Sending Off Grandma

Grandma loved hiking up Yurongshan but, in her later years, was not very good at not falling down. Last year, on a hike, she fell and broke a hip. This sent Mom into a panic and she sped home and put her in hospital and accompanied her on her recovery. When that was done, Grandma went hiking on Yurongshan again and fell down again and fractured her hip again, this time on the other side. After that recovery she joined the nursing home where, after a short few months of getting used to her new life and building rapport with the support staff, she faded away and died. It happened quickly, and in any case the tribe has a deep distaste for the idea of life support at all costs, and was glad to see that she has gone so quietly.

I was called home in short order. I had missed Grandpa's funeral in June 2009 and had resented my parents for going to China without me, even as my sergeant major had given me compassionate leave. So there is no question when Dad asked me if I would like to go; I definitely would, and moreso if it could right a historical wrong. Mom's parents had been my caretakers when I was a toddler, and I was close to them.

Mom delegated some key tasks for me, and I was oddly honoured to follow through with them. I chose the design of the urn at the undertaker's: An urn of dark sandalwood, minimally adorned. I did the overnight vigil at the memorial hall with Dad, and I carried Grandma's ashes from the crematorium to the columbarium. Some of these duties were rightfully performed by my cousins, Grandma's male-line descendants. Despite this, I took those over from them because they were estranged, by way of my late uncle, and did not show up.

Because the vigil was performed by my Dad and myself, it was a night of light foolishness. At night the bugs of the forest liked to fly into the memorial hall, attracted and disoriented by the lights. That night was the first time I saw an owlfly. Dad saw the owlfly, which was like a dragonfly with long, strange, alien-looking antennae that ended in knobs, and quipped "Grandpa is visiting". Another time I rescued a large beetle that liked to flip on its back and Dad said, "that's a dung beetle; uncle is visiting!" At the crack of dawn he got the zoomies and went out to walk around the tombstones while I was fast asleep on the bench. This light-heartedness he attributes to the family's Catholic faith, which lifts the weight of the many ancient taboos around death off our shoulders.

Chengguan Liqiao Catholic Church

Chase Across the Floor

Hammer and River bring Tibetan dance to a Jazz battle, May 2026, Nanjing

The Chase

By the last night I had developed preferences in my dance partners, and would try to get my favourites to dance with me. One way to do this would be to "chase" — noting where your mark is and to dance gradually closer and closer to them so that eventually when the song ends you can hop over next to them and proposition. I chased Shasha around the place but gave up when she succeeded in hunting down Elisha, our Coach, and danced two dances with him. 

I asked in a meditation if God was on the dance floor, I should be chasing him as hard as I tried to chase Shasha. My interior spiritual director interjected, "but wouldn't Jesus be chasing you instead?"

"How can I be chasing Jesus and have Jesus chasing me at the same time? Wouldn't we find each other trivially and have a straightforward placement in the very next dance?" and my brain smouldered from the overthinking.

The Good Dance

After failing to get a dance with Shasha, I redirected my chase to a classmate I met during the day's workshop, this was Cynthia, an exchange student from Philadelphia with whom I had amazing dances earlier. Her game was a low forward stance, intense eye contact, and a look on the face gleeful and almost to the point of frenzy.

Trisha asked me what made me decide if a dance was good. My answer to it was "emotional connection". Cynthia's strong eye contact game was reassuring to me, although it could be off-putting to another person. I hear it said very often by other dancers that they valued good technique and clear signals. For me, on the other hand, the best dances came with minimal technique and a whole lot of Silly, a shared lexicon of in-jokes and cultural touchstones of the depth and variety like one shared by siblings who grew up together in childhood.

Surrender

This is on the fabled point in an endeavour where you have reached the end point of your mojo, said "fuck it", and then performed better than you ever would have up to that point. In Vietnam I had hit a wall, but still carried on swimmingly with the marine biology theme. In Nanjing this week Marsha "surrendered to the music" in the middle of her solo competition. I found a new way to surrender which was to surrender to the follows. I have a new appreciation for follows who turn out not to be passive participants in a dance, but come with their own mojo stowed in the backpack and are not afraid to use it.

Good follows go as far as to volunteer to cover for my own fallen nature. At one point, after I almost trip over my own foot, the follow took over the controls — not switching, but leading the dance from the shotgun seat. I dug it, but I imagine they were quite pissed they had to do it!

There was a celebrity follow who hyped up my game at Shim Sham. Thank you! My ego liked it very much.

Hyeon and Jay — for the hype

Self-abandonment

That being said, a lot of whether a dance turns out good or bad depends a lot on the follow I happen to dance with. Together with the fact that my mojo vaporises once I am aware that someone (other than my dance partner) is watching me, these are reasons why I did not hit the floor as a competitor this round.

I came to realise that, just as I mirror my follows' energy in a partner dance, I do the very same in my romantic relationships, and it was unhealthy. I tell myself "I will go where you go" (Ruth 1:16) and "be all things to all people" (1 Corinthians 9:22) and land outside my comfort zone all of the time, when at the same time the exes did not do the same back to me. This was a fast way to lose myself in a relationship, over and over again.

Is there a way to simulate a more positive dynamic in a partner dance, for argument's sake?

Dance Glossary

Mojo: Alignment with oneself

Mana (points): Like mojo, except quantitative, whereas mojo is qualitative

Out of mana: Tired

Rizz: Alignment with dance partner; connection

Pull: Initiate a move

Pull cringe: Initiate an experimental, silly, or otherwise nonstandard move

Have the silly: Have the kind of mojo that makes you pull cringe

Throw moves: Pull moves on yourself

Follow the Voice of Allah: Dance with musicality

Play ball: Be able to dance

Game: Quality of dance

Check game: After not dancing with a friend for a long time, do a quick dance to see if their game has changed in the meanwhile. This is the dance version of catching up

Ineffables: Philosophical (meta-)aspects of social dance, including floorcraft, etiquette, and mindset

Floor: The dance floor

Floor funk: The moment when you feel dread at being present on the floor; being overwhelmed, or feeling that you belong anywhere but here

Mooch: Learn moves from someone by watching them on the floor

Dance crush: The dance partner who, if they appear at socials and you do not get to dance with them, you would go home sad (this is a distinct concept from a romantic crush)

Coach: If you define a person to be Coach, you can accept advice from them any time

Swing energy: The version of you that you are on the dance floor when it carries over to other contexts 

A demonstration of "Mojo" (Photo: Andrew Lin)

I wanted this

Photo: Matthew Stockman

Alysa Liu took a long break away from figure skating to live life, and returned guns blazing.

She left behind forever a figure skating scene which told her, your must look like this, you must not eat that, wear these clothes, play these music... but builds up a scene which says, this is what I do, this is how I move, this is what I'm fucking talking about!

The old world had starved waifs, narcissistic coaches who build their self worth over the success of their charges, entire nations who bear down the responsibility of national glory on the shoulders of young men and women, conniving vixens who plot the downfall of their competitors, hired goons who break people's knees, sore losers who throw a tantrum when they do not get a metal in their favourite colour, corrupt coaches who give unfair scores, and Alysa Liu comes in like a bull in a china shop and goes, let's nuke this. Let's burn down this town, raze it three feet into the bedrock.

This is about joy. This is about love. I love to skate and I love my friends. My joy and love will pass from person to person. And fuck everything else.

Reflection for Invocabit Sunday

My Lent last year had been about abandoning the Harsh Inner Voice. I recognised shortcomings in my own approach to self-denial and redemptive suffering. I rejected the Voice whenever it showed up, particularly on the dance floor. This was not the same as indulging the ego — resisting the Voice was challenging and uncomfortable, because it was not intuitive.

For the rest of last year, I continued on this thread and this fasting blossomed into a deconstruction. I reexamined my many ascetic practices which by this point made me miserable and resentful, rather than helping me grow in faith. I learned about purity culture, and how high control and high demand in religions could lead one into the opposite of the values they intend to promote. I learned about the corruption of church leaders who preach purity, but live the culture of rape and pederasty. I reflected on my own rules and adherence to the ascetic practices, which were supposed to help with my purity, but became accessories to corruption themselves. 

Meanwhile, most of the priests at the confessional, and my own spiritual advisor, only gave me boilerplate answers to address my troubles. They could not find a way out other than variations of do the same, but harder. There was one exception, however, which was when one of them threw this one out: focus on loving God.

Let us love, then, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

What was supposed to be a spontaneous outpouring of love, a reciprocation of Allah's pursuit of us, became stale bureaucracy through my practices. It became buried in numbers, goals, targets, and obligations. I had reciprocated God's love with a sterile love. It followed that to change, I had to rebuild this connection from the ground up. No more daily trips to the church, no more timed prayers, set prayers, and so much more.

My spiritual advisor said, you can't do this and still be in the community. I said, let me leave.

He said, your interior life is in shambles.

But my interior life was not in shambles. It had gone in a better way than ever. I was relating to Allah in a fresh way on the dance floor, I was building up character, I was shaping it on my own terms. I was dressing up differently. I had started going to the gym. I had strengthened my bond with my sisters and my parents. I later also realised that doing the opposite of what my spiritual advisors suggested brought me closer to this wholesome life.

When I was living in Cleveland, I had among my friends a small cabal of gay Catholics. When I was set to leave, the director said, tell your gay friends they are going to hell. And I conveniently forgot about it during the farewell party. It was a great farewell. We are still friends. I write them postcards. We still meet up. It has been a beautiful friendship. Where would I be instead, if I had been obedient to this directive?

I would bring suffering unto myself and to others, and this suffering would not be for love. I would convince myself that this alienation was persecution, that I would be a martyr for having fearlessly preached the teachings of Christ. I would live this lie the rest of my days and whinny pathetically about it in the pulpit, fishing for validation. And as for the fruits of the spirit, there is nothing that would show up that I could recognise as such.

I do not want this.

I do not want a self-denial that makes me think another man's thoughts over my own; I own my inner voice now! I do not want obedience; or rather, I am incapable of obedience to people whose judgement I no longer trust. I do not want control, because control leads so often to impurity.

My old flames so often fault me for not knowing what I want. I realise now that they were right, and I do not want to hurt any more people whom I love. I will learn to live with my desires honestly, and communicate them well. I will do things because I want to, and not out of obligation or expectation. I will get better not because I am scared of hellfire, but learn to reciprocate genuinely, with my own love, the call of Allah, who is all loving.

Current items of fasting, Lent 2026:

1. The Daily Mandilah: take a shower after I wake up in the morning, whether I feel I need it or not. (c.f. Matthew 6:17-18)

2. Moving into the smaller sofa-bed for bedtimes.

Rose

So imma get a story in real quick about something that happened on Valentine's Day, while I am still in the silly mood: I met my old flame on Valentine's, and she gave me a rose.

It wasn't a romantic thing by any stretch. We had gone out a few times some years ago, the fuse did not ignite, she found someone as trad (Traditional Catholic) as she was and they got married. Meanwhile my pride got hurt and I got mad at the Trads for many years and went into another relationship saying "yeah suck it, Trads!" and then that relationship fell apart and I have to work on myself and that means (gasp!) not being so mad at the Trads anymore.

Anyway this woman has a strange fixation on my sister, whom she had never met. Today I happened to pass by her stall and after a while she shot me a text saying, "yeah we got um some extra roses and don't know where to put them... maybe your sister can have one?"

And I said, inwardly, what the fuck am I supposed to do, go home and give my own biological sister a rose on Valentine's Day? Besides, Jamie is a florist, she has spent the whole week of overtime messing with rose bouquets; she will throw up if she kerplops home after Hell Week and sees yet another rose. You're a florist too, bro surely you would know that!

But I did not say all of that to her. Instead I said, "Yes"

I could be mean to her, I could doubt her motives; but it has been so long, and I have already ranted all my rants. I am tired. I do not question it anymore.

So I went back to the stall and my Old Flame handed me a rose (meant for my poor suffering sister) and madafakas NOW I HAVE A ROSE

I charged straight into a single's event wielding this stupid rose like gals and pals look at this ROSE I got on Valentine's Day and afterwards I galloped up and down Middle Road holding this ROSE. On Valentine's Day!

On this special day of Valentine, some people are in love

Some people are in love with the idea of love

But me, I just like to have a rose

It's festive!

In the end I did bring it home and put my one rose into a nice vase and told my sister that this rose is meant for her. Jamie, who had brought home two vase-fuls of yellow and orange roses, was as confused as I am, but did not turn it down. Now, it graces the top of the dining room counter. The outcome is the same whether the rose was meant for her or for me. End of story.

I see you

Photo: Andrew Lin

— Swing Dance Meditations: Part 7 —

Acts of love happen often on the dance floor. Platonic acts: Friendly gestures, handshakes, asking to dance, thanking the partner after each dance... And in addition, drawing from my experiences learning martial arts on the dojo, floorcraft, making sure my friends are not swinging into pillars, fanning them with my hand fan, and letting people know that they are allowed to rest. I rack my brain looking out for everyone, at least, as many people as bandwidth can allow.

I was brought up by very affectionate parents who communicate love through touch. Mom is very much a hugger, and Dad likes to initiate handshakes. Dad initiates handshakes for any or no reason at all; he would do it at any moment if he felt like it, at home, on the road... Touch has become a way with which I receive and communicate reassurance. 

I realise that this has made me and my sisters outliers in Singaporean society. The average Singaporean parent communicates love through providing means. They do not say "thank you" when presented with small favours, but treat them as expected. They become surprised and curious to see me fistbump my sister so often, or thank my parents when they give me something. It surprised me, in turn, to see how much of my family culture comes off as strange to an outsider.

I experience love when I feel seen. I had the problem of not being able to take a complement and responding to complements by diminishing it or deflecting them. The spell was broken in August last year in Bangkok by a dance partner who told me that I had good situational awareness. We just had had a class in a stuffy dance hall. When it came time for a break, I took off into the service corridors and got the air conditioning units running. And she saw me doing it.

This was a complement that said, "I see you."

Nathanael asked, 'How do you know me?' 

Jesus replied, 'Before Philip came to call you, I saw you under the fig tree.'

Nathanael answered, 'Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel.'

(John 1:48-49)

"I see you like Jesus saw Nathanael under the fig tree."

I came home to Singapore and made more friends who see something in me and say it to my face. I learn to take them as graciously as I can. I learn to see my friends and complement them as well, sometimes to return the favour, sometimes to pay it forward, since Allah doesn't care about the accounting.

I use dances to sharpen the skill of seeing the other. I learn not merely to treat my partner as a conduit to practice, as an audience, or as an instrument, but to have a conversation with them. I learn about each partner's dispositions and preferences, and put them into a mental dossier, itemised: Do they prefer certain moves, do they not prefer others? Do they tend to turn me down? What aspects of the dance are important for them? What do they tend to wear? Are they energetic on the dance floor, or are they phlegmatic? Do they have a preference in the music: tempo, genre, intensity? Are they open to new moves, or exotic moves from other traditions? Do they make eye contact, and do they rely on it? I remember things that people say; I act on them and they find out about it through the dance.

I receive love when I feel seen during the dance. To give an example, we have a follow in the community who dances in a strange way: instead of being passive like most other follows, she frequently takes the wheel, and lead me into moves. She imitates my moves, and I imitate hers. She brings in strange moves from other dances and laughs while doing it. She is also a maniac who makes eye contact with me when dancing with other people.

Since I treat dance as a way to build character, I have been dancing different ways from month to month. For this reason, I feel exhilaration when I see my friends change their dance game, because this is a sign that they are growing too, and that I am not alone on this path of growth, after all.

Jeongnyeon

Swing Dance Meditation: Part 6 - A Dance Philosophy Somehow Inspired by K-Drama

I watched Jeongnyeon twice over earlier this year. It was the time when I had completed my Lindy Hop beginner classes, and had begun dipping into the wild uncontrollable world of socials. Being freshly inserted in this hullaballoo, I experienced a period of transition where everything was overwhelming and uncomfortable. During this time, thinking about Jeongnyeon and the way she handled her difficulties became a source of inspiration and strength for me.

Jeongnyeon finds her own Bangja

Jeongnyeon skips class and found the silly at the square. She brings the same silly to the stage and endears the crowds with her own special, extra silly Bangja. I learned that dancing Lindy Hop was not merely a static, historically-informed exercise where I do the exact moves of the ancestors, but adopting an attitude; you might make mistakes, but just as a wrong note played with confidence becomes a right note (example here), the same applies also to dance moves.

There were a few socials where my interior focus was to own the bullshit. I frequently make the mistake of initiating something silly, then in the middle of it backpedalling because what if I was too silly? When this happens the follow catches a half-cue and becomes frustrated. In September last year I made a choice to consciously choose to follow through the silly move, instead of instinctually pulling back. Just by that choice, I felt that I had progressed from the beginner ranks.

I find my own Jeongnyeon and Yeongseo

The character of Yeongseo was Jeongnyeon's foil. She is in many ways Jeongnyeon's polar opposite: Jeongnyeon is spontaneous, free-spirited, acts on instinct, and prone to trouble, while Yeongseo is academic, serious, stable, and a hard worker. The Bildungsroman was not written just for Jeongnyeon, but for Yeongseo as well, such that the latter, while initially standoffish, eventually became more co-protagonist than antagonist, and their paths of growth eventually converged. Jeongnyeon needed Yeongseo to grow in maturity and regard for others, and Yeongseo needed Jeongnyeon to let go of her inner baggage and to express herself more creatively.

I have felt the tug of both characters in me on the floor. In November I reflected on my dance and found out that I needed to be a lot more mindful of my follows, and my leaning hard into spontaneity, while a response to my old trauma, came at the cost of potentially alienating my friends. Because of this, I began to learn from the best leads on the floor: this would be Geir, who does not pull fancy moves, but moves with the music and makes his follows feel at ease - to the follow, this was a bigger plus than fancy moves by far. I signed up for extra classes to pay attention to the ineffable qualities of dance. I also began to build an interior dossier on each follow's preferences and dispositions, so that I could dance the best way with every one of them.

Of course, in this process I get to lose some of the silly which I had accumulated in September and October, which entails even losing some moves. I am currently scrambling to get them back. Insh'Allah, I will find a happy medium between these two philosophies.

Silk Road Travelogue

Link to Photo Album #1

This trip happened because you could fly to Tashkent from Kuala Lumpur for cheap, starting late 2025. It was about 3/4 solo and 1/4 day tours. By default, an intrepid traveller would come here to plow the Silk Road and hit Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent (in this order or the reverse). However, I went for variety, because these two countries have something in them for everyone

• Modern city with abundant amenities, cute metro stations, Korean food, some Silk Road stuff: Tashkent
• Nature + ski / hiking: Amirsoy, Chimgan, Shing Valley
• Silk Road stuff: Samarkand, (Bukhara and Khiva)
• Aral Sea ecological disaster-tourism, the second largest art collection in the former Soviet Union, fashion shopping: Nukus

The most useful languages to learn here are Uzbek, Tajik and Russian (as lingua franca). People in Nukus, Karakalpakstan speak Karakalpak, and people living around Chimgan speak Kazakh. A sizeable Korean community gathers at Sacred Heart Tashkent on Sunday evenings. When the usher found out that my Korean was dogwater, she switched to Mandarin for my benefit. These plus English makes 8 languages in total encountered on this trip

Part 1: Cities

Tashkent

TASHKENT: Cushy city I would describe as a mix between Paris and Seoul. You can tap into any bus and metro station with a credit card. I had thought Magic City was a tourist trap until I visited and realised it was really an Uzbek trap. Uzbekistan Ovozi Street is nice and leafy and posh. There are little corners around town where you can hide in and pretend you are in Korea; The restaurant "Makkeoli" served one of the best makkeoli that I have ever tasted

Nukus

NUKUS: Town at the edge of the desert in the Khwarezmian delta reminded me of Lincoln, Nebraska because the buildings were short, streets are in a nice grid and the airport is within walking distance to everywhere. I was here to see the famous art museum and buy clothes at Inddi Fry (they take online orders, so I probably didn't have to go in person, but I did anyway for the sheer hell of it)

Part 2: Mountains

Link to Photo Album #2

Chimgan

Here was where I first tried riding a horse unassisted. It started when I spied a posse of tourists on horseback riding to the mountain. Among them was a lady in a beige trenchcoat, the sort that every fancy urbane woman in Tashkent has on during the Autumn, but she steered her steed with ease, as if she had spent all her life on the steppe; her hair was blown about by the stiff breeze; she had the likeness of Siranush Harutyunyan; I was so awestruck that I found the next rider that came along and asked for a ride on his horse. The rider's name is Isobek, a Kazakh, and his horse is called Vasily. After some time messing about, Isobek gave me a crash course on horse controls and let me loose. I had been on many guided horseback tours where the horses were strung along by the guide and never got to steer the horse myself, so I thank this duo here for pushing me one step up!

Seven Lakes (Haftkul, Shing Valley)

Seven lakes lie along the Shing River. They are pretty as heck and are visited daily by daytrippers from Samarkand across the border. The village of Padrud was one of our stops. They are blessed with electricity 12 whole hours per day. The roads are perilously paved over scree and should be attempted only by donkeys or the pluckiest drivers

Part 3: Silk Road

Link to Photo Album #3

The Heavenly Horses

This was the 4th Century BCE. Alexander the Great had a fit and tore through Asia building cities named "Alexandria" instead of going to therapy like a normal person. On the ruins of Cyropolis he built Alexandria Eschate, the "Furthest Alexandria" (modern Khujand). The garrison installed here would grow into a network of Hellenic city states in the Ferghana Valley. These were known to the Han as Dayuan 大宛, meaning "Great Ionia"

It is now 104 BCE, in the reign of Han Wudi. The Great Ionians had developed a reputation for breeding the Heavenly Horses: absolute units, sturdier and hardier than any variety known either to the Chinese or to their frenemies to the north, the Xiongnu. (They allegedly also sweat blood out of their pores, but I have no idea what to do witu this information)

Emperor Wudi, who craved violence* and anticipated war with Xiongnu in the near future, sent an envoy to Alexandria Eschate asking to buy some sweet sweet Heavenly Horse. The court of Alexandria Eschate convened.

One said, "It's been nice doing business with the Han, but the Heavenly Horses are our only edge over everyone else. Should we really let them have it?" Another scoffed, "Let's not entertain these weaklings. They are too far away! Even if they send an army here, the Taklamakan Desert will claim them before they reach us"

So they roughed up the delegation, robbed them of all their treausres, and replied: "Come And Take Them"**

Naturally Emperor Wudi went apesh1t and sent forth General Li Guangli who slapped together a comically large army of riffraff and they crossed the Taklamakan Desert and ransacked the cities of Great Ionia and replaced the king of Alexandria Eschate with a new king and grabbed 3000 Heavenly Horses and went back to China through the Taklamakan Desert again, in the process losing 20,000 out of 30,000 men and also 2000 of the looted horses.

Reference: Book of the Later Han 《后汉书》; artistic license

*Note 1: "Wudi 武帝" is a posthumous regnal name; the character 武 was chosen to reflect the fact that this emperor habitually craved violence

**Note 2: Whether any Spartan individual was involved in the conversation is left to the reader's imagination

Clans of Zhaowu

The Sogdians had become overlords of the Central Asian Silk Road by the 8th Century CE. In the Chinese Annals (e.g. in the Books of Tang) they were known by their Chinese clan names (tied to the places of their origin) and collectively as the Nine Clans of Zhaowu 昭武九姓. Sogdians enjoyed a high level of prestige in Tang society and were often made governors of the northwestern commanderies. Unfortunately, the most famous Sogdian individual in Chinese history was An Lushan. He was very bad news (c.f. An Lushan Rebellion)

The Sogdian identity lives on today in the region of Sughd, the language of the Yaghnobi, the nation of Tajikistan, and every business in Samarkand who puts "Sogdiana" in their name for style points

Embodied Faith

Photo: Andrew Lin

Swing Dance Meditations Part 5: I was robbed

of an embodied faith when I obsessed over God in the realm of thoughts and ideas, over such a long time of my life. I learned and knew of what to believe, what to say, and how to make what I believe and say consistent to the teachings of the church, of all the little tricks of the mind that convinced myself of my own consistency. I did not live in my body. I wrecked my body on long commutes and sleep deprivation thinking that suffering will make me attain the greatest good. But when I tasted the teachings of Jesus channeled through movement and touch, tension and compression, and saw the thoughts and dispositions of my friends through the conduct of their dance, each of them unique and personal, I realise that I had deprived myself of the awareness of God's love in my own body: I did not know what it felt like in my body when I extended orthodoxy into orthopraxis, because I had not taught myself to feel, but convinced myself that feeling things were sinful.

I thank Jesus for not having stayed an abstract figure, but came to Earth as an embodied being. Humanity has a gnostic instinct that naturally elevated the mind and damned the body to Hell. By living among us he sticks a massive middle finger to our errors. He condensed the 613 Mitzvot of the Torah, implementable through blind faith, into the two axiomatic statements

1. Love God

2. Love your neighbour,

the "what" and the "how" of reciprocating his Love. Whereas the "what" involves the Creator God which is necessarily intangible and ineffable as in all of the other Abrahamic traditions, the "how" concretises it into action that allows the Love to bleed out from worship into our daily lives. Most importantly, as Jesus is incarnate and can represent the object in (1) and (2) simultaneously, these two axioms can even be thought of as a single axiom of the Incarnation.

Because of this, I do not shy away from feeling the sense of touch. I do not see the devil in the gleam in my partner's eye, because when Jesus comes to earth, he baptises our body, our senses and our pleasures. He baptises our blood and guts. He baptises the humble feeding trough where they set him down. He baptises the raggedy shepherds of Bayt Sahur; he baptises the dumb beasts of the manger in Bethlehem. May no one come and tell you that these precious things which he baptised can ever be unclean.

Baraat

Jai Mohan's baraat

My colleague Pritish and his elder brother Jai Mohan were married in quick succession, with Aryama and Krati as the respective brides. The family threw a party at the foot of Panchet Hill which lasted about 4-5 days. Because of this arrangement, the entourage from Singapore witnessed each public component of the wedding twice over. Now, overall, the Hindu wedding is a gruelling affair, lasting many days, often extending into the night. Pritish's cousins reported only sleeping two or three hours during the nights. It turned out that the time of the main rituals, involving wedding vows (7 vows from the groom, 5 from the bride), was decided by astronomical measurements, could only be fixed on short notice, and could land in the wee hours in the morning (which happened for Jai Mohan and Krati). 

The wedding vows were preceded by dinner and the processions, first by the groom, then by the bride. The groom's procession was called the baraat and involved a live brass band and vigorous dancing. Pritish's and Jai Mohan's cousins were the stars of the dance floor. Of course, I joined them...

And then afterwards they said I danced so well that I might as well be an Indian myself, and one of them offered to file paperwork for me to become an Indian citizen, and I became afraid, because I had committed to join them also for reception in Dhanbad without my other colleagues, and they looked as if they might eat me alive, when I got there. Fortunately, no one propositioned me for a dance during the after-party, nor made me marry anyone, which put my anxieties at rest.

Swing Dance Meditation: Part 4

Pritish's cousin Mansi reflected to us afterwards that there was an older guy who joined the baraat dance who couldn't dance that well (i.e. he could not do the moves quickly enough). The group slowed down to half-beat pace to match him, which made him feel included. When Mansi saw it go down, she deduced that I had gone through training. She was very thorough.

When Pritish's relatives recounted the moves which I pulled off, I couldn't recall most of it. I did remember copying some of their moves. When the dance-off happened, like with Archit or Vaiibhav, what I did was mooching moves off of my partner, spicing it up a little in some way, and throw it back at him. I hadn't trained for this — this was Bollywood dancing, heavy on upper-body movements, while Lindy Hop is more about footwork — but the way this was done felt like when I was dancing with coach Marsha Folkoff: very improvisational, very communicative and very freeform, not restricted to a particular system of dance.

People come to the dance floor with different mentalities, and their mentalities ineffably influence the way they dance. Broadly, there are people who say "I know all the moves and dance them well" and there are people who say "I want to be happy and to make other people happy". This latter category are people of my tribe, and I will seek them out and learn from them.

A Better Person

Swing Dance Meditations: Part 3

My Lent this year took an ironic turn. At the same time while I was screaming into the void saying "I am not in the wrong, my ex is; I want to become everything my ex didn't want me to become" I was also getting my shit called out in the dance floor, and somehow liking it very much.

For Lent, I wished for the harsh inner voice within me to be excised forever from me, but my teachers and my friends on the dance floor instead told me instead that the Harsh Inner Voice is good, because it drove them to improve their dance. I recalled that the Harsh Inner Voice has been, in my own past, a helpful voice. What has gone wrong since that time?

The harsh inner voice I wanted to excise said "you are not good enough", but the harsh inner voice that helped my friends along said "you can work on it here, here, here, and here". It helped that people said the latter out loud to me, in person.

In boxing class, we worked the bags repetitively, and every session I focused on something different. One day it would be shielding my face, the other day it would be posture, and the day after it would be which knuckles to land on... All these work by the fact that I am breaking one big task into small manageable tasks. Dance practice, from some angles indistinguishable from boxing practice, is very much the same deal: one day to focus on etiquette, one day to focus on switching between modes, and other days for other techniques, and so on.

Here I list some things that I have focused on in the past year. Since dance skills are often also life skills, these could help me become a better person overall:

Confidence. Ask her for a dance. Ask him for a dance. Deal with rejection and heartbreak. Try new moves from the last class. Try to make up some bullshit moves. Follow through with the bullshit moves. 

Situational awareness. The dance floor is crowded; move to a safer spot. Don't let you partner bump into other people. Listen for movements in the music. Be ready for surprises.

Empathy. Watch out for signs of distress or other changes in mood in your partner. Look out for people who look like they might like a dance. Do simpler moves with beginners. Be kind. Build each other up. Appreciate that people are all kinds of different. Accept them in all their differentness. 

Communication. Forming an intention. Communicate by touch. Be clear and firm. Move into a light dance mode where a verbal conversation can happen (I like this).

Ego death. Accept constructive criticism. Ask for criticism. Prioritise the partner's quirks over showing off own moves. Give partners credit for a good dance. Learn from other dancers on the dance floor. Be open-minded.

Self-care. Hydrate adequately. Take breaks (you have to do this yourself, because everyone and everything else can only push you to dance harder).

Self-knowledge and humility. What are my own preferences? What are my own boundaries? How do I play to strength? What are my deficiencies? What do I focus on next?

With my sister at the Halloween Party, Swingstation, October 2024 

FOOTNOTE: I would advise newer dancers (and my coaches would say the same) not to presume that your dance partner would remember or even be aware of your mistakes when you make them. The prevailing culture is that whenever something feels stuck, everyone defaults to blaming it on themselves. The implication is that everyone is more focused on themselves than on you than your anxiety-warped brain might imagine, and that in the end we all become our own worst critics. However, it would be a mistake to say that no one remembers the dance; I remember a lot of dances, most of them because they were very good.

I Can't Run Away From Myself

Lindy Hop Spiritual Meditations: Part 2

It was the Sunday after my-ex-and-I's wedding plans were cancelled. I was praying in St. Iggy's. It was a traumatic weekend, so I was praying extra hard. Being brutally honest, my prayers are most often a one-sided affair where I vent and Allah takes his time replying to my texts, to the extent I might doubt if he is really listening. 

To address this tendency, the Catholic praxis (as I was taught) would be to get one's ears perked up and predisposed to pick up Allah's hints, as the fact is that he is always saying something, even when he appears to be silent, and the rest of y'alls just too obtuse to hear anything most times

I heard Allah loud and clear that day. I was no superstitious oik who sees Jesus on toast or Mary on a daffodil, but I was pretty desperate, and therefore open!

You might have heard it said in spiritual testimony that the voice of Allah is "small, yet firm". I experienced it as a thought that builds and builds until it filled the room. The thought was this:

SHE CAN RUN AWAY FROM ME

I CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM MYSELF

During our last conversation and the unraveling of the last tendrils of our life together, my ex had played the psychologist and said I had "self-esteem issues". I have no idea which Sigmund Freud sleep paralysis demon inspired her to say this; besides, I am sure psychoanalysis was crossing a line, so it couldn't have been a thought from my own mind, or planted in me from her, because I was still very mad at her for leaving. So, this could only have come from above — I can't run away from my own issues.

The other odd thing was that I experienced this message as a Consolation. Imagine feeling at peace after being called out for your shit! Yet, here we are.

St. Iggy's

The Will of Allah

Lindy Hop Spiritual Meditations: Part 1

If I were someone else overhearing me say that I joined the Swing Dance community in Singapore because it was the Will of Allah, I would have laughed myself out of the room, because what the hell is even that

I am dead serious, however.

How the heck did I end up in Swing Dance?

The coincidences and chance encounters that led me to the dance floor were myriad: The first cause, for context, was a bad break-up and the me suddenly having sweet fucktons of free time on hand, free from wedding prep.

The proximal cause, however, was an Olafur Eliasson exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum (interim campus) where I wandered into, feeling lost. My friend Joseph Chua, who I had lost touch with for many years, appeared again to me, and he invited me to watch a dance performance where he and a few other mates would be performing in. This was a dance that goes with an installation of rigged colourful lights that shone onto a semi-permeable wall across the room, so that any one (dancers especially) could cast moving shadows that looked interesting.

No one warned me that there was gonna be audience participation

So I found out about that bit when one of the other dancers took me by the hand out of the blue. She led me to the middle of the shadow room, and we danced something. It wasn't Swing and it wasn't the athletic and expressive flourishes that the dancers were doing right before; I remember it was fast and I just bullshitted all my moves. But, it just felt so good

In Catholic praxis, we had been taught that in prayers one could come to a place of desolation or a place of consolation. This bit was definitely a consolation; which was poignant, considering that I was in the middle of a very desolate part of my life. I took some time to ponder this fact.

I still haven't explained: why Swing Dance, out of all possible dances?

Back in October 2022, Miguel de Jesus was heading a cell group under the Archdiocese. Among the group members was Arisa McIntyre, who was very involved in Swing dancing. She invited Miguel to Aliwal Arts Centre one Monday evening, alongside Mark Pereira, and then Miguel invited me. That Monday night, 2 Opus Dei members found Lindy Hop for the first time.

My first impression of the group was that, even for someone from the famously shady Opus Dei, that the community seemed cult-like. People were smiling way too much, seemed way too happy, were too friendly to outsiders, and everything was self-referential i.e. about the dance. However, after the Olafur Eliasson exhibition, where I was demurring which kind of dance class to get into, these qualities were also what came to my mind.

Lindy Hop is a happy dance. It grew out of the culture of slaves, and then of the working class. It is a silly dance. It is a dance danced by people who do not take themselves too seriously. These people live a life liberated from their harsh inner voices. They put adequate cardio into their exercise regimes. And, I think, I would like to be more like them.

What about my sister? How come she joined too?

I got her into it. Jamie could do with opportunities to meet new people. There was a discount for people who sign up for class with a friend, besides. 

Blogging from Unseo

I am now at a hotel in Unseo-dong, Jung-gu, Incheon, next to the airport. My trip has been very long. In fact, I think it has been too long and it seems hard to justify if not for some important things that I got done during this time, so I list them here.

Laos

1. My friend is here for undercover missionary work, so I don't mention his name in writing on blog. After some false starts, he could meet me after all. While I was on my way to him and in Vientiane I found he was raising some cash and some children's books for various causes. I bought the books and put in my share in a scholarship, in remembrance of a friend's mother who had recently passed
2. I bought a Hmong jacket in Luang Prabang. I used it to form part of an outrageous costume in a big upcoming dance party in Bangkok (Swing Era 2025)

Books from Vientiane

Thailand

1. Jamie joined Swing Era 2025 because she wanted to dance. I joined Swing Era 2025 because I was worried about everyone being kidnapped and shanghaied across to the Burmese border to catfish incels in perpetuity. Mission success! All my friends are home safe.
2. I danced a special dance with a girl on festival day 1. She had a different way of doing swingouts: she liked to give me a shove on the shoulder every time it happened. It was like the dance between Jeongnyeon (as Gumigeol) and Hong Jooran (as Guseuragi) in the show Jeongnyeon, and I was the freaking Hong Jooran. I was down bad for many days

Jme being iconic with Swing Era merch

Korea

1. Opus Dei activity this week. In addition to being down bad, I had also caught a cold after going to Thonburi. I spent many days not going on excursions. When I was almost recovered, I brought my mates on an excursion to Saenamteo Martyrs' Shrine and then Noryangjin Market. There, we followed our heart/gut bacterial overlords and had fried stuff and had no regrets
2. Waegwan Abbey is real-life community behind Amatodate. I finally visited them.

Saenamteo

The Swedish Embassy

IKEA Jurong East

I messed up. I fell asleep on a bed in IKEA and slept for too damn long. Now the place is closed, and I am trapped here for the night. How long has it been? The clocks are no help. Every one of them is set to a different time; PUGG says it's 1am, ROTBLÖTA says 3.30, and TUNNIS and STURSK and JÄNKIG are all set to different times also — I've slept enough, that's all I know! From Monday to Thursday I have been here, on the prowl for some furniture to revamp my room with. This has really got to stop; I must have eaten enough meatballs to qualify for Swedish citizenship!

I really need to get out of this place, though. Who is around? Who can I call? I stumble around in the dark in the sofa section, tripping over every sofa, calling out to anyone, security or otherwise, who might be able to get me out of the building. I trip over something which was decidedly not a sofa; it was curled up into a ball next to the LINANÄS, sleeping, but wakes up with a high-pitched yelp. Reflexively, it grabs and lights up a SOLVINDEN table lamp, and everything is visible again. This is an middle-aged gentleman, of South Asian extraction; although looking older than his age, and in addition unkempt and unwashed, like a man of the streets; his face wears a dour expression, his hair and beard overgrown; he has on a yellow jacket, like a mall employee.

"Did you get trapped in IKEA too?" I ask him.

The man struggles to form a word with his mouth, like someone who has not had the opportunity to speak for a long time. With difficulty and a pained expression, he hisses and sputters with his mouth-parts; he contorts and reworks his face muscles this way, then that way, until finally he exhales weakly... "ja."

"I'm sorry, sir. I should have asked your name first. How may I call you?"

"Jens-Olov," says the Indian man.

CHAPTER I: JENS-OLOV

Jens-Olov entered the mall when he was a teenager, where he then lost his way. Jens-Olov at one point lost track of how much time he has spent in IKEA, looking for his way out. So he began to count each passing day by carving marks onto the bedposts. From the time he started counting, twenty years have passed. Jens-Olov does not remember the name he had been born with.

"How did you get such a Swedish-sounding name?"

"It came with the jacket," replies Jens-Olov. "Oh! As for the jacket, I don't remember how I got hold of it either." He points to the name-tag on his jacket, as if that explains anything. Jens-Olov takes a long time to produce a complete sentence; owing to the length of time he had spent in IKEA, Swedish has become his main tongue, and he speaks English with difficulty.

[source]

"I am only kept alive by the köttbullar. Köttbullar is all I eat," says Jens-Olov. "I have eaten enough to become a citizen of Sweden." He sighs. He does not appear to be joking. "However, if you have one too many, you get one of these." He reaches into his pocket, and produces a dark red booklet with the words emblazoned on its cover: EUROPEISKA UNIONEN SVERIGE PASS.

"And if you get a Swedish passport, there is no... way... back... anymore."

I am in denial. This can't be real. This can't be fecking real! I reach for my jeans pocket for my phone, but find nothing. Looking down, I find with startlement and horror that the cardigan I had on before has turned into a yellow hoodie. I trip and fall backwards, landing on my behind against the mirror LINDBYN. I turn and see that on the back of my hoodie is printed, in big friendly blue letters, "Hej!", the same as on Jens-Olov's jacket... And, in my hair, a disturbing detail: the hair that I had dyed black last week has grown out a little, and the roots are showing up golden blonde. 

"No! No!" I scream in confusion and terror. "I would have chosen another colour!"

I struggle to get back on my feet. I crawl backwards, keeping my eye on the ominous figure of Jens-Olov. He does not give chase, but has a look of exhaustion and profound loneliness about him as he watches me beat my retreat through the showroom.

CHAPTER II: THE EMBASSY

I decide to give my best shot to escape. After some time, I have learned to adapt to life in the IKEA showroom. I have commandeered a SOLVINDEN lamp like Jens-Olov did. The trick here was to find where the batteries are kept, and that was surprisingly not a trivial task. Of course I grow tired, as any human would. I have slept on every bed by this time; personally, I have come to prefer the VALEVÅG mattress over other designs which only used foam, even if the price point can be a little bit higher. I have been judiciously avoiding the meatballs for sustenance.

I must have been at the absolute depths of the building, because I find myself now looking at a row of POÄNG armchairs. The strangeness of the arrangement, which just begins to hit me, is that they seem to be like seats in some sort of waiting room, though the intentionality was somehow not as apparent to me when the store was still open.

At the far end of the armchair section is a TORALD desk. An engraved nameplate on the desk reads:

KONSULÄRA TJÄNSTER
CONSULAR SERVICES

Of course there would be an embassy here! That explains the flag outside! It is only right that, being the centre of Swedish soft power abroad, that every branch of IKEA must therefore also function as an embassy.

There is a bell on the desk. I consider briefly to ring the bell, hoping that someone might appear who could help me... But then I remember Jens-Olov, who warned that all would be over if the person who shows up hands me the passport. In any case, what kind of person would show up at this kind of lonely place if I ring the bell? What kind of person... or non-person would it be? In what form?

And so, with my imagination heaping oppressive vision after oppressive vision upon my mind, I leave the embassy in a hurry. In the process I pass by a large poster, which reads:

It's OK to change your mind
You have 365 days to return your purchase
Visit IKEA.sg/returnpolicy

And I sink to the floor inconsolably. "It wasn't even my mind to start with!" I weep.

CHAPTER III: SKOGSDUVA

I find my way to the plush toys section. I have passed by here many times this night, trying to escape. The toys, which on a better day would have given me so much joy, tire me out instead, with their dead stares and their ridiculous facial expressions. I ponder a pile of BLÅHAJ who continue to live their non-lives unbotheredly in this cursed place.

[source]

A soft toy owl, SKOGSDUVA, sits on top of the pile of BLÅHAJ. This one begins to seem a little different from the others; the eyes, for example, seems a little less dead... The owl blinks, and I leap backwards with a gasp. Hoot! Hoot! goes Skogsduva. "What brings you here, Lauris?" Up she flies from the pile, and comes to perch on a fake branch.

"Who's Lauris?" I asked.

With her beak, the owl gestures to my hoodie, where a nametag had materialised without my noticing it. Angrily, I pull of the nametag and throw it onto the floor.

"Okay, fine. What is your name then, traveller?"

I ponder the owl's question for some time. I pick up the nametag from the floor and pin it back onto the hoodie. "I don't remember," I admitted glumly.

Skogsduva chuckles and shakes her head, which, if you understand how an owl's head works, she shakes it more than 180 degrees in either direction, a strange and rather unsettling imitation of a human gesture if you ever were there to witness it. "Hoot! Hoot!" hoots the owl once more. "So that is what is happening to you. Beware! If you spend any more time here, you will surely come to lose your sense of self, not just your name! Hoot! Hoot!"

"Far åt helvete, uggla!" I curse. "Did you come alive just to mock me? I have seen what happened to Jens-Olov."

Skogsduva remains cool as a cucumber. "You silly person! Did you not realise that I am on your side?" she smirks. "Have hope! You are not the only one who has come here and made it out alive. Let me... show you... a way!"

Skogsduva takes off from the fake branch, and flies through the mazelike hallways of IKEA. I follow her flight path with renewed enthusiasm, past the carpets, showrooms, and bathroom equipment. Finally we arrive at the study room section, where the bookshelves BILLY are arranged in a neat row.

CHAPTER IV: BILLY

"Here, Lauris," said Skogsduva. "Read every one of these books! And perhaps, one of these can hold the key to the way out." As it turns out, instead of fake books or pictures of books, as in other furniture stores, shelves in IKEA are filled with real books, albeit written in Swedish, and thus entirely decorative in function in this part of the world.

"Wait, Madam Owl," I implored. "Don't you know which one it is that I should read? I don't know Swedish, besides!"

"How would I know? I can't read!" laughs Skogsduva. "I'm an owl! Hoot! Hoot!" And off she flies, disappearing around a corner, leaving me fuming. "Förbannad!" I cuss again after her.

"För... bannad..." I repeat to myself, half-mortified, half in amazement.

I dive into BILLY, and pull out Bryt det sista tabut written by Maria Borelius. I read it hungrily. The meaning of the words reads as clear as day to me. It is a book on the importance of mental health in the workplace.

I read one more book off the shelf, then another, then another... I lose track of time and fail to register how much time has passed from reading the entire section's supply of books. At last I come to the work Vår beskärda del written by David Jonstad, which is about the challenge climate change poses for humanity. The very last page reads, among other things:

... therefore, as long as the international community reaches net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, humanity may just (barely, may I add) have a fighting chance to survive the 21st century.

By the way, if you fix all the HANDSKALAD articulated hand models into a rude gesture in the computer desk section, the next clue to lead you out of the building will appear. Lycka till!

CHAPTER V: HANDSKALAD

Off I rush to the computer desks. Around the place, the HANDSKALAD articulated hand models are on display. Some of them are holding random trinkets, others fixed in benign gestures. I put two and two together. No wonder every time I come down this section during the day, some of them are flipping the bird at the customers. Maybe, it was not just bored children or immature adults having little moments of frivolity with the wooden hands? Maybe, as in my case right now, flipping the bird was actually a means to survival? I tear up thinking about all the brave souls who fought and found their way back into society, valiantly flipping the bird with the HANDSKALAD models.

[source]

I flip the bird on all of the hands. There are seven in total. This triggers some of the lights in the store to turn on, the ones which project glowing arrow shapes onto the floor. Yes! I think to myself. Now all I need to do is to follow the arrows to the check-out! I follow the arrows for some time. 

Suddenly,  I hear a familiar voice. It is Jens-Olov. His voice sounds more shrill and aggressive than before; feral and guttural, like an enraged beast.

"Who flipped the bird on all the HANDSKALAD?" growls Jens-Olov from behind the partitioning wall, in Swedish. "Why is it that this is all an employee gets to do here?" he adds, presumably pushing one of the middle fingers back down as he says it. 

I stop running and start making my footsteps light and as silent as I could make them, hoping not to arouse his attention. I wonder with trepidation if the arrow lights might turn off, now that Jens-Olov has un-flipped some birds. To my relief, they continue to stay on.

A different menacing voice, like that of a brown bear, across a partition wall from another direction. This is accompanied with the cacophonous and urgent ringing of the desk bell. "Where are you, Lauris Ahlén? I have good news regarding your citizenship application!"

The Consul General! This terrifies me even further. I slow down to an agonizing pace, uncertain of whether moving further is a good idea after all. The further I go along the direction of the arrows, the louder the voices sound. It will not be long before either Jens-Olov or the Consul General gets a hold on me, with unthinkable consequences either way.

Then a small voice in me starts to pipe: Against the arrows. Go AGAINST the arrows.

No, it's absurd. I say back at it. I can't. I'm Singaporean.

And Singaporeans follow the rules.

I stop in my tracks. I sit with the thoughts for a while. 

Meanwhile, around the corner before me, a tray of kitchenware gets knocked over, and fall to the floor with a huge crash. It is Jens-Olov. A louder voice bubbles up from the primal depths of my Singaporean psyche, up to the surface of my consciousness:

BUT IT'S OKAY IF YOU DON'T GET CAUGHT

"Feck it!" I shout, and turn around to bolt. I run and keep running against the direction of the arrows on the ground. I hear Jens-Olov and the Consul General give chase behind me. At one point they collide into one another (or both into some pieces of furniture, it was hard to tell). Anyway I finally have them off my back. I now see the mall entrance in sight, and am about to exit IKEA through there like an uncouth barbarian, but I don't care anymore. I will become Singaporean again! I will have my eggs undercooked, eat all my things with chili, and be able to smell durian without gagging, just as I am born into this world to do.

Reflections on the Handmaiden

From: The Handmaiden - A Little Golden Book
by Chiara D'Ambrosio [ArtStation]

A strange occasion for a spiritual reflection arose when I was watching Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden. The reason for it is this: that Sookhee and Hideko's sexual liberation is earmarked, more than anything else in the movie, by the women wrecking the uncle's library of smut — furiously, and then triumphantly.

On an unrelated note, I felt that I have regained a capacity to forgive. People like to say Allah is great. I find He is also quite odd sometimes

My family's faith hangs on by a thread
That thread is me.
I look to my church for strength
I flee to whichever niche I can find where I can feel safe
Where we can share the same values
But the safe spaces let me down, and I keep fleeing
If there is no more place I can run to, I will break
My family, they will fall
When that happens, I think, I'd like to fall with them

Art: Laura Makabresku / Kamila Kansy

Something in me has to break

Screencap: Jeongnyeon 정년이 (2024)

Lent is taking an interesting turn. Some weeks ago, I had run into a sense of despondency while on the dance floor, and was unable to put my finger on why. And then it occurred to me that I had set my sights on dancing as free as a bird, but my insecurities and doubts about my technique made me hold back. I could not follow movements and cues from the jazz. I got thrown off when my partner appeared bored. The conclusion became that something in me has to break for me to keep dancing— what's the hold-up? How do I get rid of them?

I had done well to die to self, giving up sweet stuff in coffee and othersuch indulgences which will all return joyously to my life come Easter, but maybe the real, permanent thing to give up is the hold-up? When I learned boxing, I went through a kind of ego death; it stopped me from taking things personal when I lost a sparring match, and helped me keep my wits about me while being manhandled. The ego death that one experiences for a breakthrough in dance, how do I get to it? What does it look like? Is it the same as before? A little different?

Two weeks ago, my friends and I talked about Lent being not just a season of "give up", but also the season of "get some". I am very glad about this new approach to Lent. My life has up to this point been governed by what I call the Harsh Inner Voice. The Voice had been with me through many periods of difficulty, and then it started to cause its own difficulties. Lent has always been when this Voice has been at its strongest, which is the reason why it is also the most stressful season. This year can be the first one where I fast from the Voice. In some ways, I am giving up Lent for Lent— giving up the caricatural lenten self-denial that make monsters out of so many devout people.

How Greeting Every Uncle and Auntie in the Village Leads You to Sainthood

Ngarai Sianok, Bukittinggi, February 2025

I met Rahmat of Bukittinggi by chance near his house, which is by a small suspension bridge across the canyon and close to the hotel I was staying in. He brought me on a small walking trip to Kotogadang village and the next day he was biking me up and down West Sumatra. The first thing I noticed about him and his family (his brother and mother were there) was how casually and directly they asked you to part with your money. The second thing was that he seemed to know every living soul in Kotogadang. “Do you know everyone in this village?” I asked him. He replied: “I don’t. I just greet everyone I see.” For Saturday and Sunday I tried doing the same as him. When we saw an elder, we nodded and said “pak” or “bu”. If they were about our age, we said “abang”, “kak”, and so on.

On Sunday we came across some spots where, according to Rahmat, gotong royong was happening. This was where, for example, a tree has fallen across the street, and the whole village would be there to help clear up the mess and direct traffic. Naturally, there would be a kid holding up a cardboard box to me, and Rahmat would encourage me to stuff cash into it. You could hear about gotong royong in Singapore as something that happened in the remote past; the generations above mine would remember what it is – the idea of a community coming and working together, but those of my generation and later have hardly heard it. Perhaps, this was something that got left behind when the villages of Singapore were demolished and the people were moved to public housing, and, as affluence grew, we forgot even to greet our neighbours.

In Singapore, we are very used to seeing the world in terms of status markers. Good manners is no different. When we see people being graceful, we say they have “refinement” and are of “high class”. This way of understanding fell apart in Kotogadang, where people act so gracefully to one another yet the kid over there gets bowled over when you hand her 50k rupiah (4 SGD). What could be missing here?

The fundamental point of having good manners is LOVE. We do this also because God is Love. Has Dumbledore whipped the dead horse to death yet? Yes? Even so, I’m going to have my turn at it now.

Humanity is set up so that the other is always a part of our lives. Could it have been any different? Coral polyps can live an entire life of leisurely existence sessile, eating whatever the ocean currents shove right in front of their mouths, and release gametes on their own when mating season comes. Some animals live their whole lives alone – for reproduction, the male octopus can leave a spermatophore under the rock somewhere and the female octopus can come along later to pick it up, and they never have to meet. Humans are afforded no such luxury. We have the other and if the other is absent from our lives, we go batshit. And living with the other means we are constantly acting out of each other’s best interests. And so much of it is made up with the small things we do to make the lives of others more pleasant.

The best part of this idea is that many other good habits in life can be rephrased to serve this end: If I dress up well before leaving the house, it is not to puff myself up and let people know how rich I am, but to make it more pleasant for people who I will meet. If I work hard, it is not just for my renumeration, but for the hope that the fruits of my work will benefit the public. If I land hits on my sparring partner at the dojo, it is not so that I can hurt them, but to say to them that they deserve my best.

A lot of why I joined the Work is its insistence that our daily lives are paths to sainthood, that one is not obliged to line up the weekends with endless devotions, retreats, or constant basking in deep religious feelings. The spirit of the Work taught me that small things are bigger than big things, like how the small instances of good manners add up to Charity, the greatest of the virtues.