There is the tendency to associate growth and productivity in relation to movements and in situations when things are happening and buzzing. This has a lot to do with how we locate our understanding of growth and productivity within the context of today's modern liberal age of quick results, outputs and KPIs, the rat race, the busyness and noise. I disagree with this. Growth, through inspiration and retrospection, could happen even in stillness and when your surrounding is quiet with nothing much going on. We don't quite realise that we run the risk of neglecting on the more important aspects of it, in particular, psychological, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions of growth. Just a reminder to self to not see my mundane lived experiences as any less than the days when I'm occupied, running from one task to another. For great things really do happen in quietude and stillness, especially the internal processes that we often don't see as important markers and measures of growth.
This is difficult to write, but it's definitely an important one amidst all the conversations we've been having lately. Growing up being brown/Malay wasn't easy, especially when it became ingrained in me that having a darker skin tone by default, is less desired than fairer skin tones. In childhood, I couldn't recall having to endure comments about my skin colour. Thankfully amongst children, these values ascribed to lightness and darkness didn't yet come to the fore. This consciousness became more obvious since secondary school. And it was tough and painful. I've been in a sports CCA since secondary school and I couldn't really avoid not becoming tanned. What hurts the most was even my peers at that time would make comments about my skin colour without even realising the damage caused from these words. These comments I recall, were sometimes made under the guise of humour. I was called 'budak hitam' (literally means 'black child') and even ...
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