the time I wear it. It’s usually worn after I’ve showered, when I’m clean and dry. And in air conditioning under my control and supervision.

    At work, sometimes the common airconditioning becomes a little too cold, or at little too hot, and outerwear is hard to predict. At cafes, it’s just hot by the time I reach there, and by the time I’ve cooled down enough to wear a sweater, my drink is finished, and I’ve got to go pee.

    So I dress up at home.

    I think other people usually dress up when they’re outside of the house. They want to look nice for the people around them, and they want to contribute effectively to the niceness of everyone’s appearances. I can understand their points of view, and thus, I wear black a lot. This hides ink stains from my fountain pen inks, or watercolors. It hides the age of the tshirts, especially when I’ve worn them for years; it just looks faded and stylish in modern day.

    People usually like to wear things to make them look smarter, or more approachable. They dress up to the role they need to play. It’s hard to rely on pieces of cotton to instill confidence. I find it easier to just be more confident, but everyone would say that’s easier said than done. But confidence is actually a lot about saying than doing. It’s saying something, and then doing it, and this sequence builds a lot more confidence than wearing a piece of clothing, hoping for the best. After all, what happen when the clothing is stained, or wears out? Does confidence end then?

    Outward appearances can never be the reason for your confidence.

    But it does feel nice to wear nice looking clothes. So I dress up, for myself, at home. I instill so much confidence to myself, because as many others have also said, you’re your worst critic. So if my worst critic (me) likes what I’m wearing, and gives me the confidence, then I’ll have a confidence built on me approving of me. If the clothing falls apart, then I can easily tell myself how silly this whole thing was, and I had confidence in myself all along. If it happened with someone else, I’d need to ask them about it, and I might never trust their answers because they didn’t tell me on their own accord.

    So dressing up for myself is okay, but for others, not so good. In any case, I wear black, cause it hides my stains (creative and otherwise).

  • Playing The Fool

    Every now and then, I would load up some load games from my Steam Library and play them through again. Like most of the games in my library, I have not actually finished them. I’ve gotten through some of them, but not to the point of actually completing the game. This is the opposite of what I would do on a console game, and finish them to as much of 100% as I could. I try my best to hit a completionist goal, and most of the games do an option or reward of sorts.

    The silly part about these gaming moments is how I never finish, and I download the games over and over. I wonder why I never finish. It might be something to do with the computer itself, and I don’t actually feel many things finish properly on the computer. But on a console, like the Playstation, or the Xbox, or even the Gameboy games, I do feel the need to finish them. There’s something lacking when I don’t.

    In any case, here I am again, after another year or maybe two without playing, and I’m playing Hades once more. I’ve gotten through maybe half of the game, but I never properly cleared it. I think this is my third or fourth atttempt at playing it. I think it’s a fun game, but perhaps the story of the game is the biggest irony applicable to my life: the prince of Hades cannot escape, and he’s forced to fight against his father’s chambers of hell. Funniest part is my inability to finish the game.

    Internally, I do think of the range of things I have yet to finish. I am not sure if I can complete some of them, but I have no choice, I have to push on and try to.

    I actually want to consolidate some of my creative projects and to publish something. But I’m still moving along slowly. Perhaps tomorrow would be a good day for recapping the year, and to pitch ahead which projects I want to finish ASAP. At the minimum, I would have a timeline to work towards. Life is not necessarily going to get any easier in the months to come…

  • Passing Phases

    Yesterday’s frustration has fizzled a bit. I was really angry at myself for missing out details, because I’ve been thinking about my work pace and my attention to details, or there lack of. At times, I’m highly OCD. I have things that I am looking at intentionally, and the things need to be exact. I’ve lived that to a fault, and in recent years, I have taken efforts to relax, or to just not worry too much about it, because I could spend days looking at it.

    Instead, now I just aim to make something, whatever it might be. And a number of times, it turns out I needed to pay a bit more attention to the details. It might be the language I use, or the fine details between two different things. I just learn to apologise for it now, but last night, I paid 400 bucks for that lesson in details.

    It’s not the worst thing in the world to happen, but nothing was going right. I really wanted to snap at anything.

    But the moment is over, and I am now using it for content for daiy writing. The Anger passed.

    Another thought running in the back of my head is this great need for minimalism. I love it, and I can’t do it. I love having things too much, and I just have so many things around. If you gave me a blank room, I would fill it in half an hour with just the things from my backpack (most of the time). When I travel, the hotel rooms look as if I’ve stayed there for a month or two. It’s such a big thing.

    But it’s the minimalism I crave. I keep imagining this perfect blank phone screen with nothing inside; or this tiny shoebox apartment with only a bed and a laptop somewhere for working. I can’t even have the laptop only set up because sometimes I even carry my keyboards with me.

    And as I processed this today, I thought: what if I embraced the mess better? I do want my stuff, and a lot of the time, its because I want to feel inspired or motivated. I have my thoughts running in multiple directions, and having the right tools directing me to think harder is always key.

    I was looking at the YouTube videos talking about Smart Dumb phones, but in the heart of it, I want my attention to be drained sometimes. It doesn’t make sense to have to complicate my life, in order to make it simple. I should approach my life’s growing complications with a nice simple approach instead.

    So phone home screen is constantly cluttered, and I have widgets I intentionally have to change. This gets my distracted brain focused, because I need to update. Like watering the plants, but the garden is my phone screen. And instead of plants, it’s making sure my little attention suckers are growing in the right direction.

    But like my lack of attention, I don’t stop to think if these posts make sense or not. My aim is just to produce, to make things. So hopefully I made you think.

  • Moving into the new month

    I was just wondering about this today.:

    It‘s the start of a new month, but all I did last night was to close my eyes, and when I woke in the morning and the month changed. The day changed too. TIme moved forward.

    Does time move because the earth moves? Or does the earth move because it’s in time? More specifically, what does time really involve and how do we know it exists? We track it with a watch for sure, but that’s just tracking the movements of the earth around the sun, and the earth in its rotation.

    I don’t really understand, and it’s something I’ve always thought about since I was a kid.

    It begins with the fact that the suns rays that lights our earth comes from 8 minutes ago, from the sun. So how do we really know what’s happening now or not in the world? It was all of 8 minutes ago.

    Or not.

    The same silly crazy thoughts for another new month, just another day closer to 35 years on this earth.

  • Daring Daily

    Short post, but I am thinking how I managed to write every day for a good period of time. I don’t think I was short of words then, and I somehow managed to produce a piece daily. Maybe some of them were a little short, but at least I made something.

    I dare myself to write daily all over again. Because it was pretty fun, and also because it gave me many more words to use and to express myself with.

    I hope I don’t chicken out. lol.

    Let’s set a goal for 100 days straight, and maybe a minimum of 150 words. Today’s post is barely scraping it by, but it’s just to get me started, and to get some words out of me.

    I can’t believe I actually tried to write a novel at a faster pace. Maybe it’s akin to running, where I couldn’t believe how I even ran 2KM, and somewhere in the middle of this year I hit 42KM. That growth was really something.

    Starting small might work in my favour… I hope! 100 days from today, just to see where it lands us at.