Matters of My Heart

Darkness hide not,
Light show none

Neither paint brush paint,
Nor sound of music play;


In vain eagles fly,
The same thus dogs sniff


Fishes swim without,
Earthworms dig and shout;


Eyes do not see,
Ears cannot tell


The silenced, hidden
Strangled, forgotten...

© Joel Yap

Lesson from the Pox

Having chickenpox for less than a week now, I think about stuff because there's nothing else to do at home. Audacity doesn't work on my computer so my recording plans cannot be carried out. Sigh!

Anyway, when I was randomly thinking about stuff days ago, this came to mind:

The way I look now scares people. Sometimes even myself, I dread looking into the mirror!
No one would dare come near me now because chickenpox is contagious. But when I get well, not many would be willing to come near too, because of all the scary scars. These are scary-looking little dots all over the body which I am ashamed of and do not want.
See, even I am ashamed. What more other people?
Nevertheless it is parents who will never be ashamed of their children, be it how they look, what they've done, whatever. A parent's love towards his/her child(ren) is amazing and certainly unconditional.

Whenever I look at myself I feel depressed and disgusted, but my mother never gave a hint of disgust whenever she looked at me.

kok kok keh pox

kok kok keh (noun) ~ chicken

Do you believe in retribution?

I had been an utter disappointment to many for probably close to a year. People who cared, people who loved, people whom I loved and cared about, people who invested in me, people who had high hopes on me.

Besides being a disappointment, I had been a failure to my very self, I became a lost sheep.


Leaving details out, do you believe in retribution, assuming that what I mentioned about being a disappointment and a failure was true, now that I have chickenpox all of a sudden?

you Are what you Eat

Ever heard of the saying, "You are what you eat"?

Well, I experienced it personally. There was a birthday party at a Chinese restaurant on Deepavali day, an aunt of mine turned 70. During the feast I ate tiger prawns which I am allergic to, ate quite a lot of prawns in fact. And now here I am behaving like a monkey with flees all over its body. The itch is killing me and the rashes on my body look horrible and red, like the prawns.
You are what you eat. Hahaha....
I ate prawns, now my skin turns red.

Haha, sorry i was lying. The prawns didn't look like tiger prawns, actually I took liquor which I happen to be allergic to also.
Sorry okay? Did not lie about the rash at least.


Anyway, you really are what you eat. I was wondering one day, what we eat can be a metaphor for the things we watch and listen to. Whatever "input" can be poetically called what we eat, alright?

Our actions and speech are very much affected by what goes into our head through listening, watching, reading and maybe even taste. What we do or say reflects our inner being. Out of the overflowing of the heart the mouth speaks. Agree? For example, if a person watches pornography, it affects his mind which in turn affects the way he speaks or does things subconsciously, I believe.
Our eyes are a door to our soul. What they see can have long term effects on a person, since human beings think in pictures. Many images can somehow stay in our minds though we do not will ourselves to remember.

What we hear also plays a part in what we say things and how we say them. Children tend to speak like their parents or whoever's voice they listen to most often. Teenagers might start to speak vulgarly when they mix with the wrong company. Next, the effect of reading on writing may be somewhat similar.

You are what you eat.
How are you today? How are you living, speaking and acting?
The books and magazines you read, movies and TV programmes you watched and the songs you listened to plays a part in how are you today.

If you understand that you are what you eat, I guess you would know how to become a better person.


Hurting people hurt people.
Are you hurting the people around you or anybody else, whether or not intentionally? Perhaps other people whom you had been hurt by in the past are the culprit. However you have a part to play in dealing with your hurts. Stop the chain reaction!

去死吧

Help he tried to give
When help was needed,
But help he given
Was help unneeded,
From heart he given
Come work unintended;

Wasted the labour
Of a helpful soul,
Redundant the act
Of a helpful soul,
Obsolete the value
Of a useless helpful soul;

Intention though good
The outcome bad,
Intention though good
Trouble be more,
Intention though good
Down to drain with inability along!

© Joel Yap

One's good intention to help is not an immunity from blame when one's help ends up in another's trouble.

Good intentions and good abilities are different.
There are times where the one with good intentions should abstain from giving help due to his lack in abilities. Such times are when not doing anything can be a form of help. Suppose one helps, and more trouble to others becomes a result, who is to blame? No one should point fingers, really, in my opinion, since accidents happen. In an accident, no party is directly at fault, actually. Otherwise it would be termed as an incident instead of accident. Agree?

没用的人应该去死算了。

Lost Sheep

Once good now lost

Parted from the ninety-nine

Lonely in rebellion

Afraid in the dark

Forgotten, or not

Left for soul to rot

Forsaken in need

Rejected indeed

Controlled not by self

Contradict with Spirit

Consumed by hatred

Convicted of murder

Live for Good no longer

Life has gone to waste

Know not the way Home

Nor to the Master

The 100th sheep-

Black one,

am I.

© Joel Yap

同病相怜

个人所面对的问题会像病毒一样传染给周围的人吗？

Many times I do wonder, can problems and situations we face "spread" to people around us like a disease or a virus? I have seen and experienced it happen. Why is is when we are in a difficult situation and are not out of it yet, we sometimes realise that our friends start to get caught in similar situations?

Is it coincidence when two or more people face a similar struggle simultaneously or almost at and around the same time?

Is it a message from above saying, "You are not alone"?

Is it an encouragement to strive harder? Can it be an encouragement?

Or can it be a chance to heap each other as there is power in numbers?



What is life? It really sucks to love on Earth.
It really does.

Learn from past?

经一事长一智。

真的有这么简单吗？

Do we all learn from our mistakes and bad experiences? Is it really so simple?
Why then do we still have wars going on? Have man not learnt about the damage a war can bring about? Have we not learnt the importance of international peace?
Take another example, a driver who had been involved in a car accident. After getting well from his injurys and paying for the damage done to his car, he would drive carefully from then on, shouldn't he? However why do so many people still get involved in accidents on the road multiple times?

People say learn from your mistakes, but I think it is not as simple as it seems. Learning good is by nature, difficult, for man is evil by nature.

Sometimes, many times in fact, I catch myself making the very same mistakes even though I know it is high time to change already. Sometimes it might be just something beyond my control; perhaps sometimes no control is merely an excuse.

If you know something will never happen, why wait for it to? It is just being adamantly stupid, is it not?
As if blind people can see, as if a deaf person can hear my cry...

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

I am stupid!

After Rain

雨过天晴，真的这么简单吗？天晴了就不会再下雨吗？
曾听过‘一波未平，一波又起’吗？这种情况很少发生吗？
雨过了就会天晴，但天晴跟每件事情一样，是短暂的。
天晴过后总有一天会再下雨，有时下的可能是小雨，不幸时可能会下大雨。。。
但就算下的是暴风雨，雨后一定会天晴。
不管天晴时有没有彩虹，天晴就是天晴，足够了。

In the Storms of Life
when the Thunder strikes;
And Pain overtakes
as Rain reigns,
I know I am safe
in the Arms of the Great Shepherd.

© Joel Yap



I believe in in peace after rain and desperately look forward to it after every Storm.