writing

Doors.

July 10, 2021 — 5 Comments 
I was looking
for the key
for years
but the door
was always
open.
—Aravind Adiga

[ Click to play recording ]

I heard myself whispering some words with a voice that was not mine. This place. This space. It’s empty yet filled. This floating path inside my head reveals the things that I encounter each day. Windows. Doors. Still, they are not quite the same this time around.

I am just but a passive wanderer looking into a window. Ah. It offers me a glimpse of what takes place in that moment. I am merely just an outsider; a spectator being offered a view from a certain angle. I have seen enough.

But the door.

Oh, the door. One step, two steps. And passing through its doorway, it invites me in of what lies beyond. You might call it an entity that guides the arrival and departure of a being. Should such potential not lie in its grasp, the door might as well be windows, or even walls. Breathe.

One.

Two..

Three…

I am still here. So is my heart—a door shut so tight. So is yours.

Our doors remain closed. It tells me of my rejection or of your seclusion. What if we open our doors? Will it welcome us into each other’s lives? Or will it engulf and imprison each of us? I have seen them frame farewells, joyful reunions, tearful reconciliations… But I can’t remember why mine is closed. Give me a moment. Let me recollect my memories here.

All right, I remember now.

I slammed my door on you. Like periods at the end of scenes of anger and frustration. Again. My door. It seems to be telling me something here. Almost as if it’s beckoning me to a haven now that the world around me has regressed in a state of too much demanding and wearying. Now I am feeling cold. It’s freezing in this nothingness. How I wish that your door would enclose me in love and warmth. How I yearn for your door to guard me solidly from perils and harsh weathers and the unknown. If I, if only I could open my door…

Will it admit surprises? Delights? Of fresh air, new beginnings for us, my dearest long-lost lover? Damn. Damn it all… I have lost my key somewhere. Counting my blessings, I have not lost my memories. I will find a way to open your door. For I have not given up. Once, I saw a door opened before me. Seductive and promising. That’s when I discovered you, I found you. I am also remembering that my doorways were never used to exclude or divide feelings; they had always been arranged in a way to bring focus on some vista of grace or beauty beyond… a glimpse of a rose garden, an enticing succession of rooms, or the upward spiral of a staircase; they reveal prospects to me—they led me to you.

Now I am no longer in my head. I am right here. I am right in front of your house, your doorstep. I must surely feel still the irresistible pull of what lays behind your door. Scattered thoughts of our youthfulness, your smile in the rain, the grace of your fingers touching the roses… I no longer want to be afraid of opening your door and mine, those small hidden doors in the deepest sanctuary of our souls. These doors inside us, if we fear too much of passing through them, we will be prisoners no matter which side of them we stand.

So please, will you open your door for me?

My voice trails off as I see your door open before I could knock on it.

This marks our moment of truth, a new point of our contact. And from here now on, we will go from one passage of our lives to another, retreating, arriving, departing, returning. I can confidently say this now, from the bottom of my heart, this has been an extraordinary, unforgettable moment for me. I believe what follows are not so much of the heartbreaks and hurt we have been through, of our frustration and anger—but of what our regained vulnerability set free, in our hopeful and pulsing heart, with every tear that washed down every happy face.

We are home—and together once again.

Free at last.

I have seen too much feelings poured out on my timeline. Seeing friends closing off their hearts. Sometimes I can't help but think that being vulnerable goes hand in hand with trust and acceptance, akin to being open to life and everything that comes with it. To feel no guilt and regrets in spilling our souls... I haven't reached that stage yet, but I don't wish to close off that possibility for me. Perhaps it is the perception that being vulnerable makes us more receptive to pain in misery. This isn't completely wrong... but learning to be vulnerable for me now, I think it makes me way more open to happiness. Today everybody takes calculated steps. People have stopped trusting others. Intentions have become questionable. Afraid of being hurt, everyone masks their vulnerabilities... I, for once, would like to live without any mask or filter. It's the best way to feel alive.

Dear friends.

June 12, 2021 — 9 Comments

The last few couple of months have been incredibly rough, but also, beautiful. There is a light somewhere—and I’m choosing to focus on that light. If there’s one thing a lot of us struggle with, it’s believing that we are enough. For it’s hard to see one’s worth when the lows keep coming. Too often, we become our own worst critics. In every single thing we do, it’s never good enough for ourselves.

I don’t say that lightly because I am a perfectionist. There are times where I hold unrealistic expectations for myself too and treat myself as a miracle worker. Some mornings, or some nights, I still remember the simple mistakes I made years ago, vividly – and beat myself up for it. Though, it’s been much easier to laugh at them now than be sad about it.

So what I’m (constantly) trying to work on for myself, is to tell myself each day that “I am enough”. I want to give myself grace, while I give grace and benefit of doubt to others as well. Many times now, I let this false perception of perfection cloud my judgment, and allow it to dominate my life without much realization. But I have to change. Change has to start somewhere. It has to start now.

If you relate to bits of what I mentioned, I hope the few affirmations I’ll be sharing here will provide some comfort for you. While you read the words, maybe you can write down, or not—that’s okay too. You can ponder a while. Most importantly, I hope you can see that you have what it takes to write your story.

  1. Give yourself permission to create without inhibition.

In the way that feels natural to you, that feels good to you, that feels authentic to you, that feels true. Know this, it’s okay if your process or final product doesn’t look or feel or sound like everyone else’s. It doesn’t have to. In fact, it wasn’t meant to. The world needs what you have to create.

2. Allow yourself to ask what you want without holding back.

When your body is too tired to carry on, when your soul feels weary from the journey, when your mind feels exhausted—take control and ask yourself the question, what do you want? Then, answer it. And, every time, when the fulfilment of your answer outweighs the uncomfortableness that you are feeling in the moment—carry on. Don’t give up. Keep running towards that goal.

3. Surrender the stress, worry, and anxiety.

Lay it all down. You don’t need it. We yearn to have control over everything around us, but, often, as we clench our fists, holding onto the reigns of dominance over our work, lives, and situations—we find ourselves slipping. Instead of stabilizing us, our tight grip wears us down and causes us to fall from our secure vantage point of peace. And without peace, we cannot forge ahead with the clarity, wisdom, and grace that we need to accomplish our purpose. We need peace, more than we need control.

With all that's said and done, I hope you realize that it is never too late and you are never too far gone to choose what is good. Start wherever you are. Start in your doubt and in your fear and in your anticipation. Start in your worry or your excitement or your joy. Start wherever you are and keep going. Start with your first page.

The man who inspired.

May 15, 2021 — 8 Comments

Caught somewhere between wanting to express and not reveal everything, and armed with the reserved emotion armour, that was me. Perhaps, this has not changed—not entirely. Finally, I settled down with a blog for myself. This time, I told myself, you are not going to delete this one and disappear like you did before. Over the last months saturated with unprecedented global lockdowns and escalating uncertainties, I was struggling with a massive writer’s block. Finally, in Feb 2021, I was debating on a writing hiatus. Anxiety and depression was catching up. I tried to ignore the discomfort as I kept busy with freelance writing and art commissions, but the lack of clarity in my interests forced me to come to terms that I cannot be perfect. There was no such thing as perfection.

This distressed me. Alarming, for a lot of reasons. It’s odd, and I can only summarize that I am a perfectionist. It’s not as beautiful as it implies. There’s really a lot that goes behind the scenes. Whenever a piece is published, that’s what an individual sees—a finished piece. What they don’t see is the number of times I edit a piece, hate it, start over, hate it again and realise my first draft was the best. Managing my blog has funnily but not surprisingly made me a little more insane than I had ever been. But again, I overthink and overanalyze. I beat myself up when I feel that my writing isn’t thought-provoking enough, when it doesn’t give my readers something to think about throughout the week. I don’t know why it is that way but it just is.

On the evening of March 9, 2021, I sat in my room hiding my loneliness behind a glass of beer. Suddenly moved by the special melancholy that comes from being alone, I placed my manuscripts away from view. My laptop was switched on, and I decided to read something, anything. Call it a fate, or whatever magical coincidence that you believe, and this blog just found me at the right time. Grey in background, and white were the fonts. The words read “Hollis Porter is a fiction writer in Hong Kong”. So Hollis Porter is his name. He had a certain way with words. “Enigma” was the title of his post, The first piece I ever read by him—It was so beautiful there. Vivid and raw. I didn’t ever want to come back to reality while I was getting lost in his writing. Emotions run free when you’re enraptured like that. He had allowed me into the dream of his writing, made familiar by his sincerity and human flaws. And each new post then, I would wait eagerly, for they would infect me with newer streams of insight and artistry. For it was in his words, I saw visions—colours of vulnerability, shades of poignancy, and the free strokes of freedom.

So what does this mean for me then? Gratitude. I was grateful for what he had to offer. It’s not often you come across creatives such as him. I think much of writing is about creating a dialogue with the world around you. The settings, the people, the collective thinking. When I was relying on my own memory and experience in what I wrote, there was a barrier that held me back. In the beginning I always tried to keep reassuring thoughts flowing in my head. But I slowly realised I wasn’t giving myself space to breathe, to live, and I grasped for solace. And to have this pleasure of reading his words, and relate to them in some ways, it was therapy.

I took a moment to unwind. Started to read more from other people. Now I am writing every day—not because I have to, but because it feels right for me. I think what Hollis had allowed me was to stop time, and in that moment when time stopped, it allowed me for reflection, both on my writing and my life. I essentially left him a message the very next day. That message underwent a lot of editing because I didn’t want to make a mistake for first impressions—Heck, I was bloody nervous. But I had to let this person know what his writing did for me. It justified a lot of my emotions and legitimized my desire to write about what I was experiencing in my own life. His words, they would dance on your lips and evoke an emotional specificity of that said piece. It’s something that I chase in what I write.

Whenever Hollis releases a new post, I would think to myself, “This is the best damn thing I’ve ever read” and then I am proven wrong with his next writing every time. I think most of us can agree that a lot of our writing comes from a deeply interiorized and personal space. So I can’t help but wonder sometimes, what was his writing process for his antiblog like? There was so much chaos in his writing, yet it felt like there was always something beguiling to take away from. He immerses his readers in hauntingly sweet tapestries of word, blurring the lines between unreality and reality, allowing one to revel in the alluring haze between asleep and awake. What’s more impressive is, the antiblog series was a pure and cathartic journey that flowed fluidly from beginning to end. His way with details either, it’s never too little, never too much. He employs them tastefully in his thoughts and writing respectively.

It’s not easy most of the time to be reading his writing due to its graphic nature, but there is real beauty to be found in knowing that one can face their demons in reading and writing. Now if something made me afraid or uncomfortable to write, I gravitated towards it. I started writing honestly—kind of like an experiment that allows me to talk to my anxieties, and then lets me see beyond myself, as I learn to access my situation with a more present vision. I have to add, while serious in writing, his natural gaiety knows no bounds too, and I am most privileged to be connected with him. And after reading “Life By The Sea And Out Of Time” and “Life Under The Sea. And Back In Time“, I am inclined to believe that when a person’s work has communicated to me any measure of something valued, to be remembered or recognised in the streets I have walked, then they are a success within very limited qualifications; that is, we have already met.

It cannot be expressed enough that I am constantly humbled that my amazingly talented writer friends and readers are willing to read what I write. It grants me a sense of gratification regardless of the outcome, and I hope to hold on to that feeling. As I rest my fingers on my keyboard and begin a new piece, I would think of what he said to me, “Take what you want from my writing—it’s your own interpretation that counts. Your own reality.” I have written this post for him, he didn’t know, but he does now. He will know who was the man who inspired this, who inspired me. Some people read Harry Potter; I read Hollis Porter. Thank you, Hollis.

From what I have gathered from his writings, he is open to life, and continues to learn. He is a well into which the sweet waters of experience and knowledge keep falling. But more than that, he is a writer who is unapologetic of who he is. There's no doubt about it. For those of you curious about his works now, you can find them at https://www.hollisporter.com

You are a writer.

January 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

Sometimes unknowingly, doubts make us feel comfortable because we count ourselves out before attempting to do something. Just like you know how much you believe something is possible, it makes you uncomfortable because now that means you will have to do it.


If you are an aspiring writer, stop aspiring to be a writer because when you write, you are a writer. Start writing now and push the writing culture forward. Even if that means writing 500 words a day or 5 pages a day, you are still putting something out there. It doesn’t hurt to build that mentality and know that things will not go your way but you are going to push nonetheless, be open-minded, get out of your comfort zone, and talk to other writers and learn from each other rather than being on defense mode that your writing will never be good enough.


Yes, it is going to be difficult. I thought how tough it would be for me, especially hailing from a small town and raised in an Asian household. It’s tough because a lot of times when you say what you want to do, a lot of people including parents don’t think you are going to be successful or make a decent living out of it, particularly when it comes down to anything arts-related. It’s tough because you are supposed to be a doctor, engineer, or businessperson. It’s tough because they want you to be someone you don’t want to be… In their mind, it is set because they are fearful.


Now imagine if you told them and they knew that you are going to do great, they probably wouldn’t tell you that you will fail. This holds true for me with an Asian background myself. I can see why as our parents, they were coached from an era of Asia where they didn’t get a lot of chances in life. So their mind is pretty much set that, you only get one chance in this life. 


If you don’t make it, you don’t make it.


A day before I packed my things to begin my career as a writer, a friend told me, “Why would you quit a sales job that could’ve given you everything just to be a writer? You can’t possibly make a living as a writer, no one ever survives being one. You won’t make it.” 


I remember looking straight at her in the face, I wasn’t smiling. I just said, “All I am hearing is you telling me what I cannot do. You’re not telling me what I can do. You’re not giving me a solution about how I can accomplish to be a writer. All you do is spend all your breath telling me what I cannot do and how I am never going to make it. What are you doing with your life?”


I didn’t see a reason to continue the conversation.

I didn’t want to have a person who constantly tells me what they think I can’t do.

I turned away from her, right there and then. 

I never looked back.


There are so many people who are going to tell you your limit. They don’t even know you. Only you know your limits, and you know that by taking action. If you just keep doing what you keep doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting. I guess it’s fine if you’re okay with what you’ve been getting, then by all means, carry on. But if you’re not alright with what you’re doing and what you’ve been getting, are you really not going to do something about it?


When you consider your fears of writing out of your comfort zone, ask yourself: Does the thought of not being to do what you love hurts you? Are you going to regret not doing this? In one year from now, will you wish you had written something? Or when you are on your deathbed, will you be alright with the fact that you didn’t step out of your comfort zone and do the thing your heart so desperately wanted you to do?


And if your answer is “Yes, I’m alright in giving up my dreams,” then I will have to ask, why are you still reading this? Because you haven’t given up. You decide what’s important to you and if you honour that or not. You decide if you are a writer.

Back to writing.

January 6, 2020 — Leave a comment

And Virginia Woolf said,

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.

Writing for the most part, to me, was both delightful and stressful. Thankfully, the delight outweighed the stress. I have this strong love-hate relation with writing where constant merry-go-round of inspirations coming in and out have compelled me to confront what it means to be a writer. I could be a content writer, a journalist, an author, a blogger, and that still makes me a writer, regardless of what people have to say. Each piece that I’ve put out is a form of expression and if it makes people feel some time of way about it, it is art in its own right.

Though I love writing and started out with reading fan-fictions for ideas, I never got into writing fan-fictions but I did enjoy hearing the stories that my peers wrote for their own pleasure. College was memorable, I met people who would write for plays, songs, and poetry. I would sit with these people for hours, see their expressions as they describe their characters, the flow of their stories, and we would then write about anything our imagination brought us in that moment. It was beautiful to be able to not care how absurd the stories sounded and how they wrote it.

Yet, the more inspired I was, the more fearful I became. As I grew older and started making a living as a copywriter and web content writer, I have been more conscious in what I have written. This too, falls back to my current work-in-progress, Yung & Jess — a coming of age story where the protagonist, Yung, who is struggling to fit in a world of not only prejudice and firm standards, but even serious legal sanctions as she falls for a woman named Jess. This friendship turned into romance creates a love and longing between these two individuals, one that is genuine and earnest, especially when their inclination and acts are deemed `unspeakable’, and Yung’s future, career and family ties can be at stake.

I would like to be clear on the path that I am with as I write this book, but there’s always a fear at the back of my mind fearing the readers will not understand or think there is no direction in it. Ironically, I am also terrified at them understanding it and being able to encode the messages behind certain paragraphs that hold my deepest of emotions. To a certain extent, I believe each writer have dealt with these feelings where we write from experiences, but not exact experiences. I have too many unwritten stories and while some managed to be on paper, they bring back unpleasant memories of my trauma. Pieces that I have written at 4.00 am in the morning, in the darkest times of my life, where my fingers came to life and typed words that were breathed in with vehemence; where I my tears would drip on the keyboard and I was relieved towards the end.

Now when those scenarios replay vividly in my memory, I realize that I was in such a dark place and I still am, but writing gave me a voice, it became the voice I was looking for in my state of brokenness and emptiness. More importantly, the old pieces of writing allows me to reflect on myself and remind me how far I’ve come. I have gone through a lot, and I will continue to face adversity and keep thriving. I’ll laugh at the scars and bruises and smile later on when I am healed. To say the least, I look forward to this journey in writing my book, Yung & Jess.