I found out Christopher Nolan was doing an adaptation on The Odyssey when the first trailer launched a couple of years back. I was no exception to the Greek mythology plague that broke out when I was in primary school (early 2000s), all thanks to a little series called Percy Jackson.

Rick Riordan, who I can only assume either had a lot of free time on his hands, a fantastical imagination or was an actual demigod, breathed magic and mystique into every single page.

Any prophecy or journey the characters undertook, I was right there with them — I was there, at the mercy of Zeus’s thunderous, erupting wrath bubbling between the valleys of Mount Olympus. The memories of this book replay as an epic movie and I was feeling my way through this book rather than reading it.

That retainment of emotional quality is what makes a good piece of art truly memorable and in that same vein, is why I’ve always loved Nolan’s films. Art demands to be felt and experienced rather than just passively spectated. Nolan himself agreed to something similar in an interview:

Now, that’s a long way to say I was excited to see my two worlds collide and what magic Nolan would bring to The Odyssey.

The Tortured Hero That Will Be Eternally And (Internally) Punished In Atonement For Their Sins

The Odyssey was oddly reminiscent of a previous summer I spent with Nolan through a movie called Oppenheimer, and it was no coincidence that Nolan wrote this movie right after that Oscar-winning movie. I remember thinking: ‘The Oppenheimer influences are strong’ even before I left the cinema.

Christopher Nolan loves to unravel the psyche of what I like to call: ‘The tortured hero that will be eternally and internally punished in atonement for their sins.’ In Oppenheimer and The Odyssey, both protagonists end up creating something that is beyond their control.

When Odysseus successfully infiltrates the city of Troy by his cursed genius of the Trojan horse, he sits at the staircase looking back at his men in their true animalistic and bloodthirsty state. Troy was set a fiery ablaze with violence and blood splattered across the city.

And was it any surprise that he did not look happy witnessing what he caused.

In simplistic terms: he won, but at what cost?

One of my favorite scenes was when Athena’s high priestess (played by Zendaya) was begging for mercy as she knelt in front of Odysseus - who was no God, but a mere man. The calamity brought about by a single man effectively shifted the power dynamics between God and man (which happens a lot in this movie), and makes you question time after time - who wields real power, Man or God?

By choosing to omit the beheading of the high priestess and instead, beheading Athena’s statue was another ode to how Odysseus crossed the line of no return. He basically declared war with the Gods, which is a war almost impossible to win.

The head of Athena’s statue fell to the ground all while Odysseus’s men were boastfully singing their premature yet apparent victory as the wakeful hour prevails — in terror and shrieks as the whole city is overthrown. The wreckage of Athena’s temple and the city she guards is a beautiful symbolism of the violation of Zeus’s law, which not only cost Odysseus his men, but in the words of Oppenheimer:

At that moment, not even God was capable of stopping Odysseus.

But consequences await patiently only to surface during his voyage back home, the imagery of Athena’s high priestess would be his companion and haunting ghost.

The Traces Of Humanity Bleeding Out Of Odysseus’s Leadership Was What Ultimately Made Him A ‘Bad’ Leader

Many argue whether Odysseus was a ‘good hero’. There were undoubtedly many things he did that were infuriating from an audience’s perspective, which lays the basis for the argument that he was not. After his immense victory at Troy, we start to see the flaws in Odysseus’s humanity.

When he shot the cyclops Polyphemus in the eye despite having escaped from his cave because Polyphemus spat out the remnants of his soldier’s armour - from an omniscient perspective, it is one of those moments that make you scratch your head in frustration and go:

He shouldn’t have done that.

But Odysseus was by no means a God, he was human — despite being a heroic warrior, he was flawed and did that out of wounded pride.

This was evidently clear in the choices he made and the choices he didn’t. Greek gods, as erratic and unhelpful as they are even to their own children (iykyk), often recite rules or prophecies that seem comical in their simplicity, but the struggle is in humanity. Humans are no Gods, which is why they have difficulty abiding by simple rules.

When Tiresias warns Odysseus that harming Apollo’s cattle would bring destruction to his men and ship, they still did it anyway despite Odysseus stating outright they would perish by doing so. Or, when Odysseus’s men saw scattered armour outside of Circe’s home, that was not enough to make them retreat.

‘Is this destined or have you cursed my men?’, Odysseus asked after witnessing the horror of his men transformed into pigs.

Circe shakes her head: ‘Truth’.

A similar exchange happened when Odysseus was furiously walking away from the BBQ pit his men dug up, where Athena probed:

‘Are these not a consequence of your men?’

All of these encounters insinuate that the Gods play a predictive role rather than that of intervention. They are not actively controlling the outcome but merely give a foretelling of what is to come — and human nature will have no difficulty in fulfilling the prophecy. Character reveals itself and men in their true form will fall from God’s good graces.

Dichotomy Of Character Vs Destiny: Odysseus’s Prophecy, Was He Doomed From The Start?

There is a consistent dichotomy of character vs destiny in Greek mythology - can a prophecy be defied?

I explored a similar theme in my character vs destiny article I wrote in June’s substack. What I feel is true in real life may not be so in the context of greek mythology — it is a big chicken-and-egg situation and honestly I am still exploring exactly where I stand on this.

Echoing my previous point of Apollo’s cattle, they remained strong willed until they realized the contrary winds never changed in their favor. It was out of desperation from hunger after being stuck on the island of Thrinacia. The winds only changed once the prophecy was fulfilled:

‘All your men won’t make it home, except you.’ — Circe

A chilling foreshadowing was when Eurylochus assured Odysseus how the winds are conveniently guiding them to Thrinacia, insinuating that they were ‘destined’ to stop and reinforcing this choice as a ‘right’ one. When in reality, they were doomed the moment Odysseus tried to fight against the prophecy.

But on the flip side, it was Odysseus’s fighting spirit that allowed him to keep his mens’ best interests in mind, even if he may have made flawed decisions. Between Scylla (sea monster) and Charybdis (whirlpool monster), Odyssues chose to sail closer to Scylla which would only kill a few men while Charybdis would swallow the whole ship as warned by Circe. When Tiresias hounded Odysseus: ‘Why don’t you focus on honoring your dead men?’ Odysseus simply responded that he would defy the prophecy and protect his men at all costs.

This exact spirit is probably what got them so far in the first place, but in order for him to make it home: ‘Surrender yourself to Poseidon and accept your punishment.’ Calypso urged Odysseus. He got home when he finally accepted to atone for all his sins from Troy.

Destiny may not a predetermined series of events but an accumulated consequence of character.

Violation of Zeus’s law and the collapse of humanity: Why do we expect Godliness?

Nolan’s interpretation of Xenia or Zeus’s Law is more of a: ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’. I have seen some discourse among skeptics about whether Nolan has Christianised The Odyssey (to each their own), but I actually feel this interpretation made it extremely applicable in present modern-day society.

I’ve seen far too many people blur the lines between having basic courtesy and being godly, to which the latter gives them an opportunity to turn this into a religious conversation rather than a human one: ‘I am no saint, I am no God, why is kindness expected of me? Find your good person that will do your good deed for you somewhere else and f*ck off.’

Perhaps the argument of why Godliness is expected of us should be reframed — why is it important for us to do things from the willingness of our good heart?

Because Zeus’s law underpins the fragile social fabric that is strung together out of good faith, will and trust. When Odysseus violated Zeus’s law by exploiting the people of Troy’s acceptance of Ithaca’s ‘peace-offering’: the Trojan horse, little did they know it was infested by bloodthirsty soldiers which would attack their city from the inside out. This started a chain reaction of fear and distrust that travelled across the seas, eventually realizing that they became the ‘sea people’ that everyone feared.

Malevolence is a plague and misery loves company. The concept of ‘love thy neighbor’ need not be a biblical one. One may argue whether the concept of a moral law itself is religious - that is not what this article is about. One thing that is for sure, is that this world revolves around ensuring human dignity and basic rights are preserved. When you extend an act of kindness to someone, it turns abstract goodness into an act of emotional support for those in need. And if you are on the receiving end of this kinship, need I elaborate more on how it would make you feel if you were in dire circumstances? Why do you think even the hardest people use ChatGPT as their emotional support pillar?

Everyone needs kindness, everyone needs sincerity.

We are at a point in history where being unkind is seemingly rewarded by the algorithm because it gets more engagement. It truly baffles me how further apart social media continues to stray away from real life. It is no wonder people are always miserable; it is no wonder more and more people are feeling unfulfilled. There is a movement of: ‘If you want a village, you need to be a villager’ and I believe this is a good place to start. Treating people right and showing up is important — community is important.

Maybe one day you will find that by initiating this domino effect of goodwill — that you have inspired others to do the same. Morality does not need religion to be meaningful and being ‘good’ isn’t about being Godly, it is about understanding our responsibility to other people.

Footnotes

Overall, this is one of the easier to understand movies of Christopher Nolan — I truly enjoyed it. People often associate Nolan with complicated plot lines, but since the story was literally adapted from Homer’s The Odyssey, I’d figured it was probably out of Nolan’s comfort zone to do something ‘simpler’ by plot definition. But it worked — simple plots can deliver depth and dimension too.

I loved the location setting and the dedication of using an IMAX camera to film, I was thinking to myself the whole time ‘Damn, this must be a hard movie to film.’ When they were on the rocky meditaranian seas making their voyage home, I was already getting seasick just by watching them (especially after they ate Apollo’s cattle and they angered Poseidon, I was praying for them too at that point). Robert Pattinson yelling ‘Someone get these beggars out of here!’ is something I say randomly throughout the day.

The IMAX film made the tones really rich, I felt the ending seemed a bit rush but otherwise it was still a good movie. Honorable mentions to Hades underworld scene, I’ve read this in Percy Jackson and his adaptation was so close to what I imagined, Polyphemus being blinded (I swear I was watching a horror movie) and Circe turning the men into pigs (oddly reminiscent of Spirited Away).

Let me know what you thought of The Odyssey in the comments.

P.S. Fun fact: I always bring up the fact that Christopher Nolan is a UCL alumni, that technically makes him my senior!

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Sadness is one funny thing that comes in many different forms.

I used to be a crier, an avid crier back in my teenage years. I would cry my heart out at everything.

Various heartaches, inconveniences, people who wronged me; often loud and hard, unafraid to let everyone and anyone hear my cries.

Oh, the liberation that came with it.

Traces of a sorrowful night would stain whatever was in close proximity to me. The sleeves of my T-shirt that I used to wipe my tears, my pillowcase drenched in a salty mixture of sweat and panic, and the journal I attempted to write in rage because it was supposed to help me. Whatever my tears touched have now come alive. Like voodoo in the shadows, these items are no longer inanimate objects. They are silent witnesses of this turbulent fury, looming around me and observing my next move.

My swollen eyes stared back at me as I dragged myself to wash my face in my bathroom sink, still panting and gasping for air.

‘Enough now.’ I would order the waterworks to stop like a military sergeant.

But even when the cries eventually mellowed out, my temples were still pulsating from the increased blood pressure gushing to my head. Every single pounding vein struggled to transport oxygenated blood to my eyeballs as my eyes felt a searing burn like never before.

Now half-consoled, I crawl back to bed where my demons lie — keeping me company as the long night ensues. By morning any tangible trace of what happened the night before would have been gone, except the harrowing pit that plunges deep into my stomach.

Why does crying make you feel like you’re dying?

But ironically, I could not have cared less.

No matter how small or how big the problem was, I just cried — furiously and profusely. I would weep and weep until I was too exhausted to think. I basically gave my tears out for free. If my tears were a currency, it was certainly not a very valuable one.

For someone who found no reason to restrain themselves from crying, I am unsure if my heart had gradually hardened with the winds of my youth that took flight, but one day, I just stopped crying and started sleeping when I was sad.

Rock, rock, rockabye,

Sing me either lies or lullabies.

As I shout my grievances into the indifferent night,

Creatures emerge from every corner of my subconscious sight.

Gigantic sorrows — too big, too grand,

To fit in this rabbit hole of a wakeful mind crammed.

Too big, too big, has she gone Mad?

Drowsy, alas the girl so Sad.

A faithful shadow across the barren land,

Awake, Alice is now in Wonderland.

Fiction lies closer to reality than non-fiction, and dreams tell you more about yourself when you are asleep than what your brain tells you when you are awake.

Alice in Wonderland is an accurate representation of what sleep looks like for people who battle with insomnia — completely nonsensical, mind-boggling and quite honestly terrifying.

It is a mad tea party. Here you will find a friend that you’ve not met for 5 years, who is now sitting on a dragon as you try to navigate your way through a subway station in Paris that is crumbling beneath you. All while you attempt to deliver an email that needs to be urgently sent tomorrow, except there are no phones in this dream.

Every night is a battlefield to resuscitate one from the day’s unpleasant experiences.

What we dream about may offer clues about the dreams themselves. For every conscious thought we’ve had, we’ve had a million subconscious thoughts and with that, a million ways to silence them. We have our own truths, yet we often cosplay as someone who has none during the day, especially in social settings. Is it to make ourselves more palatable? To prioritize agreeability over expressing one’s true thoughts?

Well, whatever is ignored during the day will be paid two-fold during the night.

If there is a red-thread that runs from our waking lives to our dreaming lives, it is that dreaming is not a direct ‘replay’ of whatever happened during the day but rather the emotional themes that were present as proposed by Dr. Robert Stickgold, a professor of psychiatry and sleep researcher at the Harvard Medical School. From the ‘dream reports’ submitted by participants in a study he conducted, almost half of them related the commonalities in their dreams and their wakeful lives to strong emotional concerns they were having during the day, and how it resurfaced during the night.

Sleeping during sadness, particularly REM sleep (aka the ‘dreaming’ state) is proposed to have a function of reprocessing upsetting memory experiences in a low noradrenaline state, a ‘safe’ dreaming environment. Sleeping, or rather dreaming as overnight therapy could be an attempt to remove the visceral emotional charge wrapped around a certain memory. As a result, we can learn and recall life events without being crippled by the emotional baggage those experiences originally carried.

This can be seen especially in PTSD patients whose tell-tale symptom is always repetitive nightmares. If this theory were to be true, it seems that this emotional strength-stripping mechanism is faulty (due to higher than normal levels of noradrenaline in PTSD patients) and thus the brain would attempt it over and over again like a broken record, every night until it eventually stops.

I am compelled to resonate with this theory simply due to my own experiences. I started dream journaling during my final year of university which started off as a fun section to add to my journal, but ended in disappointment when I saw a sea of red in my tracker, which was the key for ‘nightmare’ category. While the tracker sparsely had blue dots speckled between the red, it merely indicated ‘inoffensive dreams’. Throughout the 4 months I dedicated to the dream journal, I never had a single happy dream — which is why I decided to stop.

The more I was aware of the nightmares, the more I had them.

It reached an extent that if I woke up in the middle of the night from a recurring nightmare, I would get frustrated and murmur: ‘Not again’. For something that happens in your sleep, you would be surprised how much energy it uses up and drains you in the morning.

If I could identify some ‘themes’, it seems shame plagues my inner consciousness because I have the most ridiculous dreams — not being able to find my clothes, teeth falling out of my mouth like pebbles or ‘fainting’ whilst people in my dream are completely aware I am faking it.

Although I can hardly recall what actually happened in my dream, I can attest to a distinct emotional quality that heavily correlates with what I felt during the day. Example, if I saw a friend’s Instagram story who I have not seen for years, the nature of where we left it off would manifest into my dreams. If there were fond memories, I could be drinking tea with them inside a peony flower like Fairytopia, emotions reminiscent of a reunion; If the opposite is true, I could be trapped in a labyrinth screaming to get out.

Crying often requires a tremendous amount of effort and is a huge emotional outpour, of which the hungover of sadness would linger thereafter. But when the well of adolescent tears eventually run dry, because the price of a young girl’s sorrow is now a luxury too high to pay, so that fiery angst is extinguished. What is replaced with it is a silent, heavy art of lulling ourselves to a slumber; to numb unpleasant experiences. For people who struggle with nightmares and are just tired of it, may you be consoled that it is possibly your body’s way of helping you move on from bad experiences.

Dreams often reveal the deepest layers to your subconscious mind. In a complete believer sense that requires no external scientific input, dreaming when you are sad has pure healing properties - it is imaginative and boundless. When you fall asleep, real life vanishes and we are left with the emotional essence distilled from the day.

If one could pick what to dream of to feel better the next day, I’d imagine it to be a deeply empowering experience to be fully aware, especially within a nightmare and know that it is just a dream. Whatever seems impossible in real life, unresolved trauma or unbearable truths that have evolved to be beasts too great to tame —Dreams are nonsensical, they obey no law and are impossible.

If healing is just a looking glass away, so let us charge on the battlegrounds where our Jabberwockys await.

I would want to go back to the night,

Let me dream awhile and I’ll be back in awhile.

Dreams may seem bigger than life,

But through the looking glass, Alice—

Touch anything and they scramble like mice.

Items float and warp, life seemingly unreal.

Tick tock, tick tock, the waking hour prevails.

You need to save yourself, Alice

You need to save yourself.

But if futile efforts persist,

I’ll meet you at night

Where you’ll have another chance to make it right.

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‘You will meet good luck by chance just like getting a gem from the rocks while you are digging. Even if you are righteous and have a chance to be successful, nothing can be achieved unless you work hard.’

The lottery of the heavens to console the living

This was my fortune I got from my visit to Sensoji temple during my March trip to Japan. I had the biggest smile plastered on my face as I read my unbelievably good fortune over and over again. I was in disbelief that I had such good luck and part of me felt all my previous worries were somewhat comical. ‘I guess it will all be destined to work out!’ I thought to myself as I let out a huge sigh of relief.

From then on, the air I inhaled felt fresh as it oxygenated my lungs with the promise of hope. I was consoled by what seemed to be a divine message coming from a higher power - my questions were answered by the Heavens, I should not have been doubtful. I towered over this silly little piece of paper that had allegedly entailed the outcome of my future undertakings and I was beaming with pride, as if I had won the lottery.

I took a glance over at my boyfriend’s message and smirked. In the temple, there were a few fortunes one could obtain. There is a scale of auspicious and ominous fortune and I got the highest level of good fortune, while my boyfriend only got a ‘regular’ level of good fortune. Regardless of which tier of good fortune you fell under, as long as you got a good fortune, you could bring it back home with you. If you had a bad fortune, you would have to tie it to the metal poles at the temple designated to take your bad luck away. This act itself is symbolic of ‘leaving the bad fortune’ behind.

For some cultures, the idea of a ‘fortune’ is merely child’s play. In a non-believer sense, there are literally a million reasons as to why the idea of destiny and fate is, for lack of better word, utter bullcrap. ‘Coincidence, it is obviously a coincidence.’ is the biggest counter-argument thrown by skeptics. They overwrite destiny as coincidence and fortune-telling as probability. They have a 50/50 chance of getting your fortune right, and it’s either bad or good. This paired with extremely vague advice that could generally be applied to everyone and boom, you found yourself a fortune teller that would have charged you an arm and a leg for advice you probably already knew.

Battle of the fates: Divination as a compass to navigate life

In order to understand my fascination with destiny, fate and fortune telling, we must first examine my Malaysian Chinese heritage. Though not all Chinese Malaysians are Buddhist, there is certainly a cultural aspect to Buddhism that has trickled down in our daily lives and is practiced not in a religious sense, but rather communally amongst Chinese Malaysians.

The biggest example I can think of is Chinese New Year, where you will find red screaming firecrackers crackling on your relatives’ gate, lion dance troupes to ward your house off of evil and visiting your ancestral burial grounds to pay your respects. Red string theory is also a fascinating concept common amongst people who wish to find their significant other.

But when it comes to fortune telling and/or dabbling of the fates, it’s a totally different ballpark especially amongst the Aunties and Uncles. I’ve heard countless stories of relatives (be it my own or from people I know) who refuse to make any big decision without consulting the deities they pray to. The most common methods that I can think off the top of my head are through fortune telling (算命), Fengshui (风水), BaZi (八字) and divination lots (求签).

I can write a whole article of people who use divination methods as their manual to life, but to name a few: I knew someone who divorced their wife because their fortune teller mentioned she was the reason to his career stagnation. I’ve also known parents who bought a new apartment with a nice body of water aka a pool to help ‘calm the fire’ of their rebellious angsty teenager who has spiralled beyond their control.

Perhaps the most eerie one that I can recall is that there was a master who treated an ailing woman who had exhausted all modern medicine treatments. She was growing weak and her liver function was rapidly declining, but doctors could not pinpoint the reason to this somewhat random deterioration. As a last resort, she consulted a Master at a temple, who proclaimed that only a certain grass would cure her and that it should be scavenged from a nearby factory. Call it coincidence, call it fate but guess what? She was free from her mysterious ailment after drinking that tonic.

Destiny and character intertwining: Which controls the life you live?

Believers and skeptics would go to war with you on their stance regarding the validity of divination tactics and the concept of destiny. I remember visiting my friend’s flat in London and we were having dinner with a group of friends. We were sat around the glass square dining table as she asked us this exact question: ‘Do you think we have free will to live our lives or is our lives already destined from the start?’. I swear I felt a chilling gust of wind as soon as she finished that sentence coming from the window that I was directly facing. There is a term for this in Chinese called MingShui (命水), which literally means if your life is projected to be good or bad.

This leads me to ponder on a question:

Are people naturally born a certain way or is it their external environment that shapes them? Do people really have a true say in how they will turn out in the future?

People often think of fate and destiny as some otherwordly mystical mumbo-jumbo that has descended from above, when I believe it is actually more deeply rooted in reality than we think it is. Think of the ‘Sanpaku eyes’ or palm readings, humans are always desperate to get a peek into their future and predict what would be their eventual fate.

In a way, divination methods and superstitions are a way of re-establishing control over one’s life. If we can avoid the ill-fated decisions, we can escape any unnecessary tragedies and stand a better chance of longevity. It is not some factless wishful thinking, but rather risk-aversion that underpins our primitive instincts to survive.

If someone’s life is already pre-destined from the day they were born, what is the point of even living?

A hostage to fortune: brittle character cracks under pressure and destiny will be to blame

There is a 2009 Hong Kong period drama called Rosy Business. Set in Eastern China during the mid-19th century, Rosy Business follows the mercantile Chiang family, owners of Wuxi's largest rice business Hing Fung Nin and it is one of my absolute favorite HK dramas. There was a line that particularly stood out to me delivered by the first wife of the Chiang family about her good-for-nothing son who has failed his golden role of being the eldest in every single way possible. Throughout the drama, the cunning duo went through an endless pursuit to seize ultimate power of being the successor of their family business.

From an audience and third-person perspective, I couldn’t help but feel it was so bizarre despite understanding the cultural nuances being Chinese myself. Regardless of her son’s birth ranking, his mother knew that her son was incapable of running the family business in comparison to his younger brother who was of far greater caliber. Who cares if he is the oldest? Why resort to such lengths?

In the finale, I finally got a glimpse into her psyche as she delivered a heartbreaking speech when it was revealed he died still in pursuit of this power he spent his whole life chasing:

就算他搞炸庆丰年，都是天经地义，因为他是长子嫡孙。对啊，必正是比我必文厉害，但是他的命生到不好。必文生下来含着金钥匙出来，他的八字生得好，他的命生到好

Translation: "Even if he destroys Hing Fung Nin, it is only right and natural, because he is the eldest son and grandson of the lineage. True, Pi-ching is more capable than my Pi-man, but his fate was born bad. Pi-man was born with a golden spoon in his mouth; his BaZi was born well, his fate was born good."

This sentence alone encapsulates everything I wanted to convey about this character vs destiny discourse.

For anyone else, it was clear as day her son’s ill-fate was a result of a series of bad decisions made by his extremely poor character. If he took ownership over his mistakes and improved, he probably would have made decent success. But from her perspective, character development was simply not necessary. Even if he screwed the business over, it was his God-given birthright because he is the oldest, it was his destiny. It is fine for him to behave in such a reckless way because it was discounted within the bounds of his ‘good destiny’.

This really opened my eyes on the opposing end of the argument - how one’s consistent bad behavior can be justified by ‘destiny’. But don’t be fooled, this is far from a dated concept as it is still ever prevalent on a day-to-day basis. It is often easier to blame an abstract concept like fate or an external mysterious force to justify one’s downfall, rather than to stare directly in the mirror and confront our demons from within.

But all of this doesn’t just happen. Life doesn’t just happen.

Fortunam Meam Facio, "I make my own fortune"

If you couldn’t tell by now, I lean more towards the character > destiny narrative (but this really depends on your circumstances). If you solely believe that life is a series of pre-determined events, then you believe life is happening at you rather than from you. Of course, everybody goes through hardships in their lives. In fact, some have it far worse than others and there is really no other way to justify it other than, ‘That’s really unfair and unfortunate’. Sometimes all we need is a good: ‘It’s all your fault!’ to shed some of that burden off ourselves.

However, once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and thrice is a pattern. If this manifests as a pattern, it will eventually be the way you live your life, which often results in losing your own autonomy because you have no sense of control of what is happening to you. You will grow resentful of everything and everyone, ergo the victim mentality is born.

I think people often forget ‘bad people’ don’t just become ‘bad’ out of nowhere, but are often plagued by bad experiences over and over again which seriously warp their perspective of the world. To which, is it entirely their fault?

Stability, success and good character doesn't just happen by luck. It is maintained brick-by-brick through conscious choice and sacrifices, not something randomly bestowed upon by a greater force. Even if you are religious, ‘God only helps those who help themselves’. As Eleanor Young sharply reminds her daughter-in-law-to-be in Crazy Rich Asians:

I chose to help my husband run a business and to raise a family. For me, it was a privilege. But for you, you may think it’s old-fashioned. It’s nice you appreciate this house and us being here together wrapping dumplings. But all this doesn’t just happen. It’s because we know to put family first, instead of chasing one’s passion.

— Eleanor Young, Crazy Rich Asians

Whatever happens in this life is rarely a coincidence. Life is more of what you get out of it and we often underestimate the amount of effort needed to produce a single favorable outcome. Even the littlest things in life such as sitting around the table having dinner together, takes a great deal of sacrifice and active decision-making to reach this seemingly ‘normal’ outcome. Ironically, even the ‘unbelievably’ good fortune I got from Sensoji temple explicitly stated: "nothing can be achieved unless you work hard."

Ultimately, I believe we are the masters of our own destiny. Fate does not absolve one of accountability and I’d like to think of it as an ever-evolving concept rather than a passive one. Every step we take paves our way into a future shaped by our choices.

But if one were to seek divination and receive an inkling for what would eventually become an auspicious outcome, who am I to say that destiny is not real?

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I remember exactly where I was when I realized that the King of Pop, Michael Jackson had died. It was 2009, I was only 7 years old roaming around the corridors of my primary school. To be fair back then, time never really felt real at all. Life surrounding me just always seemed to float around in color and prism, shrouded by clouds of mystic.

I remember standing in the hallway between my classroom to my left and a slightly elevated area to my right where they would raise the flags during morning assembly as I suddenly experienced a crushing surge of grief, though at that time it manifested as breathlessness and tightening of my chest. I didn’t necessarily know what I was feeling at that moment, but I knew I didn’t like it at all.

Feeling such overwhelming emotion as a kid is pretty hard to name let alone process. Children tend to mirror their parents behaviors and emotions—this I believe strongly. Adults’ reactions are the litmus test to determine if a certain situation is even worth eliciting a response. As a kid, I recall being naturally drawned to their likes and interests even if I did not fully understand what it meant.

Hence, it is to no surprise that this 7 year old’s attachment to Michael Jackson did not just spawn out of thin air. 2009 was an extremely different time, the only media that I truly had access to by my own means was our cable television placed right smack in the middle of the living room and newspapers that would appear during breakfast. The true influencers were the adults in my life and it should be no surprise that my mom was the common thread linking me to Michael Jackson.

I have very fond memories during my primary school days with my mom. I had some serious attachment issues to her, she was my favorite person in the whole world. My mom would always drive us everywhere - whether it was fetching us between school and my grandmother’s place or shoving us in the trunk so she could run her errands. Her car was a gold Toyota Innova and I remember spending a good chunk of my time in the backseat listening to Jackson 5’s ‘I Want You Back’ on my way to school. But that’s just a sliver of how prevalent Michael Jackson was around me.

To list another few memories: I remember watching an episode of Elmo with ‘Rockin Robin’ playing as the backtrack when I was even younger at around age 4. (I found the video on youtube).

My grandma also had his Germany/Munich concert on DVD and I would watch it as I ate my meals. Another instance was when my kindergarten taped our concert performance, I remember they chose ‘Heal The World’ as the intro track to the slideshow of all of us backstage (which is also why I cannot listen to this song without crying, but also now looking back at it whoever edited that concert DVD was really far beyond their time).

Perhaps the most memorable instance was my uncle dancing to ‘Smooth Criminal’ during his high school concert. He is only 18 years older than me (side note: I am 19 years older than his son, my youngest cousin - which means I’m technically closer in age to him than to my cousin), but it was sort of an iconic moment in our family that is talked about even till this day when we watched the biopic together.

All of this just goes to show how even though seemingly imperceptible back then, he was extremely culturally significant and ahead of his time. I am shocked to even to be able to recall all these moments so vividly. That’s the impact he had on us, and we were halfway across the globe, nowhere remotely near him in good ol’ USA. Even our Indonesian helper(s) aka my kakak(s) knew who he was.

So imagine the dread and the horror when my mom went from beaming with joy as we watched the live of Michael Jackson announcing his ‘This Is It’ tour to his funeral procession in what seemed like a matter of days. ‘This is it, and when I say this is it, I mean it.’ I remember him standing on the podium against a red backdrop saying those words, through my own memory.

Devastated is an understatement. I see plenty of TikTok comments saying how when he died time stopped in its tracks. It doesn’t really help that my consciousness was not fully developed back then so I may not be the best person to consult with on the validity of this statement, but I completely agree with them. I could not comprehend it then and honestly I still cannot comprehend it now—but everyone seems to be having the same consensus after watching the 2026 Michael biopic.

When I went into this movie I genuinely did not think much of it, though my mom was pretty pumped (you can watch my latest ig reel). Presently, I have a few Michael Jackson songs in my rotation that I listen to when I drive myself to work, namely ‘Billie Jean’ (my favorite) and sometimes ‘Beat It/Thriller/Man In The Mirror’. He had been gone for so long, almost 16 years—yet his timeless music still accompanies me through what I would say, is a very different stage of life from when I was 7. However, the second I stepped out of that movie theatre, I knew it would take me at least a few weeks to recover from what many deem a ‘spiritual awakening’ after watching the movie.

Term it ‘spiritual psychosis’ or ‘collective hallucination’, but that is truly what this feverish week has felt like for me. I may be biased, but Jaafar Jackson truly impressed me with his performance. It also helps that he carries his uncle’s mannerisms and that soft, shy demeanor. Those Jackson genes are indeed strong.

They definitely could not have picked a better person, I agree that this is legacy—not nepotism. Seeing him rehearse in Michael’s Hayvenhurst home (which is also the house Jaafar stayed at, absolutely mind-boggling), him being Michael’s actual nephew and part of the Jackson bloodline, I am just in awe. Sometimes art is just meant to be appreciated, and I willingly would be blissfully ignorant for this biopic regardless if the critics have a different opinion from me.

The last time I felt this way about a movie was probably ‘Oppenheimer’ (this can be a whole other article), but it got me feeling every single emotion possible—happiness, sadness, grief, excitement, literally everything. One comment stood out to me the most: ‘I feel oddly maternal & protective towards MJ’ and that is the sentiment I resonate the most with. I have consumed almost every single piece of media possible about Michael Jackson in the past week (and trust me there is A LOT), but I particularly love interviews and clips where he is so unmistakably human.

Notably, when he records ‘We Are The World’ and is apalled by Cyndi Lauper’s grunting and hollering; Or when he tells La-Toya Jackson: ‘Your voice is very irritating, you sound like Carol Burnett’. Moments like these allows us to catch a glimpse of how the King of Pop was off-stage, when he wasn’t causing people to pass-out just from the sight of him at his concerts.

I am currently reading his autobiography ‘Moonwalk’ which I might have to include a separate review on (let me know if you want that). But my heart generally aches so much for him. It could be because I know now the ruthless working hours he dealt with, or how he grew up in front of the world since the age of 5, or his struggles with his identity, vanity, self-esteem and how he never managed to have a childhood, but I truly hope he is in a better place. I hope heaven is real for the sake of my sanity because he didn’t deserve all the mistreatment during the last stages of his life.

There is a chilling phrase in ‘Moonwalk’ where he recalls in his own words how when he performed at ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ during his early years, some of the best people in rock were losing their lives to drugs and alcohol.

“He seemed glad to see me and shook my hand, but before he let it go he had a special message for me. It was 1970, a year when some of the best people in rock were losing their lives to drugs and alcohol. An older, wiser generation in show business was unprepared to lose its very young. Some people had already said that I reminded them of Frankie Lymon, a great young singer of the 1950s who lost his life that way. Ed Sullivan may have been thinking of all this when he told me, “Never forget where your talent came from, that your talent is a gift from God.”

—Excerpt From ‘Moonwalk’, Michael Jackson

Questions flash pass by mind like lightning — Would he have ever known this would be his fate? What would happen if he never did that Pepsi commercial? Without his father’s rigorous training, would it have still been possible to figure out his brilliance on his own? Or is such genius talent only able to be cultivated by being in immense discomfort?

Similar to Princess Diana, I do believe they are somewhat otherworldly. Their legacy will forever remain, which leads me to ponder—why is it always the good people that get mistreated? Does it even bring any good to be such a kind person in this unkind world?

Greed and corruption seeps into the fabric of our society, even more so with pressing current issues and ethical discussions on large corporations and billionaires. I can’t deny that the world is starting to feel slightly dystopian and lonely. Everything is a business transaction, everything needs to be milked until every single drop runs dry and every man is for himself. Maybe because I am older, this is the first time I ever paused to think: ‘Whatever will happen to state of the world for our future children?’

Though not on the scale of what Michael Jackson has been through, the thing about humans is that we are not all that different. Even in our daily life, we can see people who have the worst intentions getting away with things or seemingly getting everything they wanted when they quite frankly do not deserve it. Then you contrast it to the people who have been cheated and exploited due to their kind nature or people who do not have basic human rights simply because of their geographic birth location — it is hard sometimes to believe there is true good or justice in this world.

But this ties in to what I love about Michael Jackson, it is more of what he symbolizes. His art reunites generations and evokes human connection. In the current pop culture scene, there is hardly any other artist that explores human connection the way he does. His work combined intensely personal, introspective lyrics that serves a greater purpose and often touches on societal issues. With the current social media landscape being ‘cringe-culture’ centric and plagued by ‘main character syndrome’, this biopic came through with Michael Jackson’s unapologetic love for life and people from all walks of life, which is certainly rare to come by but even more necessary to have especially now.

At the end of the day, his unmistakable kindness, love and dedication towards his music, craft and life as a gift from God created such a profound impact for everyone all over the globe, even without social media. From him reuniting gangs for his ‘Beat It’ music video to having Marcinho VP guarantee Michael Jackson’s safety when local officials were hesitant on allowing him to film the music video for ‘They Don’t Really Care About Us’ in Rio De Janeiro favela, his music was always fuelled by a greater sense of purpose. As described by Berry Gordy who was a producer for the Jackson 5 and founder for Motown: ‘Michael Jackson is a kind of talent that only walks the face of the world once.’

I resonate with his message even more than ever now, even more so from a creator standpoint. Though who am I compared to the scale of the world, I believe every person is big enough to make an impact. With this in mind, I have always produced my content with purpose, albeit that may have slowed my growth compared to other viral creators. But I have soon realized the importance of having my work not just loved by my followers, but also myself.

On days where the numbers get to me, I remind myself to be proud of every single piece of content that I put out, because I know how much effort it takes and what it means to me. I’d rather touch the hearts of some deeply, than being merely quickly glanced by the eyes of many—and I actually feel that especially when people reach out to me to tell me they love my content for whatever reason. Be it how they watch my vlogs to make them feel closer to home or my ‘big sister’ educational content, I strive to continue being unapologetically myself and to always be reminded of what is my own purpose for creating, because true purpose unites people and will leave an everlasting impact. By then, the numbers would have already been taken care of naturally.

If you haven’t watched the biopic, I highly recommend you to do so especially if you are an MJ fan and let me know your thoughts. My favorite songs now are ‘Human Nature’ (S tier, I wrote this article listening to Human Nature on repeat), ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’ and ‘Dirty Diana’ (even better when you know the lore).

Afterword

Thank you so much Michael for your kindess and everlasting gift to the world which is your music. You were such a beautiful soul gone too soon, but you will never ever be forgotten. I hope you finally rest easy, King of Pop. We will always miss you.

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‘Usually before a dream becomes reality, we tend to think we’ll wish for nothing else if only the dream is realised. Imagine how you’d feel if you always remembered that your dream has already been fulfilled. Everything that comes after would be like a lovely bonus. When you feel envious of something, try to imagine how you would look to your twenty-year-old self.’

— I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki, Baek Se-Hee

How I keep my dreams sacred: My own superstitions to ward off the possibility of things not realising

The first 4 months of 2026 have actually been quite amazing, but this feels like something I shouldn’t say out loud. This is probably because of my Malaysian Chinese upbringing—I can feel it creeping up on me as I write this, the superstition of ‘being pantang’. What is ‘pantang’ you might ask? It basically means to jinx something, or in a more Americanised-spiritual guru-manifestation way of saying it: ‘Evil eye is real. Don’t give people a chance to give you their negative energy. Work in silence and NEVER tell anyone your big plans - show them.’ If I say I am doing well today, I might jinx myself tomorrow. It is a way of protecting myself and my dreams if things don’t end up working out.

Moving from one dream to another dream & difficulty in accepting a chapter is over

Looking back, I genuinely am the happiest I’ve been in a long time. In fact, I am probably happier now compared to when I first graduated from university which was end of 2024. Back then, I actually felt compelled to be happy rather than actually being happy. ‘Okay, I graduated from a prestigious university, thoroughly enjoyed my university days, travelled Europe, made lots of great friends and memories….’ and the list went on and on. However, it was difficult for me to be motivated let alone excited for the future because I assumed that my best days were already behind me. Time felt like sand running through my fingers - how can you thoroughly enjoy something when you are aware it is already ending?

This is not to say I was not grateful for having a wonderful university experience, but because so much of my identity was tied to being a student I had a lot of trouble accepting that this part of me has inevitably come to an end. How do you go about from one peak of your life to another peak of your life? Would I ever peak again?

Now it seems quite ridiculous I had all these thoughts at the ripe age of 22, but that was the reality of what I was struggling with. Being 24 now, I am quite in awe of how I managed to do everything I did during my late teens to super early 20s that I probably wasn’t even aware I was doing a good job back then i.e. managing my finances, living independently, studying etc. As one would say looking back: ‘I felt like I was just a baby.’

Maybe that was my first real encounter with what happens after a dream ends.

The endearing feeling of finally growing into your own skin

If you haven’t already known, it is no surprise that I struggle with being overly critical with myself. Not in a ‘Oh look at me the poor overachiever my weakness is being a perfectionist’ type of way, but in a ‘This is actually not funny, I have a problem’ type of way. I hold my past selves in parts and have trouble accepting that that was me, X amount of years ago. But recently, I noticed myself smiling tenderly at a notification that popped up from my Google Photos ‘2 years ago…’ as I was clicking and clacking away in front of my company monitor’s keyboard.

I no longer feel sad or afraid that it is over or that my ‘best years are behind me’. I look at those memories fondly and endearingly with no other distracting emotions. As we know, extreme opposites of emotions tend to go hand in hand - happiness and sadness, excitement and nervousness. Those were one of the few moments of growth I actually can attest to feeling in my whole life, quietly yet affirmatively.

Before a dream becomes reality, we convince ourselves that everything will fall into place once we achieve it. But what actually happens after?

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of discourse on being greedy. How billionaires never fail to stop, how influencers would milk the crap out of their weddings or how people who hit a certain salary band that is higher than most, but still turn their nose up and say: this is not enough, I deserve something better. Everyone everywhere seems to always want more, more and more.

Now, although I am nowhere near billionaire status or close to throwing a glamorous wedding, as one does - I thought about myself, my previous aspirations and dreams vs. my current progress. Was I any different? Is it enough? Am I contented? What were my dreams like a few years ago? And upon inspection, I’m not very different from everyone.

From the late author Baek Se-Hee’s ‘I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki’, I would like to highlight one of her conversations with her therapist:

‘Usually before a dream becomes reality, we tend to think we’ll wish for nothing else if only the dream is realised. Imagine how you’d feel if you always remembered that your dream has already been fulfilled. Everything that comes after would be like a lovely bonus. When you feel envious of something, try to imagine how you would look to your twenty-year-old self.

You could call it wishful thinking, positive manifestation or simply being optimistic - but say you assume that your dream will be fulfilled in the future and everything you are doing now will eventually pay off, would you be happier? Once a dream is fulfilled, how long does it take before we eventually move onto the next milestone?

I decided to test this theory multiple times. First, was when I was close to hitting 10k followers on instagram. I held my breath as I was so close to passing the finish line. Was it magical when I saw the follower count go from 9,999 to 10,000? Yes, it was. It was so empowering and exhilarating to yell — ‘I did it!’. But I kid you not, that feeling probably lasted for an hour max. After that, I started worrying if I could sustain this, how humiliating it would be if I could not, what about my future content strategy? How could we upscale this?

The other time was when I was close to getting the job offer I worked so hard to get. I had gone through multiple interview sessions and case studies and finally completed my last interview. The days leading up to the call was tormenting but oddly exciting, because part of me knew that I would get it. But of course, I was afraid to jinx myself. I wrote in my journal: ‘By the 12th of April 2025, I would have gotten the job’, praying and manifesting by whatever means possible. When the offer finally came in, it was a similar experience. I was happy, but ridden with worries. All the build-up of anticipation dissipated into thin air like it was being sucked into an unknown vacuum — because your dream has now manifested into excruciating realness.

It may be easier to chase one’s dreams rather than sustain it

There is a phrase in chinese: ‘打江山容易 守江山难’. Though debatable, in this context, it may be easier to chase one’s dreams rather than sustain it. This could be a plausible explanation as to why the second we achieve something we’ve long yearned for, we end up resenting it. If you could do it, it probably was not that hard to achieve anyways. So, what’s the big fuss in appreciating something that is already meant for your posession?

At the end of the day, if you assume that your dream has already been fulfilled, everything that comes after would be like a lovely bonus.

等待是很痛苦的 (waiting for something is a painful feeling), if you are constantly waiting for something, you will never truly be able to enjoy where you are in the present. I know one thing for sure, regardless if we are indeed destined for the outcome we desire, we would definitely look back and wish we enjoyed ourselves a little more. The problem isn’t that we want too much. It’s that we think of dreams as one-dimensional. We’re more in love with the idea of a dream.

But with dreams come responsibilities and challenges. The big ‘dream’ is merely the curtain that frames the main act. Once unveiled, we see it in its true form. Hence we must distinguish what this dream means to us — and if nobody saw you achieving this dream, would you still want it? Do you still want your dream with all its strings attached?

I honestly don’t have the answer yet, but I’m starting to understand that getting what you want isn’t the end of anything—it’s just the beginning of learning how to live with it.

P.S. This letter came a little late than expected, because I was busy enjoying all the festivities from CNY to hari raya. I also went to Japan which you can see on my socials @lxyen_

Stay safe and see you guys soon. Drop a message or a comment below if you can relate to this piece <3

December has always been an odd month.

There is something different in the air, it feels lighter. Perhaps it is the spirit of joy that has seeped into the world around us, or a simple sigh of relief - that no matter how our year went or how differently we had hoped it to be, we still managed to complete this chapter. It will be tucked away into the archives and one day, we will rediscover this part of our story again: ‘Did I really do that?’ ‘Damn, I can’t believe that was me a year ago.’

Did I even accomplish anything this year?

I found it interesting why I described myself feeling something lighter in the air around this time of year. So, I tried to examine why I felt this way. I sat on my couch, brought out my old journals in case I need a quick reference of how my year went and closed my eyes: ‘What exactly do I feel about 2025?’.

Hmm. Nothing really came up.

Slowly, I caught glimmers of budding memories that started breathing like constellations in the night sky. ‘I guess I started working full time this year. I was so worried if I was able to juggle that as well as creating videos. I also managed to travel to a few of my bucket list countries in Asia which is awesome. I got over my driving anxiety and am driving myself everywhere now…..’

But as the list started expanding, my whole year started caving inwards like powerful waves rushing down an endless dam. So loud and deafening, yet nothing concrete for me to go off of. Everything I’ve been through became so enmeshed that I can no longer distinguish between individual moments.

Decaying nuance in modern reflection

There seems to be many ways of doing end-of-year reflections, but if you remove all of the fluff, in essence it’s a categorical list of - what went well, what did not, and what we hope for the future. This formula is especially evident in new year’s social media content e.g. ‘10 reasons to quit your toxic job in the new year’, ‘5 things I wish I knew before the new year’, ‘3 ways to rebrand yourself before the new year.’

Although this seems like the most logical way of doing it, as explained in an article in 2014 by Kyle O about the rise of ‘listicles’ (aka list articles):

People extinguish the great potential their thoughts have by categorizing and listing; leaving little room for explanation and expansion on these thoughts. Our generation is becoming more and more inclined to think in the short term, with undeveloped, under-explained thoughts.

This resonates exactly with my mild dissatisfaction towards these formulaic, list type of reflections that seem to only offer flashes of urgency with little context. Perhaps what prompted the person to say a certain thing is more useful in discerning if what is said is applicable to you rather than what they are actually saying.

Context matters when taking advice

This is why discretion is important especially when consuming new year’s highlights and resolution content. The same set of events, though similar will never be an identical experience across individuals.

When the whole year melts into one big boiling pot, it is hard to reverse engineer what exactly made my year good. The events that characterized my year seem to be contextual and in relation to each other rather than being objectively ‘good’ or ‘bad’ events. In any other year, the same highs might be lows and vice versa.

Someone who has failed, will tell you never to try again because they are now risk-averse. Someone who is successful, will tell you to never give up because they believe failure is not your end goal. But with any advice:

Correlation does not equal causation. Don’t live your life based on a sliver of other people’s experiences. Look at the person you are taking advice from, do you want to be like them?

It’s not that you don’t have any successes, you just can’t recall them in relation to your daily struggles.

I used to joke with my friends when I was still in university that:

‘The uglier you look when studying, the better your results are’, as a desperate mantra to stay afloat academically. It directly suggested the ‘uglier’ my efforts, the ‘better’ my results. Even till this day, when somebody asks me about my university days, I do not immediately recall the day I received my first-class results notification, but the days I spent trying to get there - which the ratio is probably 1:1096 (365 x 3 years I studied).

While we anchor our stories to the few peaks of success, it does not fully encapsulate the troughs that lie beneath it. We tend to remember the friction of the journey more vividly than the destination because the struggle demanded our presence, whereas the highlight only asks for our acknowledgment. Yet, to honor the journey is not to diminish the victory but to celebrate the success alongside all the unseen failures and hard work.

Fooled by hindsight, why was I even making such a big deal?

However, honoring the past is easier said than done. There seems to be an aspect of shame tied to revisiting past versions of ourselves. Shameful that things that used to be such a big deal almost seems like nothing now, which begs the question was all that ruckus even worth it in the first place?

But the reasoning to this is somewhat in the same vein as to why January feels like an eternity ago, and why everything we’ve went through this year feels lighter now - because all of this is now in hindsight.

It is easy to be lulled into a certain arrogance by the clarity of hindsight, because we know how the story ends (at least for this year). We look at our former selves - shaken, stressed and distraught, with a sense of embarrassed judgement. But it was their heavy lifting that allowed us to progress to bigger and better things which granted us the hindsight we now possess.

There will now be something new waiting for us tomorrow, that we will have no answer to and are forced to learn as we go - the new ‘big deal’ if you will.

This leads to a think piece I stumbled upon another day that I thought is worth a share - would you rather explore your life on your own free will, or know every right decision from the get-go?

You may find any reason to not be looking forward to 2025. And you will be right.

You may find any reason for absolutely being finished with 2024 and positively looking forward to 2025. And you will also be right.

You might think, “I don’t care about any of that hogwash.” And you will also be right.

In a recent talk I listened to by Gullu Singh, he said, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be free?”

A ‘good year’ is not achieved by doing everything right, but by allowing yourself to be free

This idea of being ‘right’ is relevant discourse to have before the new year. If we can make every right choice this year, would that make our year better? When you look back on a ‘good year’, do you think of the year individually or in comparison to other ‘bad’ years?

There are many things we wish we could have handled differently this year - and that is completely normal. One of my biggest lessons this year was accepting that I am not always right. There have been some things I thought I’d wanted, only to find out it was not for me. I had a hard time accepting that my judgement was misconstrued, but also felt betrayal for growing out of my old desires. ‘If I was wrong about this, how can I continue trusting myself in the future?’

The truth is, nobody in the world at that given moment would know what the outcome will be should we have chosen differently. In hindsight, everything will always seem like less of a big deal than what it was in the moment. But there is no benefit in shaming older versions of yourself. Similar to our achievements, we must learn to embrace all parts of our successes, including the journey it took to get there. Having grace for our past selves, for they did all they knew they could at the time, and to continue rebuilding that self-trust in the days to come.

To 2026

Of course, I do not mean to go down a 2 hour rant every single time somebody asks you ‘what were your highlights of 2025?’. Rather, today’s newsletter is just a reminder to give yourself permission to be free instead of right - in conversation, in thought or when nobody is around. For the upcoming year of 2026, let us ask ourselves what is it we would like to keep, be free of, or seek. What is it we wish to bring into our life?

Happiness is a fleeting state. To be at peace with whatever emotion we are feeling at the moment, knowing that we will always have the strength to move on - that is what I hope for all of us in 2026.

May all of us have a new year filled with light, joy and peace! Signing off 2025 with lots of love for all of you who have been so supportive of my journey <3 to greater heights!

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lxyen rating: ⭐️⭐️(⭐️?)

One of the books that have been sitting by my nightstand for the longest time, patiently waiting for me to uncover the quaint and quiet fictional world set by Durian Sukegawa. The plot follows an intergenerational friendship between an ex-convict who is now a dorayaki shop worker (Sentaro), an elderly woman previously diagnosed with leprosy (Tokue) and a young teenager brimming with curiosity (Wakana) - especially to the disfigured Tokue, in which her illness has left a mark on her physical appearance.

My favorite genre in these past 2 years have been slice of life, Asian literature - though I would say most of those have been Japanese/Korean authors for now (Ocean Vuong’s works are next on my list!). Perhaps this reflects on the stage of life I am currently in, I enjoy the gentle escapism offered by Japanese literature rather than being engulfed in fantasy/thrillers I used to spend my 3 ams on a school night on. Their use of words are apt, oddly quiet but very telling. They very hardly tell you straight up what the character is feeling. Rather, the emotions are channelled often by descriptions of their surroundings and actions:

‘I certainly have, I’ve been making it for fifty years.’ Sentaro almost dropped the dorayaki he was about to put in a paper bag. ‘Fifty years?’ — pg. 7

‘But Sentaro couldn’t move. Though he knew what he had to do next, his body would not respond. He sat there, frozen in the cool blast of air streaming from his air conditioner. It was too much effort to even move his fingers.’ — pg. 47

‘The change came so sudden. By the time Sentaro noticed, it was already significant.’ — pg. 78

Painting imagery can be an effective attempt of conveying what the character is going through without being literal in persuading you: this is what he is feeling at this moment. I think that is what gives Japanese literature it’s tranquil, slow quality, especially with this book. It feels as though time has stopped because you are now paying attention to the littlest things from the movement of the wind to the dance of cherry blossom leaves as they gently kiss the pavement on an autumn day. Things you don’t usually pay attention to, reading forces you to notice.

The book itself is a simple one. The story revolves around these three main characters with hardly any people from the outside world - except Ms Moriyama, Tokue’s friend and the shop owner’s wife, both making ocassional yet significant appearances. They each help to move the plot. From instances I can recall of the top of my head (there are definitely more), Ms Moriyama ultimately broke the news of Tokue’s death to Sentaro and Wakana, while the shop owner’s wife was a looming presence that threatened to turn the dorayaki shop into an okonomiyaki store. This pushes Sentaro to come up with innovative ideas to increase dorayaki sales, thus deepening his bond with Tokue.

Although the story centers around Sentaro’s perspective, we don’t know much about him other than tha fact that he is the typical ‘trauma, regret-filled’ protagonist. I felt there could be more depth to his character. We catch glimpses into his past here and there when he starts his ocassional but periodic existential crisis tendencies, but overall he is more of a symbolism to people who are burnt out in society and have nothing much to say or think, let alone dream. Wakana’s character was bit out of nowhere to me and she didn’t contribute as much as I’d hoped. I would say this book really starts picking up the pace when Tokue’s past with leprosy is revealed, as well as towards the last quarter of the book when Sentaro and Wakana visited Tenshoen, a sanatorium that quarantined leprosy and ex-leprosy patients.

‘Is it true her hands are crippled?’ Sentaro closed his eyes before speaking: ‘Err, a little bit, is that a problem?’ ‘And her face is paralyzed as well?’ Sentaro gave her a puzzled look. My friend says — I’m sorry, but this is not good — my friend says it looks like leprosy. — pg. 67

‘The Leprosy Prevention Act had been repealed in 1996. That year, former Hansen’s patients became free at last to leave the sanatorium where they had been isolated from society. At the same time, town residents who previously had not been allowed to enter Tenshoen were permitted to pass through the gates. Nevertheless human lives had been swallowed up by this place and for a hundred years, continually spurned. It felt to Sentaro as if the singular silence rose from the very earth beneath their feet, steeped as it was in sighs and regrets.’ — pg. 101

What stood out to me, was the parallels drawn between Tokue and Sentaro (though it is more evident with Tokue because once again, we don’t really know much about Sentaro). For me, this book discusses second chances and freedom. Do people deserve second chances, be it from a literal previous convict and ex-patient of leprosy sense, or from life-altering mistakes in general? People fight so hard to be given a second chance at life — and even if they managed to get it, they are hardly ever able do anything with this newly bestowed freedom. Everything has changed, and they are left frozen in time unable to integrate back into normal society. Are second chances even worth fighting for?

My major takeaway from this book, is actually at the Author’s Note in the end.

I began with the concept of a greater force that created human beings, rather than examining human society per se; the idea that we have been nurtured by the universe to prove its existence. If there is no single conscious mind capable of doing this, the existence of the universe itself becomes unverifiable. It cannot exist. Over the aeons the universe has nurtured life forms whose very awareness makes them involved in its continued exist-ence. Hence we are all alike in having materialized on this Earth because that was what the universe so desired.

The ill, the bed-ridden, and children whose lives are over before they’ve barely begun; all are equal in their relationship to the universe. Anyone is capable of making a positive contribution to the world through simple obser-vation, irrespective of circumstance.

Sukegawa retracts from the notion of how one’s worth is how we measure up to society, how much we contribute or how productive we are. His message is similar to that of the popular phase: ‘Sometimes, simply being is enough’. To take it even further, I really like this phase from Tokue:

If I were not here, this full moon would not be here. Neither would the trees. Or the wind. If my view of the world disappears, then everything that I see disappears too. It’s as simple as that.

The idea that being conscious or the attestment of being alive, can only be verified with other conscious beings in this world is a fascinating concept to me. There is a phrase in chinese: 一草一木皆有情, which means every grass or plant are living beings that deserves to be respected. Everyone can contribute to a meaningful life by making observations, no matter how long or short their life may be, or how significant their life form is in the grand scale of things. As fragile as life seems, life is also built to weather, warp and mend — and still continue. You can always begin again.

I interpret Tokue’s insistence on ‘listening to the language of every object’ from the trees, adzuki beans to the moon as a comforting notion that we are not alone. Being all alone in an ever expansive, infinite universe is something excruciatingly haunting. But by listening to the sounds and language of the things around us, we are reminded to pause and take a step back. In a chaotic world with much noise around us, perhaps we can filter through the noise and know that simply being is, enough.

Overall, a simple, easy read. It’s value lies not so much in the plot - but perhaps the author’s note and the thoughts you sit with after you’ve finished! Would love to hear your thoughts on the book or the topics we discussed today.

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2. Introduction: What is Distilled Matter?

Welcome to Distilled Matter, where you can find newsletters brewed at the quiet end of the day. I chose the word ‘Distilled’ because the s’s signal a sibilance from a quiet glass at midnight, but also because I wanted something that combines a lab and a lounge (this will make more sense when you read ‘Who is behind ‘Distilled Matter’ section). The name alludes to the essence of who we are when the noise, chaos and ripples finally settle, unveiling the true undercurrents of one’s mind.

There is a sentiment that the usage of substack itself is pretentious, or that social media has fulfilled the ‘dead internet theory’. Monetisation of hobbies, hustle culture and overly generic ‘hot takes’. It has become an echo chamber of whatever is trending discourse on the internet - ‘This is how I quit my 9 to 5’, ‘Social media is dying’, ‘TikTok is ruining your attention span’. In all honesty, I’ve seen the same line of videos manufactured and amplified across every social media platform - with great hooks and flamboyant editing. In the first few seconds, each promise to deliver an informative take (and some do deliver), but most leave me with no solid conclusions.

So what do I do now with this fear mongering information that my attention span is screwed? That AI is going to take over the world? Or, that there is a 19 year old who has already made millions and bought a house? ‘All urgency with no resolution.’ I would think, then continue scrolling as I continue to agitate myself. Perhaps this sounds ironic since I myself, too am a content creator. But if you follow my other socials, you would know how much I try to encourage myself and others on being intentional and grounded in an algorithimic space that tends prioritizes mindless trends and virality.

All of this to say, I want this to be quite different from other socials. I hope Distilled Matter grounds you like a slow sip after a long week — a place for thoughts that have been filtered down to their most honest form. At the end of the day, our thoughts shape our choices and our choices shape our lives. Through my observations and reflections in my daily life, I hope it inspires or comforts you in some way — that you will eventually end up wherever you want to be.

May Distilled Matter be a rest stop before your next big adventure.

3. Who is behind Distilled Matter?

I am Li Yen, aka @lxyen_ across my socials. I spent my university years studying Biochemistry at UCL, London. I graduated in 2024.

Now, I’m based in Kuala Lumpur and my content generally centers around adulting, science and more. Despite studying life sciences, I have always loved humanities - writing and reading in particular. I am mainly on instagram and youtube!

4. What will we be discussing and the overall direction?

Anything and everything from book reviews, random reflections or my hyperfixations of the month. You can expect topics ranging from but not limited to:

• Reflections and deep thoughts

• Fashion and beauty

• Book/movie reviews

• Pop culture analysis

• Biochemistry, studying tips

• Job application/Work tips and more

For now, this will just be a casual, monthly newsletter. But that’s not to say not to expect any random newsletters throughout the month where my schedule permits! I’ll try to keep it as polished as possible, but not not too many flowery frills because that would make me even more tired lol. Hopefully, it will still a good quality read every time.

See you soon in my next articles! 💗