Building Fernsage (a digital commonplace book) and writing weekly newsletters for hands-on dads
Singapore
Joined March 2013
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Learning never stops
My dad had an employee who refused to learn about new products at the car workshop. "The more I learn, the more you will ask me to do," he argued. My dad didn't keep him for long.
Even at 67, my...
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Miserable events, fond memories
Among outdoor adventurers, there's a framework called The Fun Scale.
- Type 1 fun: Enjoyable while it's happening.
- Type 2 fun: Miserable while it's happening, but fun in...
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Children need models more than they need critics
“Children need models more than they need critics.”
— Joseph Joubert (French moralist and essayist)
It is easy to fall into the trap of...
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You have to do the work yourself
Calvisius Sabinus was a rich Roman who desired to appear learned without doing the actual mental work. So he devised a shortcut to learning: He bought educated slaves at high...
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We are constantly losing our children
My wife and I often look at photos of our firstborn when he was the age of his little sister. It hit us that he will never be that age again. And then the second...
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The child in me shaped the parent I am
<figure>
<figcaption>Reading to my son</figcaption>
</figure>
Three years ago, when the nurse pushed my son into my wife's ward for the very first time, she casually told me he...
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A little fellow follows me
When legendary basketball coach John Wooden's son was born, a friend sent him a framed picture with the following poem:
“A Little Fellow Follows Me
A careful man I want to be,
A...
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We choose how we want to remember it
I dropped my work for 10 days because my kids had HFMD. During that period, I struggled with looking after sick kids and with neglecting my work. To keep myself sane...
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Pick up the pen
How will kids growing up in the age of AI think and learn?
As a father of two, I often ponder this. I grew up with, fell in love with, and became reliant on the internet and apps—sometimes a little too much....
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The optimists
During the Vietnam War, Admiral James Stockdale was imprisoned and tortured for over seven years. He was eventually released in 1973. When asked who didn’t survive the war camps, he said:
> The optimists. Oh,...
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Don't search for silver bullets
> 欲速则不达
>
> Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly
>
> — Confucius, Analects 13.17
I struggled with how long my son takes to fall asleep, even...
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Create like a kid
Adults have preconceived notions of many things. An essay has to be this long; a video must have that structure; X app needs to have Y feature. Unfortunately, most of these are subconscious and hinder our...
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This ancient practice is keeping me sane through double HFMD
> What's worse than a kid having HFMD?
> Two kids having HFMD.
>
> — Me, a dad
I looked up at the clock. It was only 8:30 am. My kids had been up for three hours,...
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Keep writing
When The Vegetable (1923) failed terribly, F. Scott Fitzgerald declared to Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons, “I doubt if, after all, I’ll ever write anything again worth putting in print.” 17...
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Make it easy to start
The first step of any creative project is often the hardest. You want to publish but worry that your essays will be bad. You dream of creating vlogs but are afraid that your videos will be cringe....
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Gym as life
I recently went back to the gym after a year off. I became very self-conscious, even though I have lifted for almost 20 years. Are people looking at me? They are lifting much more weight than me, so they must be more...
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Letters to hands-on dads
> Being a parent is without a doubt the hardest, most demanding thing I’ve ever done in my life. And being a great dad is without a doubt the most important thing I want to achieve in my...
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Stories and skeptics
I'm currently reading How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen. The authors use two writing techniques that make me trust the book more.
Actual stories from other parents. I find it hard to relate to...
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Do whatever it takes
In high school, a friend on both the cross-country and canoeing teams lost an important cross-country race a week before the canoeing nationals. "Cry, scream, punch a bag. Do whatever it takes to...
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What bedtime taught me about patience
Hello fellow dads—after almost two years of procrastination, I finally set up subscriptions for my Substack. It costs less than a cup of coffee. If you want to support my writing and be...
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