Story about a Don Quixote of Literacy to Remind me of Good in the World

Sometimes the evil things people do in the world gets me down. I try not to be too affected by negativity, but it does get to me eventually. There was this quote I read once from Mister Rogers, about what his mother said to him when bad things happen. She told him to, "Look for the helpers. You'll always find someone helping."

This is partly why I try to collect tales of people just spreading goodness in the world, because they want to. Like this story I saw recently while I was sick: This man in Indonesia, Ridwan Sururi has been providing a modest library for children at a remote village called Serang in central Java. He brings them library books on horseback. A "Don Quixote of Literacy".

I like to imagine the smiles and laughters on the children 's faces when the horse library comes into the village, and as they pick out the book they get to borrow for three days. We who are more affluent have forgotten the simple joys of having just a book in hand, and is it any surprise when parents complain their children don't read anymore?

I would like to see more of this kind of goodness in the world.

Releasing Books Into the Wild!

A friend posted this story about how a guy has been leaving stacks of books around New York City, with an email, and asking people to email him when they pick it up. In Bookcrossing term, it's apparently called a "wild release". This sets me wondering - I'm trying to declutter, and this seems like a great idea. Might be fun.

2014 Interview with Carrie Brownstein

I'm waiting for Carrie Brownstein's memoir to arrive at the local bookstores. As the publicity rolls out for the book, I found this 2014 interview with Carrie - it's great to see her articulate, witty, and very, very funny.

She just makes you want to pack up and move to Portland:

Interviewer: “Do you have a distinct impression of Portland when you were growing up?”

Carrie: “No, I didn’t even know it existed.”

....

Carrie: “Portland is a city, seems like it’s designed by an eight year old. If you imagine asking a kid like, ‘What do you want for your city?’

‘Well, I want my house to painted blue. With a yellow trim. And all the buildings will look like Lego. All the people will wait in line. To vote? No, for ice cream. And, you know what? I’ll never have to dress up. I’ll never have to put on a suit. All the adults will play bass guitars. And have a donut shop. What will the donuts be shaped like? Like penises’.”

And I have not met many people who truly use 'flummoxed' in conversation. Well played.

SEA Games Swimming 2015: 'Gold' for the SG Singing Crowd

Our national anthem was playing as the winners of the 4 x200m Freestyle relay stood on the podium. Suddenly the speakers broken down - the hum of static, then silence. Then, from the silence, a growing chorus of our people singing the Majulah Singapura, our national anthem with gusto. Smiles broke across the faces of our gold medallists. At the end of the song, we cheered, and one of the swimmers, exclaimed, "Awesome!"

So it was. This is what it means to feels Singaporean. This is what sport is supposed to do - to unite us as one people, as Singaporeans. Money cannot buy this.

I've watched this clip many times over, and I have never felt more pride in my heart for my countrymen.

WILD | How wild it as, to let it be

I finished re-reading Cheryl Strayed's Wild last night, and it was as beautiful as I remember. Towards the end of her hike, Strayed's narrative shifted, as an author in a distant present looking back at her hike through the PCT, how her life continued since then - her meeting the handsome man who would be her husband, her children, bringing her family to the place she sat and ate an ice cream cone, and all four of them having an ice cream there.

What was it that hiking the PCT has given her? It gave her something to move forward in her life, yet like all mysteries, it is an elusive and wondrous thing.

It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn't have to know. That it was enough to trust that what I'd done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was, like all those lines from The Dream of a Common Language that had run through my nights and days. To believe that I didn't need to reach with my bare hands anymore. To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. That it was everything. It was my life--like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.

How wild it as, to let it be.

How beautiful. How so very true.

SLEATER-KINNEY | This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it

I'm posting this Rolling Stones interview with Sleater-Kinney here. I was looking for a quote from Carrie Brownstein about the riot grrrl movement earlier:

Brownstein enrolled at Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, the epicenter of the early-Nineties feminist-punk movement known as riot grrrl, where she started a band, Excuse 17, and saw shows by iconic Evergreen acts like Heavens to Betsy, who were fronted by Tucker, and Bikini Kill. The scene was revelatory: "I thought, 'This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it,' " Brownstein recalls. "Sometimes, with your family, you're like, 'How can you be so close to me and not see me?' And then, all of a sudden you see yourself portrayed in music, and it's like, 'On the other side of the telescope is someone that sees me.' "

I love it - 'This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it'.Sometimes, you come across music that echoes your heartbeat, and this is how it feels.

Marathon Heroes: "These are the things that define you ..."

I was watching this press interview with Kara Goucher after the NYC Marathon, and it was heartbreaking for me. [ Source ]

Kara Goucher finished 14th at the NYC Marathon with a time of 2:37:03. It was her big return since the 2013 Boston Marathon, and fans like myself were all looking forward to her doing well. Things did not go as planned though. For the first time in her running career, she "hit a wall" - that painful, unspeakable moment when the brain and body shut down and you truly struggle to carry on. She admitted in this video this is the first time she "hit a wall" running. I watched her break down, emotions overwhelming her. I imagine the kind of doubts and anguish going through her head when so many people had their hopes on her making a triumphant return after injuries and changing coaches.

“I’m really sensitive so it hurts,” Goucher said, wiping away more tears. “I know I am in great shape and can do great things. It’s like, ‘Well that sucked.’ I’ve worked really hard and have a lot of people behind me and I’m like, ‘That’s what it was?’ But that’s what it was. It just wasn’t great. It was really sucky, actually.

“This is the most pain I have ever been in my entire life” she continued. “Both physically and emotionally. It’s taken so much for me to get back here and so many people have invested in me so I feel a responsibility for that and then physically I have never felt like that before where I literally couldn’t move. It was not a good experience."

It was a most human moment. She was an Olympian, an elite runner, but even heroes struggle. I think we often forget that. After finishing the race, Kara Goucher broke down and wept. Meb Keflezighi, approached her and comforted her. Meb finished 23rd last year, but came back strong this year to finish 4th in the NYC men's race, and he won the Boston Marathon earlier this year. This is a guy who fell and tasted the ashes, but found it inside him to pick him up. Kara said:

“I talked to Meb about it and he said, ‘These are the things that define you and the experiences that make you appreciate the good times and make you work even harder,’” Goucher said. “He came up to me and I started crying and he started crying. Then he said, ‘Look at where I was last year and look at where I am now. I believe and don’t let this sway you from what you know you’re capable of.’

Heroes struggle too. We forget that. What makes them heroes is precisely because they struggle, and continue to get back up and fight harder. What makes them heroes is because they understand the struggle, and they work to lift others up.

 Stay strong, Kara. We believe in you. Stay strong, Meb. Both of you are heroes.

[ Source: @Adam_Goucher ]

Not Till We Are Lost ...

"Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." ― Henry David Thoreau

I'm putting this here to remind myself to appreciate the journey. I have a tendency to be goal-oriented. Being lost sometimes means a fresh point of view and nothing feels familiar - and that is a great opportunity for learning.

I forget sometimes. A friend of mind reminded me recently, we are not works of perfection, but works in progress - and that felt like so much wisdom.

Tracy Chapman's "Change"

The heart finally is ready.

Power of Vulnerability in Our Lives

I have been sharing this video with anyone who would pay attention.

24th March 2009

Too often I have friends who will find themselves caught up in a state of spiritual and emotional fatigue. Sometimes we talk, and I always tell the story about people going back to the things that first inspired them.

I have been neglecting my yoga practice for 6 months now. This is about how long I have been in Dubai. With work and having to adapt to a very different culture, my practice has been put aside. I am not proud of it, and I feel lost without my practice. The practice has always been the one sure thing I can fall back on whenever life hits me hard.

It has been a while since I allowed myself a moment of self-reflection. But I forced myself to sit down and write this post today because I need to stop and find my bearing again. I am 33 years old today. For the past few years, I have always taken a day of work to spend time with myself. This year, while I can't take time off, I still want to spend time with myself.

Without my regular practice these days, it seems I lost a bit of focus in my life. I need to come back to the mat. But the question is: How?

So I come back to the story I always tell my friends: Go back to the people or things that inspire you. I came across this yoga demonstration by Ana Forrest this evening. I remember how awe-inspiring she is to me. I know yoga is more than the flexibility and strength. It is more than the advanced twisty poses.

What I want is her discipline. Everything she does in the video below happens because she worked really hard at it. 

TED | Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity and a Little Bit More

You probably know Elizabeth Gilbert from her book, Eat, Pray, Love. If you have been inside any bookstore the last two years, you probably see stack-loads of it around.

TED invited Elizabeth Gilbert to speak on creativity. As a public speaker, Elizabeth Gilbert is engaging and her speech is sprinkled with humorous anecdotes so that it never feels boring.

The reason I decided to post her TED video here today is because of her message towards the end: She was so successful with her last book that she is now caught p with the tremendous pressure and expectation for her next book. How can she possibly write anything that can be as successful? As she admitted to the audience: her best days as a writer may already be behind her. How does somebody live up to this sort of pressure? How does an artist continue to work, knowing you may never create anything that was as spectacular as what came before?

Elizabeth Gilbert explains one of the one of the most painful reconciliation for an artist: there will come a time when you know that the moment of almost divine inspiration has passed on. How she comes to term with this is to accept that perhaps, this moment of inspiration - this "most extraordinary aspects of your being" that came from somewhere outside of yourself is just on loan to you. It was with you for a moment, and when you are finished, to be passed along to somebody else.

I love this idea that we do not own our gifts. That it is something shared with us for a brief moment of our lives. When the time comes, we pass it on, grateful for what it has brought us - for what came by grace is never ours to keep.

Please watch this video for her message.

Elizabeth Gilbert's website