Learning about origins, scarecrows on the farm, and should democracy need more rights?
Since July 1st, searching for great voices and well-written pieces was my focus as a writer. I have read and commented more than I wrote here.
And in the spirit of supporting indie writers who write with thought, some pieces perhaps do deserve more reads, aka “shout-outs”. Hopefully, we as writers and mere mortals stand a chance to learn a thing or two about life.
Good things deserved to be shared.
1) Chinese Herbal Tea: An Origin Story — by Allison Cecile
This is a fun piece to read for me. Almost every Chinese would have heard or drunk liang-teh or Chinese herbal tea at least once in their life, yet…
How your feelings may be the most important message portal for your body to heal.
In our lives, we have all felt nuances of our emotions. Sometimes we don’t even know what these emotions feel like. We lack the words to articulate them. We struggle to find the right words that resonate with them.
In the last 50 years, extensive research carried out by psychologists on this topic has expanded the number of theories on human emotions. So much so that it has been hard to keep up with our understanding of human emotions.
According to Paul Ekman’s research during the 1980s, there are 6 basic human emotions. Sadness, happiness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise…
Reality Humor
Choose your baby’s name wisely for it determines the course of their life
My parents must have loved cooking and food.
During the ’80s, there was a famous celebrity chef called Martin Yan. At the end of each show, Chef Martin always told his fans, “If Yan can cook so can you!”
Later, the moment I was born, my father insisted that I be named Yan or have Yan in my Chinese characters, which has no relation to Chef Martin.
But as you can imagine, I was stuck with this celebrity chef and his famous tagline as I grew up. When people asked how should they call me, I said, “Call me Yan”…
POETRY
Would you listen, or will you brush it away?
Allow the pain to be your messenger,
Allow the grief to be your medicine,
Going deeper inside of your wounded parts.
Allow the pain to transform the deep-seated beliefs,
Allow the grief to transfigure the unconscious behaviors that no longer serve the current you.
Allow the pain to burn the hurts from your childhood and make peace with the wrongs of your past lives, shedding the parts that no longer fit the new you.
Let your heart break down before you break through.
Let your inner truth effervesce.
Revealing who you truly are,
what you truly love,
and where you truly…
July TBIN Interview Prompt
10 seasons of Grey, Yang, Torres, and the oh-so-sexy Sloan.
Give yourself a pat on your shoulder.
You made it past 6 months of 2021 — a year of extreme summer heat, new virus mutants, and getting somewhat used to the new norm (or not). Not to mention, you and I also rode through the ups and downs of the series of changes here.
In the usual spirit of true community building and relational engagement, I am baring myself a little more with July’s TBIN interview prompt.
[1] If…
Building quality relationships and engagement between writers and readers.
5 days ago, Medium announced on the 3min Read that she is cleaning up spam accounts to keep things authentic.
I lost about 15 followers so far. I wasn’t upset one bit. I am all about authenticity that I have written a story about my personal experience.
I tend to focus on quality over quantity, so in a way, this tells me how I have moved past the culture of seeking followers over quality engagement. Or maybe I have reached a point in life right now that, I honestly do not care anymore. …
Go take a sabbatical and come back stronger.
I have just fired myself from writing.
As a self-employed freelancer, I carry numerous hats. One minute, I am a writer, the next I am a marketer. Then come the hat of the analyst and then the boss. I have to be accountable to myself every step of the way, from the time I start work, to the time I close my laptop, signaling it’s the end of a workday. I looked back at my work performance since January 2021, there were some hits but many misses.
And now I, as my own boss, am giving myself, the writer, a mid-year performance evaluation.
I sat down with…
And you don’t have to suffer in silence.
Burnout.
Perhaps many of us have seen this word or feel this sensation more often than ever before in these last 18 months. When we hear the word “burnout”, the first image that comes to our minds is a matchstick burnt at both ends.
Emotional burnout is not a pleasant feeling. It is not attention-seeking, like when you break a bone and it catches your immediate attention to seek help. …
PROMPT RESPONSE
Spoiler alert: Be sincerely relational with prompt responses to the TBIN June Interview.
I am late to the game of answering prompts from publications, but you know the saying, “better late than never”. TheBrainIsANoodle has been super supportive of its writers and readers, infinite claps to Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她).
Even it’s a relatively new publication, it’s been fun to exercise the writing muscle in a creative way. Besides, we should never despise small and humble beginnings. Just look at how Apple was created.
Every month, they have prompts to kick the ball rolling and it helps to grow the publication too. …
Bottoms Up Humor
Being at the bottom may be the best thing that happened to you
While our culture rewards the tops in every industry, from entertainment to literature and science, I loved being at the bottom.
Recently I found out I made it to the bottom 10 writer for 10 popular tags and topics— namely Life, Sex, Relationships, Health, Fitness, Love, Poetry, Humor, Personal Development, and Self.
I am stoked about this new title and my reasons are simple.
We live in an environment where we look up to the tops in society, we even call them the upper class, or the upper, upper class, or the luxury upper class. They receive so much attention…
