LWE Chapter 4: Love is

I was contemplating the concept of love last night and reckon there are three reasons one person loves another:

1. For who the loved one is. 
We love people for their values, their ideas, their personality, their contribution to making the world a better place and so on. The attributes we love really are a reflection of what's important to us.

2. For who the loved one makes us. 
Everyone affects us and influences us and indeed changes us. We love a person for these changes we see in ourselves which are directly influenced by the loved one.

3. For the spiritual connection between us. 
There are less than a handful of people I feel connected strongly to on a spiritual plane. We could love someone we feel a bond with - a bond that has lasted beyond just this lifetime. Perhaps a soulmate or simply a soul companion we recognise from previous lifetimes or even alternate timelines.

Why do you love someone?

Your thoughts welcome here.

This post was first published on my Facebook timeline on 1 March.

A letter to my NS-bound son: I wish you wisdom and strength.

My dearest Mark,

You will be going in to your national service in a short while and I wish I could be there to send you off. Alas this project I am on overseas means we can’t do the father-son driving holiday we were planning for before you enlist.

In the almost 19 years since I became a father, there have been many decisions which were made after deliberating carefully what was good for you and your siblings. Some ultimately proved to be sound ones and others perhaps not so successful, but they were all made with the intention to bring you all up with the right sort of values and moral outlook on life.

This short driving holiday was to have been a great bonding time, the last before you go through what Singaporeans regard as a rite of passage for men. I don’t necessarily agree with all the machismo and so on that comes with that idea, nor with the duration of the whole exercise, but I do accept the part it plays in Singaporean society.

However, this is not a discussion on what’s right or wrong about the National Service.

It is really about the conversations we would have had had we been able to take that holiday. Life is often defined by conversations at critical moments in our lives so let me be take the opportunity from thousands of kilometres away to explore these conversations right here.  It may prove to be a rather one-sided chat and we would be lacking the locale, the beers, the exhausting exploration that goes with holidays, the discovery of hidden treasures and so on, but I think you will understand the motivation and perhaps have a taste of the passion and emotion.

Stand Up for what you believe in
I come from a family that’s never been afraid to stand up for something we believe in. Years ago, your grandmother sat for days in the hot afternoon sun on the median along Jalan Gasing, protesting against the sexually-discriminating practice of paying women teachers less than their male counterparts. As a result, she was sacked and lost many years of service on her record and suffered a drop in her pension. But they finally got their demands met.

Many years later she manned a petition booth at the bottom of Gasing Hill to protest the development of what was supposed to be a green lung for PJ. This time they lost and the condo was built where it still stands today , in my opinion a blight on the landscape.

More recently, she and your Aunty Rosemary became the centre of action when there was a water shortage in Section 5 PJ, with press conferences being called in our family home and the Member of Parliament calling her almost daily to check on the water situation.

In the late 80s, one of your uncles was in the forefront of providing assistance to families of ISA detainees and I provided what little help I could, designing logos and TShirts, taking photos at events and so on. Helping the innocent families who had been torn apart by this draconian and unjust law was just a little thing, but to the families I’m sure it meant more.

Your Uncle Gerard has also made it his life to work for certain causes - he did research in water and resource management along the Mekong, and worked for the UN helping East Timor transition to an independent democracy and more recently has been working on combating AIDs and other communicable diseases in Indonesia.

So, you come from a line of people who perhaps never reached the pinnacle of visibility, but have always tried to live up to certain standards set by your grandparents. It’s not always an easy task, nor a rewarding one (though Gerard does have a nice apartment in a nice part of Jakarta, paid for by the Australian Government!) but it is a satisfying one.

I have confidence in the set of values you have been brought up with and developed on your own. You have always shown yourself to be a good, well-meaning young man and I therefore urge you to live up to those values when you can and when you are asked to. You may not need to do the stuff your grandparents, uncles or even I have done (what little I have) - but I hope you will find your own thoughts and actions through which you can make a stand and push an agenda to improve the lot of people around you. And it all starts with not backing away from the opportunity, and with standing up when those values are challenged.

Sometimes it won’t be easy - and I pray that you will have the wisdom to discern what is right and what needs to be done, and the strength to then do it. Whatever the occasion.

Understand and Embrace failure
We won’t always win. That is the hard truth. There will be things we set out to do which we will fail to accomplish despite our best efforts.

That’s OK. As long as at the end, we can look at things and say, I really did try my best, within the range of things I would ethically do. That last little qualifier is important, I think, as sometimes victories can be won at the expense of our values or beliefs. Whether it’s shifting the blame to someone else, or betraying someone’s trust in order to achieve some goal, I think it’s just not worth it. Through it all, it’s important to be true to your values.

Failure comes in many forms and can be relative to the circumstances. It cannot be measured in certain and absolute terms. Financial richness doesn’t necessarily equate success, for example, as it may simply be balanced out by a gaping hole in other aspects of life. The reverse applies too - that failure isn’t always what it seems.

You’re a creative person and that should ring some alarm bells in this area. For to be a creative person is to shift your values in a direction not many take or appreciate. It may be more important at some point in your life to be true to creative principles and eschew financial reward. Who is to say down which road lies success? Or failure?

There isn’t a clear guide book, an Idiot’s Guide to Failure or whatever. At some forks in our lives when we have to make a critical decision, it may not even be clear then that that is a critical decision with far-reaching consequences. It isn’t that important. What is important is that when we have to make a decision and on one side is lined up our values and ethics and the other is lined up the accoutrements of ‘success’, I hope you will choose the former.

For on the latter side lies momentary gratification. And nothing much else.

Remember I just said there is no clear guide book? Well, there isn’t even always a clear line that divides either side. So here again, I wish you the wisdom to discern and the strength to then stick to your principles.

Remember family. Remember friends.
You’re not really going away. You’re not moving overseas for a few years or something like that. You’ll just be gone for a few months then hopefully we’ll see you every day or every weekend. What you will leave behind is the last vestiges of your teenage life. This experience will change you in many ways, there is no denying that.

You will make new friends, some of whom you will keep for the rest of your life. You will cement some of those relationships with experiences so strong and vivid and life-changing that for years from now, you will recall them with absolute clarity - or hilarity in many cases.

Wherever your life takes you, just remember your family. Remember your friends. Keep both close to your heart where their relationships can warm you.

You never know when a member of your family or your circle of friends will be able to make that little difference in some struggle you may be having. And you never know when you might be that little difference in their life. Either way, do not be afraid to seek help, nor to render it.

That old saying ‘No man is an island’ is absolutely true - and you just heard this from ‘an anti-social b*****d’! Well, that’s what your quiet, pensive father now regards as his personality type! What I’m saying is that you are also defined by the people around you. You may be the trunk, but they are the branches that shape the tree.

And they require work. You need to put in the effort at maintaining relationships. And in this day and age nothing could be simpler. The range of tools at your disposal are phenomenal. You have email, instant messaging, online greeting cards, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, phone calls… You never know when you could make a difference in someone’s life or when they could, in yours.

I once received a call from a distraught friend whose wife had just committed suicide. He called form thousands of miles away, reaching out to a friend he’d not seen in years. To this day I am not even sure why he reached out to me. But he did. And the time we spent on the phone made a difference in his life, just as it changed mine.

More recently I was called by someone who reached the end of his tether and was contemplating ending it all. An hour later he was more settled and his problems have faded away somewhat - not like our friendship which is even stronger.

In less dramatic circumstances, your cousin Joanna will be moving to Australia soon for her university studies. A few weeks later, her cousin Charmaine will swing by Canberra from where she lives in Sydney, just to check on her and make sure she is OK. I remember how lonely I sometimes was when I moved to Sydney years ago and it was great to have my brother Joe, Charmaine’s dad, there for me. It’s so immensely gratifying to see his daughter extending the same courtesy to another member of the family.

Remember family. Remember friends.

And so here I have to end.

There is more to write, but I think I will let you absorb this lot first. After all, life is an ongoing experience and if you lived some of what  I wrote above, we will have many opportunities to explore it together.

In the meantime, I wish you wisdom and strength - two of the most important attributes a person could ever ask for.

Be well, my dear son. And be wise and strong.

With love,
your Dad

Bucket List Part 2

Is your life just a short measure?

“You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”

I love this line. We often talk about measuring up to others, or being unfairly measured by some - usually our parents. Well, here is a way to work out if we lead lives that ultimately ‘Bring Joy To Others’.

Look at the people who look up to you. What sort of people are they? What values do they espouse? What, in the greater scheme of things, difference do they make to the world around them?

Come to think of it,
what difference do you make to the world around you?

I did a quick audit, had a brief check-through of my friends and family, ascertained (thankfully) that quite probably at least a few of them do indeed look up to me, and then tried to answer those few questions above.

Perhaps I have been lucky, or maybe I have indeed chosen wisely, for the people I have included in my list are on the whole, a bunch of people I would measure myself against most readily. I may not reach their heights, but I have certainly tried to emulate their integrity, their openness, their dedication to family and friends, their living commitment to those around them. I recognise too their frailties, just as I have begun to accept my own.

I think we would do well to occasionally look around us at the people who have chosen to be close to us and who see us as mentors or role models and try to see what it is within them that has drawn them to us. In there will be a tiny picture of ourselves and a good way to work out if we are indeed worthy of their measure.


And in the end…


“When he died, his eyes were closed and his heart was open”

I think back to my father who died twenty-two years ago after an all-too-short struggle with lung cancer. I was there when we heard he had cancer but I wasn’t when he went through the gamut of emotions that are companions of one’s final journey. He died four months after we found out, and two months before I could defer my overseas studies to come home and spend some time with him.

It cut me up to not have been by his side, and more, to not have had the experience of a man-to-man relationship with him in my 21st year.

But I take away more than a slice of respect for the man I loved. A month or so after he’d finally realised there was no hope, he said to the parish priest who’d dropped by one day ‘You know, I am at peace, and I can go. Any time.’

This was a man who’d done much, and seen much. Not in a materialistic way though for that was not his way, just as it is not mine. The things he’d done connected him to nature and to people. Perhaps a little anecdote would explain the kind of man he was:

Dad used to take the boys on a drive to the East Coast every year or so when we were kids. In those days it was a 12-hour ride and we stopped frequently. Once, we took a little detour near the hilly Bentong Pass. This side trip took us down into a valley and bypassed the slow timber-lorry filled Bentong Pass, at least for a few miles.

We stopped by a road-side stall to buy some fruit and when I looked up at a hill nearby where the new highway was being built, I spied two men on scooters pointing down at our car. They mounted their bikes, roared off then reappeared some moments later on the little village road we were on. They came speeding up, stopped, jumped off and greeted my Dad warmly ‘Uncle Cheong!’. Here in the middle of the country, miles from any town, were two men who’d met my Dad, become friends and who rushed to meet him when they spied his green Peugeot 404 stopped by the road.

That was Dad - a simple chap who never made a pile of money, but made heaps of friends.

And when he died, yes, his eyes were closed but his heart was indeed open. It always had been.

So, after the movie ended and I’d wiped away my tears - yes, yes, I can be immensely sentimental and a real softie - I picked up my errr laptop and started on these two blog posts.

And a bucket list.

But this one’s different. No, I have no intention of dying anytime soon and this list is not for a dying man. This list is for a living man. To keep him on track and to make sure he lives a full, rewarding life. One that would help me answer ‘Yes’ if indeed I am asked
“Have you found joy in your life?
Has your life brought joy to others?”

Maybe you’d like to do the same?

Bucket List Part 1

My thoughts have drifted over the idea of death recently. I guess it started with that whole conversation we had in Johor when Johann, Joe, Brian and I went cycling there recently. This was where we talked about how great it would be to plan our own funeral.

My Facebook status message proclaiming the same attracted a fair amount of comment, some of which was surprising.

In the couple of weeks since, there have been the deaths of a senior minister in Singapore and the very tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi to occupy my thoughts.

Then last night, after my evening plans were disrupted and I chose to stay home for some quiet time on my own rather than join Mei and some friends for a birthday celebration, I decided to put on a DVD I’d bought some years ago but had never watched: The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.


Maybe it was a touch predictable, but a movie starring either of these two cannot be anything but brimming with excellent acting. What more one with both of them? Nicholson’s edgy, just this side of over-the-top characterisation fit the role well and contrasted nicely with Freeman’s quieter, more understated style.

More importantly to me, the theme sat perfectly with my recent thoughts of mortality and the impermanence of life. There were a couple of stand-out moments in the movie for me, most notably these:

Is it really Egyptian?
The two questions you get asked when you reach Heaven’s Gate or wherever it is they believed you went to, that is.

“Have you found joy in your life?
Has your life brought joy to others?”

We’ve made our lives more and more complex. Our day-to-day is an amalgam of career (with its own intricate mix of goals, interaction, satisfaction, remuneration and so on), home, children, recreation, familial obligations and so on. We’ve long recognised we need to return to basics, to somehow rediscover the simple purity we had at childbirth, and to divest ourselves of the bits that bring us to the edge of stress-induced paroxysm of panic and nervous ruination.

We attach importance to so many things that really don’t matter in the greater scheme of things. Douglas Adams discussed it in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when he described the perpetual human state of unhappiness:
“Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

How succinctly and well put.

To understand these two questions on a deeper level, I guess we’ll need to examine what actually ‘joy’ is. For the purpose of brevity and because this is my blog, I shall simply think of ‘joy’ as a state of pure contentment that is divorced from external causes and influences i.e. it isn’t showing the middle finger to the driver who cut you up, or bumping into your ex when you’re out with your new, drop-dead-gorgeous, ultra-rich, uber-sexy girlfriend. Nor is it winning the lottery or that multi-million dollar account you;ve been chasing for 6 months. OK, you get the idea of what it is NOT?

So what is it?

Well, I guess it’s different for everyone, but perhaps it can be described as that feeling you get the moment every part of your being connects simultaneously and completely with every part of the universe. That point when you suddenly understand who you are, and why you’re here in the first place. And that it has nothing to do with small green pieces of paper (heck in our currency that’s only five bucks), or the idiot in the Mercedes, or your ex.

It’s that moment when everything makes sense, and you can see and feel and understand that despite suffering that may be around you, or death, or destruction, that you are indeed one with everything you can see or hear or feel or touch or smell.

So, if we were to condense our life’s purpose into two questions, I guess these two would be it.
Many have said it, sang about it, led people towards it, even preached about it - and some in the process have moved many small green pieces of paper from other people’s pockets into their own - and indeed some of my favourite lines have been in Lennon’s songs and Richard Bach’s books and so on.

But at the end of the day, or perhaps at the end of our lives, what really matters is whether we, personally, can answer ‘Yes!’ to both.

Part 2 coming up soon…

Love after Love

In that iteration of me which is part counsellor and part coach, I have often observed or worked with people who exhibit a confident exterior only to reveal a sensitive, uncertain side of their personality under certain circumstances.

In actual fact I would not exclude myself from this category - and the more astute among you would note my attempt to disguise this side of my character in double-negatives phrasing.

Recently an old friend posted a few lines of a Derek Walcott poem and I had cause to read it through again and again.

I reproduce it here for no other reason that it struck a chord within me.

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.