A drip of bright yellow on a dark blue canvas. An irresistable turn of the head. Contrast. Everybody’s vibing cynical and pessimistic. You turn up honest and hopeful. That’s a lit candle in the dark. Even the darkness can feel its warmth. Contrast. So many talk spin, stretch, bend, hedge, twist, clever, and sale. They can’t tell it straight and true. You do. Others resonate. Contrast. Everyone’s doing what everybody else’s doing. Like call speeches. …
It doesn’t matter who we are, what we have, how knowledgeable we are, or where we live; we struggle. The man with incredible wealth, the man garlanded with success, struggles. He has no time for family or friendships. He works all the time. So he’s lonely. Do people like him for him or his money? Who can he trust? Nobody understands him except those who seek to take advantage of him. The woman with the …
To survive and thrive, I feel I have no choice but to consciously cultivate and live with a relentlessly optimistic and aesthetic outlook on life. The alternative is unconsciously backsliding into a miserable, depressing, hopeless cynicism. You may rightly point out that there is a middle between those ends. The choices of our outlook are not binary. It is a spectrum of infinite gradations. I acknowledge that. There is a middle, of course. But it …
Sometime last year, a lawyer friend called me up. We’ve known each other for some time. After exchanging pleasantries, he told me he had a matter he needed help with. ‘I thought of bringing you in. But then I realized that I didn’t know your practice area. Sorry for not knowing despite knowing you for so many years.’ ‘Aiyah, no worries lah. My practice area… How about this? Why don’t you tell me what help …
I notice these days that the pupils, interns and fresh lawyers don’t hang out with seniors, even when they have the opportunity to. Or even if they do, they don’t stay long. Excusing themselves politely on the account of work or something or other. I am sure the mumbled ramblings of those of my vintage and beyond when we get together are dismissed as old uncle talk, and, therefore, not worth sitting around for. I …