Little Thing 337: In Between Opinions

I had a conversation with someone recently, and it’s been sitting with me ever since.

We talked about relationships; trust, emotional maturity, boundaries. The kind of topics that sound simple until you actually try to define them. It wasn’t a debate and it wasn’t an agreement either. Just a back-and-forth of opinions, hypotheticals, and quiet disagreements. Nothing was resolved, but something stayed.

Human emotion is a complicated terrain. We like to believe we can understand others, but we’re always looking through the lens of our own experiences, our own biases, our own wounds. True neutrality is rare and maybe even impossible. At some point, we choose what we stand for; our values, our beliefs, the things that shape us into who we are. And if we don’t choose, we just drift.

But before that choice, there’s a phase I’m starting to appreciate more. The in-between. The space where you don’t take a side yet; where you let ideas sit, where you examine patterns, question assumptions, and allow new inputs to exist without immediately filtering them through what you already believe. That’s what those conversations felt like. Not arguments to win, but controlled collisions. A way of thinking out loud. The intention wasn’t to prove a point, but to understand the structure of someone else’s.

I’ve always believed communication is one of the most important skills you can have. But lately, I think there’s something just as important, maybe even more honest: the ability to see patterns. Because words are easy but consistency is not. If you want to understand someone, don’t just listen to what they say. Watch what they repeat because people don’t change as easily as we like to think. They can try, they can improve, they can make an effort, but the core of who they are tends to stay. I know this because I see it in myself. Every version of “better” me is still, me, just more intentional. 

So listen to what they say, but more importantly, observe their action. 

At the end of that conversation, she said something simple.

“Stop and ask why people do what they do. If you were in their position, what reasons would make it make sense?”

And that stayed with me. Because when you actually try to step into someone else’s perspective, something shifts. Not always. Sometimes you still disagree but sometimes, your certainty softens. Your judgment loosens its grip. Slowly, things that felt black and white start to blur. 

Mmm.

Maybe understanding isn’t there to change my mind, maybe it’s there to slow me down before I decide.

That's Howl, true self hidden in his own curse

Little Stories 327: The Shortcut Mind

I have a confession to make: I love hot showers.

I can’t do cold water. Since I moved a couple of years ago, my rented apartment has a hot shower, and I’ve been using it ever since. My electric bill has never even reached RM40, so don’t judge me. This is the one luxury I give myself, unapologetically, every single day. Until last weekend.

Every time I turned on the switch, the hot shower didn’t work. So for the past four days, I had to use cold water. Automatically, I was reminded of the first week I moved in. The hot shower didn’t work back then either, the technician came and fixed the switch. So for the past four days, I kept telling myself I needed to call the technician again. It must be the same problem. Until this morning.

While showering, I lingered on the problem and asked myself: What if it’s not the switch for the shower, but something else? What if a switch on the main board tripped? So I checked the main electrical board. And lo and behold, one of the switches was off. I pushed it back up, hot water again.

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I read about the Least Effort Principle yesterday, and about Thought Experiments this morning. Both oddly relate to this whole hot shower incident.

• First, I assumed the hot water wasn’t working because it had happened before. My brain defaulted to the same solution: call the technician. Least effort, fastest route, familiar pattern.
• Second, I sat with the problem, I questioned it: what ifs. I ran a quiet little thought experiment without even realizing it.

And I found the solution without having to call anyone.

What I’m trying to say is this: our default mode is to reach for the fastest way out of a problem. But being an overthinker means I don’t always do that. I linger, I sit in it. I swim around in the problem until I find something. There are pros and cons to this. The good part is that sometimes, I find better solutions. The bad part is when I stay too long and spiral. 

Right now, I think I’m just trying to figure out how to manage that middle space; how long to stay, and when to step out.

Little Thing 336: Silent Notes from the First Quarter

Project Hail-Mary:

Booked Saturday morning for a date with Dr Grace and Rocky.

I had two lactase pills and ordered a hot mocha with fresh milk, the only option, and honestly, pure brain fuel. I didn’t finish the drink though, because halfway through the movie, I could already feel the familiar rumble in my stomach. The film moved at a slow pace, the kind that requires attention rather than demands it. It felt almost like speed-reading; quiet, focused, and intentional. There were no loud action scenes to pull you in, so you had to meet it halfway. I liked that.

Visually, it was beautiful and casting Ryan Gosling was a bonus. Because let’s be honest, who doesn’t like a nerd with that face, kan. Watching it alone turned out to be the right decision. I did ask around, but no one seemed to be in the mood for a slow, sci-fi, slightly nerdy kind of film. The book was there in my waiting list for awhile, but I decided to watch it first sebab even I have trouble with sci-fi. But this is special. The nerdy part wasn't that nerdy, it was manageable, I love the fact that they simplify it into normal-people language and you don't have to be astrophysicist to understand it. Like I said before, I'm good with concept, but not so good with the details. 

I had the whole row for myself, I sat right in the middle, in front of me, there was a man, taking his whole row and behind, there was another man, taking his whole row. So the three of us, each taking our own whole row right in the middle of the cinema. Like we owned the place. 

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Eid:

My Eid this time was rather quick and short. I just celebrated with my family on the first day of Raya. Quite uneventful, like I prayed it would. Next year, I would book a ticket out, like I did last year. I should have used the national long holiday intentionally, rather than working right on the fourth day of Raya, kan. That was a bit depressing even for my standard. Taipei or Okinawa would be inviting; a walk in a dinosaur museum or checking out a huge modern library or visit amazing aquarium, or even a hike, a lot of tempting options for my soul. Wrong plan. 

Selamat Hari Raya, nerds. 

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Books, Movies and Games:

Did I mentioned about my latest books? I forgot. I finished:

• The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova
• Embracing Change by Jana Firestone
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin
• Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
• Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles: Nirai Kanan-hen by Clamp (Manga)
• The Tea Dragon Tapestry Book 1-3 by Katie O'Neill (Graphic Novel)
• Angelica and the Bear Prince by Trung Le Nguyen (Graphic Novel)

I try my best to avoid DNF-ing my books because I have such a ridiculous patience like a monk and I give chances to all my books for as long as I could. So, I have a bunch of books that I am still slowly churning (like reading 1 chapter on random):

• Here After by Amy Lin (70%)
• The Idiot by Elif Batuman (90%)
• The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (70%)
• XXXHolic Omnibus (Book 3/7)
• The Great Mental Models (70%)
• Must I Go by Yiyun Li (70%)
• The New Life by Orhan Pamuk (60%)

I don't stream movies or series. PHM was the latest movie, that was an intentional activity slotted in my schedule so that I would have a life outside of my house. But I play lots of Roller Coaster Tychoon, almost on daily basis now. One challenge per day. 

I hardly have any social life, and I've been talking about improving this for 3 years now. But ew, socializing. 

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Work:

Other than my project with U that has recently been launched during Ramadhan, I just locked myself for the next 3 months for a project with Au. So I have something keeping me busy and distracted for awhile. Sometimes I do feel uncomfortable with the fact that I feel at most fulfilled with having a list of works to do, but it keeps my engine running, and it works. I just want to do what I'm good at, and that's about it.

Not that ambitious, really. 

I just did a self-assessment thing, that was requested by my office. Honestly, at this pace that I'm making right now, everything I achieve in my personal life has been overwhelming and huge enough that I don't even have any space for a "self-growth" mentality in my career. 

Who do you see yourself in 5 years time? Can you lead and guide a group of team? It's been awhile since you take your yoga teaching course, what are your plans?

My focus is my life and my little kid's life, I don't have any brain space for anything, let's be real. Don't ask these huge future questions to a single mom, you have no idea where she's mentally at :F There's a reason why I take a senior role and not a leader role at my age. My focus is still being a present mom. I'm not saying that you can't do both. For me, this, is intentional. 

Little Thing 335: What Worked, What Stayed

 

I was talking to my sibling about change, about awareness, and about how hard it is to step out of the system we grew up in. As I get older, I’m starting to see that everyone is operating within some kind of system. Some work, some don’t. But regardless, we stay in them, we repeat them, we build our lives around them. The good thing is, I can see mine. The harder part is figuring out how to rewire something that is so deeply embedded in me. How do you upgrade a system that feels like your default setting? 

For example, I grew up in a family that values independence. We don’t ask for help, we don’t lean and we endure what we need to endure, alone. There’s almost a quiet pride in it, like surviving alone is something to be respected. My mom raised four of us, and when I look back, I don’t remember a larger support system around her, no visible village. She carried it mostly on her own and it worked. But because it worked, it became the model and now it lives in us.

So one of my default response whenever I have a situation is: “Let me figure this out. Alone.” The interesting thing is, I now have enough distance from myself to see this pattern as it’s happening. I can almost step outside of myself and observe it, like a third person. I analyze it. And what I’m starting to realize is this: Just because I can do things alone, doesn’t mean I should. I should be able to ask for support when I need it, kan.

But here’s where I get stuck. How do you rewire yourself to rely on something you don’t fully trust? How do you build a new system when your old one is the only thing that has ever proven reliable? I’ve read about neuroplasticity, about CBT. I do believe that humans can upgrade. Maybe not completely change, but upgrade.

Somehow, I keep repeating the same patterns and the hardest part is, I’m aware of it. It would be easier if I were in denial. Easier if I didn’t see it, didn’t question it, didn’t try to shift it, but I do. And that awareness doesn’t automatically translate into change. It just means I can see myself looping, in real time.

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This doesn’t just apply to me.

It can relate to anything you might be struggling with in your life, especially the patterns you find yourself repeating over time. It could show up in your behaviour, in how you respond to situations, or even in the way you choose your words. If you’re willing to pay attention, you can begin to examine your belief system more closely. You can start to see what sits underneath it, question whether it still serves you, and decide if it is something you want to upgrade.

I’m not just talking about hyper-independence. It could be something else entirely. It could be staying in a victim mentality, being stuck in a fixed mindset, or believing that your worth is tied to how much you make. The form may look different, but the underlying structure is often the same.

I wonder if you can see it too, the system you’ve been operating in.

Little Thing 334: Awan

Awan passed away.

I'm still processing. She was old, around 15 years old. I knew her time was near. I have not physically seen her for around a year, because she was with Af. I can't bring a pet in the building I live in, I binded myself under a contract that I was too scared to cross. I am planning on moving soon, I promised Awan would be with me back. 

But time is time.

And I missed her final year. 

I have no one else to blame but myself. 

Awan ❤︎⁠

2011 - 2026

Little Thing 333: On Falling Sick

I had two periods when I fell sick during Ramadhan.

The first incident was accidental. It was the back pain that came after I was stuck for 2 hours at Pasar Seni carrying a 5 kg laptop bag. That night, I was already crying in pain. I had no other option but to go to the clinic. Thankfully, Af convinced me that he should drive me, because I found out that night that all the clinics in my vicinity were closed after 10 pm (not 24 hours like I thought). Imagine ngensot to the clinic at night only to find out it’s closed. Anyway, I arrived at the clinic, got a painkiller and muscle relaxant shot, and managed to sleep lying down. I had an MC the next day. I was in pain, on medication, and super groggy. Everything slowed down. The next 5 days were a recovery phase. It was not fun, purely physical pain.

The second one was a bit innocent. It started with Sofi. She had a fever and cough, then she seemed fine. But she passed it to me. I had a 5-day pulsing migraine that was connected to my right ear and the top right side of my head, twitching one eye like a pirate, with a bad sore throat, a voice like a sailor, random excessive coughing, a runny nose, and feeling like I was functioning at 30%. How extra. How dramatic, kan.

During all these sickly times, I lay in bed, counting the hours until I got better (usually after 5 days). I realized that at times like this, I’m reminded that I am alive, but also of being bedridden, or even death—everything morbid.

I also realized that whenever I fall sick, I’m usually alone, just waiting for recovery. With God’s will, I just need time. But during those challenging moments, when Sofi cried because she wanted to play with me and I had to say, “I’m sick, I can’t, I’m in pain, please,” I wished she could understand. But she’s 7, and she won’t always understand. Then I blame myself, because that’s what mothers do. We always try to be superhuman.

Anyway, that pushed me to a realization: at times like this, I have to embrace the fact that there are moments when I am incapable of being the superhuman I think I am. That sometimes, I might need to ask for help, to call for reinforcement, or to beg for support. And I’m always disappointed, because why do we rely on humans? We are so flawed. We don’t always have the capacity.

People ask me why I can’t just embrace my singlehood; being alone, it’s freeing, kan. Of course, emotionally, I do prefer being alone, I love it. But I am also a mother, and there will be times when I can’t be the best version of myself. I need a village, that’s what matters for her growth. I’m not going to sit here romanticizing single parenthood just to feed my ego, just to make myself proud for doing everything “alone.” No. This is not the time to repeat history. You have no idea how many times I’ve been gaslighted for making myself vulnerable and asking for help. The world can be utterly indifferent; I don't know why I'm still surprised. But I'm not going to give up now.

I play this in my head like it is a problem that needs to be solved, because this is what I do—solving problems. But sometimes, it is just a situation. It is what life is: the things that I can't control, the things that I need to endure, the pain that I need to carry, the emotions that I need to feel. Maybe it does not always need a solution, kan. 

It's good that I can actually process it and write my thoughts coherently. See how much I've grown.

Little Thing 332: These Walks

There are paths I imagine whenever I go to sleep.

I carry a small backpack with only the necessary things. A walking stick in my hand, I always thought about asking for MC's walking stick, but I never quite managed to. I wear a hat, a white tshirt, a hiking pants and place a towel around my neck. (Oh, let me add a Fujifilm X Half hanging on my neck in the imaginary future walks - this is new)

And I walk.

Along the path.

Some nights the path runs through a bright forest. Not the dense kind we have in Malaysia, but something gentler. 

Some nights it winds between hills of green fields, the weather moodier, the air cool with a steady breeze.

Some nights it leads into a mossy forest, with komorebi, sunlight leaking through the trees.

Some nights there are rocks and small hills to climb.

Then I fall asleep.

I only need a few steps. A quiet thought of where I want to walk that night before my system shuts down. I can’t imagine anyone beside me on these paths. I am always alone, and everything is always green. Even in reverie, it seems I return to silence. It never feels lonely, only a quiet awareness of absence. I suppose I built this small world, and no one has quite belonged in it yet.

I love these walks, even in the quiet space between dream and consciousness.

-

I made new upgrade, I no longer wear footwear during these walks, barefoot, on soft grass. I wear a long black linen dress, that's it. The weather is nice, not too windy, not too hot or cold. It feels like walking behind my house (because I live in a friendly forest), not a journey to a destination. 

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. 

Note: I just finished the last few chapters in one sitting yesterday while waiting for berbuka. It broke me a little, until it came to the chapter in the game (it felt like a filler episode), it could be done much better. But let's not spiral into that. 

I stand by my point, it could be better without the excessive listing. But that was just me. 

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.