Book: Over-analyzing the Friction

I didn’t expect reading this book can turn into a reflection about myself, but friction often reveals more than comfort ever could. I didn't even want to talk about this book at the start.

This book made me uncomfortable in a way I didn’t expect. It felt like race was emphasized more than necessary, almost as if it was trying too hard. The lack of subtlety made it difficult for me to stay immersed in the story.

I also struggled with the excessive listing. There were too many details that didn’t feel essential to the core narrative. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I’m not good at processing information that feels unimportant to my brain. It becomes noise, and that noise distracted me from the emotional arc. That discomfort led to an interesting realization about my cognitive preferences. I’ve mentioned “noise” several times throughout this blog. Some writers use specificity as texture and listing as immersion. It is an intentional stylistic choice. For some readers, it works but for me, it doesn’t. It comes down to cognitive preference, so there is no right or wrong here.

I have almost zero tolerance for narrative noise. This explains why I dislike filler episodes and get bored with excessive details, especially names and numbers. With a designer’s brain, I appreciate clean, curated work. I value negative space. My brain prefer only what is necessary to move the story forward.

While I admire the richness and detail in Orhan Pamuk’s and Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s writing, I am also in awe of writers like Haruki Murakami or Kyung Sook Shin, who can express complex, weighty emotions with remarkable simplicity. Pamuk and Zafón create immersion through accumulation. Murakami and Sook Shin create depth through subtraction. On the surface, it looks simple, but we know it is not. Anyone can pile details but not everyone can remove them and still leave resonance. 

Maybe that is the contradiction I live with. I admire maximalism, but I move through the world as a minimalist. I respect the cathedral, but I build a quiet empty room for myself. And sometimes, a book is less about whether I love it or not, and more about self-discovery, observing our own thinking, about noticing the small frictions that reveal us to ourselves.

So every friction matters, take note on every annoyance, there's a lesson there. 

The book I'm referring to is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Little Thing 331: Pottery Lesson

Last December, I took an unlimited pottery session.

One of the main lessons I learned was detachment. In pottery, you have to accept that you cannot fully control the outcome. Whether I throw once or fifty times, the piece can still fail. My skills can always improve. My expectations can still collapse.

Every stage of the process produces a different result. Imperfections can appear at any phase. I can spend hours shaping a piece, only for it to crack during firing in the kiln because I did not wedge it properly at the beginning. If I handle it too much, if it shifts off-center while throwing, if I add too much water or not enough, if I rush, or if I overwork the clay anything can go wrong. Everything matters.

Pottery teaches patience, repetition, and the humility to accept that you can create something and still walk away with nothing. In every session, I arrived, put music in my ears, wedged and threw, silently repeating the process. I walked home with cracked palms and an aching back, but it was therapeutic.

I did not want to bring anything home. I just wanted to enjoy the learning process, on repeat.

It had been a while since I allowed myself to be terrible at something. There were no stakes, no KPIs, no deliverables, no results, just a bad piece spinning on the wheel.

Note: So Azmi, this is to answer your question that weekend.

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It is a little like parenting, kan.

You try to shape them according to your standards, but every phase can unfold in ways you cannot control. And just like pottery, you learn to loosen your grip on the outcome. Sometimes the most loving thing is knowing when to stop shaping. In the end, the child becomes who they are becoming. 

Your role is not to manufacture the final form, but to guide the process and then accept the outcome. 

Little Stories 326: Impromptu Balik Kampung

I haven’t balik kampung in more than two years. I think the last time everyone saw me was after my dramatic hospital episodes, when I was still sickly. Then I went MIA for a while. My weight was more or less the same as it is now, but they were convinced I had gained weight and was “glowing.” And I get it. I remember. The last time I went back, I really did look unwell.

They mentioned that I look much better, now that my debilitating anxiety is manageable, almost miraculously invisible to society. Their last memory of me was after my episodes, which surprised me because it feels like a lifetime ago. That persona kind of stuck in their minds.

Azreen = sick = hospital.

Looking back, yes, it was dramatic. It was huge. It was life-changing. My whole life turned upside down while I was recovering, figuring things out, and deciding to change. It feels like another lifetime, but it all happened in less than five years. That phase was a turning point. Some parts of me did die that year. There is pre-2021 and post-2021.

Ma said I’m in a good place now, and I shouldn’t rock the boat. 

But boats are meant to move, kan. I can't stay stagnant forever. And I'm not trying to sink my boat, I'm trying to sail it. 

Little Thing 330: The Right Mix

Kadang-kadang I’m not sure how to do this parenting thing. Growing up, I was in quite a stressful environment where I didn’t really get to express myself. Looking back, I realize I learned to make myself small and invisible, too scared to create friction or drama. I developed this toxic habit of hiding in my cave.

So every time Sofi tests a boundary or tries to express herself, I find myself questioning what the right approach is. Do I limit her expression and create firm rules, or do I let her test things and learn through consequences? She’s at the age of trying out what she sees around her, experimenting with autonomy, learning how to express herself. With limited vocabulary and emotional awareness, rebellion can easily become her language.

And I remember, when I was growing up, I didn’t get the chance to be seen at all.

I wonder what the right mix is in shaping her personality, because every small influence wires her brain, at least during these formative years. But maybe the real work is not about controlling the mix. Maybe it’s about teaching her how to regulate her emotions, to name what she feels, and guiding her to process them. Hopefully, she will slowly grow into the best version of her own self. Kan. That’s something I only learned in my 30s, and I wish I had learned it sooner.

I don't know. 

She’s still at that age where she says, “Thank you, Mami. I love it.” 

And that warms my heart everytime, because I still struggle to express something that simple.

Little Thing 329: I'm Breathing Now

Last week, a lot happened. For one, I was asked to join my first networking event, maybe because I had avoided most events since I started working full-time again. So no excuse.

I was nervous, the kind of nervous with butterflies constantly in my stomach. The kind that made me cycle 70 km in a week just to manage it. The kind that made it hard to eat proper meals for several days, which then led to headaches. How annoying it is to be fully aware of my nervous system reacting like this and still not be able to chill, kan.

But I survived the networking event, with sweaty armpits and many moments of pretending to be busy. I survived submitting 15 drafts in 2 days, and 12 completed FA in 3 days as well as the interview meetings in-between. I survived the confrontations that really needed to happen. And I got the results for my big applications. I can come out from my cave now. I have no idea how I'm still functioning.

Last week was a marathon for my brain. My ChatGPT said I shouldn’t go to the gym anymore because I was “overstimulated” and that's why I don't feel hunger. What I needed was grounding, not more movement. Hah.

What I learned from the networking event is that I really don’t want to do networking. I thought I needed to socialize more to make my “presence” seen and maybe get more projects or something. But naw, I don’t like it. I don’t like going to events and talking about myself to strangers. I just want to do the work, sans the socializing :F I told S that I’d rather be in front of my laptop doing my work. Maybe the socializing part is just not meant for me. 

But next week, we have another session. This time I don't have to talk about myself to strangers, I just need to help around. So, it is not that bad. I'm breathing now, I've been holding my breath for awhile.

 

I'm breathing.

Books: Apparently January is My Reading Month

Lately on books: Yes, I've been reading a bit more than usual. 

I'll Be Right there - Kyung Sook Shin

This book made me feel small and sad in a very quiet way. It’s about grief, memory, and people who leave marks on your life even after they’re gone. Nothing is loud in this story, but everything hurts. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t break your heart all at once, it just slowly makes it heavier.

I've read her other books: Please Look After Mother & The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness 

Note: Everything she writes is sad and heavy with emotion.

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Notes to John & The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion -

Notes to John felt a bit too personal, almost like it should not have been published, like reading someone’s private diary. But seeing how she processed everything that happened in her life made me feel less alone. She talked the way I talk. She was honest in the same painfully honest way I know how.

Note: The Year of Magical Thinking was a reread.

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Card Captor Sakura by Clamp 1-6 

Yes, yes. I’m late. But we can finally read CCS locally. Kadokawa Gempak Starz finally decided to translate and publish the series after 30 years. Perfect. I’m collecting this and quietly achieving my childhood dream. Too YA for my age, but I can still enjoy the illustration. 

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Bury Our Bones in the Midnight by VESchwab 

No. I picked the wrong book, too YA for me. But I finished it because I was dedicated enough to finish a book I didn't enjoy. 

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Tuhan, Seindah Apa di Hujung Sana by Hafizul Faiz 

I really enjoy this kind of personal reflection on Qur’anic verses. The writing can feel a bit blog-gy at times, but I think that actually works, it makes it easier to digest and to take notes from. I like how he writes about why certain verses call out to him, the possible meanings of certain Arabic words used in the Qur’an, and how he weaves in his own reflections and experiences while learning and exploring.

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Currently on my reading library:

• Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin) - just started on Kindle
• The Great Mental Models (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology) - This is really, really, really mentally stimulating. I love this so much. I honestly wish I had read something like this when I was in school. It explains the core concepts of scientific models and relates them to real-world events. Perfect for a conceptual thinker like me.
• Cuma Aku, Lukaku, dan Tuhanku (Hafizul Faiz) - Personal reflections on the 30 juzuk of the Qur’an.
• Tak Semua Seperti Yang Kusangka (A.Shafiq) - Bought a preloved copy. I’m curious to see how local writers are writing these days.
• The Idiot (Elif Batuman) - Why am I still reading this? I’m not sure. But I’m already 70% in and dragging my feet to the finish line.

It’s a bit all over the place, kan. A chaotic mix of emotions, hardcore thinking, spiritual reflection, local curiosity, and just reading for the vibes but I think I'm on a good start.

Happy 2026 reading year!

Little Thing 328: Happy New Year and Let's Talk Planning

Happy New Year.

I’m not really “back.” My brother said I’ve been too silent lately, and he’s bored because there’s nothing for him to read (I lent him my book).

I’ve had a lot on my plate. This is a big decision-making year for me. So I’ve been quiet online, but quite productive in my personal life. A lot is going on, and I’m trying to reserve as much thinking energy as possible for things that actually matter. But today I had coffee. So here I am.

I’m well, thanks for asking.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday to recalibrate last month, because I did.

—

Here’s something I want to share this January, since it’s still the new year.

Every once in a while (especially at the end or beginning of a year), I do this thing: I restructure my life. Planning, visualising, researching, making decisions. I know there are mixed opinions about this, but as a planner, this is how I work, and this is how I find my starting line.

First things first: what do you want?

Let’s say you draft a whole list of things you want to have, achieve, or buy in 2026. Goals, dreams, anything, then you create a vision board. You don’t have to be super specific yet, but you need to put them somewhere you can see. To remind yourself that you’re living intentionally, that time is precious. This is your rough map.

Then, when you know what you want, you set a direction.

Then comes the analysis. The reality constraints.

This is where you ask the real questions. You decide your pace, your scope, whether something is actually possible. You check what’s realistic, you set expectations, you design fallback plans, “bare minimum” rules, and systems that you can still follow on dark days.

You begin to notice the information you need, you ask the right people the right questions, you take the next possible steps, you sequence your actions, and you stop wasting energy walking in the dark. Now you have a torchlight in your hand, kan.

So now you know:

• what you want,
• where you’re going,
• what’s realistic,
• and the rough wireframe of your intentional life.

Because I love structure, I plan ahead, I create sequences and branches of where I might go. I design my life because I don’t have the luxury of chaos and recklessness, so I have to be intentional. I’m not super rigid about planning. I always evaluate and recalibrate when something doesn’t work, and I try again. That’s how I’ve been surviving the hard winters. You jatuh, you start again, but you need to keep moving forward: 

• Decide what you want (even rough ideas)
• Draw a map (even if it’s wrong)
• Start walking
• Re-route when reality corrects you

You can start the engine and drive somewhere, instead of just wandering aimlessly.

My buffer years are up, and my car is packed. All I need now is to drive into my next phase. 

いってらっしゃい !

Little Thing 327: Stuck on a Replay

The project we worked on for the past two months didn’t end well, and I’m still trying to make sense of what went wrong. It’s hard not to replay the mistakes and imagine what we could have done differently. While I wasn’t physically present during the two critical days when things unfolded, I was still part of the team. We invested time, effort, and a lot of energy into this project, and that makes the weight of it difficult to shake.

So here I am, at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning, still sitting with the grief.

I keep circling back to the idea of reciprocity, how we expect effort to be met with outcome, energy with return. When that balance breaks, it leaves something unresolved. Nothing feels unfinished in terms of work, yet emotionally, the exchange feels incomplete, and I don’t quite know what to do with that yet.

Reciprocity assumes balance: effort in, outcome out. But human systems aren’t closed systems. You can put in energy, time, and care, and still receive something that doesn’t reflect that investment. I understand this intellectually, but the emotional imbalance still persists. I don’t have a resolution here. Just the awareness that when you give deeply, and the return comes back distorted, it leaves a quiet ache that takes time to settle. 

You know the feeling when you give, and give, and give, believing that something will come back in return. It’s almost instinctive, as if our brains are wired to expect balance. But the truth is, we don’t get to control what comes back to us. And maybe that’s where I am right now, sitting with the very human disappointment of hopes and dreams that didn’t land where I thought they would. 

Hm.

Little Thing 326: Different Spacetimes

Let us sit around my campfire. 

I recently learned about relativity. Big term, I know, but it led to a major, eye-opening realization for me. At its core, relativity tells me that there is no single, absolute perspective. There is always more than one way to see everything in life, depending on where you stand, your experiences, your biases, desires, belief systems, name it.

An event can happen at the same time and yet become two entirely different experiences for two observers, and both can be right. The observer’s perspective shapes what they perceive as reality and how they make sense of the experience. Two people can walk away with wildly different feelings from the same moment, because they were never in the same spacetime to begin with.

We see things based on our own perspective, and we are quick to judge others through that lens. Today, you might judge someone for a decision they make. Five years later, you might judge that same person, for the same decision, very differently. What changed? Your perspective. Where you are in your spacetime. You are the same person, and yet not the same at all.

Relativity taught me that understanding isn’t about agreeing on one truth, but about asking where someone was standing when it happened. Sometimes, that understanding invites empathy. Sometimes, it asks me to pause and not invest emotionally. Sometimes, it allows me to acknowledge my own pain without gaslighting myself or rushing to judgment.

To try, at least, to see from where they stood.

But you need to understand that it is not an agreement. Perspective can be acknowledged without being absorbed. Empathy does not require self-betrayal. You can stand your ground, in your own reality. After all, you are not in the same spacetime anyway. 

And Einstein might agree.

Little Thing 325: How Very Human

Schopenhauer would say heartbreak hurts because the illusion collapses, but he never warned how physical it feels. Lately, there are these tiny, ambush moments; small triggers, stray thoughts that remind me heartbreak isn’t abstract at all. It feels as if someone reaches straight into my chest and crushes my heart over and over, slow and deliberate. What an odd thing, kan, that something happening entirely inside my mind can manifest like a bodily injury. How powerful thoughts are, how unforgiving.

What unsettles me most is how the pain arrives in waves I never invited. I can be working, reading, washing a cup, eating my third piece of chocolate and suddenly a thought slips in, harmless at first, then sharp, then crushing. Schopenhauer would probably say this is the Will asserting itself again, reminding me that suffering follows wherever desire once lived. But living through it feels less philosophical and more like being ambushed by my own nervous system. Thoughts shouldn’t have this kind of power, yet here they are, turning memory into muscle ache, disappointment into something that feels carved into bone.

I told my brother last week that pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. Healing, in that sense, isn’t gentle work, it requires walking straight into the fire. There’s no shortcut, no numbness that won’t eventually wear off. You go through the hell, you feel every degree of the heat, and only then do you reach the other side. You arrive at the door burned and crisp, but alive. And maybe the bitterness follows you for years, maybe forever, but it’s the bitterness of someone who survived the flames, not someone consumed by them. I hope.

Standing here in the middle of my own wreckage, I’m reminding myself that the point isn’t to avoid the hurt. It’s to learn the shape of it, to understand how it moves through the body, how it teaches, how it burns without fully destroying. The illusion collapses, the pain arrives, the waves come and go and somehow, we are still here. 

I can close my eyes and pretend it doesn’t feel like I’m slowly dying inside, but honestly, we’re all dying anyway. That part isn’t new. Pain just makes the whole thing louder. Still, it has its uses. Pain writes better than I do. Pain paints. Pain gives me one more day where I get to say something almost beautiful about being alive. 

How very human of us, to hurt this much and call it art ❤︎

Let’s rejoice, I guess.