I found myself needing to exercise patience on several occasions today. As a teacher this comes with the territory. But several decades into the job I still need occasionally to force myself to do so. Over time it gets easier. But, in my case, it's rarely easy. Hence the need for 'exercise'. Those who think of patience as a kind of passive virtue are massively missing the point. (Or maybe they're naturally good at it? I know I'm not.)
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
No Happy Ending
Got home latish & decided to watch a bit of Sky News. This featured much coverage of on-going events concerning the Post Office Scandal in the UK, which I referenced here back in January in relation to the excellent series Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which was the best thing we saw on the telly back in the land of my birth last December.
Despite the obviously urgent need to do something to resolve the suffering of those sub-postmasters caught up in the terrible events, it turns out that many victims are still seeking compensation and a significant number either took their own lives or came desperately close. This makes for difficult viewing, part of the difficulty being trying to imagine the extremes of stress that must have been involved.
All very depressing. But, then, so much of the news is these days.
Monday, July 7, 2025
In Good Order
It's always good to have a holiday early in a term, and even better to spend the free morning wandering around a well-maintained park, of which there's an abundance in this Far Place, I'm happy to say. Noi and I took ourselves off to West Coast Park, which is just around the corner, and enjoyed randomly wandering its lanes and clocking up our steps for the day. We're very familiar with its nooks and crannies, of course, but delighted to discover a new area that those who look after these things have recently developed in the form of a little urban farm. All very jolly and very worthy.
Indeed, I'd venture to say that the development of the parks on the island in the decades I've been here is powerful evidence in itself for good government. I suppose some folk would say these common spaces are over-regulated, but I for one am happy with the orderliness of it all. And I suspect the trees & flowers & plants & birds & assorted wildlife don't mind it at all.
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Remedial Action
I hadn't intended to spend time today cleaning CDs and the shelves they are on and attempting to prevent the shelves from becoming even more tottery than they are. But that's what I found myself doing in the middle of the day, partly on a whim, but, more importantly, because it really needed doing. We've been lucky over the years that the shelves for books and CDs we bought a long time back when we lived on Still Road have lasted reasonably well, but it's starting to look like their days are done and today's remedial action was somewhat overdue.
Noi and I agreed that a lot of this furniture will need to be discarded once we make the big move to Malaysia, but in the meantime we need to make do with what we have, which means making it work for a few months more. I'm not entirely sure that the most tottery of the CD cases will last that long, but it's worth trying for.
Not unlike going to the gym, I suppose; trying to eke out a few more years of bodily function at a passable level. Though, I must say, tonight's session made me feel as tottery as the shelves we were trying to bang into shape earlier in the day.
Saturday, July 5, 2025
Not Worth It
When I picked up Mark Sedgwick's Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order I thought I was in for a quick and rewarding read. But it was not to be. I spied the Pelican edition on the shelves at Wardah Books on my recent foray there, recognising the name of the writer from a website I chanced upon some months back that dealt with thinkers like Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon, names that frequently cropped up in the works of Islamically related writers I enjoy. I've never really pursued the work of these guys in any serious sense and assumed that Sedgwick's book was going to give me the direct introduction I needed to their exciting ideas. But the problem is that I've not found the ideas themselves, as summarised in the tome in question, at all exciting. Or convincing.
To be honest, their notions come across as over-generalised with little foundation in the complex details of the cultures with which they deal. It's all been more than a bit 'pie in the sky' - fine sounding, but of limited substance. But how exactly do you know all this?, I've found myself asking, page after page.
Funnily enough, the best and most convincing thing I've read so far concerns the work of Jordan Peterson of all people, in the form of a neat summary of the Prof against Political Correctness's understanding of hierarchies of competence and critique of the notion of white privilege. I'm not exactly a fan of Peterson, but if he gets anything right (and I think he often does) this is top of the list and important to appreciate, especially for wooly-minded leftist activists who are overly in love with their own righteousness.
Anyway, I'm still a way off finishing Sedgwick's book and hoping to find a few more insights that will make reading it worthwhile.
Friday, July 4, 2025
Replete
Noi conjured up her patented salmon dinner this evening. Difficult to think of a better way to finish the working week, so I'm not bothering to think at all.
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Worth Forgetting
Somehow in my dotage I managed to completely forget that we have a school holiday next week, on Monday, to celebrate the Youth Day decreed for this Far Place. Must say, the pleasure of remembering was worth the minor inconvenience of forgetting the occasion.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
A Lost Cause
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
More Pieces
Back to the gym this evening, my usual gym, that is. I didn't particularly enjoy working out at the hotel in KL, though I was pleased to be able to get something genuinely physical done. To be honest, I can't say I enjoyed myself this evening, but being back on a machine and working with weights that I understood lent me a greater sense of focus and, I suppose, purpose.
In the end though it boils down to putting the pieces together, each step forward, each lift adding something to one's sense of well-being, even when that piece hurts; overall seeking to cultivate a feeling of unhurried but purposefully active patience.
Monday, June 30, 2025
In Pieces
Starting a new term and remembering to put things together bit by bit by bit by bit. And then another bit.