Little Thing 321: In Omnia Paratus

You know there are certain things in life that you need to face because you’re a responsible person. Or maybe you’re just being dragged along by guilt and that constant self-effort to be the bigger person. Either way you show up. You brace yourself.

If given a choice, I wouldn’t want to deal with anything stressful. I just want a boring, undramatic life. But, it’s time.

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What is exposure therapy?

At its core, exposure therapy is all about rewiring the brain’s fear circuit. When you avoid something you fear, your brain gets a little dopamine hit every time you don’t face it. It learns: “Ah, avoidance = safety.” Over time, that fear grows quietly in the dark. So maybe you’re not healed, you’re just being avoidant.

Exposure therapy shines a light on it. You expose yourself to the fear in controlled, gradual doses until your brain realizes that nothing catastrophic happens. That’s called habituation, the nervous system recalibrates, the panic response fades. It is a way for you to learn that you can manage/control your fear of something that traumatize you. You build self-efficacy. The goal isn’t to never feel fear again, it’s to stop being ruled by it. 

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How to. 

• Treat it like emotional resistance training. Reframe it as a session, with a duration. For example: “I will endure anything and everything for this amount of time.” Like a boot camp.
• Detach expectations. Don’t set any. If it goes well, Alhamdulillah, if it doesn’t, okay. And if you don’t do great, recalibrate later.
• Practice micro-boundaries. Find small ways to stay grounded. Take a breather. Pass the baton. Step aside when you need to. Know how you’ll decompress after every exposure.
• Use humor privately. Internal sarcasm can be a psychological shield. You can intellectualize the whole thing if you need to but know that your brain gets triggered by patterns, and rewiring what feels permanent takes time. Humor turns pain into something you own. It’s not avoidance when done with awareness; it’s alchemy. Like I said before, control the narrative. 
• Take a step back and be attentive to yourself. Notice the little signs, manage from spiralling, be gentle and compassionate to yourself. 

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I can read 100 books, I can say that I am healed, kan. But how to know for sure, unless I expose myself to the things that I avoid. So, let's d'oa for the best possible outcomes and may the odds be in my favor.  

In omnia paratus

Little Thing 320: Falling with Purpose

Apparently, my brother has been skipping all my nerdy posts lately because they’re too boring for his standards. And because I no longer want to entertain the art of “what works” by society’s standards or chase engagement, I’ll just keep posting all the nerdy things I’ve been collecting and thinking about all these years; the ones I used to feel too uncool to share. 

I’ll just be myself and be boring; because, let’s be honest, I am as boring as what you see here. But this is now my playground, a place where I can write about whatever topics I want and fully embrace my nerdiness. I’m going to dissect my train of thought.

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Today, I'm going to talk about the Galton board. 

The Galton board is basically a vertical board with rows of pegs. You drop a bunch of tiny balls from the top, they bounce left or right as they hit each peg, and eventually they land in slots at the bottom forming a perfect bell curve; the normal distribution.

Even though every single ball's path is random, the choice is binary: either 0 or 1, left or right. Yet the overall pattern is still predictable each time. It is like a predictable chaos. 

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The metaphor in life:

You’re one of those little balls, bouncing between the pegs of circumstance; by luck, upbringing, choices, people, accidents, heartbreaks, opportunities. Each peg shifts your direction slightly left or right. You can’t control all the pegs, but over time, you still end up forming part of a bigger pattern. Most of the time, you are as normal as everyone else in this world.

BUT, some people end up on the far ends (the outliers), not because they are different or special, but because that’s just how probability works. Usually the super successful people or geniuses or dirty rich people, they are the odd ones in the system. The system itself tends toward balance, and this illusion of randomness produces order.  I say 'illusion' because even though it seems random, there is hidden order behind it, there's mathematical equation to support every result. 

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What I want to say is, I know, life seems so hard. I can see it in the people around me, I can see the struggle, the pain, the confusion, the frustration. The whole ordeal of being alive. I'm not going to say that it is ok, or romanticize the struggle. It's just maybe, it is ok to just let yourself trust the math of life. That even when it feels chaotic, you’re still part of a pattern too large for you to see yet. You’re still falling toward form.

Every time you hit something hard, you’re absorbing a lesson, even if you don’t feel it yet, it is shaping you. And the good thing is, you are not alone, we are balancing the order together. This is not a cue for you to give up, it is a small reminder for you to feel slightly better about your wars. 

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Ok, questions for you (or maybe just ME):

• How can we transform randomness into meaning? - I think by being aware of it, taking note of every instance in your life and learning from it. Being conscious and deliberate can change your views and perception, maybe you can't change your story, but you can change your narrative. At least if you a stuck in a phase, instead of being hopeless and in pain about it, you can be ridiculously at peace, hahah. I don't like the idea of being at peace with everything though, it feels like it takes the human flavour out of it, so play by your own stance lah.
• If our lives follow a pattern like the Galton board, do we really have free will? I think we do, technically, you can still rewrite stories with effort and d'oa kan. Yes, there are certain things that are maktub; the fixed destiny; when and how you die, your jodoh, the major test/blessings that define your life; those are the core and you can't dodge them. But there's also conditional destiny; the part that response to your choices, effort and d'oa. That's the beautiful part about it; it’s both divine orchestration and our participation.
• What would happen if you refused to fall? Is it possible? In physics, refusing to fall means defying gravity, an act that demands immense energy. But for what purpose? Not making any decision is still a decision, no response is also a form of response. It is not freedom, that's stasis, you are stuck, and that is its own kind of suffering, kan. How will you grow? Growth only happens in motion and motion requires falling. 

So, fall with meaning, make your every pain and struggle count. 

That’s the whole point of the ride.

Little Thing 319: The Practice of Play

I’ve been playing Bloons on Arcade. I used to play the old version back in my uni days; finished the whole thing, uninstalled it, and moved on without a second thought. That’s just how I’m wired: once the objective is achieved, the fire burns out. The pursuit is intoxicating, but the finish line dissolves the spell.

This newer Bloons, though, is built differently. Now there are:

• clan scoreboards that rank you and promise the next tier

• weekly battle challenges with timed rewards

• duels against either A.I. or random players

It’s addictive not because the game is "profound", but because it rewards intensity, and intensity is something I’ve always had trouble turning down. Kahkahkah, alasan. 

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Where the frustration begins:

During duels, I want to actually play. I want to think, to plan, to experiment with towers and timing and balance; defense, energy, income. But often, for some opponents, the match ends in fifteen seconds because the opponent rushes an attack immediately. No arc, no progression, no strategy; just a blunt, tactical sprint.

And I’m left there asking myself: What’s the point of a game you don’t actually play? Where’s the joy in a climax that never arrives? Where is the story? What's the fun in only winning in less than 15 seconds? Where is the anticipation? Where is the exploration in trying different strategy, different towers? Kan?

This is the part that has been sitting with me. There are players who only want the win. The game itself is just an instrument, not an experience. Meanwhile, I want immersion, tension, build-up, and story even in something as simple as a tower-defense match :D I’m disturbed not by losing, but by the emptiness of a game rushed to its end. They chase victory; I chase engagement. They want a finish; I want a story. I know it is a good game for me when we both strategized and defended our fields towards the end (sampai my ipad lags sebab heavy sgt). 

Not to say that they are wrong (the ones that prefer the 15 secs win), it is just that I'm turned off by this "duels". 

I will usually wait for the last 10 seconds and let them smirk and enjoy their win. Takpe lah, mesti laki kan, laki je yg esaited sorang2 sebab menang awal. Hahaaaa.

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The more I sit with it, the more I realize that play reveals orientation. Some treat life the way they treat games: as a sequence of goals to be cleared as efficiently as possible. Fast, optimized, ok next. But I don’t want to rush through my hours the way they rush through a match. I want to live inside the experience, where time stretches, curiosity breathes, and something unfolds. Maybe that’s the real lesson here: play is practice for life. And I’d rather live a life that is played deeply, not merely won quickly. I want to play the gameee.

I tried my best not to philosophize this, but I make it a habit of finding reasons why I get triggered by anything in this world and try to understand the pov behind it. And bloons, omygod, is now in my daily schedule and at least please, give me one good game before I continue with work. If I get one good game every morning, I can then smile and think of hundreds other things in my list. 

Tsk tsk. This doesn't sounds right.

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Note: My current fav heroes is Beetienne and Benjamin. The life-maker and the money-maker.  

Little Thing 318: The Algorithm of Your Fear

 

It is my favorite season of the year, the sweater season. 

Sweater washed, hot cocoa restocked, books ready. Let's begin another nerdy talk. 

This morning I finished Gabriel García Márquez’s Of Love and Other Demons. And behind the turbulent love between Delaura and Sierva María (please read the summary if you are curious), I found myself thinking about something else, but still a smaller theme of the story: how quickly people collapse into fear when they meet something unfamiliar. 

This is the scene when Kiki arrives at the new city

We are terrified of what we cannot name, so we start filling the empty space with imagination, with stories, assumptions, and invented meanings. Most of the time we’re not afraid because something is dangerous; we’re afraid because uncertainty exposes how little control we actually have. And control or the illusion of it is a comfort we refuse to surrender.

History repeats this pattern with embarrassing consistency. Pitchforks and fire for women who brewed herbs (we called them witches). Suspicion and violence against Muslims after 9/11 (we were all painted as terrorists). Fear is always quicker to feed than truth.

I even see it in Sofi, in the most innocent way. The first time she had to visit the dentist, honestly, it was dramatic. She’d never been in that chair before, but her imagination built the monster long before she met the room. For a week, I had to mentally prepare her, because what she feared wasn’t the dentist, it was the idea of what could happen. A year later, she walks in without flinching. Same dentist, same chair. The only thing that changed was her knowledge.

The modern version is right in our hands. We don’t burn witches anymore, but we do repost headlines. Algorithms reward outrage, fear, and moral hysteria, not truth. Misinformation travels faster than facts ever will. And now with AI, the internet is a wild field where anyone can plant anything. We are still the same frightened creatures, only with better devices and faster Wi-Fi.

Humans can’t tolerate uncertainty. So we choose imagination over investigation. Instant judgment is easy; curiosity is labour. Saying “I don’t know yet, I need to understand first” is harder than picking a side in five seconds. But that small sentence, that pause, is the difference between fear and clarity. True intelligence shows when you have the ability to update/change your mind. When you admit ‘I was wrong.’ When you replace certainty with curiosity. The opposite isn’t just closed-mindedness, it’s the fear of being wrong, the fear of the unknown. And ironically, that fear is what makes us do the very thing we dread: we assume without knowing. Don't deny it, we all did this.

I see it even at home; our parents, glued to their phones, reposting every frightening headline they see. They think it’s their duty to warn us (whether it is the right news or not is not the issue for them). But a diet of fear is still a diet, and it shapes the mind. I don’t want to live that way. I don’t want Sofi to inherit a world where panic spreads faster than thought (because I can't deny that I am an anxious person, and I know where that comes from). We can choose a different default: pause, verify, think, and stay curious. Fear is much easier, kan. 

So here’s my simple take: pause. Give yourself the chance to learn, explore, research, and ask before deciding. Whether it’s a scandal, an AI scare story, gossip, or forwarded outrage; don’t let your first instinct be the final verdict. Don't bring your torch when you see everyone is holding one. 

Curiosity may not protect us from everything, but at least it protects us from being controlled by fear.

Little Thing 317: The Thread Between Two Particles

Ok.

Today in my nerd section, let’s open a chapter on Quantum Entanglement. I kept a section for it in my commonplace book a few months back, among other rabbit holes and this morning, at an ungodly hour, I stumbled onto a new analogy that got me way too excited (sans caffeine tau, sambil baring half-awake I asked "my friend" to continue its teaching on physics concept).

So come. Let’s cozy up, nerd out, and sip something warm. It’s 6 a.m., still dark, La Niña winds are here, and I just washed my home sweater and robe so I’m cold in my comforter, under-caffeinated, and yearning for intellectual cuddles. I’m only going to touch on quantum entanglement, not quantum mechanics. We’re keeping it simple pagi J'maat.

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The big Q:

Quantum entanglement is when two particles become so deeply connected that they behave like one system, even when separated by distances. Whatever happens to Particle A is instantly reflected in Particle B, across a room, a continent, or a galaxy. Not because they “send messages,” there are no messages to send.

They are not two separate systems.

They are one system in two places. Change one, the other shifts immediately, so, distance becomes irrelevant.

Here's the analogy:

Quantum entanglement is like one story split into two books and placed in different locations. Before anyone opens them, the pages aren’t fully written, just possibilities. But the moment you read a page in Book A, the story becomes real there, and instantly the matching page in Book B becomes real too, perfectly aligned, no matter how far apart they are. They behave like one narrative because, underneath it all, they are one story, not two.

Core idea: Separation in space does not equal separation in state.

We use this phenomenon in cutting-edge tech; quantum computers, ultra-secure encryption, and experimental physics labs. It’s real, measurable, and very much not woo-woo. Go dig your own rabbit hole if you rajin.

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Quantum Entanglement for Writers:

But I’m a romantic kan. I love this concept because I love stories and possibilities. I watch and read so many fictions related to this concept, and I'm just putting a scientific label on it. For fun, because I'm that nerd. 

In life, when two people share a deep bond, they can feel emotionally, psychologically, or energetically entangled, even without being in the same place, timeline, or reality. A bond that exists beyond logic or proximity. Felt in the body. Seen in dreams. Known in the gut. Recognized in repeating patterns, synchronicities, and those eerie instincts we can’t explain. Like a karmic echo or one story split into two bodies.

And that to me is how I can build fiction out of science. Tapi I malas, I suka baca fiction, tak suka tulis fiction. Jap lagi I call daddy Haruki, tapi dia dah byk tulis fictions related to parallel worlds, mirroring lives, split selves, synchronised fates, and invisible bonds across space/time ni kan. Hmm. 

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Questions to explore:

1. Can you entangle more than two particles?
   Yes. There is such a thing as multipartite entanglement, where more than two particles share a single interconnected state. It’s possible, but becomes increasingly difficult to create and control as the number grows. Think of it as the Cloud Atlas edition of entanglement; many threads, one fate. It will be a complex emotional field.
2. If love is an analogy for quantum entanglement, what happens when people fall out of love?
   In physics, entanglement doesn’t simply fade, it must be disentangled or "broken", returning the system to two independent states. So falling out of love isn’t the disappearance of connection; it is the collapse of possibility. And if two people recalibrate, heal, and meet again, they can form a new entanglement but it will never be the original wavelength. It becomes a new system, shaped by its history, memories, and baggage. (Physics doesn’t spare us, ha)
3. If I don’t observe the entanglement, does the bond still exist, or is it only real once I notice it? Yes. In quantum theory, entanglement exists even without observation. Measurement does not create the bond, it only reveals the correlation that was already there. So in the love analogy; some connections are real long before we notice them. Observation doesn’t create the bond, it simply makes it undeniable. You can't unsee it.
4. Is there such thing as free will then?

Back to the “one book split into two” analogy: the story exists as possibilities until you, the observer, open it. The moment you read a page in Book A; make a choice, poke the system, that page “collapses” into reality. Instantly, the matching page in Book B reflects the same outcome. The two separate books are now fully written, yet they tell the same underlying story. Entanglement in action: one system, two places, perfectly correlated, no matter the distance.

Almost good analogy, kan. 

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Anyway, we are deep in Alice's Wonderland now. I have more, tapi it is Friday. 

Happy weekend, and thanks for taking a trip with me.

Little Thing 316: The Architecture Within

The one thing I’ve learned about myself is how simple my brain is when it comes to understanding concepts or ideas. Because of that, I sometimes take a longer time or I need a different approach to really grasp something. In a simple way of putting it: I’m not exactly the “naturally intelligent” type lah, but I am very diligent and endlessly curious, that helps. I’m always in awe of people who know so much, because my brain doesn’t process as quick or as cool as I wish it were.

The best method for me is to simplify any concept by turning it into a metaphor from everyday life, something I can relate to and feel. I love doing that, and I’m actually good at spotting patterns and connecting abstract ideas to relatable stories. Stories and metaphors are my main forte. Maybe that’s why I read so much.

Anyway, today I learned about this concept: “How the Inner Field Shapes the Outer World.” It sounds simple especially if you’re familiar with things like the Law of Attraction, manifestation or even the idea of redha and do'a. Different names, same essence. But my focus today is not the label, it’s understanding what these layers actually mean, and how I can apply them in my life.

The first infographic is the first version, but I feel like this is too complicated - my brother would avoid reading it indefinitely because he avoids my nerdy posts. So I designed another version that he might actually give a chance to.

The second visual became what I call the Projector Principle:

Reality is a mirror that reflects from the inside out. Like a projector, your inner state is the light source, your identity is the lens, your beliefs form the film reel, and your actions play out on the screen of the world. What you consistently experience “out there” is not random, it is shaped by the stories you tell, the self-image you hold, and the emotional field you broadcast to the world. 

Change the source, and the picture of your life changes with it.

Itu je, that's the concept.

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If you want to read more to my nerdy post or you want to do self-work, please continue:

We have a concept — now how to use it? Any idea is useless until it becomes usable. Most people try to change reality at the screen level: more action, more willpower, reacting to life and fixing outcomes. That’s the weakest leverage point. It’s slow, exhausting, and often temporary. With this model, you gain a map of where to act for maximum transformation.

So, what can you do?

• Diagnose the source of a pattern - whenever something painful, repetitive, or stuck shows up, ask:
• L1 - What keeps happening? What are the recurring outcomes?
• L2 - What story am I telling about myself?
• L3 - Who do I believe I am in this situation?
• L4 - What state or emotion am I reflecting underneath it all?
• Stop wasting energy on the wrong layer - shift your effort inward and upward. Stop fixing symptoms, blaming circumstances, or reacting to the same dumb behaviours (omygod, have you not learned enough?? ugh).
• Change reality by changing the origin - go deep into your core program and rewrite the source code, instead of asking the intern to find a bug in your 2010 script.

Senang cerita, do the inner work and watch the outer scene update itself. Tapi I perasan, not everyone have the capacity to reach to L4, sebab kita kan simple beings, kais bila terpaksa, bila muka dah cium tanah. Then what you can do, you slowly go level by level, consciously rewrite by level:

• your actions (Screen) → aligned behavior, not forced behavior
• your narrative (Reel) → reframing, cleaner stories
• your identity (Lens) → self-image work, embodied choice
• your state (Field) → meditation, breath, nervous system regulation

Anyway, my kawan sed:
You can't control the reflection. You can only master the one who looks into the mirror. You lah tu, you need to embody the choice you made, not just tell yourself over and over pastu jadi. Tayah nak indenial tipu2 diri sendiri, you decide then you stick with it. You hold the key to yourself, kan dah byk kali ulang. 

Takpe lah, agaknya kita mmg suka jadi weaklings 😌 Issokayy, sama je kita.

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Okay, that’s all from your resident metaphor nerd. If you made it sampai sini, congratulations, you have officially survived one of my brain spirals. Now go audit your “source-code” before your life projector keeps looping the same tragic rom-com or family drama or financial struggle (pick your dagger). 

Catch you in the next nerd session.

Little Stories 322: Chicken Pop

2 weeks after Sofi caught scarlet fever, she was sick again, now with chicken pox, or how Sofi calls it 'chicken pop'. Another week at home, quarantining. She was feverish for the first four days, with itchy, blistery spots all over her body, painful ulcers in her mouth, and nonstop burps (I guess her digestion’s a mess). I told her she had to go through this one way or another.

I set up my laptop in the living room, told my team about the situation and how it might affect my focus, then just rode the wave as best and as flexibly as I could. When things pile up like this, I can’t really aim for balance. So I go into what I call priority triage. I pick what matters most and let the rest fall where it may.

It’s not quite fight-or-flight. It’s more like serious mental compartmentalization, like packing each chaos into its own box so I can breathe. I cancelled meetings, pushed calls, worked at odd hours whenever I could focus. I got help from Af when he could, cycled when I had the time, and completely bowed out of the family social planning. I let go of what I needed to let go of.

And yeah, I’m probably stressed out. My period’s a week late. That tracks.

But here’s the thing: I think I’m getting better at managing things alone. I can sense when I’m about to spiral, and I know what to do. I recognize when I’m overwhelmed, and I know what helps. Crises have become strange little practice runs, latih tubi for the mind and heart. Like running a marathon. My life has always felt like a marathon, tak pernahnya nak santai.

I have a list now, because not only do I have mommy brain, where I forget the hundred little things on my mental checklist, I’m also trying my best to stay on top of work. So a physical list helps. Using my calendar app and the Teams calendar helps. Knowing what’s next, when to push things to “next time,” when to say no, and when to drop things entirely, all of that helps.

Sometimes I cry at night, then I let go, and I fall asleep. That sigh, you know, that heavy sigh telling yourself you did well that day and it is still ok. I still want to play the next day, and I'm not done yet. 

 

Maybe this is just how it is; parenting, working, surviving, repeating. I’ll just keep triaging and cycling through it. At least Sofi calls it “chicken pop.” Somehow that makes it all sound lighter than it feels. She said, "I missed my skin, mami. Do you miss my skin too?". 

Note: I wrote this on day 5, halfway through, I hope things will get brighter on today onwards. 

Little Thing 315: Metanoia

A year ago, my marriage ended.

Since then, I’ve been living the single motherhood life. In the span of twenty months, I’ve metaphorically died a few times, stumbled through anxiety, fallen into depression, gotten sick, lost my best friend, and been slapped around by uncertainties. At this point, I’m as bitter as I can be but also strangely content. I don’t have the same wild energy I carried in my teens. Honestly, I don’t even know how I managed all this. But I did. And I’m quietly impressed with myself.

In the middle of all that heartbreak, I’ve learned something unexpected: I’m falling in love with myself. I’ve accepted singlehood, and the fact that I’m fully responsible for my own life. It feels liberating not to report to anyone, not to beg for validation, not to justify every choice. I’m at the stage of womanhood where my insecurities don’t run the show anymore. That, I think, is its own kind of freedom.

Every time people ask about my “husband,” I awkwardly have to say I’m single now and give a quick summary of our separation - not ideal way of sharing the news. My brother keeps telling me I shouldn’t treat this like a secret. And I don’t. It’s not a secret. It’s just not something I feel the need to headline on social media. 

Still, it’s an important phase in my life, and my blog is a testament to that. So here it is, a year later. A lot of things remain tangled with this new reality, so being transparent here just feels easier. My Patreon community knew earlier this year, and I can count on one hand the people I’ve told directly (when asked). Beyond that, maybe some gossip “atas angin,” as usual. Even most of my extended family doesn’t know yet. Tapi, it is not a secret lah, it is a fact, I'm not ashamed of it.

Even then, I couldn’t help but arch a brow when I saw “Cik Azah Azreen” on a wedding invitation. A quiet acknowledgment of my changed status, thoughtful, but it stirred mixed feelings nonetheless.

So here it is, laid bare. 

A part of my life I’m no longer afraid to put into words.