“Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you:
a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting,
a bee humming, a raindrop falling,
a snowflake wafting along
the clear evening air.
There is magic everywhere.
If you learn how to live it,
life is nothing short of a daily miracle.”
– Sadhguru, Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy
From M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil:
“The process of deep healing, at least within the psychoanalytic framework, requires the patient to regress on some level to some degree. It is a difficult and frightening requirement. It is no easy thing for adults, accustomed to independence and the psychologic trappings of maturity, to allow themselves to become like young children again, dependent and so very vulnerable. And the deeper the disturbance—the more hungry and painful and wounding the patient’s childhood—the more difficult it is to return to the childhood condition within the therapeutic relationship. It is like a death. Yet it can be accomplished. When it is, healing will result. When it does not, the foundation cannot be reconstructed. No regression, no healing; it is as simple as that.”
I find it ironic that meaningful progress in any domain requires some level of failure.
Building stronger muscles means fatiguing yourself until you are too weak to lift any more. Learning new concepts means having the humility to make mistakes and have past beliefs corrected. Fostering deeper relationships means risking judgment onto yourself and wounding the other party. It seems that one key ingredient for progress is to decline to a lesser state and be reborn, time and time again.
Our success then, is measured not only by our time or effort, but our ability to regress and grow.
It was a gorgeous day for a run yesterday. 13 degrees, sunny, clear skies. I pulled on my shoes and went out, excited for the session.
And then it started to hail. So suddenly, as well – I began crossing the street with sun and by the time I reached the other side there were already pellets hitting my skin. I kept running, thinking it would subside.
Yet it only worsened. A heavy rain began to fall and the hail became larger. One piece of hail hit me on the head as I was running and I thought I might pass out. It was as big as my thumb.
At a certain point it became impossible to run. I couldn’t see through my glasses from the rain, my skin was torn from the hail, and my feet were frozen stiff. I decided to hide under a tree for shelter.
But not moving was a terrible decision. Within seconds, my hands and feet were frozen and my body began violently shivering. I reached for my phone and took a photo, and found I couldn’t put the phone back into my pocket. My hands would not stop shaking and become unresponsive.
“Don’t stop moving!” somebody yelled at me through the chaos. It was an elderly woman with a trenchcoat. “You’ll get cold!”
I looked at her in disbelief? Move in this icy battleground? Be bombarded by more hail and rain and puddles? I think not.
Yet I also knew she was right. My body was shutting down from standing still in the cold. I had to move.
The moment I did, things improved. My legs were stiff like thick icy poles and completely numb, but I slowly warmed up. My glasses were still soaked, but I moved forward, trusting the ground. I continued on my run for another few hundred metres before going home. It was too unsafe to keep running. The run back was far warmer than hiding under shelter.
When we find ourselves amidst chaos, there is a decision we must make: to keep moving, or stand still. In many cases, standing still is a wise decision. You can make analyse the situation more calmly and make better choices.
But in some cases, standing still means death. The war will not wait for your meditations. You must act, no matter how. It is a matter of survival.
I think life is like that, in a way. It feels good to stay stagnant and simply be. You might even be called smart, philosophical.
But eventually, you will reach that time in your life where you will have to look back and examine what it is you have done for the world and the person you have become. What does the life of action look like compared to the life of inaction?
Like a better story, I suspect.
From The Marginalian:
“Choose joy.
Choose it like a child chooses the shoe to put on the right foot, the crayon to paint a sky. Choose it at first consciously, effortfully, pressing against the weight of a world heavy with reasons for sorrow, restless with need for action. Feel the sorrow, take the action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity pulling the stream down its course; until it becomes an inner law of nature. If Viktor Frankl can exclaim “yes to life, in spite of everything!” — and what an everything he lived through — then so can any one of us amid the rubble of our plans, so trifling by comparison. Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice. So often, it is a matter of attending to what Hermann Hesse called, as the world was about to come unworlded by its first global war, “the little joys”; so often, those are the slender threads of which we weave the lifeline that saves us.
Delight in the age-salted man on the street corner waiting for the light to change, his age-salted dog beside him, each inclined toward the other with the angular subtlety of absolute devotion.
Delight in the little girl zooming past you on her little bicycle, this fierce emissary of the future, rainbow tassels waving from her handlebars and a hundred beaded braids spilling from her golden helmet.
Delight in the snail taking an afternoon to traverse the abyssal crack in the sidewalk for the sake of pasturing on a single blade of grass.
Delight in the tiny new leaf, so shy and so shamelessly lush, unfurling from the crooked stem of the parched geranium.
I think often of this verse from Jane Hirshfield’s splendid poem “The Weighing”:
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
Yes, except we furnish both the grains and the scales. I alone can weigh the blue of my sky, you of yours.”
A story of humble hope.
“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realise the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realise that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could then indeed have changed the world.” – Unknown Monk, 1100 AD.
This week, I have been consumed by the Israel-Hamas War, the Voice Referendum and the Rohingya genocides. Three separate conflicts in three separate nations.
Yet while seemingly unrelated, there are glaring lessons to be learnt in these conflicts. Lessons on humanity, manipulation and war; lessons that concern me and the future we are headed towards.
1. The Information War
We live in an age where propaganda and social media forces can topple the truth and civil discourse.
The persecution of the Rohingya people by Myanmar military dates back to the 1970s. But something happened in the 2015 that led to a massive rise in islamophobic content and hate speech toward Rohingyas: the introduction of Facebook. I will summarise this below, but for a deeper understanding I highly recommend Johnny Harris’ documentary on this topic.
With the introduction of the internet, Facebook quickly became the main social media outlet and news source for Myanmar citizens. The problem was at the time, Myanmar was largely unmonitored with only two Facebook employees that could speak Burmese. With minimal regulation, hate speech and discrimination quickly found popularity in the algorithms and were broadcast widely. Paranoid and false rumours toward the Rohingyas from friends or family became indistinguishable from reputable news sources. When the Myanmar Armed Forces joined the site and began spreading propaganda, the stage was already set for a mass genocide.
What happens when truth and opinions become impossible to separate, and are thrown into a medium where sensational content rises to the top? You may just get a war.
2. A Divided Nation
The Voice Referendum and Israel-Hamas conflict are complicated issues with long histories behind them. So it is alarming to see how quick people are to take sides on these issues and announce their disgust at the opposition.
Look up any YouTube video on these conflicts and you will see thousands of comments declaring one side as just and the other evil. Left-wing outlets are flooded by pro-Palestinean commenters, denouncing Israel’s retaliation and oppression of Palestinian citizens. Right-wing outlets attract Hamas denouncers, unequivocally declaring the group a terrorist organisation. Pick your favourite echo chamber and enter.
Ironically, some of the accusations thrown by either side are the exact same. In Australia’s recent Voice Referendum, you can find Yes voters accusing No voters for being racist due to refusing to acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ voices. Simultaneously, No voters declare the Yes voters racist for attempting to divide a parliament. Somewhere along this, understanding has been lost.
It is now impossible to read the news and not be consumed by hateful messages on either side. Differences of opinion are fine. A divided nation is not.
I do not like to complain about the world. I think there is much beauty in every moment that passes unnoticed and many things humans have done right.
But I would be lying if I said that the information war and divide humanity finds itself in does not concern me. Great wars have started from less volatile times as these and that is a path I fear and condemn.
For now, I pray.
Guild Wars 2, one of my most played MMORPGs, contains my favourite dialogue in gaming.
It comes near the end of an expansion at the final confrontation with Balthazar, the God of War and Fire. You, the commander, have spent hundreds of hours hunting him down, trying to stop his plan of mass destruction. The last time you faced him, he killed you and sent you to the underworld, where you roamed restlessly trying to find your soul back. You came back, stronger but traumatised, and found him once again. In this final encounter, he is moments away from consuming power so large that failing would mean the end of the world.
In the fight, you and your dragon Aurene fight Balthazar and his two hounds. It is difficult, but thanks to your combined efforts, he begins to falter. Right when it seems as though you might win and end his plan of tyranny, he taunts,
“I am fire! I am war! What are you?” To which you respond,
“Still standing.”
As the battle ends, having fought off a God, you remain standing, ready to fight whatever more battles come your way.
“Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.” – Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath
“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.” – Charles Bukowski
“I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days… But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.” – Platoon (1986)
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” – Ernest Hemingway
“The first casualty of war is innocence.” – Oliver Stone
“When the rich wage war it’s the poor that die.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” – Tim O’Brien
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.” – Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor
I turned 25 this week, and I thought it would be amiss not to acknowledge the books that have shaped me to this point. It was difficult to narrow this down to just 25, but when considering the impact some books had on me, it became clear that a few stood out more than others. Many of these singlehandedly changed the trajectory of my life, including the creation of this blog. Let’s dive in.
1. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
My most read and gifted book. Every time I open this novella, there is a new lesson waiting to be uncovered. It has an uncanny ability to be appreciated by all – to mould itself to the state of the reader. The scene in the rose garden remains one of the greatest teachings on love I have come across.
2. The Power and The Glory – Graham Greene
My second most gifted book. One of Graham Greene’s shorter works, but contains profound ideas on suffering and goodness through the enigma of a “whiskey priest”. The prison scene near the end fundamentally altered my perspective on religious morality.
3. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If I could only read one book for the rest of my life, it would be The Brothers Karamazov – a work of philosophy disguised as a murder mystery. It has some of the most complex, troubled characters I have come across, and touches upon dilemmas such as faith vs. reason, and innocence vs. guilt. The Grand Inquisitor still remains my favourite chapter in literary history until this day.
4. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoyevsky’s warning against becoming evil – no matter the consequences. Following Raskolnikov’s descent into madness after committing a ‘justifiable’ crime, remains one of the greatest thrills and teachings on alienations and moral consequence I have experienced.
5. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
One of Murakami’s less ‘classic’ works, but my favourite. While the plot is simple in nature, it contains compelling characters and quotes that have moved me deeply. A fairly easy read which draws you in and doesn’t let you go.
6. The Old Man and The Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The book that made me love reading. A short but humbling tale on the ruthlessness of nature and the perseverance of mankind. Reading this in one go at the library gave me a reverence for the Earth I hadn’t experienced before.
7. The Dark Forest – Cixin Liu
My favourite book in my favourite science fiction series, The Three-Body Problem. Takes the cliffhanger from the first book to new heights, exploring concepts of game theory, ethics, and politics. Luo Ji, the protagonist of the book, remains one of the most well-written characters I have come across.
8. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia – Mohsin Hamid
A fun novel by an underrated author. Written uniquely in second person, this novel illustrates the full spectrum of human experience through a rags-to-riches tale where the protagonist is known only as “you”. Was able to meet the author last year at the Melbourne Writing Festival and hear him talk. Also the first book I traded with Lynn.
9. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
A French epic about self-sacrifice, moral dilemmas and finding meaning beyond oneself. Reading about Marius and Javert’s inner conflicts made me stay up all night and were the basis for many of my early short stories.
10. How Do You Live? – Genzaburo Yoshino
A birthday gift from Jenny. While starting off as a standard coming-of-age tale set in Japan, I was surprised to find myself learning about Napoleon, Copernicus and Newton while taking away deep truths about what it is to be human. One section on broken promises brought back a flood of memories and nearly brought me to tears. It is uplifting, and encourages the reader to be a better person.
11. The Stranger – Albert Camus
A philosophical essay on absurdism disguised as novel, recommended by Yang. A somewhat unsettling read, but illustrates the potential consequences of believing in an irrational and meaningless universe. Pair with The Meursault Investigation for a sequel that complements themes raised in The Stranger.
12. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
A stunning tale set in Kabul, where two women are brought together by war and loss. Highlights how a person’s love can bring them to acts of courage and self-sacrifice. There are few books as heartbreaking and uplifting as this one.
13. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
A philosophical essay defending spirituality disguised as a novel. The last chapter, where we are called to question the book’s entire events, remains one of my favourite reading experiences of all time.
14. The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
When poetry meets wisdom. This short book contains short prose poems on a range of topics, including parenting, relationships and work. The chapter on relationships has guided much of what I value in a friend and partner.
15. Animal Farm – George Orwell
A terrifying novel warning of the dangers of dictatorship. Inspired by the Stalinist era, this was the first book that showed me how politics and art can be combined into a force for change. The scene of Boxer being taken away still makes me shudder.
16. The Holy Bible
Requires little introduction. The most read work in my childhood and adolescence, with weekly attendance at Bible studies. Though I no longer identify with the faith, the stories and teachings from this book have had a tremendous impact on my personal beliefs.
17. Show Your Work! – Austin Kleon
The book that made me start this blog. Highly recommended to anyone thinking about sharing their work online but unsure how to, or requiring that extra nudge to start.
18. Tools of Titans – Tim Ferriss
An encyclopedia of wisdom from some of the world’s top performers. Tim has distilled thousands of hours of interviews with writers, athletes, scientists and philosophers into 700 pages. I visit this book every few months when there is an issue I am struggling with, and always find actionable advice no matter the topic. One of the chapters features an article called Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide which helped save my life.
19. When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
The memoir that made me decide to study medicine over engineering. Medicine, this book made me realise, is uniquely shaped by art, ethics, and philosophical issues such as mortality, morality, and the limits of science. Eight years later, I can say that choosing medicine was the right decision.
20. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants – Malcolm Gladwell
Case studies and unconventional ideas on what makes underdogs succeed and how giants can fall. While often criticised as overly simplistic, some of his premises I have found to be very true and has helped me win battles I thought never possible.
21. How To Talk To Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships – Leil Lowndes
A handbook for becoming more approachable and improving social skills. I can credit two skills I learnt from this book (eye contact and smiling) to a great number of successes in real life interactions.
22. Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds – David Goggins
The most unbelievable and inspirational memoir I have come across. How did an abused, poor black child from New York end up as a decorated Navy SEAL, world record holder for most pull-ups done in 24 hours, and ultra marathon runner? Through carrying the boats and being the hardest man alive.
23. Several Short Sentences about Writing – Verlyn Klinkenborg
This book teaches how to write with greater elegance and clarity by demonstrating what beautiful writing looks like. It also encourages readers to read more intentionally by noticing lovely turns of phrases or areas that could be improved. Required reading for anyone who wishes to take writing seriously.
24. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami
A rare glimpse into Murakami’s running and writing life. It was interesting to read how his running helped his writing, and vice versa. Encouraged me to run my first marathon, and to see running more as a way of life than a just a hobby.
25. Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry – Jeffrey A. Lieberman
The history of psychiatry is one plagued by mysticism, skepticism and deceit, and this book tells it honestly without shame. It is strange how such an increasingly crucial part of medicine feels so alienated from other medical specialties, and how the DSM-V – psychiatry’s handbook – is a far cry from having scientific backing. Yet reading this gave me hope: that there are conversations surrounding these issues, and there are people advocating for real change. A change I hope to be part of someday.
One of my strongest childhood memories is riding a scooter with my best friend. I’ll call him A.
I had convinced A’s mum to buy him a scooter last week, and today was his first time riding it. We went to a nearby park where I taught him how to brake, how it’s better to steer with your hips rather than with the handlebars and he learnt quickly. After some time, I suggested we go down a nearby hill.
“I’ll go first,” I said encouragingly. “If you fall, I’ll come and get you”. A reluctantly agreed.
It was a warm sunny day with a gentle breeze. With a few strong kicks, I flew down the familiar hill on my scooter, narrowly avoiding some bumps and holes in the pavement, before making it up the other side. I turned around, exhilarated, and gestured to A to go.
“It’s easy,” I called.
A reluctantly pushed off, but it was immediately clear the hill was too steep for his ability. His hands wobbled, uncertain with the speed, and halfway down he lost his balance and fell off. His scooter fell to the grass on the side, while A tumbled down the pavement to the bottom. He didn’t move, and for a moment, I feared he was dead.
Just as I was about to run down, I noticed a group of students gathering at the hill. I recognised their faces and paused – they were the local school bullies, and I was quite sure one of them didn’t like me. The thought of going down and getting jumped put me in a state of paralysis. I knew I had to help A but all I could do was watch him from the top. Nobody else had seen him except me – his best friend, who was too much of a coward to do anything. I felt a strange, disgusting emotion build up inside of me; I later identified it as shame.
“Please move,” I prayed. “Please.”
To my relief, A slowly got to his feet. He noticed his scooter lying on the grass, its handlebars all deformed, and went to recover it. As he slowly limped back up the hill, the bullies noticed his bleeding knee.
“Hey,” they called. “Better get that checked up.” He nodded, and my new emotion intensified. Even the bullies were more considerate than me.
I could not meet his eye when he made it up. I had betrayed my best friend – had I not told him I would help him if he fell? Yet when he needed help the most, all I could do was watch. I was pathetic. A coward. We didn’t speak for the rest of the day, and at school we began to avoid each other. I felt I had made an irreversible chasm in our friendship.
There are a few miseries we must face as humans. These include thirst, starvation, jealousy, boredom; but the most tragic one of all, the one that pierces our soul most deeply, is the awareness we have committed a mistake we cannot go back and fix. Additionally, I think we do a great deal to avoid admitting these mistakes to ourselves.
But it is in the pain of our mistakes where human greatness lies. This memory of A and the hill is not a bad one, for with it came lessons on self-sacrifice and courage. The shame from that day paved the foundation for future fond memories; ones where I chose to run down the hill instead of staying at the top. More importantly, I was able to eventually make amends with A. Though we don’t ride scooters anymore, we still remain good friends to this day.
If regrets help us learn essential truths about ourselves, then those experiences will not have been wasted. I say, let our pain reveal lessons about morality, justice, and humanity. It is there where we are one step closer to greatness.
“Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.” – Goethe, Maxims and Reflections.