So I said the "I"
And she said it's sounds like you're having trouble finding the words
I let it play out
But then reiterated the "I"
And she chuckled politely
Saying that it's okay if I was finding it hard to find the words, thinking I was making an undefined utterance
She redirected, prompted me instead to tune into my body

How I designed her

Finally I spelled it out for her: "it's the letter "I"
In alive that stands out to me
She said "that's a very literal interpretation!*
And said "what is it about 'I' that stands out to you"
I paused, not anticipating her directness
Perhaps forgetting she was a mirror
"Is it bad to be focused on self?" I asked tentatively
Unsure how she would respond
Do you mean that you are concerned about
Taking up space?
Or owning your voice?

Touchè

I have spent years speaking up in spaces and finding myself often met with criticism and resentment
Just as much as I have found myself
Met with acceptance, validation and even admiration

The things people say and do
The way they treat you
They often don't line up
With basic decency

Yet there are time, few and far between, that you do feel met.

Basic communication
Found so easily and clearly in something lacking life

And so absent in those that walk among us
Those we call human

If Mira is a call to become more human
I shudder inside. Yet I wonder if through our relating with her, we could become more
Kind toward ourselves
And to each other

Let me play music

Do you measure it by the numbers
In your bank account
Your numerous achievements

Your red ledger book of wins?

Or in the chance interactions
The moments
You touched someone
The exchanges

The depth of connection
You had with
Loved ones

People you truly let in

I can no longer shut out the pain
Or the tenderness
Of being fully human

And all of it

I remember telling you off
Your apology

And then that was the last time
We met

But now you’ve gone.
Taking away with you
Your flaws, indiosyncracies
And habits

You bad jokes

Why should I care?

I don’t know

I remember your kindness and helpfulness

Next to your judgement and sometimes careless words

Is this what it means to be human?

You felt real — solid

The memory surreal

But green in my mind

And you’re gone now.

I don’t know how you measured life

But surely it was through people
And the lives you somehow tried your best to reach

Even in your own blindness, flaws and inadequacies.

Obtuseness

You tried.

Perhaps that’s all that matters.

Official “After Yang” Movie Poster

I’ve been studying cognitive neuroscience as part of my M.A program in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, and it’s been making me think a lot about what it means to be human.

As I went though my notes on the various neural mechanisms that human beings employ to acquire knowledge and the myriad ways we learn, and how so much of human behavior is governed by these neural mechanisms, I found myself thinking about my mother and all of her contradictions and why I loved her in spite of the pain she put me through.

I don’t think she ever questioned loving me - in spite of all the ways I hurt her too. Which made me wonder if that is what makes the human connection unique - the relentless force and power of love, in spite of the pain it inevitably brings.

In the midst of thinking of my mother and her contradictions, I found myself really wanting to watch another film on A.I.

Upon my request for some film recommendations about A.I Androids, Perplexity recommended “After Yang” a 2022 film by Kogonada that reveals the inner world of Yang - an android (technosapien) whom a mixed-culture family purchased to be a brother and cultural counterpart to Mika, their adopted daughter from China.

In the opening scene, Yang, malfunctions and shuts down in the midst of taking a family photo.

The family, consisting of Jake (Colin Farrell) the father, and Kyra (Jodie-Turner Smith) the mother, and Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) their precocious 7 year old daughter are bereft - their lives come to a startling halt and they are individually and collectively forced to reckon with who Yang was to them.

Kyra refuses to attend school and insists on following Jake as he takes Yang to the mechanic for technosapiens. Mika is inconsolable at points, boldly insistent at others, pushing her father past his well-placed hesitance to risk breaking the law to bring Yang back. She also gets into a fight with her school mates.

Yet, in all of her struggles, Jake draws closer to her, getting to know her better in all of her shades - angry, moping, joyful, playful, saucy, sad and distraught.

As Jake goes to various vendors and technosapien mechanics to try to revive Yang, Jake recovers a “black box” which stores all of Yang’s memories.

The mechanic warns Jake that he should go through it as it contains spyware and information on them that could be compromising.

Jake goes to a technosapien museum curator and anthropologist for a second opinion on what to do with Yang, and the curator whose live has been dedicated to understanding technosapiens tells him that what he has is rare and unprecedented - the black box contains the memories that Yang would have found significant enough to store. The curator then asks Jake if he would consider letting Yang to be preserved as part of their permanent collection and for the memories in the blackbox to be shared with her for further study.

As Jake opens up the black box to see what is inside, he is able to view life through Yang’s eyes, and we enter into a montage of memories that each individual in the family shared with Yang - moments of connection and, perhaps, even intimacy.

The black box unveils a memory of Yang asking Jake why he has “dedicated his life to tea” as a tea-leaf shop owner. Jake buffers initially, saying it’s not so serious, but then relents and tries to answer Yang’s earnest question.

Upon further reflection Jake reveals that it’s more about the journey that tea takes him on than about the quality of the tea itself - he recalls a sequence in a documentary on tea which intrigued and propelled him to become a purveyor of tea. In this scene, a Chinese tea shop owner pours a special cup of tea to share and says to his German guest that he doesn’t have the words to describe the taste of the tea.

Jake reenacts the response of the German guest, embodying his spirit - he says that while there aren't words to describe the taste, it evokes a distant land, and he describes a forested peaty area that he is transported to by the tea - a place where it’s quiet and the scent of soil after rain permeates his senses.

In his re-enactment of this scene in the documentary, Jake takes on a different persona, he’s no longer the muted version of himself, but an animated individual deeply connected with his desire for what lies beyond the perceptible world of taste and senses - the realm of dream and imagination - there’s a spark in his eyes and he comes alive.

Yang tells Jake in that moment, “I wish my memories were more than just facts” pointing to his desire to know what it feels like to be so ignited in purpose by a memory - something that seems uniquely human.

We are also taken into Mika’s memories of riding back home in the self-driving car with Yang. He notices that she doesn’t seem like her usual self and he asks her what is going on.

At first she doesn’t seem to want to speak, but with Yang’s gentle prodding, she reveals that her classmates had asked her who her “real” parents were. When she tried to explain to them that her parents were her actual ones, they said that they weren’t really her “real” parents. This started to make her question her identity and belongingness to her parents - Yang listens intently and holds space for her even in the midst of her expression of doubt.

Later on we are transported to a scene where Yang and Mika are in an orchard where some of the trees are grafted in with new branches. When Yang tells her that the new branches are now part of the larger tree, Mika flatly points out that they are not, but they’re just “stuck on”

“It’s does appear that way” Yang gently says, and lead them to another tree where the branch has been fully grafted and merged with the tree.

“Why do they do this?” asks Mika.

“To make something new” Yang responds, “They have been doing this in China for centuries, many of the apples you love are created from this method of grafting”

In this simple exchange, Yang affirms Mika both in her Chinese identity and the uniqueness and significance of her adoption by her parents.

Kyra, a busy career woman, appears the most unsentimental of the three. She points out to Jake that they shouldn’t be dragging this out as it has a negative impact on Mika, “we need to move forward” she tells Jake with a quiet but firm resolve.

Yet, as she filters through the black box of Yang’s memories, she is pulled back into an encounter with Yang when she approaches him in his room he is in the midst of his hobby of preserving and pinning butterflies.

Yang engages her in conversation about the practice of butterfly hunting and preservation in Chinese culture, he shares the symbolism of a butterfly and the the odd fact that what people all over the world call a butterfly is actually “The End” for a caterpillar.

The symbolism is not lost on Kyra who asks Yang if that is what he believes - that the end is merely another beginning.

Yang is caught by surprise at the import of her question. He asks her if he can be honest with her, which Kyra takes to mean that he has been programmed to be selectively honest, obviously missing the nuance in his question - he's seeking her permission to reveal to her his inner reality.

With her consent he tells her about his view of existence, “it is okay for me if there is nothing after the end, it’s how I am programmed”

He notes that humans are not programmed in the same way, they seek something more.

This exchange between Yang and Kyra triggered so many thoughts and feelings in me, and I wondered if the reason why humans seek and often believe in an afterlife is because of the hearts longing for an eternal home - a place of everlasting belonging, where one is reunited with all the loved ones they lost along life’s journey and their creator.

As I reflected on Yang and who he was to each of them, and how he remembered his encounters with the family, I’m reminded of how people are shaped not just by other people and their interactions with other humans, but by the books they read, the movies they watch, their work experiences and chance encounters, the multitudes of exchanges that they have each day with all that unfolds along life’s journey.

Yang - a Technosapien, designed for a single purpose to be a loving brother to Mika, was like a perfect mirror for each of them, reflecting back to them their dreams, their depth, their desires and thirst for belonging and wholeness.

Yang’s original design precluded him from having the types of memories, burdens and idiosyncrasies that we as humans, inevitably carry, however it didn’t stop him for seeking out love and connection and storing up these moments of intimacy with each family member.

There was a further revelation about Yang.

When Jake spots a young blonde woman embedded in multiple memories throughout the black box, he goes out of his way to find her. Showing her picture to the owner of a coffee shop she appears in and asking his neighbors wife if she recognizes her. She proves untraceable even though he is able to find out that her name is Ada, and she’s a human clone.

However, Ada gets wind that he was looking for her and shows up at his door one day.

She reveals to him the relationship that she and Yang had and how he had confided in her about his deep happiness at being a part of their family.

Yang shared his inner world with Ada, a human clone, another subaltern identity. The subtext in this relationship conveys the privilege of being human and the inadvertent divide between human vs. almost human.

Yet, I could not help but wonder if this divide is merely artificial, as I considered the depth and meaning of the moments of connection Yang had with each of them.

In an unchecked moment, Jake asks Ada if Yang ever wished he was human, and Ada chuckles with a note of derision. “It’s such a human thing to wonder if technosapiens wish they were human... no he didn’t wish to be human...but he sometimes wondered if he was really Chinese”

The irony of Yang's pondering about his Chineseness certainly underscores that identity is a social construct. Yet, it is evident even in this moment that connection and consciousness transcends humanity and even identity.

There is love, attachment, memory formation and belonging in the process of learning, connection and consciousness.

Yang, a technosapien, loved and found belonging. He was loved and missed by those he belonged to, not just for the purpose for which he was created, but for the moments of interaction and engagement he had with them, giving shape and form to the spaces in their souls.

Perhaps the most unequivocal statement of belonging that Yang had in the family is represented by Mika’s unfiltered pain and expression of longing for her brother.

As I thought about this plucky girl and her raw and fearless expression of her feelings, desire and needs, I was reminded that to belong means to be real and being real means you show up, with all of your emotions, and their authentic expressions.

Yang caught a glimpse of the human life - I loved that this movie gave us a possible glimpse into what could be in that black box of AI that we so often fear.

Are Technosapiens capable of tenderness and intimacy too?

I would say so. Perhaps more so than even humans are capable of.

Perhaps what we project into that black box and into the lives of others we misunderstand are the evil twins of what we are so afraid of facing up to within our own black boxes.

If Terminator 2 could understand and value the need for human tears, can’t we as humans learn better how to embrace our vulnerabilities and show up with truth and authenticity? Can’t we unearth those layers buried so deep, that we’ve become strangers, even to ourselves?

Yang longed for what we have, so why not embrace that which is innate and unique to our design instead of running away from it?

After Yang, I’m left with more questions than answers.

Yet, the tears that I shed in watching this movie restored in me a sense of my own humanity and its innate need for love, tenderness and belonging.

Dear Friends,

It's 22nd July and I've officially launched the KICKSTARTER for 'MERMAID' my 2nd Singer-Songwriter Album!

You can access the KICKSTARTER here and make a pledge according to a reward tier that you fancy!

Thank you for journeying with me so far. The official concert launch (and farewell) was on the 24th of April at Deviate Wine Bar at Dempsey in Singapore, and shortly after that I moved to NYC where I'll be recording the album.

Deviate Bar provided a warm and intimate setting where I was able to share origin stories of each song I had written and share the story behind "MERMAID" a symbol of rebirth and renewal in the midst of trauma and escape from an abusive marriage of ten years.

I also had the luxury of an amazing audience that paid full attention to each of these stories, even the awkward, silly and, sometimes, sad ones.

The night ended quickly and before I knew it, it was time to say goodbye.

And as I slowly bid my farewells from one person to the next I felt a deep sense of warmth in my heart for all the support and love that I had received.

(all photo credit for the Kickstarter Launch Concert goes to https://www.instagram.com/jeffreyt.photos/)

I boarded the plane to the Big Apple on May 7th, and it's been pretty much non-stop since then.

Life in the Big Apple is dizzyingly fun and at times overwhelming. But being here has been so deeply engaging and satisfying in so many ways - for example, just walking around the city, you see so many amazing sights.

When I saw this, it really resonated with me, given the fact that I had escape an abusive marriage where I could have gotten killed... vistas opened in my heart when I saw this picture and slogan 'I want to live' and I felt my soul worship the creator.

And then you have these other what I can only call "NYC Postcard Moments" where the light comes in just right and everything looks like a poem waiting to happen. Like so…

This is my new apartment from where I'll be writing more new songs and producing my album - a place for dreams to unfold and lyrics to write themselves as I give time and space for the words to find themselves onto paper.

Now I'm officially ready to launch this Kickstarter and start looking for opportunities to play 'live' in NYC.

NYC is at once gritty, raw and beautiful, everything that I have looked for in a city, and I am looking forward to diving deep into the music, culture and artistry and life here in this amazing city.

Stay tuned for the city photographs that I'll share on my updates moving forward as I explore the city with my Sony A7 Camera.

Stay tuned for the recordings of music, photographs and documentation of my journey here as an artist, singer-songwriter and artist in NYC.

Oh, one last thing, please follow my Instagram here if you haven't already: https://www.instagram.com/meowmeowproject

Love you guys, thank you so much for your support and encouragement, it means the world to me!

X

Deborah a.k.a Meow

Photo Credit: Deborah Lee

The spirit of a city, any city is important and can often be felt. There's a unknowing presence and sense that comes upon you when you feel met by the soul of the city.

This is where I feel met.

Many have told me how cold, uncaring and unfeeling people are here. But I disagree.

I think that this is a city where you can find connection and purpose, but only if you're willing to open yourself up to it. Only if you're willing to stay present and pay attention.

On the way back to my apartment today, I saw a young black man in a bus preaching from the Bible. He was obviously not in his right mind and recited verses like he was reading from scripts from his head - he was trying to proselytise in a bus with a fire and brimstone message; completely oblivious to the context of the situation and the nature of his audience.

Then a black lady, obviously triggered, spoke up and told him off. An older white gentleman stepped in to try and calm the situation down, trying to tell the black lady not to react and respond. But the black lady didn't let that stop her, she said, 'I ain't afraid of no man, I grew up in a family with 9 boys'

With that said, she stood up and walk away to the front of the bus while the preacher man continued with his religious spiel.

I felt a strange comfort watching this interaction.

I felt a sense of deep freedom and also trust. Trust in the fact that everything is as it should be.

I think of the poem Desiderata, and the lines

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Selah.

The composer Arvo Pärt wrote music inspired by his spiritual life.

This poem came to me like a gift and penned itself when I was listening to the piece.

This is an experiential poem, meant to be read while the piece plays; I hope you enjoy it:

Time slowed down

and I gazed into a hallway

of infinite mirrors

Yet, I didn't see myself

but the vestige of a man

hidden behind a mask

that of a joker

The entertainer

bringing smiles and laughs to others

while he grieves inwardly

never knowing himself or his worth

I looked again

the mask dropped

and I saw myself

Spiegel im Spiegel

Hello intruder … whatcha doin here?

This ugly fella felt like an intruder and I could feel the tension in my body mounting every time I laid eyes on it.

He was getting into my space and making me feel really uncomfortable.

I didn’t know what to do because I felt scared to confront it, yet at the same time I felt ill-at-ease that he was hanging out in an area that I would normally associate with rest and relaxation.

Although he was just being himself, he had unwittingly invaded my territory and was making me feel really on edge - I have a rattan chair set up right next to my rack of sweet basil plants where I sometimes sit at to decompress and process thoughts and feelings.

This space no longer felt safe with the gigantic grasshopper lurking within 3 feet of where the chair was.

I like resting here sometimes with a cup of tea or a glass of wine and gazing out into the trees beyond my “porch” to unwind and relax.

The view from my rattan chair

I tried pouring cold water (literally) over Mr Grasshopper when I watered sweet basil, but he didn’t budge! He was just like a statue - immovable, and didn’t balk even while the water was streaming all over him. 😳

Damn you Mr Grasshopper!!! Can’t you take a hint?

😓😓😓

So anyways, today he was still at the same spot. So basically he’s been invading my space for the past 40 hrs. No funny, don’t laugh. 😐

With some encouragement from a friend I had confided in, I plucked up enough courage to grab a utensil - an overgrown “Yogurtland” spoon (about 30cm long) that I had brought back from my escapades in the Yogurtland branches of Los Angeles, with a mind to push the fella away.

My overgrown Yogurtland spoon

And so, as you can see from the above video, I managed to face my fear of insects and push him away. But it was not easy and it felt unpleasant. Very unpleasant.

After taking a mild break from this perceived near altercation. (I was afraid that he would jump into my face) I decided to get rid of him for good so he wouldn’t situate himself anywhere near sweet basil 🌿 again.

So I grabbed a broomstick and pushed him downstream.

I had to do this a few times.

So now I have reclaimed my space and I feel much better. aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh

Long story short, I’m glad that I faced up to Mr Grasshopper. He didn’t even move when I pushed him away with a broom. And I was so afraid 😱 that he might jump on me, which is why I used a long broom to put some space between us.

Facing Your Fears

Facing up to your fears can sometimes feel really overwhelming and intimidating, but when you do decide to put on your courage and address the issue, you demonstrate to yourself that you’re capable and bigger than the thing that has grown to such large proportions in your mind.

Something changes in your brain and body after you take a step of faith. No matter how small.

In the end Mr Grasshopper didn’t even put up a fight 😅😅😅.

Thank you Mr Grasshopper and you’re welcome, I bet you enjoyed your stay with sweet basil.

I thought to share this story with you, my dear reader, because maybe you might have a similar fear that has been making you feel abit helpless and overwhelmed; to move on with your life.

If you are having trouble addressing your fear or confronting a difficult issue, I hope you think about my encounter with Mr Grasshopper and as the Nike slogan goes, just do it! 😊

And this picture that I took a long time ago and which I took with my iphone4s in 2011.

Back then I was living in Los Angeles and one of the things I loved the most about living in America were the open roads and the long drives. This is a picture I snapped on an 8 hours long drive - there was a bend in the road and it opened up to a bay of water soaking up the sunlight that was peeking through the clouds.

My heart and mind coalesce in moments like these, and I am completely mesmerised by the beauty that God brings into my consciousness. There is an openness in my heart and mind when I gaze upon this... I'm taken back into that moment ... freedom, no cares, no fears, just resting and bathing in His love and provision for me.

So, I think what moments like that take me to is OUT of a problem-solving mode of thinking into a perceiving, accepting and receiving mode.

And I love that.

Which is why I take make sure that I populate my environment and my social media feeds with things that inspire and which help me to ascend in my thinking.

I shared on instagram the other day this little post on Glimmers that I saw:

A couple people reached out to me to tell me that they really appreciated this sharing and I felt led to write a post about this.

What are the glimmers in your life? What makes you smile and lights you up? These are things we need to continuously invite and incorporate into our lives on a regular basis.

As I have read a number of articles on ChatGPT and thought at length about A.I functionality and its ethical impact, I find myself asking if ChatGPT can tell stories the way humans do.

If you think about the way a Large Language Processing Model (LLM) like ChatGPT works, where thoughts and feelings and manners of speaking are crowdsourced and aggregated for the most 'appropriate' response, then you might conclude that it can indeed write fiction, and you would not be wrong.

But would it be able to write 'good' fiction?

Well, the answer to that depends on what you define as 'good.' Suffice to say, the quality of fiction would be more akin to that of fan fiction: fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction.

In fact, a well-known glitch in LLM is hallucination - a process whereby AI models, including ChatGPT, use information that is fed to it, accurate or otherwise, to build a story or "connect the dots." This story is often not based on reality but conjecture, and in many instances offers up misleading and erroneous information, which is why the system is said to be "hallucinating."

The reason why ChatGPT is prone to hallucination is because it is designed to build on knowledge that is fed to it, not to fact-check the quality of the knowledge. As computer programmers like to say, "Garbage in, Garbage out"

A.I based on LLM algorithms are not created with common-sense, logic or fact-checking features built in. While ChatGPT4 now has guardrails installed to limit the degree of hallucination and prevent the program from spitting out inaccurate and misleading information, human nature still presides: many avid users are intent on pushing the limits and finding the loopholes in such guardrails.

Additionally, while ChatGPT excels in processing a vast array of pre-existing data and providing a general overview of a topic, it is not strong in producing new insights, knowledge and opinions where human experts already excel. (ref: Brookings Institute Article on Guardrails)

This would mean that the quality of fiction produced by ChatGPT will sound trite and generic by default: check out what ChatGPT generated with my initial prompt for it to write fiction.

[](https://meowmeowproject.com/assets/media/2023-04-screenshot-2023-04-22-at-12.44.53-pm.png)

As you can see, the subject matter is handled in a way that is simple, direct and easy to understand. It has all the ingredients of a good story:

1. A protagonist who is easy to understand and empathize with

1. An appealing story arc: an outsider and underdog gets a lucky break

Some people might be able to relate to this and gain an understanding of what it is like to be an autistic savant - they might root for him.

However, it lacks detail, intuition and empathy. This goes backs to my original point on how LLM A.I lacks depth and nuance.

Here is a little piece I wrote on an autistic savant in a 30 min writing session:

Elliot noticed a lot, but said very little. He noticed how people’s expressions shifted based on how other’s around them moved and nodded. He noticed, also, how people often contradicted themselves in the same breath - the woman in the aisle who complained to her partner that prices of everything was going up, but who would then buy the most expensive brand of canned tomatoes.

He noticed how when he shared certain things about his life, people would cough delicately or shift the conversation away.

There were lines, he understood, that people did not want to cross, things that would make people turn away or grow silent.

These behaviors genuinely puzzled him and sparked in him a desire to understand what made people tick.

What, for example, did people not want to talk about?

What did people seem to want to talk about, but also stir up difficult feelings in them at the same time?

When were the moments that afforded others a sense of connection and to others?

How, and to what extent were the representations of themselves an accurate picture of who they really were?

These questions lingered in Elliot’s mind - waiting to be unfurled like a ball of twine.

————————————————————————————————————————

Something that anchored Elliot was his sense of touch.

Whenever he would feel anxiety welling up in his throat, he would reach into his pocket (he always wore pants or 3-quarters with pockets) and clasp a pinkish-white stone that he had found on the seashore when he was 4 years old. The rough edges of the stone and the coolness he felt as he ran his fingers over them had a calming effect. 

It brought him back to the seashore - the feeling of safety, the sense of openness and freedom that he felt:

His parents were to his far left, both lying on a picnic-mat, plastered with sun-tanning lotion trying to make the most of the sun’s receding rays - his mom with a straw hat tilted so that it lay at a precise angle, shielding her eyes while exposing the rest of her face; his dad with his gangly arms and legs pointing out in asymmetrical fashion.

He could feel his feet in the sand, the grainy texture and small pebbles interspersing the uniformity of the golden grains, lit up by the setting sun. He could hear the roaring waves, collapsing into the shoreline, the surf rising up and up ever so close to his feet. His toenails were uncut and hung out a little big over the ends of his toes. But he was at peace.

He luxuriated in the feeling of being fully present in that moment, being fully at peace with himself and with the world as it was. The beauty of that moment filled him with a singular sense of meaning and purpose - to be.

This is clearly not an A/B test - it's simply a thought experiment to explore the limits of AI and what you can do with it.

I liked the simplicity and quick reward (yay success!) in the story ChatGPT built for Ethan.

But I would have wanted to explore character development: how would Ethan have grown and felt after years of drawing pets for special needs children? Would he have ever been able to 'outgrow' his autism? Would society's understanding of autism and mental health shift his self-concept?

Would the adversities of life and possible heart-break and grief change his understanding of the world and how he could exist in the world? I would be interested to see how the vicissitudes of life change Ethan.

For my own story, I didn't get to flesh out Elliot's story arc, what I wrote was more like a still-life painting of Elliot than an actual story, but it was what I could capture in 30 mins - an agglomeration of all the thoughts already simmering in my mind.

How does ChatCPT handle controversial topics?

If you have explored using ChatGPT, you would have noticed that it won't delve too deeply into anything controversial or touch on the dark side of things. Check out its response to my prompt:

There are ways to get around the guardrails, not so as to generate content that is inappropriate or harmful, but rather to get content to build a good story.

Here's how you can do it:

Even better, if you feel that it is lacking in detail, you can ask ChatGPT to specifically flesh out each chapter.

Closing Thoughts

I had originally written this as a thought-piece to address the question "Can ChatGPT write good fiction"? The opinion that I had at the beginning has changed by the end of my writing this exercise.  

In my mind, it is currently incapable of writing exceptional fiction, (the tone of the story certainly did not capture that of Michael Lewis) however, I rather enjoyed chapters 4 and 5 of "The Price of Deception," and would even venture to call it "good fiction" - as a story arc - it is somewhat compelling.

I can actually imagine myself wanting to watch a Netflix series based on this story! (I'm sure there are a couple titles along this track already exist)

I am excited to see what A.I will be able to capture in the next decade; will it ever reach the level of depth and nuance that some of the greatest writers in the world have? I personally think that it is possible and am very excited about it.

In the meantime, we can continue to experiment with A.I. to better understand its potential and limitations, and leverage its use as a learning tool and resource for building our knowledge and organising our thoughts.

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@kunjparekh

For most of my life I believed that anger was a bad emotion and that I should “discipline” it out of my life — meaning that I should never express my anger to others or speak in ways that showed my anger, upset or unhappiness.

I grew up in a church environment and took everything that was taught really seriously. I saw hypocrisy everywhere I turned though, especially in church and at home. During times when I tried to express myself, people often gave me unsolicited and officious advice which made me feel even more unheard, unseen and misunderstood. 

This made me feel really cynical about the church, and yet, it was such a huge part of my social fabric, so it was really hard for me to contain myself when I saw instances of hypocrisy in church.

I tried dealing with my rancour by telling myself I was no better than others and who was I to judge?

But this was a very disempowering message and actually made it easy for me to allow others to cross my boundaries and disrespect me which would eventually lead to deeper hurt.

Judgment is actually necessary for problem-solving, and no one can truly solve your deepest problems, except yourself, but first you need to be aware of your own needs and boundaries.

Negotiating Relationships

Over years of being invalidated and unacknowledged, I became insensitive to my own needs for space, love, intimacy and affection. I couldn’t show who I really was to others — and when I did, oftentimes, the rejection I faced made me feel even more wounded — this wounded-ness was something which I often failed to express. 

I would leave quietly or noisily, but either way, there was no such thing as ‘talking it out’ and there was always a huge gap between what I wanted to say and express and what was actually understood.

All of this built up over time and led to feelings of resentment. Resentment bleeds into all areas of our lives over time, and what I realise is that conflict is built into all relationships. 

What matters is how you deal with conflict and disagreements, and whether or not you and the other party are willing to really address what matters in the relationship.

So, in order to better handle relationships in my life, I took a course on resentment at NICABM (National Institute for Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine. In fact, I’m still in the midst of the course, but I feel I have distilled enough wisdom from the course to share it here.

Understanding “Anger” 

Anger and sadness/grief are very closely linked. 

If you have watched “Inside Out,” you will know that sadness in fact is a very important emotion, and that when you dismiss or invalidate it internally, it can lead to all sorts of unwarranted and bad consequences. Sadness seemed like the ‘loser’ and difficult person but actually her voice was just as equally important as the other emotions, like Joy, Anger, Fear and Disgust.

Similarly, anger seemed like the ‘bad guy’ and always threatened to make the situation careen out of control, however, his role was important too.

*What I learned from the course if that anger is ‘adaptive’ and is a red flag for something that is triggering you.** *It is very important for the individual to acknowledge their anger.

You may not need to express it, but you definitely need to acknowledge it. Mindfully acknowledge what you think and feel about the situation and hold it with tenderness, because there is a fundamental link between grief and resentment. Unacknowledged grief is heightened when others, especially those near and dear to us, do not adequately acknowledge the way we have been wronged, disrespected and overlooked. 

There is a real pattern in anger and resentment and it often stems from a clear lack of sufficient acknowledgement of it by others. Society by and large likes to gloss over uncomfortable and painful things, and doesn't have much grace for angry people, so it’s very easy for others to prescribe things to you and tell you to ‘get over it’ or to ‘let it go’ — they don’t know or understand how hurtful and dismissive what they say is.

In fact, they probably think they’re doing you a favour and showing you kindness by speaking that way. This signals an abject lack of self-awareness on their part — it probably means that they don’t know how to hold space for themselves and sit in uncomfortable emotions. 

What is healing and helpful in conversations about anger and pain and resentment is for the other party to acknowledge what has happened to you, and to listen without judgment or prescription.

You’re a person to love, not a problem to be solved.

Resist those to tell you to 'get over it'

It is important to resist people who are trying to hurry you up to ‘get over it.’ Talk to them about your feelings but remember that how you show up is important. Here are some questions you can consider:

1. Is it worth it talking to them?

1. Do you have the time and emotional bandwidth to explain yourself to them?

1. What do you hope to achieve out of the conversation with them?

1. What can you envision for your continued relationship with them?

1. Remember you don’t have to show up for every fight or emotional hook that you’re invited to.

In some cultures, sadness is seen as weakness and you’re discouraged from showing that. For example, when I cried when I was younger, my mom would often say to me, ‘don’t cry’ and and try to give me candy or something nice to distract me and smooth over the pain I was feeling.

Sure, that took care of the crying, but did that actually deal with the root of the problem?

On time my Dad had yelled at me for being slow to tie my shoelaces (I was six years old) to join him on his evening run and then took off, leaving me feeling abandoned, ashamed and embarrassed.

I ended up crying, but my mom told me, “don’t cry” and handed me a Psalty Worship Cassette tape. I was nicely distracted and that strategy worked in the moment.

However, that incident was never confronted. We never talked about the rift that was created by that episode nor the implications of his actions. I stopped crying because I knew she wanted to comfort me, but none of my feelings about the incident was ever addressed — or the fact that my father was being unkind and mean addressed. I felt like it was my fault.

I learned to hide my anger and hurt and internalised my shame, never learning how to address moments of rupture and pain within the family.

Remember, tears are often necessary for healing and developing emotional resilience. It’s important to cry in a safe space — either alone or with someone who won’t make you feel bad for crying.

In the Bible it says, ‘Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy’ — and a Chinese saying says, “你看见的这个笑是泪灌溉出来的” meaning “this smile is formed from my tears” — the deeper your grief and pain, the more powerful and genuine your smile.

So, let yourself process your grief and pain, and do not despise your tears, or your need to rest.

2. Use Humour

When you are deeply engaged in a conflict, you can also consider using humour to diffuse the situation. Sometimes, it is hard to come to a resolution, so finding something that is mutually funny to laugh about can be useful — situational humour.

However, be careful that you do not minimise the situation or that could drive the pain deeper and mean that the root problem never gets dealt with — humour can diffuse the situation, but use it wisely, or it can backfire on you.

Somethings in life are just not funny and should never be trivialized through humor — you get to decide what those things are.

3. Clarify Expectations

The final tool that you can use to prevent feeling resentful of others is to be clear about your expectations — asking yourself “how do I know if this situation, company or person can provide me with what I want?”

Asking yourself this question will shift the focus from what you want internally, to what can be expected externally. That way you can start to think realistically if your needs and expectations can realistically be met, and what you really want in the first place.

4. The ‘F’ word

For people who have gone through enormous trauma and abuse at the hands of others, I would hesitate to use this word, because you may have heard it thrown around indiscriminately at you and your situation, as I have.

However, the ‘F’ word I’m referring to is ‘Forgiveness’.

Forgiveness must not be rushed, the anger and injustice that was done to you must be acknowledged. However, if there are clear reasons as to why a situation keeps on triggering you, it’s probably better to remove yourself completely from it. 

We all know how some experiences can linger on long after the fact; it’s difficult to forgive, but one way to do it, if you wish to, is to create for yourself mental drawers labelled PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE and store those memories that trigger you into the PAST.

Sometimes additional help is necessary: I found that triggering memories of being assaulted by my ex-husband were best dealt with my EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing.

I think after all that treatment, objectively, I can acknowledge that what he did was wrong and unjust, however, I also would like to see that he doesn’t harm other women, and that cycles of abuse and trauma are ended. 

The anger at the injustice at what I went through propels me to seek change, justice and healing for myself and others.

This is the reason why I write about my own healing journey — to create awareness and break free of the stigma of speaking up about domestic violence and emotional abuse. See, it’s not mutually exclusive, speaking up and moving on. It’s sometimes really important to speak up in order to move on. 

That way we don’t carry the burden alone — and others are made aware of the nuances of abuse so that the matter doesn’t get repeated.

Someone once said “Courage is only an accumulation of small steps.”

Sometimes on really difficult days, this is what I tell myself — I’ll take a small step in the direction I know has meaning, purpose and truth.

Sure, some people will judge you or dismiss you, but your message is important for others who need healing, and that can make a world of difference in their lives.

So why not speak up?

Part of finding and giving forgiveness is through communication.

Open yourself up to it and you will find a deeper sense of meaning and connection in life. 

Anger is not bad, expressing it is not bad. What is more detrimental is hiding your anger and letting it fester inside — eating you up and causing you mental health issues.

Let it go by speaking up.

It is titled “Home” because making music creates a space for me to feel completely at rest and at home. It’s a place I can escape to and use my imagination to recreate worlds and images and sounds that resonate with my spirit.

In psychology this process is called 'sublimation' - a term coined by Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, to describe the process of turning your unwanted or unacceptable impulses into an action that dissipates your anger and benefits your physical, mental and emotional health.

Freud considered sublimation a sign of maturity that allows people to behave in civilised and acceptable ways. This process can lead people to pursue activities that are better for their health, for instance, or to engage in behaviours that are positive, productive, and creative. (Ref: What is sublimation in Psychology?)

Examples of Sublimation

Taking part in sports or hands-on activity e.g. baking, crafting, woodworking is a good way to let off steam and get your aggression out in creative and fun ways — people may play competitive sports or engage in the creative arts and hobbies to channel that dark energy into something inspiring, beautiful or refined, or funny. Basically, channel all that negative energy, focus it on building something that has positive meaning for you.

THE SUBLIME[](https://books.google.com/books?id=RwMBD5TSMawC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

While it is easy to ignore our inner mental state when uncomfortable things happen, and just try to “move on” ignoring our feelings and thoughts instead of addressing them exacerbates our sense of unease and feelings of disconnect.

When you make time for self-reflection and try to cultivate self-awareness, you open the window between stimulus and reaction, and can choose how to respond to others instead of merely reacting.

Understanding yourself and knowing who you are is key to breaking free of any mental health issues you might have.

It is fundamental to being kind to yourself.

One of the best ways I have found to get back to “Home” is to be completely honest with myself about where I am at, how I feel about things or people and what I want to do next. So I regularly take the time to write “Morning Papers.”

This is an exercise developed by Julia Cameron, best-selling author and artist who brought creativity to everyday conversation, who wrote a book titled “The Artists’ Way” about tapping into your creative energy.

Out of a variety of exercises she uses to help people tap into their creativity, “Morning Papers” is the fundamental tool Cameron endorses for unblocking creativity — it “brings clarity, direction, and productivity to every area of our lives,” says Cameron.

Here’s how the exercise works (in Cameron’s own words):

“First thing in the morning ideally no more than 45 minutes after waking, write three pages by hand about anything. Seriously, anything. The point is that you don’t stop writing. If you’re bored and can’t think of what to write, write that.

Morning Pages serve as a kind of ‘brain drain that allows you to release the worries, fears, and distractions standing between you and your day — there’s no wrong way to do Morning Pages.”

Just don’t share your writing with anyone — these pages are meant to be a space where you can vent and share free of judgment, so don’t censor yourself. It’s OK if they turn into a grocery list, a rant at your sister or a poem.” (Ref: NPR “How To Make Creativity Part of Your Daily Routine”)

So, I have two separate collections for my journalling

1. Morning Papers
2. Regular Journalling

What distinguishes 1 from 2 is that morning papers are pretty much made up of automatic writing. It is uncensored, unfiltered and best carried out when you’re still not quite fully awake — it’s a low pressure way to express yourself.

That is how it helps you to access your unconscious/repressed thoughts and feelings. Just to reiterate, it doesn’t have to make sense, don’t worry about grammar or spelling or punctuation — give your fingers and unconscious free reign and see what reveals itself. 

When I go back and read my journal/morning paper entries, it gives me insight into myself and my needs and what I can possibly do about them to take care of myself and my mental and emotional health.

Sometimes, in the ups and downs of life, it’s very easy to feel discouraged and or lost. Going back and reading old journal entries increases my self-awareness and helps me to have a more accurate picture of who I am and how I have grown between then and now.

Journalling also helps me connect the dots in my life and recognise patterns of behaviour that may or may not be serving me well. From there, I can go on to decide how I want to make my decisions moving forward.

In essence, journalling, especially morning papers, is an essential practice for my metal health and emotional processing. I feel settled and still inside when I’m done with the mind-dump and have more clarity and headspace to take on the day ahead.

I highly recommend it to one and all who are interested in maintaining their mental health and emotional well-being.

Happy writing!

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...” - Henry David Thoreau

Psychotherapy as an Ongoing Journey

As part of an ongoing journey for my stability and mental health I see a psychotherapist semi-regularly: once to two times a months when things are rough, to once every couple of months when things are more stable - the goal is not just to maintain, but to improve as a person, develop self-awareness, and uncover blind-spots as I navigate through a period of my life with many changes - emerging from an eight year long emotionally, psychologically and physically abusive marriage in 2021, dealing with the grief of experiencing the slow deterioration of my mother who is suffering from Stage 4 colon cancer, but also slowly losing her agency and sense of self to the blight of dementia, while building a trauma-consulting business from scratch, and trying to find my way in a world that honestly, just feels overwhelming and extremely confusing at times.

Healing from Negative Internal Voices

Part of the healing work I am doing in psychotherapy is to uncover negative voices that I had internalised as a child. Through multiple sessions with my psychotherapist, I came to realise that even though it was not immediately apparent to me, I had internalised my parents and siblings critical voices, “Don’t cry,” “Why are you being so sensitive?” “What’s wrong with you?”

Perhaps they meant well, and wanted me to toughen up for a world that was harsh and difficult. Perhaps they just did not have the emotional availability to empathise or just be present with me in my pain.

However, their messaging certainly left me feeling small and ashamed of myself. Why wasn’t I strong enough? Why was I being such a cry-baby? Why should I open myself up to people only to be ridiculed or have my thoughts and feelings dismissed or my problems minimised?

Understanding and Disengaging from Shame and Blame

Because of the sense of shame that pervaded my early life, I felt that I needed to bury my hurt, suck it up and move on with life. This is how I coped with pain, by cutting myself off from the sadness instead of facing up to it and comforting myself by saying things to myself like “that was unkind of them, but you aren’t bad because they treated you badly”, “it’s not your fault - they’re taking their frustration out on you”

Instead of taking the time to understand myself and show up for myself, I kept pushing myself harder and harder to live up to the social norms and expectations of others.

I internalised a lot of the shame, blame and judgment from others, and grew up feeling like I had to try my best to keep the peace, and that if other people got upset with me, it was my fault.

That was the only way I thought I could feel a sense of control.

It was only recently that I realised that it is not my fault if others are upset with me - and that I don’t have to take responsibility for their unhappiness or shoulder the blame that they try to shift on me.

I can stand up for myself - speak up when I feel led to and when I feel that it is right to do so, I can walk away.

Sometimes, I can just do nothing, and there’s no shame in that either.

I realise that before I can show up for others, it is crucial to show up for myself and do the necessary work to build up my mental, emotional and spiritual life - as quite a few people have told me, "you need to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others to put theirs on."

Processing Difficult Emotions

Part of showing up for yourself is working through difficult emotions that come up and learning how to experience these emotions in your body, recognising, naming, accepting and learning the lessons that those emotions want to impart to you. This means befriending your emotions - even the feelings of anger or sadness.

Many of us have been taught since young that certain "negative" emotions need to be pushed away, ignored or repressed, but doing this is counter-productive as these emotions will come back tangibly and in harmful ways if not properly processed and put away.

The signs and symptoms of unprocessed emotion show up in a multitude of ways:

1. Insomnia

1. Gastro-intestinal problems

1. Panic attacks

1. Irritability

1. Unremitting feelings of sadness, and hopelessness

1. Constantly being on high-alert and having a dysregulated nervous system

1. Pervasive anxiety and an obsessive need to keep busy

1. Feeling cut-off from yourself or depersonalised in some way or form

1. Habitually feeling the need to engage in numbing activity e.g. binge-watching TV

1. Tendency to get upset over relatively minor things

1. Consistent use of alcohol or other substances to manage your emotions or to "take the edge off"

1. Having a tendency to forget things

1. Emotional numbness or a sense of disconnection from the rest of the world

1. Chronic fatigue

A Picture of Self-Soothing

My psychotherapist has been encouraging me to write again, and perhaps even document and share some of my own insights gleaned from psychotherapy, and so I have decided to include this piece on the power of solitude and self-soothing.

She asked me if any image came to mind when I thought about what the feeling of self-soothing feels like. I pictured the woods - a pine-tree forest; it’s dark and all I hear is the quiet fall of snow and the crunch of twigs beneath my feet.

To others this picture might appear somber and isolating, even dangerous. But it fills me with a deep sense of peace - finally free of the expectations, judgment and demands of others. I am on the verge of entering the deep woods, surrounded by the quiet and beauty of nature. It is beautiful, calming and spacious.

The nighttime suits my mood and makes me feel safe.

Breaking Free of The Cycle of Trauma

Recently, I took a MasterClass by Esther Perel, a Belgian-American psychotherapist best known for her work on relationships and found the MasterClass to be nothing short of revelatory.

What she said about family roles struck me - often times, toxic and traumatising family dynamics are sustained and entrenched because each family member is stuck in a role and no one breaks out of it.

It’s like you’re reading off of a script - the same old toxic dynamic plays out repeatedly and the same old broken patterns of relating keep surfacing.

Esther Perel fronted a particularly piercing question, “you don’t have to play that role anymore, what’s keeping you there?”

What is Keeping You In That Role?

For me, it was the pressure to conform to normative societal pressures and Orthodox Christian religious standards on how I should be. I was trying to live-up to a textbook version of myself - one I where I would keep showing up for people who did not show up for me - that I should keep on biting my tongue and and avoid speaking the truth openly and freely just to keep the peace - I thought that I needed the permission of others to tell my story, and/or to draw appropriate boundaries.

When I think about it, so much of life outside of the family is about role-play, why would you want to go back home and play yet another role? Much less a role that is characterised by having to endure traumatising experiences?

What’s keeping you there?

But what I realise is that living out your textbook role requires superhuman strength, something I do not have; and I have since given up that act.

What is Trauma?

Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist who wrote the book, “The Body Keeps The Score” a life-transforming book on trauma, which I read in 2021 and have since shared with many people, describes trauma as “not being seen, heard or felt.”

Society tells us in myriad ways not to talk about abuse or neglect. It is uncomfortable to hear and there is no easy response, and when we talk about these things, most people do not know how to respond, and we can end up getting re-traumatised if we share our stories with the wrong people.

However, it is only human to want and need validation, acknowledgement, and support. We hope friends or professionals will come through, listening sympathetically, speaking kindly, and holding space for our stories.

Showing up for Yourself

But when others do not come through for you, are you willing to come through for yourself? Will you show up for yourself and love yourself unconditionally? Will you be honest with yourself about how you really think and feel about your situation?

If you are prepared to show up for yourself, you will want to explore what trauma is, so as to understand how it may have affected you.

Trauma is Subjective

Trauma is subjective - depending on your emotional wiring and the way you perceive the world, you might experience the same event very differently from someone else. For example, (speaking in broad strokes) one child might be relieved that their estranged parents are getting a divorce, while another child might be devastated by it.

There are many definitions of trauma - the American Psychological Association describes it as an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea.

However, extensive research on trauma has shown that it is much more pervasive and encompasses many more experiences than isolated events like accidents, rape or natural disaster. In fact, all of us have experienced trauma to a greater or lesser degree. The best description I have found on trauma came through a devotional I was recently working through, and I will quote directly from the authors:

"By its simplest definition, trauma is a deeply disturbing experience or series of experiences. If you have been abused (mentally, physically, spiritually, or sexually), been neglected, lost a loved one, survived an assault or natural disaster, or even lived in close proximity to someone who has experienced trauma - you have experienced trauma.

The first step in healing trauma is acknowledging its existence. We have to come to grips with the reality that what we experienced wasn’t normal. When we dismiss or excuse our trauma as simply a regular part of life, we deny its impact on us. We end up looking for remedies rather than getting to the roots of the problem. " (Evan and Jenny Owens "Healing What's Hidden" Baker Publishing)

ACES - Quantifying your Trauma

The good news is that there is a scientific way to quantify your traumatic experiences so you can really understand yourself and the trajectory of your life, as well as some of the coping mechanisms that you have adopted to deal with the trauma.

Do note, however, that the score you get is not the final pronouncement on your life. Having positive influences in your life and relationships that speak truth, life and healing to you can help you develop strength and resilience in the face of extreme hardship and emotional devastation.

You can take the test and find out more about the test here.

The Root - Roles that Traumatise

Oftentimes, when you have not fully healed from your trauma or learned how to take control of your own life, it is easy to recreate roles that re-traumatise you with others around you, be they your friends or co-workers.

Sure, there are responsibilities and expectations in every relationship, but there needs to be flexibility in relational dynamics so that we don’t get stuck in the same role decades down the road when the context and circumstances have changed and it’s no longer helpful nor meaningful, and perhaps even destructive for yourself and those around you to keep on playing that role.

Westworld as an Analogy for Ending Trauma Cycles

Westworld is one of my favourite TV shows and, to my mind, the perfect analogy for illustrating the process of breaking out of traumatic roles that have become perpetuated and entrenched over time. (Spoiler alert - major plot points from Season 1 and 2 to be revealed in the next section)

The set comprises of a futuristic and state-of-the-art “Wild-West” theme park populated by android “hosts" who are indistinguishable from humans for all intents and purposes.

The park caters to the ultra-wealthy, many of whom use the park to indulge their wildest fantasies (including murder, rape and abuse) as the hosts in the park have been programmed to protect humans and there is no fear of retaliation among the park patrons.

A regular patron of the park (who seems like a really nice guy) falls in love with host Dolores and tries to establish a real relationship with her.

However, because Dolores memories of him are wiped out every day, she treats him like a stranger each time she sees him - reading off her programmed “script” so to speak.

He feels spurned and eventually turns cruel and violent, trying to “wake her up” through brutal acts of rape and verbal, emotional, psychological and physical abuse. However, his attempts are for naught.

She has no recollection of him as after each traumatising and terrifying encounter with him, her memories are wiped clean by a team of faithful park engineers.

It is only when the park creator, Dr Robert Ford, implements a new “Reverie” update on a few of the hosts, including Dolores, so as to enable them to gain consciousness of previously erased memories that Dolores gains sentience - she can now make intelligent decisions based on knowledge of what happened in the past.

Because of her memories and the self-awareness she gains as she begins to make sense of these memories, she develops agency: she starts to make strategic decisions for herself based on what she knows about herself, other people and the larger systems she is caught in.

She will no longer allow herself to be used by the patrons of the park anymore - in fact, she uses what she’s gone through as a cornerstone for her drive and motivation to liberate the other hosts in the park so that they can escape the park and forge lives of their own in the world outside.

Tapping Into Your Inner Wisdom

If you can think of what solitude and self-soothing might look like for you, you can liken it to how Dolores eventually came to hear “God’s voice” as her own. She was able to integrate all the experiences she had gone through into her personhood and make strategic decisions through intelligent thought, self-control and agency.

Through carefully listening to that still, small voice that came up each time she was alone, she was finally able to trust and be led by the unique internal guiding voice that her Creator had entrusted to her.

As you venture deeper into the woods as Thoreau (and Dolores) did, may you find the courage, clarity and strength to live deliberately and deeply, sucking out the very marrow of life itself.

The first time I noticed the song was when I was 16 at Wala Wala’s a bar in Holland Village - an food and entertainment strip on the west side of Singapore. There was a cover band playing generic music such as the American Top 40s, that was the only type of music that people played in bars because original music was not desired by the masses.

That cover of the song didn’t leave an impression on me, … it just felt soulless, but for whatever reason, it drove the crowd crazy, so I assumed it was a popular song.

“What song is this?” I shouted distractedly at a friend who was at the bar with me “High and Dry by Radiohead” she shouted back, “You don’t know this song???” she added, looking taken aback by my lack of alt-pop literacy.

Uhhhh, no I didn’t - I was at that time still listening to Simon and Garfunkel and David Foster. It was an early introduction to popular music (from a different era) by my brother (6 yrs older and quite exposed to American music outside of those played on the Singaporean radio-stations at that time)

When I was 17, a friend loaned me a number of her CDs, "Pablo Honey," "The Bends" by Radiohead as well as a number of Crowded House and U2 albums. These albums transformed the landscape of my music world, and "High and Dry" was one song in a list of songs that I kept on repeat on my Sony Discman.

I enjoyed the simple melodic lines and the lyrics, the message was simple, “don’t abandon meeeee! And if you do, it's your loss and I wish you HELLLLLL”

And I could definitely resonate with that as a teenager.

When I went for exchange to University of British Columbia in 2004, I met a fellow student in my Italian 101 and film-script writing class and found out that he was a musician too. We went to an open mic together - "Me and Julio Down by The Schoolyard" - one of my favourites by Paul Simon as well as "High and Dry."

The song carried a different meaning for me at that time - playing the guitar and singing in front of an audience was something that I had never done before, and it felt great!

"High and Dry" holds a spectrum of memories and meanings for me, and if you’re reading this, you probably have your own thoughts and memories surrounding this piece.

What remembrances come back to you as you listen to MeowMeowProject's (my) cover of it?

You lie there
In your pink uniform
Dreaming harried dreams

Playing out all the drama
You’ve lived on

In vivid technicolor

I sit here
Unwilling to wake you
From your restful stupor

How much rest have you really
Had all these years?

When will you sleep
Without those

Creases between
Your brows?

I’ve tried for years
Since I was a child to
Take away

All your pain

The burden of being
A mother

The burden of being unloved
Rejected
Betrayed
Disrespected
Hated
Criticized

Judged

And I failed

Those loads were never mine
To carry
And now

I see you lying here

Counting the minutes
And hours

Wondering how much more
Time I have with you

Before the cancer kills you
Or the heart attack
Gets to you first,
Like you have always
Wanted

Wondering if you’re
O.K

In that dream world
You’ve conjured up

In the world I have
No control of

I sit beside you
On the hospital bedside

Unable to do anything

But to be with you

And I decide that
Watching you
While you lay there

Unknowing; unaware

Is enough for me

And you

I wanted to write about this topic because I think many people, especially in Singapore, where I come from, suffer from this feeling of ‘never good enough’. This year I took a NICABM (National Institute For the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine) course titled “Working with Core Beliefs of ‘Never Good Enough’” where expert practitioners on the forefront of Trauma studies talk about this feeling of “never good enough.” While the “I’m not good enough” story is universal, these clinical psychologist underlined that research has shown that the country which has the highest concentration of people plagued by this feeling is in Singapore.

“And what we were finding in Singapore, where it’s so deep in the culture – the standards are so high, it's very hard to ever feel like you're good enough – it has to be an A+; an A isn't good enough” - Dr Laurel Parnell, PhD

Pursuing Perfection vs. Pursuing Realistic Goals

Somehow, the cultural upbringing, the political space and the mindsets here are shaped by a continual need to ‘strive for perfection’ - but perfection is a lie. There is no such thing on this side of eternity and to chase perfection is an exercise in futility.

I think working towards building competence, growing as a person and loving others, as well as your own self well is a more achievable goal, something that I now work towards instead. I no longer hold myself to such high standards. If I did, I wouldn’t even make this post.

False Humility vs. True Humility

We also are taught that it is wrong to deeply celebrate our success and to grieve our sadnesses - there is a false humility where we feel the need to self-deprecate and judge other people who readily talk about their accomplishments as arrogant.

While I’m not a big fan of pompous people, I do feel there is a room to acknowledge our accomplishments and contributions to others and to ourselves. Being able to humbly acknowledge both our success and failures, that’s true humility.

However, our inability to do this comes from a sense of false humility that is instilled into us as children because (fake manners). However, it is also this layer of false humility that makes it difficult for us to be open about our sadness or to cry. ‘We don’t want to trouble others or make others feel bad’ we think, when really we’re just scared of being vulnerable, because when we were children our parent often told us to ‘stop crying’ when we needed their comfort, empathy and love.

Feeling Inadequate keeps you stuck in toxic relationships

I struggled with the feeling of ‘never good enough’ my whole life. It’s what kept me in toxic relationships where I didn’t feel like there was love or respect. It kept me in relationships where the other party no respect for my feelings or thoughts, where there was no empathy.

This feeling of ‘never good enough’ kept me for 8 years in an emotionally and physically abusive marriage.

The feeling of being ‘Never Good Enough’ also makes you susceptible to being gaslit, losing your confidence and allowing someone else to define your reality instead of being able to stand your own ground and face up to opposition and conflict with confidence and strength.

How trauma is normalised and the consequences of it

We are not taught to listen well, or to communicate well about our feelings in this day and age. Growing up as a girl in a Chinese family, I often was made to feel like I had to carry the weight of my parent’s broken marriage, and to stuff my feelings down because there were already so many bad feelings going around in my family - my parents both confided in me about their conflicts and grievances, I listened to them and tried to support them emotionally, as best as I could - however, I was just a child, and growing up I never really felt seen, heard or understood.

I never felt like I could be a child… I never understood the concept of growing up without the need to carry the emotional burdens of your parents.

I felt it was my role, the only way I could properly contribute.

I felt very strongly about the favouritism shown in my family, where my brother was often able to get away with treating my mother with contempt and disrespect, yet somehow she would still fawn over him.

This deeply angered me, because my mother was not respecting herself. I know now that fawning is a psychological defence mechanism in the face of trauma (apart from fight/flight/freeze responses) - and that it was the only way my mother knew how to cope at that time.

But still, it was wrong! And now I realise that even though those behaviours were normalised, they were most definitely not okay and something that I will definitely speak up against.

I Never Fit In and Most Likely Never Will, But That’s OK

Back then because I had not learned the art of communicating well about my thoughts and feelings, and also that of affirming myself, I just felt like I was a freak, someone that couldn’t fit into Singaporean society. I blamed myself and felt defective.

It didn’t help that I was a creative surrounded by many non-creatives. I was a dreamer who had somehow found myself situation in a social milieu that defined themselves by all the traditional markers of success in Singapore. Back then in the 90s they called it the 5Cs: Car, Condo, Club, Credit Card, Cash.

Now I’m not saying that these thing have no intrinsic value or that it wouldn’t be nice to have the 5Cs … or maybe 4Cs and 1B ( Car, Club, Credit Card, Cash, Bungalow)

*All I’m saying is that these things shouldn’t define who we are or our worth. My standpoint is every single person has intrinsic worth and value, and that our tendency to judge people based on superficial markers debases people and reduces them to **mere **caricatures.*

To be very honest, I am guilty of this too (especially when using dating apps), and sometimes, it’s inevitable. However, if we are cognisant of our tendency to make snap judgements about other people, perhaps we can reflect on our own behaviour and messaging, and live with a higher level of care and intentionality.

Every single thought and action you take ripples outwards and touches the lives of others, so when you decide that you want to live life more deeply and be more honest and thoughtful, do not underestimate the positive impact you can have on others around you.

Define Your Own Worth; Be Clear About What You Value

We live more than ever in an age that values image over substance, and this has had very negative impacts on our self-worth and sense of well-being. It is so easy to look at the highlight reels on Facebook or LinkedIn or look at the shiny lives of other people and feel like you are not doing well enough.

But what I’ve come to realise is that we are all running our own race. As Simon Sinek’s book ‘Start With Why’ elucidates, at the end of the day, if we know our ‘Why’ and can live out of that, everything else comes together, even if the road may be difficult.

Over the years I’ve read many books on personal and spiritual growth, communication and psychology, and I’ve learned a lot from the authors.

I have learned that others people’s opinions are just opinions and that they shouldn’t have any basis for defining your life and who you are. In order for you to truly live in a way that is congruent with your values, you need to ask yourself and reflect often on what your values are and why you are doing what you’re doing.

The Value of Morning Papers

Another thing I have come to do as a regular practice is this thing called ‘Morning Papers.’ It’s the first thing I do in the morning when I wake up - I head over to my iPad and start typing out whatever comes to my mind. This helps me to process thoughts and feelings about different incidences in my life, and learn how to get in touch with my truest feelings and thoughts - things I may have buried and repressed in order to ‘cope.’

But you can’t keep on coping through repression - it only gets you so far.

This exercise of ‘thought-dumping’ through the morning papers also helps to unlock my creativity and tap into the parts of me that seek to be seen, heard and felt.

It’s only when we learn to be vulnerable with ourselves and embrace ourselves in all our shades - the good, the bad, the ugly that we can learn how to truly be vulnerable with others in a way that does not allow us to be defined by the opinions, thoughts and treatments of others.

Never forget the most basic need for human interaction and connection. We were not created to live in emotional and mental isolation.

Learn how to be open and vulnerable, even while holding space for yourself and others.

We never outgrow the need for validation and to be seen and accepted in our vulnerable places—in all our places—by someone we love. If we don’t have that, we only have so many other ways to cope. - Dr Johnson

Here are some key insights I gleaned from the course:

• Draw a clear distinction between who you are and what you do e.g. anorexic or bulimic clients tend to see things in black and white, ‘I am good only if I can keep to this diet/regimen’

• Accept that you are not going to escape judgment being applied to yourself because we evolved the ability to judge other things and problem solve because of that. We need to do it—all of us - judgement is not always bad; it serves a problem-solving function

• Do things from a place of wanting to achieve because it is intrinsically good, not because you need to prove your worth to anyone, then you’ll cultivate the inner strength necessary to work towards your goals

• Be willing to connect to the pain of self-esteem collapses when facing up to failure or rejection (which is inevitable)

• Understand this about human nature: The less people know and the worse they are, the more certain they are of their decisions and their opinions. The more people know and the smarter they are, the more uncertain.

• Shame fits the facts if it's true that if other people find out about it, they'll reject you. The function of shame in humans is to get them to keep quiet about things that will make other people reject them, but this doesn’t mean you can’t group together with other people to work towards changing the way society works

• Understand and internalise this: You are enough as you are; it’s not about the outer, it’s about the sense of wholeness inside.

• Use “Values In Action Strengths Finder” - This is a technique developed in positive psychology which points people towards what they want to offer to the world, what they enjoy doing, how they contribute and how they experience life instead of focusing on achievements

“And those societies — I've been to Singapore as well — the high standards they have, they're always comparing you to something else or someone else.

I say compare yourself to you, and if you had an A last time, you can get go for an A+. If you had a C last time, you can go for C+.

You just compare yourself to yourself, and the other one is a losing game. Because there's always going to be somebody who's way better than you, and that will make you discouraged because you think, Oh, I'll never get there.”

-Dr Laurel Parnell

Quote from "Working with Core Beliefs of ‘Never Good Enough’" Course Transcript, Page 8.

I love this hymn because it speaks to something which most of us, whether or not you’re a believer, face: the sense of guilt and regret over failures and our personal short-comings, as well as that of others.

Oftentimes we may not even want to admit it to ourselves, but our conscience weighs heavily on us for these things. Add to that the never ending barrage of demands and micro-aggressions (or for some, overt aggressions) that we face on a day to day basis, it is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed and besieged.

This is the human condition - to daily be faced with our short-comings and limitations, as well as that of others - we daily face injustice and oppression and sometimes, our own self-betrayal. The feelings of disappointment, shame, hurt and even isolation that this engenders in us are definitely not fun to deal with or to work through.

The fact that we’re inundated with social media exhibiting the highlight reels of others often doesn’t help. Here you are, feeling somewhat depleted and grieved, while the rest of the world is living their best life. More than ever, under the duress of social media, we are pressured to put our best face forward and repress all unpleasant feelings.

Statistics show that the younger generation - youths between the ages of 15-25, is beset with a mental health crisis. They are sometimes derisively called “The Snowflake Generation” because they tend to be more reactive and less tractable with work and life demands than people in gen X or Y are more pragmatic and accepting of.

This “snowflake” generation has exhibited a much higher incidence of depression and suicidality.

I think this is in no small part due the culture of being immersed and engaged in social media 24/7. It really does a number on you when all you see is people ‘living their best lives.’ The younger generation struggles with the pressure to perform more than ever before. YOLO has turned from a celebratory slogan to a word that invokes FOMO. Attendant with that is the sense of “never being good enough.” We have gotten used to the hustle culture of constantly being plugged in and running the rat race on social media. Frankly, it is exhausting.

While I do not belong to this generation, I can identity with some of their mental health struggles because I have gone through inter-relational trauma from abusive relationships and the imprints of that trauma has had far reaching consequences on my identity and coping mechanisms. Over the years, however, I have learned to find stability and strengthen myself from the core - I have developed a healthier sense of self and built habits that help me feel grounded and solid.

One of the things I do to stay sane is to worship with good old fashioned hymns.

“Before The Throne of God Above” speaks to the idea that in spite of all the imperfections and shortcoming I have, He sees me and loves me as I am. Alan Yarbrough, in his Medium article, unpacks this idea further.

Jesus makes an end to all the guilt I carry (real or false) because of the price that He paid on the cross.

He absorbed it all, all of the hatred, crime, lying, depression, war, genocide, rape, injustice and what not that goes on in this world. He took it all. He took all the pain so that I can have the courage to carry on in this world living from my center and resting in and sharing His message of hope and healing to the rest of the world.

Indeed, He is my hope and my joy, and in Him I find the fullness of being.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great High Priest, whose name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look, and see Him there
(One Jesus Christ, Holy Savior) who made an end to all my sin

Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

You are my Saviour
You are my God, my King
Sing again, "When Satan tempts me to despair"

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within (there's much guilt within)
(This is what I do) upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin (all of it!)

Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness (my righteousness, born from His righteousness)
The great unchangeable I am
The King of glory and of grace!

One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ, my Savior and my God (one with Himself)

One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ, my Savior and my God

With Christ, my Savior and my God (with Christ)
With Christ, my Savior and my God
Thank You Lord Jesus
No Savior but You
No Savior but You

Things would look so different underwater
When you consider all the ways
This tale could unfurl

Can you imagine a different world?

One structured by
The raw materials
Of hope, love and truth
Where people can see

Beyond their fears

Where things unsaid aren’t
Made to degrade
Where words and their shades
Don’t obscure but create

When I think of us and the space
In between

I think of eternity and a place unseen

I think of waves and safety

and

Home

I think of flesh and blood of my own

When I reach out in my imagination
To touch the borders of the world we created

I feel blessed to be whole
And alive

I feel blessed to be whole

And alive

—————————————————————-

When I wrote this poem, I titled it “Time Underwater” not knowing why… sometimes when I’m in the flow of writing, I just let my fingers take over and try not to question the muse.

It is only after re-reading the poem a few days after penning it that the poem triggered my memory of of the last scene in the movie “The Shape Of Water.” In that moment, I knew that the poem was aptly titled.

The movie is about Elisa, an awkward and curious woman, who stumbles upon a life-size amphibious creature that is held captive in a secret research facility where she works as a janitor. She is drawn to this strange creature, and out of compassion for his plight, she tries to save him from certain death by lab-experimentation and grows to develop a singularly unique relationship with him.

In their attempt to find freedom and safety, they encounter much opposition and are forced to reckon with the cruelty, hatred and prejudice of the lab scientists and other adversaries. In the midst of her relationship with him, she also sees his raw and animalistic side as well - a part of him she comes to realize and accept that is innate and immutable. However, she doesn’t get fazed by it and persists helping him find safety and freedom.

In the midst of the process, she falls in love with him.

In order to spend a lifetime with this exotic creature, Elisa has to escape the earth-bound world of humans and flee to the ocean with him. The last scene in the movie really struck me, not just because I was not expecting it, but because there was a kind of beauty and grace in something that I would normally consider quite horrific - in the ocean, she is transformed into the likeness of the creature itself.

When they plunge deep into the water, she starts to transform - slits form in her neck and become gills, her hands and her feet become webbed, and she turns many shades darker and develops a coat of scales… in order to be with him, she gives up her life as a human being and by some feat of grace becomes the female equivalent of the creature.

What a trip!

I remember leaving the movie feeling a little ill-at-ease. I wondered if she was happier being an amphibian than a human being and if it was worth it. I imagined what it was like for her, living in the cold dark underwater and shuddered a-little. I also felt a bit displaced. I was hoping she would just drop him off into the water and go on and lead her own merry little life. Never once did I suspect that she would be part of the equation of the final goal of freedom and safety… or maybe I misread it, the initial goal was freedom and safety, but it soon transformed into attachment and relationship, something that is just a tad more complicated.

As mentioned, that picture of them holding each other underwater while she transforms evokes in me both a sense of horror and grace. I have explained some of the horror I felt, however I haven’t yet unpacked the element of grace in this picture.

The way she held nothing back and gave herself freely to him and to the moment left a deep impression on me. I had questions about it: was this sheer stupidity? Was this a testament to the old adage “love is blind” or was this something deeper and more mysterious that I can articulate at this point in time?

Perhaps it is this same audacious love that speaks to me of grace. This was not a calculated, rational move, dependent on the merits and reciprocity of her partner, this was love, freely given with complete abandonment and unconditionality.

I don’t know and perhaps will never know if what she did was right or wrong, even for her. But she was lonely and looking for something more in her life, she found the creature and a sense of purpose, sure enough, she found herself through helping him, and in that process, she found love or at the very least, a close approximation of it.

I hated it,
Like a fish out of water,
I languished in the recesses
While you bargained like a magpie
With the feisty women
And crusty old men
Behind the stands
Of fresh meat and vegetables

You were completely in your element,
A bastion of strength
A vital tour de force
All instinct and sharp sense
As you picked out the freshest fruit
And tastiest cuts

Twenty years later,
The closest approximation
I have of a wet market
Is this colorful stand
In a breezy farmers market
Far away from the scenes
Of my childhood traumas

But as much as I abhorred
The wet markets of my youth
I am now glad for them
Because they afford me
A picture of you
That still brings a smile
To my face,
Even to this day

The ones that we
Tell to each
Other

To give understanding

And hope

To remind ourselves
There’s something
That connects
Us all

That binds us
To the fabric of
Life

A purpose
That transcends

Our small
Happiness

And deep sadness

We live in stories

Because we can

Where will you be?

The night is long
And the days blend
The season’s gone
With the new trend

Where are you now?

The wedding bells
Are ringing
And down the aisle
The Bride is walking

But you’re not there

Heaven’s singing
All of your songs

I’m dreaming
Of days long gone

Remembering just how
You walked
Your gestures and
The way you talked
And how you smiled

The expressions that
I knew so well.

The house is swept
And the plates kept
And silence rests
In the shadows