Easy as 1, 2, 3
The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9)
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Why are we afraid of the dark?
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
- Genesis (1:3-5)
God separated light from darkness and into morning and night. When the darkness came at night it was no longer scary because we knew the light would return.
Take the solar eclipse for example, it is an event we marvel at and look forward to now, but for people living thousands of years ago I’d imagine it be a pretty terrifying event to see the sun suddenly vanishing from the sky. The Chinese word for eclipse "蝕" means “to eat”, and it was said that the dragon has eaten the sky, and tradition dictates that drums are beaten and rituals in place to scare the dragon away. Very different, isn't it?
When I was a kid, I used to be scared of the dark. Well now that I’m an adult, actually I still am sometimes. Some nights I wake up to go to the bathroom and the shadows of the night make my heart beat a little faster. In those moments I ask myself - what are you scared of? What is it about darkness that is so scary? Why are we so scared of what we cannot see? Why is the unknown so terrifying? Is it because we default to the worst case scenario when left up to our imagination? Is it because we aren’t confident in our ability to handle whatever comes our way?
Or are we just too hopeful in the daytime? There are many sights to see in the light, many distractions to keep our minds from wandering towards the invisible fears that lie dormant in the dark. Do these distractions cause us to lean too much towards the face of hope and to put aside what we are forced to face in the darkness into the “it probably won’t happen to me” box? Could this dissonance in the interpretation of our subjective reality be simply related to a change in perspective?
Think of the moment when the crowd falls silent when the lights dim just before a show is about to start. Yes it’s a signal that the show is about to begin and out of respect to everyone you stop talking, but I think another part of it is to do with the absence of stimulus. And this happens too in the darkness of night - when the lights go out and we are forced to look inward.
I think both of these versions are both valid and both contribute to how I see the world. Between the glass half full version of me in the day, and the glass half empty version of me at night, it’s the yin and yang, the push and pull that creates a kind of balance. I want to strive to examine the things that are found in the darkness, in the light, so that when I meet them at night they will feel more like a familiar friend.
How do you create order within chaos?
God created an order out of the chaos that was the earth. Chaos is defined as a state of total confusion with no order. Mom tells me to tidy my room but I tell her, it’s organized chaos - is it still chaos is I know where everything is?
This makes me think about how I create order within the chaos that is my life. Routines are one of the ways that I do this, things that ground me even when everything else in my life is changing. It’s kind of like showering and brushing your teeth, a lot of the times that’s when I have my best ideas or some sort of epiphany. When the body gets to go on autopilot the brain is at the same time active but also free. I love that church is now part of my Sunday routine, and it’s not just attending the service. It’s getting up early to work out or study, making myself a breakfast, planning what coffee to bring and how to prepare it, heading to church, service it self, followed by lunch, going home to wash the coffee jug and then carving out time to think about the service and write. I know that no matter what happens during the week I have this to look forward to. Another thing for me is going to the gym to workout. No matter where I am (be it traveling or home), or what is going on in my life, I get to for an hour put it aside and just do my thing.
Other than that, I also have my people. My partner or my close friends, who will check on me and who genuinely care about what’s going on in my life. People who are safe spaces, people who you can let your guard down and be yourself around, people who feel like home. Their company is energy positive, and you leave feeling rejuvenated. Cherish them, because these are truly the special ones.
When everything is changing, these are solid footholds that help me find my way back home. The ocean of life is unrelenting and there will be storms, but I have these lighthouses to guide me and to help me find my way.
Easy as 1, 2, 3
Today I learned one of the ways by which Eskimos hunt polar bears. Strips of baleen (a series of fringed plates hanging in the whales' mouths which are used to strain seawater for food) would be sharpened at each end and then folded, and then wrapped in fat or meat and then frozen. These would then be left out for the bears to eat, and when it thaws in the stomach the baleen would spring open, tearing the stomach of the bear so that it dies. What I took away from this is there really is no free lunch.
Why do we want easy? I often find myself thinking “why does this have to be so hard?” or “why can’t it just be easy?” when things don’t go my way. Lately I’ve been wondering if maybe easy shouldn’t be the goal, maybe struggle and challenge are needed for there to be fulfilment. If everything was handed to us on a silver platter and we didn’t have to work for it there would be no growth, and we become complacent. If I zoom out a bit and look back on my life, the moments where I made the most progress were also the moments that felt impossible at the time. Without those struggles, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. So do I really want easy?
"It’s a cold, dark night on the side of Everest." - Bret Logan
This is one of the quotes that got me a very challenging time at work. It’s only natural that in taking on a difficult task that you will find it tough. If you decide to climb Everest, you don’t expect it to be a walk in the park. You know it will be cold and dark to get to the top, but it’s part of what you signed up for. Struggle is the price of doing something difficult but worthwhile.
Why do we strive for effortless? At the gym I would hear “you make it look so easy!” and of course it sounds like praise but when you think about it it probably means you aren’t working hard enough because pushing yourself in order for your muscles to grow shouldn’t be easy! Fitness influencers online always look so put-together during and after a workout. But when I look in the mirror after a workout and see a face covered in sweat, my ponytail all lopsided and loose strands of hair sticking out everywhere - looking very much effort-full, that’s when I know I’ve done a solid workout. Another example is a makeup trend for a “I woke up like this” look, described as a “fresh and natural look for those mornings when you want to look effortlessly beautiful”. Again with the effortless. Why do we want to paint a picture of not having to work for things? Why don’t we want to admit how hard we work for things?
Struggle is very much a part of life, and I think it’s also what makes us feel alive. It keeps us on our toes, it challenges us to grow. They say you learn the most by being the dumbest person in the room, and it’s true. It doesn’t feel good, but you come out of it better than when you came in. And isn’t that the point of life, to do the best with what you are given and to be the best you can be? So I say embrace the struggle, and proudly own the effort you put in into moulding your character and crafting your life into a masterpiece you can be proud of.
Craving recognition
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” - Genesis 11:4
We want to make a name for ourselves, we want the support and recognition from the rest of society and this is very evident in social media. Posts are curated for likes, and content that would not fare so well are deleted. I sometimes find myself losing sight of myself and getting swept along by the tides of societal expectations. As a recovering people-pleaser, I still care about what other people think of me more than I would like to.
If this sounds familiar, a book I highly recommend is “The Courage to be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.
"The desire for recognition is probably a natural desire. So, are you going to keep rolling downhill in order to receive recognition from others? Are you going to wear yourself down like a rolling stone, until everything is smoothed away? When all that is left is a little round ball, would that be ‘the real I’? It cannot be."
The fact that there are people who do not think well of you is proof that you are living in freedom. This is a reminder for me to bravely live in that freedom, to not chip away at parts of me in order to gain recognition.
What is my purpose?
God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” - Genesis 1:3
What is my purpose here on this earth? It’s something I think about, closely tied to the meaning of life and existence, but I don’t have any answers to this yet.
One of my favourite quotes that I lived by during my times as a Paediatrician was “To know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.” It got me through many tough days and nights.
And here’s the full poetry from Bessie Anderson Stanley:
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here.
This is to have succeeded.
Success and purpose are two very distinct entities, but we often confuse the two. There are many measures of success in society - be it wealth, prosperity, fame, recognition, etc. You can can be successful while not living out your purpose. On the flip side, if you are living out your purpose I would imagine the fulfilment from that would overshadow any measure of success from the external world. If that is the case, is success just a society construct, while purpose is a reflection of what gives our life and work meaning?
There are people who are so passionate about their work that they cannot wait to get up each morning to do it. I can’t say I’ve found that passion yet but I have experienced it in a small way. There was a period of time where I felt like the work I was doing mattered, it was challenging but not too overwhelming, and waking up thinking about what the day would hold filled me with excitement rather than dread. But these days I often find myself wishing that I didn’t have to work and imaging all the things I could do with my life if I could do anything with it. I wonder if it’s a “grass is greener on the other side” thing, and that finding meaning in whatever you do is a choice rather than something that is handed to you. Maybe it is in the choice to to invest yourself fully into whatever it is you choose to pursue, that gives it meaning.
But God if you have some kind of plan for me, a purpose for my existence on this earth, I’m listening.
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