Sui Generis

I realised something. Sitting in the departure hall of terminal two in Heathrow two hours early, I read a book -- Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto -- to kill time. Opposite me are a British (I think) couple, probably in their fifties, with eyes peering through their spectacles at the ipads held between their slightly stubby fingers. And here I am, reading a small, thin novella, 150 pages, with a glaringly pink cover. As my own tired eyes (five hours in the bus is no joke) and foggy mind struggled to comprehend the printed words, relaxing and unwinding, a thought, quiet as a passing whisper, struck me like a gong. I've always enjoyed reading physical books where I can touch, flip its pages and smell them, feel its weight in my hands. Electronic devices like tablets have been introducing new features with each new model; the feeling of flipping a page, the sound of flipping the page, all without the hassle of weight and with extra capacity. But, obviously the very experience of reading an...

I think God taught me something today -- that's not to say that he doesn't teach you something everyday, but today, for some reason, after getting my pay I was, in a way, placed in a couple of situations where I was forced to use that money (for reasons I won't state) instead of keeping it for my saving's account like I always do. The lesson only struck me as I sat down for a relatively cold dinner: money is not meant to be kept and never used. You don't earn money to hoard it all, admiring the numbers that increase each time you deposit your salary, but to spend it on the things you need. Money, if you think of it in this way, is essentially not yours. Sure you earned it, and have every right to claim your hard earned cash -- but it's not yours. If you think about it this way, it is God's money you're spending. Why? He's the one who provided you with the job. He's the one who gave you the means and chances to hone your skills to get that job. He...