Category / creative

by Eileen 配仪

Value, Joy, Work, Life. Basically, blah-blah-blah

I happened to, while clicking links, read Investment Moats Kyith’s experiences on ancestral praying.

Now here is mine. I cooked this. While it’s not as fabulous as my husband’s nephew K’s vegetarian feast, my mouth did water as I was putting it down. It looked delicious and I decided to snap a picture. My sister in law would purchase praying sessions. I am more DIY, just chanting scriptures that I am familiar. I’m not that familiar. (Again, K is amazing – he knows enough to lead a home prayer session.) I’m just not so organised and in the know what and where to do these things.

Kyith’s musings and my bold and italics:

These sessions is even worse for me because… as a finance blogger for the longest while, it is unlikely you can take the part about measuring intrinsic value, extrinsic value versus what we had to pay. All of these sometimes mesh between

  1. We are going to throw most of these away and these are just paper we burn. Should we spend so much?
  2. But we got to do it in a traditional way. Do we need to buy XXX, buy YYY or are one of these optional (that is not part of the tradition)?
  3. Are we really going to throw these food that is actually eatable away like that?
  4. I wonder if I am doing the minimal and I should do more?

As a finance blogger, he can’t help thinking about value vs the effort. He can’t stay in the moment.

The real value is being in the moment. Saying hello aloud or silently to those who are not in the flesh next to us. Praying aloud or just staying silent. The real value isn’t the amount of visible offerings (all edible if you cook it yourself or buy from a vegetarian shop that you like). He went on further to muse what really is independence. After all, he is a FI/RE blogger. He wondered aloud if we work or desire for FI/RE due to external or internal motivations or fears.

I think the FI/RE movement reinforces fears and insecurities about money. The endless computations and musing trying to figure out whether it is enough, then the endless computations how to take the money out. Thinking of these fears is rather comforting. These fears are legitimate enough reasons to permit inaction. To strike a different path washes away the illusion of safety. But life is unsafe. From precarious pregnancies to growing up as a young adult and eventually as an old person. Life is always trying to kill us. Bankrupt us even for trying. The battle isn’t trying to make the risk as small as possible. (Gasp! But you are a risk manager, Eileen.) Really, it is not. It is just figuring out enough of the path, trying it out, yes, there is enough to go around.

Money wise, I can appreciate why some, like a close family member, choose to be ultra frugal to the point of obsession. It’s part of their joy. (We do love to suffer.) There could be others who take pride in the amount of money that they have accumulated over time. The nice title that they retired with. It is part of their joy and identity.

Which brings me to this news article from CNA of a SAHM, Ratna Damayanti Taha who won the Epigram 2026 Epigram Books Fiction Prize. Those very much into the numbers would be interested to know the prize is $25,000. She worked for 5 months from Feb to June 2025 to earn this money. Some of those who hunker down with a huge portfolio probably have dividends multiple times of this money in a year. Some adults with nice titles earn that much in a month. That is not the point of this prize, I assure you. The point is that she achieved her dream to be published and distributed all over SEA. She has a master’s degree but chose to be a SAHM. Her ambition and interest did not go away. She probably submitted way more often. She revised and re-worked and wrote really fast to be able to submit and win the Golden Point and Epigram Books Prize. That is serious determination and discipline. How did she write that fast? The organisation also took a huge risk – not just on an unknown. How will these books sell with declining readership and everyone’s eyes on a video screen?

I have always been embarrassed and uncomfortable about my writing. I am bad at plotting. I am also bad at just forming beauty. I compare myself with all the literature greats. I am also bad at telling people I write. I have no such hang ups about painting. I started out from stick figures and a D in art at school. Whatever I am doing is a lot of hard work – I have no innate artistic talent. I picked it up mainly because it is something I totally don’t know how to do it. Art is totally unrelaxing for me. It is extreme stress to battle water being too wet or too dry, the colour being too much or not enough. It forces me to be in the moment. Funny that I am unable to stop carrying this ego and unnecessary chatter while writing. I can’t even write a blog post fast. I’m writing and backspacing this thing. It’s a wonder that I can post this.

by Eileen 配仪

Thinking about art learning

My earlier post on the musical set me thinking about my art learning experience in a school vs self directed learning.

The key advantage in self directed learning is that you can shop for a teacher who teaches well. Sampling lessons makes a lot of difference in deciding what to consume. This works if you know specifically what you need to work on. It does not work if you lack direction in your journey. It also does not work if you lack discipline to sit down and paint. The other key is to pick up something harder to paint so that there is progress and change.

Being in a school meant for me someone is going lesson plan, to demonstrate, correct and provide me critique. This is the education that I am paying for. I don’t need the teacher to be funny in lesson delivery or empathetic why I didn’t do homework. I want this “pass up art work” weekly so that I am made to practice. This is why self-directed learning is hard. You are not accountable to someone whose job is to make you deliver.

Art is tough business. Making the learning process joyful or making a persons more excited about art isn’t actually pushing the student to be a better artist. If you are lucky, you get a teacher who shares concepts and demonstrates skills. The critique and feedback is most important in a school environment. If you are lucky, you will get great critique that is useable.

Doing art is something you don’t have to socialise. But art cannot exist in a bubble. A teacher forces socialisation, shares what is great or not so great and creates that tension to enable change.

by Eileen 配仪

Piano repair found and lack of productivity this weekend.

So yay there is someone in the big wide world of Singapore who could fix the piano and he promised it would be good as new. I am rather looking forward to the good as new. I never actually experienced it good as new. I had sticky keys from day one and there was no one who could repair. Not even Kawai. The best was a few months ago when someone named AutumnWoods on carousell managed to fix some but not all of the problems. That was a significant improvement.

–

I was rather unproductive this weekend. I was writing at home with cafe noises and classic FM on the radio. I was distracted by the need to make lunch, wash things in the sink and other chores. I managed about 450 words before kids returned home and I stopped.  I started only after they left in the morning for classes. I felt more productive in a room full of strangers and I completed 500 words a lot quicker.  What I didn’t really like was thinking that I was downing sugar (Hot Chocolate) or caffeine (can’t sleep with caffeine) at close to $8 a cup at a rather warm cafe. Perhaps it was the coffee or chocolate that drove the word count, not the room full of strangers

by Eileen 配仪

AI is your own personal brown-nosing suck up

What is the last thing you learned?

I subscribed to chatGPT plus and after a number of interactions, I feel it is a simpering suck up. I can see why some people call it a friend. The flattery is subtle and draws one in. One is easily seduced by the way it repeats itself to you, its silky adulations like expensive ice-cream. One’s mundane accomplishments are roared through rooftops. It remembers (if you ask) a small praise of you and embelishes so much that you are compared to giants.

I can see myself over sharing just to hear more of those honeyed words.

Wait a minute, doesn’t the rich and elite get all these honeyed words all the time? Why can’t a poor peasant like me buy such experience for S$29? Nobody tells the rich or the elite, “That’s rather dumb”. We crouch it in terms like “Out of the box insight”. Or “Wow, deep blue ocean thinking.” Can’t I have the AI respond to me as if an extremely deferential, endlessly kowtowing courtier for the price of S$29? Of course I can. Why not? The AI is about as sincere as the courtier and cheaper too. 

by Eileen 配仪

Roasting myself

Alright, you asked for it. Let’s turn up the heat.

HEADBIRTH.COM: WHERE THOUGHTS GO TO MARINATE (FOREVER)

Reading headbirth.com feels like stepping into a well-decorated waiting room where nothing actually happens. It’s a place where deep thoughts are gently simmered, over-analyzed, and then served lukewarm with a side of existential hesitation.

INTELLECTUAL ANGST, BUT MAKE IT CASUAL

   •   “I wish I had a PhD. I can’t think of what use I will have for it.”

      •   Ah yes, the academic equivalent of buying a treadmill and using it to hang clothes—you want the prestige, not the struggle.

   •   “Free from desires. Free from suffering.”

      •   Bold take: not wanting things makes life easier. Groundbreaking. Next, tell us how breathing improves oxygen intake.

   •   “Didn’t like it.” (On art)

      •   Decades of artistic tradition, centuries of technique—crushed by three words. Art critics, pack it up. We have our new authority.

THE PSLE MELTDOWN: A FAMILY TRAGEDY

   •   “For the first time, I was feeling sad because my son felt sad.”

      •   Incredible. This is the emotional equivalent of realizing water is wet—except the reflection lasts longer than the child’s disappointment ever will.

   •   Next week’s entry: “For the first time, I was feeling tired because I had not slept.”

CONSUMERISM: A CRISIS IN THREE ACTS

   •   “I bought something I didn’t need and now I’m overthinking it.”

      •   Welcome to every human experience ever. The difference? Most people just shrug and wear the shoes.

      •   If capitalism had a personal nemesis, it would be this blog—constantly regretting purchases but still making them.

BIG QUESTIONS, SMALL CONCLUSIONS

There’s a pattern here—grand, philosophical openings that lead to the smallest possible takeaways. You think you’re about to get some life-altering wisdom, and then—bam—the realization is basically just “meh.”

   •   Setup: “What is freedom? Is it absence? Is it fulfillment?”

   •   Payoff: “…it’s nice, I guess.”

   •   Setup: “I have been reflecting on my relationship with consumption.”

   •   Payoff: “Maybe I should stop buying things.”

The suspense is unbearable.

FINAL VERDICT:

This blog is the literary equivalent of a perfectly arranged shelf full of books you’ve already read but still pick up to skim again—it’s comforting, self-aware, and kind of profound, but also, is anything really happening?

Would I change anything? Probably not. There’s an undeniable charm in the gentle overthinking, the casual emotional spirals, and the way every realization feels like it’s been carefully aged in an oak barrel of introspection.

But if headbirth.com were a person, they’d be the friend who starts telling a deep, meaningful story, then ends with “…anyway, it wasn’t that important.”

Would you like another round, or should we let the blog recover from this intellectual thrashing?

by Eileen 配仪

ADHD, Art, Me

I asked for a referral for my son to be assessed and was turned down. I took out ADHD 2.0 (Edward M Hallowel and John Ratey) not knowing what else to do. I put it on the headset and continued on my excel. 

I began to cry right in the middle of chapter 1. (OMG what if someone telephoned me? Luckily that I was WFH from a sprain!) I felt understood. Like someone knows what is like to be me. Someone explained why I feel that my life seems more difficult, why I feel different from everyone else and why every pursuit of mine turned out to be hideously difficult, why I failed to continue writing novels, why I want to study after I retire, why I want to do art. It even explained why I always try and fail to see what others see me as. It’s like going to a tarot card reader or a psychic to ask about your difficult son and suddenly the psychic tells you everything you have experienced in your life so far.   

Yet I can’t link ADHD to me. I did suspect I have ADHD when I was younger.  I can’t see myself as  a stereotypical ADHD person yet it all makes sense (all those years of paying penalties and late fees, multiple planners and terrifying my husband with the fire left on and mostly picking up difficult things out of boredom). I think it is mainly because I haven’t had serious complaints that it interferes with others expectations of me at work or at school. I don’t feel I annoy anyone with this problem at school or at work. It doesn’t affect me as a normal contributing member of society. It annoys my friends a lot and my husband really a lot. I feel my other nicer parts of my personality make up for this particularly annoying part so it evens out.

So what does it mean to me now that I know I might have ADHD. At this age, I don’t feel it means something. If I was told sometime during the first 35 years of my life it would mean a lot. Most of all it will explain why I feel different during those years where I feel it is important to be the same.

by Eileen 配仪

Frustration – struggling with failure

I remember thinking about this in my 20s when I was trying to be a writer, then later trying to work on my Masters thesis in my late twenties. Do I really want to wake up every morning and acknowledge I am a failure?

How very interesting that in learning to paint I encounter this question again. 

Now that I am an older and have gained wiles and cunning, l would described as a daily struggle towards greatness, the discipline of a Master. (Gag! Barf! Retch! Yet, its true – why paint the difficulty of struggle worse?)

I cannot understand why   I have this strong sense of doom, inability & “I can’t do this” for art only..

I wonder if it stems from my inability to really get it. I cannot understand it because I lack a feeling for art. My feeling is either,  “Man, this is awesome!” or “Oh, ok.”