I recently read the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath and her private reflections sparked some thoughts about the writing process. I’ve always sort of known that talented and established writers still “struggle” with the craft of writing. It’s an eternal challenge to feel fully immersed in and/or capable at whichever profession you are in, no…
Have you ever thought about how much time and energy humans exerted on the act of pretending? Perhaps if we seriously ask and study this question, we may arrive at a shocking answer that discreetly turns our existence into that of miserable fraudsters rather than decent, gratified human beings. My estimate is that most of…
This is a submission to the UNESCO Vietnam Office for a communications (& design) intern position. I didn’t get hired in the end but still quite like these graphics that I made. So why not keep them here? 🙂 A Sight to Lose Have you seen an image of plastic waste in the ocean, or…
The first time I listened to the song Don’t Let the Good Life Pass You By by Cass Elliot (Mama Cass!), I audibly cheered to the lyrics. This feel-good folksy tune sends a remarkably simple message: life can be wonderful and we shall cherish the little pleasures of it while we can. It sounds cheesy…
On a spectrum of very-spontaneous-borderline-reckless to steady-and-calculated-like-clockwork, where do you fall? I guess for most people the answer is dependent on the circumstances. There are some decisions we make that barely take any time to deliberate, but some other choices seem to put us at a crossroad for infinite time. The decisions we ought to…
I don’t know who originated this theory, but I remember reading somewhere that our “bad” habits are often built upon at least one unfulfilled emotional need. I use “bad” in quotation marks here also to allow for a multiplicity of interpretations when it comes to the habits that we deem unfavorable and undesirable. For me,…
Previously I have gone over why it’s tempting to feel like one individual cannot do much to make a change in the climate crisis, and why I personally believe otherwise. It is difficult and perhaps futile to measure one’s efforts against the insurmountable demand for large-scale, effective climate action. For that reason, I believe that…
When I was writing the blog post on Internet nostalgia and what I miss about the bygone eras of the web, I began to also reflect on what I get to appreciate about the present landscape of the online world. There are still so many treasures or hidden gems that I can celebrate today about…
Amidst the greenwashing from corporations and the desperate outcries from activists for collective action, a single individual wanting to do something on their part to counter climate change may feel as if their only options alternate between sliding down the consumerist chasm (which is by definition counterproductive, mind you) and experiencing a sense of insignificance…
Happy 2023! This is a celebratory post for another chain of 365 days which hopefully will be a decent one. I’m past the point of trying to be edgy and making fun of “new year’s resolutions” as a thing. Though I’ve decided that resolutions rarely last a long time into the year, this past summer…
One of the only few areas I’m qualified to do a “recapping” for 2022 is reading, as usual. I made some “resolutions” earlier this year to try to change things up a little from before and approach reading with more intention. Essentially, I managed to evade book ratings altogether (not giving ratings to books I…
I am a self-proclaimed non-doer who has a strong tendency to think things without acting on them. There have been so many occasions of me getting galvanized into the possibilities of doing things only to give in to the inertia that blocks any concrete actions from materializing. Whether it’s an undertaking for my own sake…
I am back living amidst the chaos of an urban lifestyle, with its ceaseless soundscape, topsy-turvy traffic, and the far-from-ideal graciousness of people when interacting with strangers. There is a certain comfort in blending into all this chaos – only the truly extraordinary will stand out. Most things just get submerged into the hectic, overstimulating,…
Kinda long rant ahead. Excuse the informality and the semi-incoherence. It occurred to me just now how much the landscape of social media has changed over the years. I started using Facebook some time in 2008, Instagram in 2012, never really got on the Twitter train, and still actively avoid TikTok like the plague (pardon…