In Bangkok at 6AM just after new year, he cried and told me he was waiting for the soul mate that would finally help him live a life full of happiness in love. I couldn't be that for him.

And over some eventful summers in Asia, I got to know many affluent moguls who had achieved all the success and possessed the most lavish luxuries one could dream of. They smiled a lot and were so generous but I always saw a look in them that told me they were going through exactly the same thing we all were.

Then, there are the group in my life who are in pursuit of as many unique experiences as possible. One day, we hope the parties had, countries explored and experiences collected will fill the measure of our memories to the brim so we can try to convince ourselves that “we have lived”.

Finally ... there is the one who left us too early. "I am so sad you passed away this summer." Since then, I suffer a chronic existential angst. It hurts and is the most haunting and awakening feeling - like I am soul stricken and completely feel myself in 3rd person with an intense emotional realization of my mortality (it's not that I didn't know it before but I never truly felt it).


In stringing our stories together, I found that our lives culminated to an ultimate life question:

Have I Really Truly Lived?
This is about living in such a way that we can savor in the great satisfaction that we have fulfilled an important destiny with the limited time we have.

Does this life include the ultimate success, affluence, power, relationships, family, fitness, social contribution, legacy or collection of experiences? I realized a lot of people are still figuring that out. However, what is certain is that we are constantly asking ourselves - have I tried everything I've wanted so that I can honestly feel that I have really lived and positively impacted the world as much as I could have?

If the answer is yes, we can live in peace. If the answer is no, we will live in regret.

This is our own self measure on everything we have gained, given and our position in the world. Only we ourselves know the deepest nuances. That is why someone who appears to have everything could actually have nothing at all.

But ... there seems to be a big problem with this ultimate question if we look at the modern body of evidence. I mean why do many who seem to have truly lived, with immense fame and success, remain disillusioned with their lives - people like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Cher, one of the longest living entertainers in history says, "I did and achieved everything I ever dreamed of ... and more, and it gets boring."
This is because achieving goals only feels golden for a moment, while materialism and affluence in themselves do not enrich the soul. And when someone you know passes on, you realise none of those things really matter. They are all smoke and mirrors.

I also got into the habit like many of continually chasing the next best experience. But it's like I always try to pretend that that sickly and dreaded come-down after a good party won't come, but it does. You can always look forward to the next party, but that party always finishes too.

After all this, I thought if having and experiencing it all doesn't satisfy in the long run, what more could there really be to life then? Do I Have Peace and Purpose in my Mortality?
I believe this is the real ultimate question of life, and I have been asking myself this everyday since summer. The answer I have found is the ultimate type of soulful happiness made up of:

1. Contentment in emptiness
2. Peace and higher purpose given the temporariness of life

The first component is the unshakable contentment of simply being. It is a mindful gratitude that survives even during the dullest moments of life. It's not that the intention is to live a dull life - it's the appreciation of the quiet glory of everyday life with a recognition that life uncontrollably inclines itself toward moments of emptiness.

The second component is peace with, and higher purpose given, the temporariness of life. We shouldn't be afraid of our own mortality - we should own it:

• What is my purpose in light of death and the afterlife? (should you believe in that)
• Have I tried my absolute best to find right answers? Or am I okay to face this inevitable reality when it comes?
• Is anything eternal? Does it matter to leave a legacy then? Or do I just want to have fun for now?

There are three mutually exclusive outcomes of this self-analysis: hope, hopelessness or unconcern. Ultimately, these thoughts matter because our time is limited and we cannot change that. These questions aren't necessarily marketable or fun, which is why society is built to avoid it, but they are reality - the party always finishes.

I am writing these things in the spirit of love because I want everyone to know we are on the same journey and that the most prevalent yet hidden root of modern day sadness is an inability to reckon with both one's own mortality and the mortality of our loved ones.

The Plan Now
I have found working toward my existential certainty to be the main thing that has healed my loneliness and depression. Yet, though for moments I have mindful gratitude, I also feel chained to wanting to experience, enjoy and achieve so much right now, but I am trying to teach myself that these things don't matter.

I am also working on hope in death and purpose through a relationship with God, which I know is so uncool these days, and even after the church cast me out for my sexuality. This is my own way to do it and you are free to find yours.

My ultimate goal is to one day relinquish seeking success, wealth and experience, in order to live a quiet life with the purpose of helping others think about the bigger picture in life. I am still on the way there but trying to get there as quickly as possible.

What is your plan?

“You've grown up from your old town, your old friends, your mom washing dishes, your dad yelling at you - all your fond memories. It's time to move on now. Even though you don't want to, you must. Moving on to your next life is scary, but that's something you have to overcome because if you truly think about it, nothing lasts forever ..."

If you want to build something that lasts and is real in life, it's really about the decisions that you make to progress, but what should we consider in making the best choices?

I had to make a tough decision lately - take a job offer that would seriously grow my career but in turn would take away a lot of the time I have had to dance, model and travel the world, or reject the job offer and keep riding the wave of my mid 20s - it's been great so far.

When you first come out into the adult world, you think you know it all, but you really only know it from one perspective. You only start to realise this when you age a little, and start to lament this bit of lost youth. Like even though you know you could have many years to go, it hits you like light breeze from a far away oncoming storm.

It is in this progression that we start to triangulate the bigger picture of our entire life. This moment for me was the turn of 26 this month. It was the first birthday where I didn't like the age I was turning. My friends and family told me "26 is young", and I know it is, but for me, it symbolised the beginning of the period of ageing, and in that I already started to see and feel myself when I was older.

And that's exactly why I took the job. When you are a young adult, and especially in the age of social media, euphoria from getting as many people to see and hear your name feels enough. But in already foreseeing our future ageing with fading; youth, attractiveness and trendiness, I started to see these things as nothing more than a castle built on sand.

This triggered a vivid memory from an event where I performed last month in Bangkok. I saw one of the absolute it boys who just two years ago shone brighter than everyone else and seemed to have the whole world in his hand. He was in a much different state now. Supernova-boy. Having aged a bit, he lost his light and no longer had his gravity with people. I saw a deep sadness in him as people drifted away from him without a care in the universe.

On the contrary, there is a much older gentlemen I know in Sydney. Sadly, his mother got quite sick recently, and he had to go take care of her. During this time, he had actually planned on moving house. In his physical absence, his young friends actually packed and moved his entire house for him without a problem.



And I know why they did this. Because this gentlemen had built a life founded on real relationships bolstered with genuine love and respect. He had put so much hard work into amazing career which he used to be generous and really contribute to his loved ones and the community. In his fading youth, people still gravitated toward and loved him.

I realised some people draw the boundary of their contentment and set their foundation so that it encompasses and depends upon trivial things like fame, popularity and vanity. In a generation that loves and respects you on the measure of how strong your Instagram game is, besides our image, what do we have to offer the world?

There is another type of person who knows that these things will fade, and puts their satisfaction in things that are not as dependable like real relationships, a career built on hard work and intellect, and a strong sense of self and purpose which people genuinely respect you for. It was in this contrast that I really understood how to make my decisions.

And bear no doubt, we should still be relishing and cherishing the moment for what it is, but equally think with the mindset - "when I am older". It is across this spectrum which we make our choices, knowing full well that we may have to take a leap of faith, put in even more hard work and even let go in order to age gracefully into a greater future self where we have no regrets and who we are proud of.

For me, my ultimate life goal is to earn the trust and respect of everybody in my character in order that people will listen when I speak and show the love of God to them. What is yours? When I was older ...

"When you're young, you're full of love - you haven't wasted all your love ... yet" - Billie Eilish

I often joke that if I remained single into my 30s, I would buy a dog. My friends laugh, but deep down it's not really a joke and dogs are fucking loyal. I am 25 now, but a few years back you would have thought of me as one of those crazy kind of people that believed in a cosmic Hollywood kind of love.

But after some years with failed soulmates coming and going, it ain't really cosmic anymore for me, actually its harder feel the way I did when I started. I agree with Billie Eilish who is 16 and says, "when you're young you haven't wasted all your love ... yet." From birth, we're all along the journey of using our love up as we go through life, some running dry faster than others.

I think I started losing my heart in my early 20s, with it leaking and spilling out over a certain highway in Western Sydney. I would speed along its asphalt almost every second day in order to go spend time with my first love. It wasn’t typically what one would consider a nice drive.

But for me, it was the most fantastic drive! That's because I knew I was going to see the one I liked.

To anyone else, it was Western Sydney’s un-scenic drive with its coarse traffic alongside bleak factories and fields of undeveloped and abandoned industry. But for me I was happy driving along it, playing the same album each time. The music would lay the beat for the plumes of toxic smoke emitted by the factories to dance alongside the highway for me like a waltzing guard of honor ushering me toward my lover.

And I know you definitely know that feeling when you’re young and infatuated - like you could move planet Earth to be with the one you love, and it wouldn’t feel in the slightest way heavy. You could be doing the most menial and monotonous thing and it could feel like you were traversing through burning constellations and shining galaxies with your mind and soul igniting in full supernova just by being with them. That’s when you know it’s fucking real.


But, sadly, in the long run, perhaps I was too young and building to the climax too quickly, for you know with any linear narrative, there must be some turmoil or conflict before the climax and resolution. And for most, first time romances rarely do ever work out ... (well, if it did work out for you, I would definitely call you the Lucky Ones).

Three years from then and I’m not sure if my climax and resolution will ever come. Highways are just a highways to me now, the landscape and the smoke don’t dance for me anymore.


For us single ones, it's scary how society and life chews and spits out those in their late 20s and early 30s who exit the dating vortex single. I know a few people this age who are single and who feel absolutely worthless about themselves because of this. Do you know someone like that or have you been there?

This is the time fading youth and ever mounting societal pressure to find the one who’s going to be with you and take care of you when you reach the age when you can’t go to the toilet properly. We don't want to be old and alone. But for some of us, that may be our destiny.

There are many of us who used to be the type who would give up our entire universe to live in someone else’s. But when they left, we were left with nothing. A lot of us landed here when we were young.

So we grew a little older and wiser, used up some of our love, and then began to think that maybe the life and universe we had the power to create for ourselves would never leave us and could give just as much as a lover. Like we held onto our wasting love, preserving some for ourselves and not letting others take it from us. But if we do this too much, and I can speak for myself, we risk becoming increasingly jaded as we get older.

So for the single, lost and lonely, and I know there’s many of you, they say the world was built for two, but maybe for us - that two is you and yourself, and/or you and the life you have built. Hold onto the love but don't become like the old and deadened.

And if by fate, we happen to find someone, they better be worth giving some of that up for.  It should be the type of love where you know you have things to share with each other that will elevate each other universes forever - I’d just wish people these days would pay attention and stick around long enough to receive that.

And if we don't find love like that, then we shouldn't want it, and we should learn to be more than okay with that everyday.

So ... maybe it won’t work out or maybe it will. Whatever happens, we'll reckon with it ... and you can always come visit my dog and I by my rocking chair on my porch many years from now, and we'll share all the love we haven't lost ... yet.

And for those of you who still believe in a soul mate ;)

We've all been here: you know that watershed moment when you're about to say something you really want to, or you're really wanting to introduce yourself to someone - but you shy away. At these times, we are used to looking down at our phone or any other way to seem distracted and indifferent.

Thereafter, its just you, alone in your head, basking in the unpleasant and sad solitude of what could have been, which for now has slipped away. And why do we do this to ourselves?

Well, our brains are computing what may be gained and what may be lost. I know you are scared of having your thoughts and ideas shut down or you think you might garner a bad reaction from someone - and I have the same fear - but is that really a tangible loss for us?


Think about it, if you were to share an idea or reach out to someone, and they were to shut that idea or you down, then that idea or connection for that moment was never meant to be anyway, right? Yes, you get that bad feeling for a moment, but there is no material loss to your life. You don't lose anything in giving for a moment.

I was so conditioned to hating even the thought of this feeling of failure or rejection that I never tried to speak up or reach out to people. That is why for 22 out of the 25 years of my life, absolutely nothing happened. And I would think my life to that point would have been an absolute waste of time, if not for the lesson it taught me to dare to be hurt.

So how do we work against this internalised form of anxiety? Well if you look at how they clinically treat anxiety, therapists subject patients to what they call exposure therapy - which is the exposure of the patient in a controlled environment to what gives them the anxiety in the first place. Over time, they are conditioned to believe that their imagined fear is actually less of a real danger to them in reality - to the point that it becomes bearable and hopefully in the long run is no longer a danger at all.

For me, I took baby steps and first started to just make friends with people online, then I slowly moved on to growing friendships and being vocal with just the closest friends that I really really trusted. I'm still working on it now, and sometimes still have a hard time, but over time I developed the ability to push through the fear - and dare to be hurt.

And I say dare to be hurt, moreso than dare to be vulnerable, because is includes the recognition that you truly expect that it's going to hurt sometimes - people are always going to hurt and reject you no matter who you are - I get it all the time. So for that moment when we feel rejected, we don't let that be a surprise because we were prepared for it and we let it build our emotional callous so we are even more vulnerable and powerful for the next time.

#UnderPressure

***

And just cos I miss Bowie

Ever feel like you don't have passions for things that your friends and family seem to have. Like you don't have that one creative outlet or hobby that everyone keeps rambling on about? I could try to inspire you by verbosely and eloquently presenting my mantra on how to achieve great things but I think we sometimes learn best through stories.

I reminisce upon a time when I was 19. I was at some kind of youth convention, and such as the nature of such events, they berated us with questions like, "What are your interests? What are you most passionate about?" As the AA-esque circle of Q&A made its way around to me, my mind was literally darting from every corner of my experiences to try to find any substance that would result in the semblance of a semi decent answer.

I had quit soccer, drawing, Chinese school and piano at a young age. My life comprised of going to a school where I didn't have many friends, returning home to the quotidian routine of both equally mindless homework and an obsession with video games. Such a realisation began to build a tension within me...

Long story short, I traveled to LA from Sydney not simply for the purpose of the vacation, but with the intention of meeting someone I believed was the love of my life at the time. But human promises are not eternal or golden, and after I came home to Sydney, the world had lost a bit of magic. When someone tells you they love you, and then proceed to threaten to harm you if you leave, you should know they are lying. 

I wanted to show you the city that first inspired this blog. LA was the first time in my life where I strayed out of the comfort of my parent's shadow and lived somewhat independently. I travelled with my best friend from city and if there's was only one place I would recommend any Los Angeles visitor to prospect, it is the Mount Hollywood situated Griffith observatory.

It is a both a scientific and astronomic hub and American icon as well as a location for a scenic lookout of the City of Angels. If you're a cinephile, I would like to mention that the drive up to the peak, includes a journey through the Griffith Park Tunnel (used for Back to the Future) as well as a passing of Griffith Park (used for Fincher's Mulholland Drive).

The main structure shines in all it's art decor glory. Parking and entry are completely free. There is a large grass area with many cultural sculptures for you to peruse. Once you are done with that, you can either enter the interior of the building for a historio-science museum-like experience or climb to the roof of the building for the clearest, and probably most stunning, view of Los Angeles that you can get.



The hallowed Hollywood sign is also one of those things you want to get a shot when travelling to the City of Angels.

Take a further look for James Dean, the historio-artistic interior and city views!