Category: Adult

The Asymptote

Can you examine your life through retrospect or introspect, and tell yourself: ‘’I am doing my best’’? I bet you can’t; because if you can, you’re only kidding yourself. Your best is a moving, evolving, changing scale. Your best is not a constant point where you can reach and declare yourself ‘winner’. The only thing

Read more »

The Words

Hate attracts hate. For me it has been proved to be true. Let me tell you a story of what really happened in my life that stands as a proof of it. My name is La min and my mother is named Tha zin. We were poor and my mother had been the breadwinner of

Read more »

A Story Without Conflicts

Imagine a story without conflicts. Say a love story. A girl meets a boy. They date. They are compatible. They like each other. They get married. And live happily ever after.   Now imagine a story with conflicts. Another love story. A girl meets a boy. They date. They like each other. The boy is

Read more »

A Piece of the Puzzle

There are a thousand and one quotes on self-discovery, maybe more. There is also a general misconception that it is more important to know exactly what you are than focusing on being what you want to be. Most young children are pressured to be conformed to a particular image and identity at an early age.

Read more »

For those on fast horses, jump to the end

‘If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses’ – Oh Henry Ford, how wrong you are. You should never ever speak on behalf of someone you don’t know (much less, everyone as a whole, lumping us all in together). Rule 1 of human decency. Yet plenty of people do

Read more »

Love breeds Love

“Hate attracts hate.” I fully agree with this statement. But it is equally true to say that “love attracts love”, and “generosity attracts generosity”. As a side note, I prefer the more old-fashioned term, “breed”. “Violence breeds violence.” “Honesty breeds honesty.” Because the word “breed” gives off the idea of not only reproducing, growing and

Read more »

The Core of All Things Real

Without conflict, we don’t have stories! It is at the core of not only every good story but of humanity itself. It is the expression of the main character, provides the setting to draw the reader in and gives perspective for where the story is headed. Conflict in real life grows and matures us. It

Read more »

I Am What I Am

When we are born, we come into this world as a clean canvas. A spiritual being in a human bodysuit. We have no concepts of life, no models of reality, no judgements or pre-conceived ideas. As an innocent child we lived in each present moment – crying one second and playing the next, without being

Read more »

The Price of Conflict

“If there’s no conflict, there are no stories worth telling — or reading.” — Veronica Roth Do you agree? — No. How fascinated we have become with the storylines in films and books which we admire. How stealthily and quickly these ideas creep into our heads: the idea that what happens in those stories, which

Read more »

No Stories Worth Telling; No Life Worth Living

“If there is no conflict, there are no stories worth telling – or reading.” – Veronica Roth Conflict. It permeates every moment of our lives from the moment our toes touch the chilly floor in the morning, until our heads sink into the softness of our pillow at night. As we close our eyes and

Read more »

“The main interest in life and work is to become someone else you were not in the beginning” – Foucault

Michel Foucault during an interview with Rex Martin on October 25th, 1982, was asked a question: “You are most frequently termed “philosopher” but also “historian”, “structuralist”, and “Marxist”. The title of your chair at the College de France is “Professor of the History of Systems of Thought”. What does this mean?” However, Michel Foucault replied with

Read more »

Conflict: A Precursor to History

I agree with Veronica Roth’s quote that if there’s no conflict, there are no stories worth telling – or reading.  Although there are resolutions that can be taken to avoid conflict and apathy, not many stories can be told or read about if there were no conflict. For instance, if there had not been one

Read more »

Conflicts and the World

A wise man once quoted, “The greatest battles are born in conflict.” I stand to affirm that if there is no conflict, there will be no stories to tell at all. If all was peaceful and tranquil, who will remember the valiant effort of the warriors that fought for their clan’s freedom? No great king

Read more »

Hardship and Prosperity: How Conflict Enriches Our Lives

Across time and cultures, it has long been acknowledged that our lives exist on a pendulum of hardship and prosperity, swinging from one end to the other throughout our journey on Earth. As many schools of thought have put it: there cannot be light without dark, good without evil, or joy without suffering. For some

Read more »

Victor or Victim?

As he opened his mouth to speak, he felt a knot inside his throat. He tried to breathe but the words would not come out. He was choking from within as if someone was squeezing his throat with their powerful hands. The harder he tried, the more painful it became. As his ears turned red

Read more »

La Haine Attire La Haine

2Pac, in an interview over his ‘THUG LIFE’ tattoo, explained: “The hate you give little infants destroys everyone.” How true this is because just as an African proverb puts it, ‘A war erupts when the children remember that certain warriors killed their parents’. Hate can only attract hate. Such was the case for Lil Joe,

Read more »

Are you who you are?

The interviewer has his face heavily punctuated with wrinkles, his eyes dart from side to side as you walk in. With all his fingers locked in on themselves and both thumbs rubbing against each other, he doesn’t hesitate to ask, “Who are you?” You’re as sure as ever that he has asked every single person

Read more »

The Power of Stories

Stories, the very reflections of our dreams and our fears, have always been around us since the beginning of our history. Being older than mankind, the power of stories lies in neither how old their origins date back nor where they come from. Rather, the power of stories is their similar nature to what we

Read more »