Let silence speak to silence. Let deep speak to deep. Let words not be squandered lest they lose the power to rebuke and to heal. Cultivate a garden of solitude and baptize it with silence Then your words will be as seeds when received by fertile hearts, and they will flower and bear fruit in other gardens long after they have left your lips.
Was waiting to cross the road to Canadian Tire on Yonge last Saturday, and the interesting coloured lighting on this building struck my fancy.
Don’t know why the sight of snow falling can still immediately make me happy, or why the feeling of crisp newly-fallen snow under my boots makes me light-hearted. And when it’s night time, the scene of snow falling is even more romantic and magical… I could lose track of time just watching how the snow flakes catch the light of the street lamps as they pirouette and float toward the ground. Winter isn’t winter without snow. How I hope there will be […]
To a very special friend who used to write me letters in green ink, and who loves Archies and Friends as I do. I drafted this post a few days ago, and now is as good a time as any to post it! :) *************** When we talk, even when we don’t, you’re never far from my thoughts. Over the years, it has come to pass that I don’t reach out as often as I used to, but that has no correlation […]
You may have seen this video before, along with the following story: This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between The Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machines Components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa, yes farm equipment! It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can […]
Back in 1999 or so, a talented and good friend of mine from JC (Andrew Tan) decided to write a teenage self-help book and asked me to contribute some small bits about love. Now, almost 8 years hence, he’s planning to publish that book. A few days ago, he emailed me and asked me to go over what I had written to see if I wanted to amend anything. I had completely forgotten about that writing project of his or my part […]
“When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.” And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.” In recent months, I’ve been so caught up with things that I haven’t been corresponding much with some dear friends. Needless to say, I haven’t forgotten you. […]
It felt terrible to be sick, the past week. It was the first time I fell sick since I arrived in North America. It was at the end of my winter break that I caught a cold. My nose was blocked most of the time, but thanks to Nazolin, I was able to breathe better. Still, my running nose gave me a headache, which kinda kept me half-awake through a couple of nights. I was feeling ‘feverish”, although I wasn’t actually having […]
Recently, a fellow emotionally-rich friend mused on the perennial question of Reason and Passion. I thought Gibran wrote on the topic beautifully: And the priestess spoke again and said: “Speak to us of Reason and Passion.” And he answered saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements […]
Dedicated to Jing Jing in gratitude for the conversation that sparked this post. We make mistakes. Big ones, small ones. We often do badly for various things. An exam, an important relationship, our work… there are dozens of areas we can screw up in. And as the sorry human fumblers we are, we often do just that. Screw up. There’s no doubt that we fail. The question is, what do we do once the deed has been done? As Rafiki from Disney’s […]
