Like it or not, my days are numbered. It has been so since the day my mother pushed this hunk of flesh out of her birth canal.

There is an urgency to live wisely – and not just knowledgeably. Knowledge is about facts, whereas wisdom is about knowing the difference between what matters in life, and what does not.

I have encountered a number of prompts from a certain John Izzo, (PhD). Let me attempt them, as inexperienced as I am, (as I ponder the vast yet beautiful wilderness of this star-strewn cosmic galaxy.)

Pretend you are at a dinner party, and everyone is sitting in a circle. The host invites each person to take just a few minutes to describe the life she has lived. If you were at the party and you wanted people to know as much about your life as possible in those few minutes, what would you say? Describe the life you have lived thus far.

I gave everything up to follow what God told me to do.

what I have learnt after a decade in the Food & Beverage Industry

I have worked as a bartender – more specifically, a bar-back, a manual labourer who assists the bar captain with washing glassware.

I have worked as a barista, making coffee with expensive machines, at both slow-paced and fast-paced outlets.

I have worked as a cook, preparing dishes according to a specified recipe (I must have cooked tens of plates, if not hundreds of plates, throughout my cooking career.)

When I rented a bed in a flat in Sengkang (not a room itself, but a bed in a room that I had to share with an incendiary older man who always seemed to sigh without even uttering a word) my landlady's fiance adopted a baby cat.

I watched it grow in size. It dashed around the cluttered place at 2 AM. Was it awake because I was awake, or the other way around? Or maybe it had its own life, and I was a mere witness; it would be self-absorbed of me, in a delusional way – egotistical – to think that its life revolved around my existence. No, no, my existence was no matter – she had a life entirely separate from mine. And I was the helpless little barely-intact ship that had gotten swept up in the maelstrom of her existence.

It was L.H. who started the ball rolling.

Hi guys, just a conversation starter prompted by a friend who is very involved in community organisation: – What are people’s thoughts around the topic of mutual aid and charity? – What do these terms mean to you, and how are they different? – How do they show up in your life, if at all? – What questions emerge from this brief reflection?

Let me answer briefly.

What are people’s thoughts around the topic of mutual aid and charity?

I think people do want to help others – who may not be related by blood to them – they just don't know how. (and, indeed, who to help). but my own experience has been that when I was in severe desperate need, the right help came at the right time.

“charity” seems like a tainted word in Singapore – incentivised by tax deductions and appearances on Lists of Honoured Donors -

“mutual aid” was something new to me, I only learnt about it during Covid times – but burn-out became a real thing – the organisers were burnt out – I wasn't an organiser, just a participant in my own small way – but my phone was ringing at strange hours with desperate, gut-wrenchingly worded requests for food and cash – it seemed I was slipping into an endless ocean of endless suffering.

I had to limit my own involvement in mutual aid, for my own peace-of-mind.

I have benefitted from the labours of poets and poetesses from decades past – and centuries past – and I have no way of expressing my gratitude except to “pay it forward” (as the younger set says) – I have received freely and now I give freely.

In no particular order, I list poems that have helped me at pivotal moments in my life.