The Performance of Goodness

Sometimes I just want to eat the world. Anger rises and I want to bite something, so perhaps the most rational thing is to bite something that feeds you.

Beneath my anger sits grief. The piercing of the chest. The slow simmer. My anger looks like light and heat. When the nerve of meaning is touched, anger rises, naming the line that has been crossed. If you allow it to surface without rushing to silence it, it shows you precisely where you care. My eyes spit thunder and I’m glaring hard. My bull is raging. I notice it and I continue anyway.

I am angry at myself. For letting my emotions get the best of me, for being so reactive. I can write about sitting still for ten days, and yet, six months later I struggle sitting still in an argument with someone I love. I can talk about equanimity, describe it, but if I’m looking for calm headedness in an argument, I rarely find it. I am a hypocrite, intoxicated by walking a thin rope of open mindedness and close mindedness. And yet, I will do it anyway.

Agency over desire begins with the smallest choice, what to eat, what to wear, and the ripple runs outward: outsource the small choices and you have already outsourced the self. It really boils down to choice. Even if you have no choice, and even if secretly you wanted the outcome, not having choice feels suffocating. People want to feel like they are calling the shots. Push and pull of want this, don’t want this. I have gates within myself that will draw a line, so that I don’t seem too eager. I want distance first before I decide that I want to be with you. I want to be apart but I want to do things with you. I will draw a line before I cross that line, and I won’t even realise that I actually just want to be with you. Is that what it is?

People surround themselves with mirrors instead of differences. Echo chambers form. Ask yourself why most people you know think the same way you do.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. I say, ignorance is ignorance. I am aware and suffering, but I am looking it in the eye at least. Shame buries me under, face red, body hot, I am ashamed.

I check on my gravel steed, Salazar. I press my finger into front then back tire checking for pressure. All good. Slightly soft but will just add comfort. My wheels thick 650b x 48 tires feeling like riding on donuts. My own monster truck. Girlbeast. Red frame purrs past traffic in my high block booties. Swerving, manoeuvring on the road like my own dance only other cyclists and motors recognise.

No traffic to wait through. All intuition and manoeuvring. A car can growl at me, a driver can look down on me, ask if I’m embarrassed not knowing how to drive. And every time, I am not. Not even slightly. The question doesn’t land because the premise doesn’t fit.

The road is mine in a way a sealed machine never offers. I feel the air. I can sing if I want. I can stop whenever I choose, to drink water, stretch, look at something unplanned. Brief human interactions without explanation.

Autopilot is so cheap, you just pay with your soul. Comfort is so easy, you just pay with your life.

To preserve what truly matters, fight your battles wisely. What to argue with and what not to even start.

I have held anger like a fist closed around something I couldn’t let go. And I have learned, slowly, to open the hand. Letting it stay until it has finished saying what it came to say. First you hold it close, because you need to know what it is. Then you observe it, palm open. Then it flies away, once it’s done its part.

Life will bite you. It will growl and clamp down on the thing you were most trying to protect.

The bike is like this. Cooking is like this. Devotion that feeds rather than feeds on. There is a fine line between wanting to serve the person you love and the fear (someone else’s fear), worn as if it were your own. Of what it means to be a woman who cooks for a man. Domesticated, the word says, as if care were a cage rather than a choice made freely, remade every time you choose it again.

Kirúg a hámból, we say in Hungarian, kicks out of the harness.

Loving the bike comes with its own guilt, because the bike refuses the script. Unladylike. Irresponsible. Reckless. What they must mean is a cycling won’t seal me away from the world, protecting me from life.

I’d much rather struggle on my own path than walk someone else’s. And when the anger comes, and it always comes, I get moving.

Anicca, Anicca, Anicca

In March 2026 I undertook ten days of a silent meditation course called Vipassana. A technique originating from India and carefully preserved across 2,500 years, taught through the recorded instructions by S.N. Goenka (Goenkaji, as students affectionately call him) through centres across the world. I found mine in Kosgama, Sri Lanka, on a hill surrounded by nature, quiet in the way that only places built deliberately for quiet can be. My partner went first, in Nepal. The results he demonstrated without even meaning to created a strong interest in me. I signed up. I got approved. The days leading up to the course I waited patiently, nervously, excitedly. I had never stopped talking from the moment of my birth, not for one hour let alone ten days. This was a challenge I felt illuminated to face.

Before the course starts, as a new student you take up five precepts, the five basic moralities essential for participation. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not speak lies. No sexual misconduct. No intoxicants. You arrive at the centre, sign in, submit your valuables, phone, computer, smart watch, any reading or writing material. You are to abstain from all other forms of meditation, yoga, exercise, spiritual or religious practice. I agreed to all of it.

I noticed the others around me. We were separated by gender, but during my course the male residential quarters were being renovated, so it was twenty to thirty women only for the entire ten days, with the exception of our lovely translator and assistant teacher Mario. Not only was I about to undertake my first ever ten days of noble silence, I would be doing it entirely in the presence of women. I was elated. Let us begin.

The centre, Dhamma Sobhā, meaning Radiance of Dhamma, sits on six acres of land in Kosgama, surrounded by mountains, about 50 kilometres from Colombo. The smell of Sri Lanka, warm and gentle, dusty. Sunlight, flowers, monkeys on branches, tree buds. After orientation and dinner, noble silence began. From that evening on, no eye contact, no physical contact, no speech. The sounds of wildlife throughout the day, birdsong, insects, tropical animals we could not identify.

No phones nearby, no other people's thoughts bleeding into yours. A refreshing new experience I had never before had.

I would describe Vipassana as being dropped into the midst of an ocean that is your mind. Deep. Shallow. Beautiful. Terrifying. My thoughts were swinging between the past, future, past, future, past, future. Anything was easier than to focus on the present. From day one to day three we focused our entire attention on respiration, the breath, as it is, not as we would like it to be. If shallow, shallow. If deep, deep. When the mind wandered, and it wandered constantly, we were simply to bring it back to the breath without judgement, without anger at ourselves for having done it again.

It felt like going from Tokyo, seeing millions of people pass before you every moment, to suddenly being alone in a cave in the Himalayas with nothing but your own thoughts. Goenkaji called it a deep surgical operation on the mind. You start noticing sensations you had never noticed. You start understanding impermanence not from a book but from the framework of your own body. You start questioning why the story running in your mind is entirely self-narrated, fictional, relative. An operation where a wound is created. Stop mid-way, and the wound remains open and untreated. You must go all the way through. You must work hard, patiently and persistently.

The mind is used to being stimulated, constantly receiving input, constantly reacting. To sit with only the breath, something so ever-present it is taken entirely for granted, was extraordinarily difficult. The mind is like a wild bull.

Every evening brought Goenkaji's discourses, which quickly became one of my favourite parts of the day, something to focus on that was not as demanding as the sitting itself, his voice patient and persistent and certain of something I was only beginning to approach.

Gradually across the first three days we narrowed our focus from the full breath to a small area around the nostrils and above the upper lip. By the third day, the trapeze underneath the nostrils and above the upper lip. Notice if you feel any sensation. Heat. Tingling. Prickling. Anything. I was stunned to find that after several hours I began feeling heat coming from my nostrils. I started noticing the breath moving sometimes through the left nostril, sometimes the right, sometimes both. We were instructed not to develop any attachment to the sensation, not to feel happy when we felt something or frustrated when we did not. Just to observe. To understand the nature of all sensation, which is arising and passing away, arising and passing away. The true nature of impermanence. The more equanimous you remain, the more old sankhāras come to the surface and pass away. The more you react, the more you multiply them. A truth you experience within the framework of your own body. Whatever you experience in each and every moment. Moment by moment. Moment by moment. You have to work for your own liberation. No one else can liberate you.

Tremendous patience was required, patience I often did not have. Yet the environment and the commitment I had made kept me there.

On day three we began learning Vipassana. We were to observe and move slowly from head to feet, covering as many parts of the body as possible, noticing whatever sensations arose. Tingling. Heat. Cold. Prickling. Pinching. Numbness. Pain. Perspiration, sweat. Pleasant or unpleasant we were to observe without preference, move through the body part by part, give no sensation more importance than any other, give all importance to the one universal truth that every sensation arises only to pass away. Anicca. Anicca. Anicca. These words ended every sitting, every beginning, every end. Impermanence. Impermanence. Impermanence.

Everything we experience arrives first as sensation, through the five sense doors. Sensation arises. Perception names it. Reaction follows. By the time you believe you are responding to reality you are already three steps inside a story your nervous system predetermined without consulting you.

Equanimity, the balanced observation of whatever arises, means not wanting unpleasant sensations to cease, not wanting pleasant ones to continue. Simply to observe. To let the wave be a wave without becoming it.

Consider hair. Oh so beautiful. So dark, so smooth. Nails. Oh so strong, so beautiful. I am drawn to it, I want to relish it for a long long time. Imagine the beautiful person whose hair it is then makes me dinner and their very beautiful hair and nails are served accidentally to my consumption.  Straight away I no longer find it beautiful. I am disgusted, if not revolted. I want a new plate or at least, the hair or nail removed at once.

My partner. My family. My home. My, my, my. I feel elated at praise, distressed at blame, and I mistake appearance for substance. The difference between knowing anicca and feeling anicca, is the difference between reading about the ocean and being dropped into the middle of it.

On day three, towards the end, we were also introduced to adiṭṭhāna, strong determination. For one hour, three times a day, we were to sit without shifting our posture, without opening our legs, our hands or our eyes, developing strength of the mind.

Oh the excruciating pain. The numbness. The legs trembling. I contemplated whether to sit in this position with intolerable numbness or in that with intolerable pain. After a while I started telling myself that this pain cannot hurt my mind. It may feel like pain, but it too, is a sensation and it is bound to pass away. This, is a thousand times harder to do than to say. After forty-five minutes the real challenge begins. Surely the teachers have forgotten to ring the bell, surely it has been more than an hour. I tell myself anicca, anicca, anicca, eagerly waiting for Goenkaji to begin the closing instruction, yet it keeps not coming. And then, I finally see. This waiting, this desperate clinging to the sound that will end the suffering, is the same mechanism as the suffering itself.

One hundred percent of suffering comes from you. None of it is external, however much it may appear to be. I could tell from first hand experience, seeing my anger arise and pass away in the hall, my fear arise and pass away, my joy and sense of peace arise, and pass away.

By day four or five I could observe sensation across my entire body, moving head to feet then feet to head, a continuous sweep. Vibrations. Wavelets. The only way out is through. Through observation. Feeling it clearly enough that it loses its grip. In my case, my sankhāras had to do with the anger I felt, the fear I felt, from being misunderstood, from old wounds carried without examining. Like the sensations, they arose. Like the sensations, they passed. I clung to past moments that made me feel violated and I clung to moments of joy and happiness, not letting either go, causing myself misery in both directions.

You cannot change other people. You can only train the mind. And a trained mind, meeting the same world, creates a completely different experience of it.

If all we are is sensation, sensation arising and passing away across the entirety of this body, then what is I? The elements are direct physical qualities of every sensation you feel. The solidity, hardness, heaviness of the Earth. The movement, vibration, oscillation of Wind. The warmth of breath and heat of Fire. And the fluidity, and holding force of Water. We are temporary patterns of earth, wind, fire, water. The same elements as the rain. The same elements as the hill. The same elements as everything. The taboo against knowing who you are dissolves when you feel clearly enough that who you are is earth, wind, fire, water that arises and passes like everything else. Then, is this bubble of wavelet I? Is this hair that is currently still on my head, is this I?

We arrived as strangers. We shared a space for ten days. International Women’s Day arrived and I picked some flowers from the gardens to leave on the communal washroom sinks in hopes of communicating with my fellow peers with words amiss. We are so inquisitive, take away one means of communication we come up with another. We gather information of each other by the other’s nail toe polish or any signs that can sate our curiosities. Since we were paired up, I was most curious about my neighbour. We were put together for a reason. When she cried, I felt for her. When she heard me cry, I felt held in that silence, and when finally, the silence on the 10th day broke, we could hear from each other what we already felt to be true. And when the silence was lifted, cries, laughter and stories erupted the space we held quiet for 10 days. The shared experience felt and spoken and indulged in together as a team that journeyed together, apart.

On the final 11th day, as we were listening to the last discourse, a heavy downpour arrived. The sound overpowering any other sound we could hear, the sound of the discourse, of  the wildlife buzzing outside. When the discourse came to an end we all walked out to see the rain for ourselves. Many of us walked straight past the frame of our shelter and directly under the rain, letting it soak us to the bone. Hugging, laughing, jumping, never another moment has ever felt so pure. As much as I wanted the course to be over, when the end finally came, I felt sadness unexpected. For the end of ten days of total demand that has been the most honest place I’ve ever been. I’ve not been anywhere so difficult, I’ve not been anywhere so pure.

Looking at the Looker

A jade bangle embellishes my left wrist, the stone cool at all times against my skin, with one exception being in the sauna, when the jade warms up. A jadeite jade that, off my wrist, fits only three of my fingers, put on me once with force, and it stays on until otherwise moved. A part of me now, I will have surgery with it on, cook with it on, always have it on. The curved line that marks my skin when the bracelet is far up my arm. I believe like many Vietnamese that should my bangle break, it will have prevented me from a terrible accident happening, and broke therefore instead. I believe in luck, in fate, in Duyên. I believe in beliefs holding weight when people collectively believe in it. If you think it's real, is that not real?

Is it truly magic, or alchemy? Is it truly happening outside of you, to you? Or are you summoning it within yourself naturally? The meeting may be fated, but the conditions that made awareness possible to one another could have been chosen.

Don't steal when someone's watching, or just don't steal because you know you could be caught? Am I behaving because it's intrinsic, or am I guarding myself, on the collective's behalf? And what would happen if I stopped guarding? Perhaps I would live my life day to day, do what I please, be that lounging around the living room, or chain smoking 40 cigarettes or rave every weekend for a year. Is that what I would do? How about the life I'm already living? Why anything at all? So why not what you want? Extend a branch into the void and you might just get a tug back.

If I criticise myself then have I guaranteed not getting hurt when others critique me? My custom built prison was built for me, and it's all volunteers working here.

Only coincidence speaks to us, said Milan Kundera. The Year of the Tiger will recognise and draw even closer to another Tiger, believing even more in the fate that has brought them together. I know two such Tigers, twelve years apart, both born under Sagittarius. Could fate ring more true?

Walkers of the same street, yet two entirely different worlds constructed from it. Skin feeling hot from proximity, yet not touching. I know they are looking and they know I am. One does not feel connection all alone. A challenge we saw each other as, and the push and pull of the heat was heavenly.

The web that caught the prey also missed everything outside of its net. I can't be bike focused without being entirely car ignorant. Eventually the gaze turns inward and you try to look out for the looker. Where is this I? Why do I believe it is located inside the silhouette of my body, behind my eyes, or inside my heart?

To notice something is also to miss something else. A mirror without an angle, only the angle you see.

Where is the looker? Who's looking at the looker?

I'm checking myself in the mirror every time I am alone, so that I can be ready for the external looker.

Beneath the turmoil of gazing, and being gazed at, there is a stillness that no turbulence can touch. The mighty, ultimate I, that just is. The one that hears the insult, guards itself, feels the fall and the break, and is still. Is equanimous, non-reactive, because the ego has dissolved in that dream, and all is looking. No looker at all.

Philosopher on the beach

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in an eternity of before and after, the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, I am terrified.

— Blaise Pascal

She sits at the edge of infinity by the Indian Ocean. Sand fine like baby powder, beige and black where the water pulls back. The ocean hums peacefully under the blazing sun.

Some grow up with snow. Some beside the sea. She had watched the surfers from the shore, stunned at how far they swam out, so far she could barely spot them, small dark shapes against the Indian Ocean’s moving light. Fearless bodies surfing waves like the most natural thing. Trusting it like one trusts land.

She floats on her back, between surface and depth. The water salty, clear and fresh, icing her worries of the day. Floating and rocking to the motion of the ocean, curious about the mystery underneath. The mind projecting its interior below. Schrödinger’s ocean floor.

A thought drifts in from the east: we say love is infinite like the ocean. Yet, the ocean keeps no promises.

Somewhere above, 100 kilometres up, space begins. Not gradually. Suddenly. One moment: atmosphere. Next: nothing. She imagines Earth from that distance. A pale blue dot. Astronauts call this the Overview Effect.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀                                                   ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀.

She floats back.

No matter how far into outer space I send my thinking, the only space I will wholeheartedly occupy is the one right here, in this body I call mine.

While I can hold 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in my mind (more than all the grains of sand on every beach and desert on earth) still, none of it touches what it is to be hungry in a moment. To feel a tear dwell in the eye, ready to burst, bright as a jewel floating in endless dark space.

On this pale blue dot live 8.3 billion people who all consider their lives their everything. If life were feeble and disposable, adults, children, the elderly wouldn’t cling so hard to stay in it. We wouldn’t hide death so visibly. Hundreds of cemetery plots should fascinate us rather than send us looking away. The vastness of missing someone, the enormity of heartbreak sitting beside the enormity of stars.

She swims back to shore. Sand underfoot. She gathers her things. One last glance at the ocean. Her footprints in the sand.

Brief.

Already gone.

The Alternate Reality

An excerpt from While We Still Have Time, forthcoming 2026.

Allow me to paint an alternate reality.

***

I walk the path of conformity, securing a mundane job and adhering to a timeline dictated by society’s wishes. I tread in respectable mediocrity before making any decisions, postponing life under the illusion of endless time. I put on a mask of happiness, sacrificing my true self for the empty approval of those around me. I am perpetually out of place, misunderstood, and perhaps even at odds with my own essence. I am a social tool, fitting neatly into precise compartments that offer a false sense of security. I outsource my beauty, my worth, my happiness, letting others reflect it back to me so I don’t have to feel it directly.

I look down on freedom, and those who cannot follow my predictable path, their freedom a threat to my fragile sense of superiority. In this pursuit, I believe in my superiority, a puppet master in a world of my own making, where the only truth is the facade I present. I document my life obsessively, not what I am seeing but myself seeing it. I am already imagining the image while the moment is still unfolding. I stand somewhere beautiful thinking about how I look standing there. Being seen replaces being. No one questions this anymore. We call it sharing. We call it memory. When all it is is proof-gathering for a life that isn’t being lived.

In this alternate reality, I am applauded for my restraint. People call me grounded, realistic, mature, because I have learned how to silence the part of me that wanted too much. I confuse numbness with peace. I mistake predictability for safety. I congratulate myself for surviving a life I was never meant to inhabit.

I only walk to my car. I sit inside a sealed machine that protects me while exposing everyone else, a private capsule of speed and force where my attention carries consequences beyond my own body. I growl at traffic as if it weren’t made almost entirely of people exactly like me. I demand speed while contributing weight. Every street becomes a test I barely notice: children, cyclists, elderly bodies calibrated against my impatience. A kill machine, normalised, regulated, insured, handed over daily as responsibility disguised as convenience. I burn fuel to spare myself the effort of distance, traveling on roads designed to fail gradually, absorbing destruction into routine. Roads disappear beneath my feet so I can arrive sooner, untouchable.

I scroll through other people’s lives to reassure myself that no one is truly free. I consume inspiration in controlled doses, careful never to let it infect me with action. I say one day so often it becomes a lullaby that puts my courage to sleep. My dopamine levels fluctuate like the waves I can’t ride. From morning till evening I can’t eat without my phone glowing beside my plate. I promise myself I’ll quit, detoxify, limit, delete and dismiss every method that would actually inconvenience me. I believe I have discipline but I simply decide I won’t do it just yet. The phone keeps me stimulated enough to feel content and distracted enough to avoid feeling trapped.

I become fluent at making excuses. Time, money, stability and responsibility. I tell myself I’m choosing this life but the truth is I’m avoiding the fear of choosing anything at all. I grow intolerant of depth. When conversations drift toward meaning, death, or desire, I redirect them to logistics. I cannot afford to look too closely. Awareness would demand movement, and movement would expose the lie. So I stay busy. Productivity numbs the pain I won’t even name.

I develop a quiet resentment toward anyone who lives loudly. Artists embarrass me. Lovers who risk everything irritate me. People who leave unsettle me. Their existence implies that I could have done otherwise, and that is an implication I cannot survive intact. So I mock and pity them, reducing them to cautionary tales, anything to keep my own reflection from cracking.

I go on retreats where enlightenment is sold to me for three thousand pounds guided by Greg from California, while locals work invisibly to keep the experience seamless. Nothing signals awakening like money well spent. I outsource the slow, humiliating work of introspection to a schedule, a package, a payment plan. I leave lighter, cleaner, convinced I’ve arrived, then return unchanged, reassured that depth remains a product I can access whenever I’m ready to pay.

I tell myself I care about the planet as I inhabit cities that import everything we consume. I want to see untapped places and tap them, while calling it curiosity and exploration, while deep down I know it would be too raw for me. I want to numb myself on holidays where all I do is lie still, recovering from the exhaustion of a life I call successful. I am a hypocrite flying across the world, the single largest personal carbon load most people ever create and I know it. I offset, I rationalize, as the fuel is burning beneath me. I live in a city plugged into extreme resource use, sustained by imported food, constant climate control, endless infrastructure, and I sip a matcha oat latte while knowing better. I buy sustainable things to consume without guilt: new yoga mats, new bottles, new clothes wrapped in eco-language. I know better, and continue anyway.

In this reality, I am dazzled by height and shine. Skyscrapers convince me of progress. Glass towers rising from sand feel like achievement, even when I know they are built on invisible hands, on imported bodies that will never look up from the ground they poured. I admire the bling while pretending not to see the cost: cities covered in luxury, faces frozen in Botox, abundance displayed like a weapon. I mistake excess for power, spectacle for substance. I tell myself it’s impressive, aspirational, the future, as I carefully avoid asking who paid for it, who disappeared into it, who will never belong to the skyline they built. I let myself be seduced by the glow because it saves me from asking harder questions about what kind of world I am applauding.

I tell myself I am above chaos, when in reality I am terrified of aliveness. I confuse control with dignity. I confuse order with meaning. I confuse comfort with fulfillment. And slowly, expertly, I become someone who is very good at living, and very bad at being alive. Years pass without leaving a mark. My body ages, but my inner world remains untouched, untested, unspent. I grow older without growing deeper. I accumulate objects, routines, acquaintances, but no stories that could save me if everything were stripped away. And one day it dawns on me that I have become invisible to myself. The dull, unbearable knowing that I did everything right, and I still betrayed my life.

Not that this life is painful, but that it is acceptable.

The Cage Question

Imagine that you are in a cage.

However, you are not human but animal.

1. Tell me the first animal that comes to your mind.

2. Describe the cage in as much detail as possible.

***

The cage offers a window into how we understand ourselves, our limitations, and the often unspoken rules that govern our lives. The animal symbolises the raw, unfiltered essence of who we are, while the cage represents the external structures imposed by society, family, or even our own minds, which we perceive as containing us.

This exercise is a way to get to know someone better. Ask them for their thoughts on their chosen animal and keep asking for more details. What colour is the floor? What's in the corner? Understand what their cage looks like and how they feel inside it.

When asked to describe their chosen animal, people unconsciously reveal their feelings: how they view their constraints and their potential for freedom. People talk about it without realising it, it's disarming. Some see themselves as raging bulls, straining against the bars. Others might envision themselves as birds, unable to imagine a cage, seeing it as a room where they can fly high and gain new perspectives.

There is no difference between the cage and the animal because the boundaries we think we see, the limitations we feel, are essentially linked to the essence of who we are. The cage is not an external force keeping us trapped. It is an extension of the animal, of us, a manifestation of how we perceive the world and our place in it.

For some, the bars are thick and unyielding, representing deep beliefs, fears, or societal expectations that feel impossible to break free from. For others, the cage may be fragile, barely noticeable, something that could be shifted at any moment if only they realised their own power.

Those who are fully assimilated by society won't see the cage; they are so into the illusion they see no boundaries.

You can't possibly be comfortable everywhere. The people who don't see the cage, who think they are free, are often those most confined by it. They are so deeply assimilated into the expectations and norms of society that they don't even realise they're in a cage at all. For these people, the cage has become indistinguishable from the world they live in.

To see the cage, to feel its bars, is the first step toward freedom, because in recognising the boundaries, you give yourself the power to redefine them.

Some see themselves as dragon lying dormant. Their cage is made out of twigs so thin that if the dragon moves the cage collapses. The cage has a sword going through securing the enclosed there.

When I was first proposed this question, I saw myself as a tiger: fierce and strong, caged within a zoo-like structure. The bars were thick and unyielding, allowing minimal space to walk in a circle. The ceiling was so high that the tiger could not see the end, leaving it to wonder if there was ever an escape.

I've always identified with a tiger. Growing up in a country different from my heritage, I often felt the pressure to assimilate, clinging to anything that made me feel part of the society around me. These were desperate attempts to fit in and be accepted. Within those confines, I've become both resilient and strong. I like having my space and feeling secure in it. The adaptability I've developed reminds me of a big cat: flexible yet firm. Tigers are known for being unpredictable, quick to make decisive moves. Similarly, my emotions can flare up intensely, yet at other times, I am calm and steady, like a quiet giant. There's an untamed strength in tigers, but also a sense of grace. That combination is where my confidence resides.

The question is not whether the cage exists but whether we understand it for what it is. The tiger, the dragon, the bird: they are all aspects of ourselves, representing how we move through life, how we see our power, and how we navigate our perceived limitations. But the cage, too, is part of us. It's a creation of our minds, built from our beliefs about the world and our place in it. When we understand that the cage is of our own making, we can begin to shape it, bend it, and eventually walk through it with the power of knowing we were never truly confined.

There is no world outside of you. Everything you experience is a reflection of your own thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs. The cage is not imposed by society, nor is it forced upon you by external forces. It is you. The world, as we know it, is a mental construct. When you change your mind, you change your world.

Just as the cage can be a symbol of confinement, it can also be a symbol of transformation. The cage, initially seen as a binding constraint, can, however, evolve into a sanctuary that not only helps us exist in a certain way but also protects us and aids in navigation. The cage is something to be understood. And in that understanding lies the key to our freedom.

Parrot in a Sea of Penguins

Some people think a hundred thousand dollars is the hardest thing to earn. For others, they can just get a hundred thousand.

The concept of earning is small. You can lecture me about earning while I enjoy my life in the suburbs. Are you trying to prove a point? So what if I didn't earn it with hard work? I was born with it. You made it to Earth: did you earn that? Do you earn who you are or where you are? You have not earned anything, no matter what.

Because I earn money, I have earned the right to live? Absurdity. Our value and right to exist aren’t defined solely by our economic contribution but by our intrinsic worth as human beings and the unique qualities we bring to the world. Your worth is inherent in who you are: the kindness you show, the connections you build, the impact you make through your authenticity. Earn the things that matter to you. It's never next time, it's now.

Parrot in a sea of penguins.

You need to establish a person’s worldview to get to know someone. Some people believe to exist is to make money. And the same perspectives tend to hand out together because they perpetuate that worldview and won’t question it.

What does rich mean to you? What does making a living mean? What if I live on a farm and don’t even use money? Is that making a living?

The answer depends entirely on the worldview of the person you are speaking to.

Which is why you have to establish that first. You have to know what game they think they are playing, what winning looks like from where they stand, what they would say if you asked them quietly, without judgment, on an ordinary Tuesday: what does any of this mean to you?

Because some people will answer with a number.

And some people will pause.

And in that pause, in the space between the question and whatever comes next, that is where you find out who you are actually talking to.