A complete list of my writings published on Medium
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time…give it, give it all, give it now.
― Annie Dillard
My most viewed article
What Is Wrong With Living an Ordinary Life?
Elon Musk isn’t the best model for a good life.
medium.com
My most viewed poem
Writing and Creativity
Does Writing Ever Become Easier?
When the Words Don’t Come Easily
Writing in a Time of Pandemic (a tribute to George Orwell)
Will You Write When You Feel Blue? (on being authentic)
The Magic of Embracing Stupid (on dealing with inner critic)
Why I Write To My Son?
My Escape From the Most Useless Place, the Waiting Place
Totally Random Thoughts
Self and Life
It was just what I needed to hear
“Ahhh, so frustrating. I can’t seem to write anymore,” I say to my husband.
“But, why do you want to write?” he asks.
“You know, writing is my attempt to heal myself,” I say.
He asks more questions to help me reflect on what I’m going through. I silently go over my reasons for wanting to write. Writing grounds me. When I don’t write for a long time, I feel more restless and out of touch with myself. Writing lets me express myself and explore ideas I care about.
However, I dislike self-imposed pressures and feelings like I have to…
Because time neither waits nor cares about wealth.
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.— Frederick Lewis Donaldson
Recently the New York Times published Here’s How Bored Rich People Are Spending Their Extra Cash. Apparently, the price of luxury goods, collectables, and assets such as jewellery, watches, sports cards, vintage cars, sneakers, and crypto art skyrocketed during the pandemic as lines for food banks grew ever so long.
Although it is no surprise that the pandemic made the rich richer and the poor poorer, it still saddens me to witness this widening disparity…
The magic of seeing ourselves as the storyteller of our lives.
A little boy dressed as Superman jumps from a high window into the sky. He believed he had superpowers and could fly just like his hero. Miraculously, a group of good Samaritans banded together and safely caught him with a blanket before he reached the ground.
I’ve carried this scene in my mind for many years. I couldn’t remember the source of the story about this lucky boy. So I Googled to see if it was in the news. When I found that it was originally published in the New York Times in 1979, my heart sank. …
Reflections on my month-long break from alcohol
January has always been a month of hibernation for me. I can’t remember anything significant that ever happened to me in January in the past ten years. I don’t know how the first month of the year became my least memorable month.
One legacy of 2020 is that it heightened my awareness of time and made me more attentive to my life. I no longer want to sleepwalk through it.
In my attempt to make this January more memorable, I’m taking a break from alcohol for an entire month. …
A ritual that helped me out of depression
Try never to abandon hope for if you do, hope will surely try to abandon you.
— Sally Brampton
Disclaimer: I wrote this story not to offer any advice about how to get out depression. It simply is my story about a ritual that helped me.
I have a ritual of hiking at least every other week. But I fell into a bit of a rut last December and didn’t hike at all. I resolved to get back to the trails starting on January 1st, which I did.
As I walked on the narrow muddy trail along a dense forest…
I’m hoping to connect with my friends in the New Year
I’m sitting here in a boring room
It’s just another rainy Sunday afternoon
I’m wasting my time, I got nothing to do
I’m hanging around, I’m waiting for you
But nothing ever happens
And I wonder
—Excerpt from Lemon Tree by Fools Garden
I woke up feeling icky about the “ground-hoginess” of my life. The monotony of going through the same routine day after day has recently gotten under my skin. Over breakfast, I snap at my husband for not sharing my feelings. He has never once complained about being holed up at home indefinitely.
We try going out every…
Never underestimate the power of ordinary beautiful moments
Gingko leaves are falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
Gingko leaves are falling down,
My birthday boy
Collect them up with your naked hands,
Naked hands, naked hands.
Make this memory with your friends,
Bestest friends, bestest friends,
My dear son
As a toddler, my son liked to sing London Bridge Is Falling Down. Now he likes to dance to Dance Monkey. On December 21st, he turned 9.
Two of my son’s best friends came over to share pizza and cake with us in a neighborhood park. It was one of those beautiful days in Northern California.
The sun streams…
The universe won’t have our backs unless we back ourselves.
If everything in the last resort is in the hands of God or of blind chance, what hope has humanity except in submission?
— Buddha
This year we bought a Lego Town Advent calendar for our son. Every morning he sprints to the kitchen table to open a new window for his surprise mini-Lego. Today it is an ambulance car. His excitement lies in not knowing what is about to be revealed.
Life is a lot like this Advent calendar. It reveals what is in store for us bit by bit. …
Practical advice for life from a 17th-century self-help book
A little green book sat on our bookshelf gathering dust for who knows how long. Neither I nor my husband has read it or remember how it made its way to our home. Today I finally picked it up to see what it’s about.
The book contains 300 aphorisms for navigating life safely and wisely. Flipping through its pages, I came across this one:
“Enjoy a little more, and strive a little less: others argue to the contrary; but happy leisure is worth more than drive, for nothing belongs to us, except time …”
Nothing belongs to us, except time.
…
Zul Bal
I write to collect, capture, and curate ordinary beautiful ideas.
