Leonard Ng

The World Is Deep

by // Leave a Comment

September desktop
My desktop, at the moment.

It’s been some months now since my last entry, which was all about living with focus; and living with focus is exactly what I have done. Apart from work and a social life, here’s what I’ve been up to: I’ve…

  • travelled across the United States, from Boston to New Orleans;
  • established a regular habit of reflection and meditation;
  • moved into a beautiful new office space in a good part of town;
  • doubled the number of strict pull-ups I can manage;
  • explored old ruins with the Urban Explorers of Singapore;
  • started writing several scenes for a new play;
  • and finished reading almost 17 books of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, in Ancient Greek.

Life has fallen into a clear and steady rhythm, and I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s lines Die Welt ist tief, Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht — “The world is deep, and deeper than the day bethought.” I first encountered those lines in the Fourth Movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and they’ve stuck with me ever since.

I am much clearer, these days, about who I am and what I stand for. But for now, just a quick note to say I’m still here, still going, still listening to the music of the world.

American Melancholia

by // Leave a Comment

Sinuous
Image by Nicholas A. Tonelli.

I’ve been listening to country music lately, in the middle of the night when all else around is sleeping. Songs from the ’70s mostly: Kenny Rogers, Anne Murray, Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, Crystal Gayle, Kris Kristofferson. There seems a certain fatalism that rings through mostly clearly in the sad songs, always a sense that the affair must come to an end: the cowboy has to move on, and the dreamer too, and the hobo, and the gambler, and the salesman, and the soldier, and the cheatin’ wives and husbands. The music of a people always on the move, the music of lives moulded by distance.

I’ll be back in America in a couple of months, beginning in the northeast and heading back down south. North Carolina, Florida, quite possibly Texas. Haven’t been in ages. Looking forward to it.

Walking Again

by // Leave a Comment

ECP Kallang
Image by Philippe Put.

I haven’t had this in a while, this sense, this sound. It has been a long day and I have been on the go since the moment I woke, criss-crossing the island, busy, with appointments and work and so many things to do. When did my life get so full? But now I am pleasantly tired and I am sitting by the water in the quiet nighttime city, a fountain whispering at my back.The moon tonight is full, lovely and large as it rose out over the bay, and now it sits, high and silent, a circle of stark white in an empty black sky. Occasional pinpricks of stars. There is a breeze. And I am glad to be here, glad to be out and walking and alone, as in ones and twos the tourists and the lovers and the runners go by, passing like thought, as on the wrinkled water the boats. And in the distance, chiming the hour, a bell.

I’ve Missed You Too

by // Leave a Comment

My little mint plant
My little mint plant.

I haven’t blogged in a while. I think I simply outgrew my previous blog: the parameters and style I laid out in 2005 no longer suit me, here in 2015. Ten years have gone by since. I’m different now. I’ve changed, I hope, in all the ways that matter: I’m bolder, kinder, stronger, wiser. A better man. I hope, anyway. I’ve learned to hope.

Growth and change are inevitable, even if we resist them. But often growth happens in a spiral. (Above is a picture of my little mint plant, which has doubled in size over the last week, and while it doesn’t exactly spiral it certainly does wind its way along.) Often we seem to be going back when we’re really moving forward. And now here I am, starting again. And I find that I’m glad to be back.

Work on this new site, like all creative work, was all-consuming; I tended to get impatient and annoyed when things weren’t going my way, or when things were going too slowly. So I took an hour off to recollect myself. Put some music on, lit a stick of incense, aligned my energy back towards growth, tuned my mind back to gratitude. Work went much more smoothly after that. One more thing to be thankful for.

Often we stress ourselves out unnecessarily when we’re growing, even when we’re working on our biggest opportunities. And sometimes we have to consciously slow down to align our attitudes and actions with our larger goals, so that we can move ahead faster.