Looking back, I cannot quite recall what drove me to pick up a pen and try starting a diary in the first place. It may well have been triggered by one of those moments we later recognize as turning points—a quiet shift in perspective or a milestone that felt too significant to let slip awayContinue reading “50. I Wish I’d Formed the Habit of Keeping a Diary”
Category Archives: writing
49. The Geometry of Decline in Late October
Make no mistake: I don’t mean that we can remain forever in the fullness of early autumn, lingering in September as though time itself had decided to suspend there for good. It cannot last. The bright, generous days will move on, and this golden season will gradually give way to an October of a darker,Continue reading “49. The Geometry of Decline in Late October”
48. September’s Suspension, October’s Truth: As Autumn deepens
The trees are in their autumn beauty,The woodland paths are dry,Under the October twilight the waterMirrors a still sky;Upon the brimming water among the stonesAre nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon meSince I first made my count;I saw, before I had well finished,All suddenly mountAnd scatter wheeling in great broken ringsUpon their clamorousContinue reading “48. September’s Suspension, October’s Truth: As Autumn deepens”
47.From Summer’s Passion to Autumn’s Serenity: Virginia Woolf and the Art of Reflection
“The summer is over… The autumn has begun; the leaves are falling, and the air is cold.”— The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume 1: 1915-1919 “Autumn is my season, dear. It is, after all, the season of the soul; and all my thoughts fly to you.”— The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume 1 Now, inContinue reading “47.From Summer’s Passion to Autumn’s Serenity: Virginia Woolf and the Art of Reflection”
46. The Luxury of Mellow Light
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…Until they think warm days will never cease,For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.— John Keats, To Autumn The first shift is never about temperature; it’s about the light. Earlier this week, stepping outside late in the afternoon, the glare of high summer was gone.Continue reading “46. The Luxury of Mellow Light”
45. Preface: The Autumn in the Mind
Summer has a way of overstaying its welcome now, spilling far past its boundary into September. Where I live, the daytime heat still lingers with a stubborn intensity, and along my hiking trail, water still gushes from the rock faces—a quiet reminder of the months of heavy rains that preceded us. Looking around, you mightContinue reading “45. Preface: The Autumn in the Mind”
The Bell
Ming had spent fifteen years teaching philosophy to students who would never understand it. He lectured on Socrates, Kant, Sartre—dead men wrestling with dead questions. Yet none of it touched the hollowness that had begun spreading through his chest like frost on a winter window. It all started with his mother’s funeral ten years ago.Continue reading “The Bell”
If Father has Forgotten Us
At our parents’ memorial niches Older Brother: Father has been dead for forty-seven years now. I believe he must have been reincarnated long ago—perhaps into a new life on another star. By now, he has probably forgotten everything about this life: us, his weaknesses, and all the times he was unhappy. Me: That is aContinue reading “If Father has Forgotten Us”
Odysseus Wasn’t a Macho Hero—And That’s Why He Survived
(This is a classic, evocative painting depicting Odysseus tied to the mast as he listens to the Sirens, capturing the exact tension between heroic vulnerability, temptation, and the power of the female figures who shaped his journey.) “The epic 2,800-year-old poem – now adapted for the big screen – is so much more than aContinue reading “Odysseus Wasn’t a Macho Hero—And That’s Why He Survived”
Where Our Tides Once Began
When I retired eight years ago, I did not expect nostalgia to arrive so quietly. Retirement felt like the turning of an era. For decades, work structured my days and quietly defined who I was. Then suddenly, that chapter closed. I would not say I felt old exactly — but I became aware that IContinue reading “Where Our Tides Once Began”
