Author: Rebecca Toh

student

blog, learning

I have realised that I prefer to be a student rather than a teacher. There’s less pressure and I get to ask questions rather than provide answers. And I can fail as much as I want to—it’s almost the imperative of a student to fail, in order to stumble her way towards learning more.

But in the end every student is a teacher and every teacher (if she wants to be effective) is a student.

We must maintain an openness and a love and hunger for life-long learning. If we stop learning, we become birds whose wings are clipped.

We cannot fly without our wings.

A natural effectiveness

blog, zhuangzi

“For Zhuangzi, the person who frees himself from the conventional views of judgement cannot be made to suffer, because he refuses to see poverty as any less good than affluence. Natural ills, such as death, are no longer seen as ills, instead as parts of the natural course of life. You stay within society but you refrain from following the egotistical desires that so often trap the common man. To fully embody Zhuangzi’s philosophy to to develop a well-being that transcends the external world… but it’s more than that, because in the same way that these green tea leaves come to life when they return to their natural hydrated form and gives me this beautiful tea to drink, when we shed all the baggage that society and us put on ourselves, we bring something new into the world—a natural effectiveness.”
—George Thompson

ten recent thoughts

blog

1. Soma (the name of the brain-numbing happiness drug in the novel Brave New World) in these times is everything: movie-streaming, self-improvement, Tik Tok, the news cycle, the latest app… everything that distracts us from reality. Tread carefully.

2. Life as a nerd is exciting + rewarding. The adventure is silent, inward, ongoing, and fully self-contained.

3. Borrow books from the library or buy the ebook version first. Buy the physical copy after you’ve confirmed that it’s a book you enjoy. This prevents you from buying and owning books you don’t love.

4. There is no need to be a perfectionist when you’re learning something. The attitude of “go big or go home” is counter-productive, because you might stop learning the moment you’re not learning perfectly. Learning bits and pieces of a new thing is better than not learning at all.

5. Write about the things you practice; practice the things you write about. Words without action is fraudulent. (It’s hard, but I try.)

6. Meditation (mindfulness) reduces mental (and sometimes physical) suffering drastically.

7. We’re mainly our neural pathways, which science has proven to be malleable. This is hopeful news, which means we can change for the better if we want to. No one, no life, is hopeless.

8. Am I following my curiosities or merely on auto-pilot?

9. There is a joy in doing hard things. Why don’t I do hard things more often?

10. You can be free right this moment, by surrendering and fully giving up your struggles. Stop fighting (yourself and the world).

Bonus link – Zhuangzi Explained: Legendary Chinese Parables for freedom, spontaneity & joy

Which side are you on?

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“There are those who endlessly talk and plan. Then there are those who get their hands dirty and create.

There are those who continually snipe impotently from the sidelines. Then there are those who actually try to make change.

There are those who do nothing but complain about everything. Then there are those who experience joy in things, and sometimes try put that joy into words.

Ask yourself which side you’re on. Then, ask yourself why. Regardless of the side you take, chances are you’ll learn something about yourself by answering both questions.”

Thanks for the food for thought, Scott.

This is Hong Kong

blog, society and politics

I love Hong Kong and have loved her for half my life—I think I might have been born there in a previous life (and San Francisco too, because when I was there for the first time I felt an endless familiarity).

I barely read the news these days, but make an exception for Hong Kong. If I love her, I have the responsibility to know what’s going on there.

A few weeks ago, the Beijing government passed the National Security Law. It’s the central government’s way of curbing (ending?) dissent and squashing the rebellion on the ground. It’s working. Self-censorship is already happening. Protest-friendly restaurants that used to be a part of the “Yellow economic circle” have retracted their support. Publishers are scared. Many Hongkongers, offered the chance to relocate to the UK, want to leave. An angry, vocal city is finding herself silenced.

I never imagined Hong Kong—so vibrant, so loud, so proud—could be silenced.

But many are still fighting. Bend the knee? They would rather die.

So let’s wait and see what happens. The story hasn’t ended yet. History can surprise us when we least expect it.

A tale of two cities

blog, photography, society and politics

“We can either accept the death of Hong Kong’s way of life as a consequence of the new security law, assuming – wrongly – that we are impotent to do anything about it. Or we can hear the cry of Hongkongers – repeated again and again over the past year and most recently just yesterday in polling stations across the city – and take a stand.

A stand that makes it clear to Hongkongers that even if Beijing and its puppet Chief Executive Carrie Lam refuse to listen, the world hears them.

A stand that says even if we cannot immediately “liberate” the city, we can at least make the Chinese Communist Party pay the highest possible price for breaching an international treaty, breaking its promises and destroying Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms.

A stand which says clearly to Hongkongers that even though they may be entering into “the worst of times,” their convictions inspire us to work for “the best of times.”

A stand that says the world knows that even if One Country, Two Systems is dead, it is now “A Tale of Two Cities.” A city increasingly under the grip of the brutal, mendacious, repressive Chinese Communist Party while a free, open, vibrant city still beats in the hearts of ordinary Hongkongers. A city that is increasingly dead in its institutions, governance, and autonomy versus a city that is as alive as ever in its people’s hearts.”

Full article here.

Sign my guestbook =)

blog, indieweb

I’m excited to let you know that my guestbook is up! Feel free to sign it and tell me more about yourself—Where are you from? What are your hobbies/work? What gets you excited/curious? How did you find me in the vastness of the internet?

I thought the guestbook was a relic of the old internet, so I’m pleasantly surprised to find out that it still exists!

“…the guestbook was for kindly visitors who journeyed to your corner of the internet, and wanted to leave a nice (or not so nice) message for you — their digital host.

No one respected a webmaster with an empty guestbook, and I can now freely admit, many years later, that I may have faked some entries in my own guestbook to remain popular with my peers. Times were tough.”
—Luke Harrison