columnists

"In 2012, the Chinese sociologist Sūn Lìpíng (b. 1955) suggested the PRC [People's Republic of China] faced four possible paths. One was return to Mao-style egalitarian populism, reducing inequality and corruption but risking the violence and irrationality of the Mao era. Another was to deepen the reforms – further privatizing the economy regardless of increased inequality. The third was to maintain the status quo. The fourth was to pursue reform while applying notions of fairness, justice, and universal values."

"Cleo's motto seemed to be: Life's tough and that's okay, because life is also fantastic. Love it, live it - but don't be fooled into thinking it's not harsh sometimes. Those who've survived periods of bleakness are often better at savoring good times and wise enough to understand that good times are actually great.”"

"“I used to wish I had an easier life," he mused. "Some families sail through years with nothing touching them. They have no tragedies. They go on about how lucky they are. Yet sometimes it seems to me they're half alive. When something goes wrong for them, and it does for everyone sooner or later, their trauma is much worse. They've had nothing bad happen to them before. In the meantime, they think little problems, like losing a wallet, are big deals. They think it's ruined their day. They have no idea what a hard day's like. It's going to be incredibly tough for them when they find out.""

"If humans could program themselves to forget time, they would savor a string of pleasures and possibilities. Regrets about the past would dissolve, alongside anxieties for the future. We'd notice the color of the sky and be liberated to seize the wonder of being alive in this moment. If we could be more like cats our lives would seem eternal.”"

"Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention. They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing."

"He'd also developed his own version of making the most of every minute. "Through Sam I found out how quickly things can change. Because of him I've learned to appreciate each moment and try not to hold on to things. Life's more exciting and intense that way. It's like the yogurt that goes off after three days. It tastes so much better than the stuff that lasts three weeks."

"“People persuade themselves they deserve easy lives, that being human makes us somehow exempt from pain. The theory works fine until we face the inevitable challenges. Our conditioning of denial in no way equips us to deal with the difficult times that not one of us escapes."

"Then there was the realisation that I didn't actually feel that much better when I was thin(ner). In fact the 'thin' version felt worse because I lived with hunger clawing at my stomach all the time, and in fear that I was going to get fat again. After years of neuroticism I'd finally understood those who loved me would continue to put up with me fat or thin, and those who didn't ignored me. As a middle-aged woman I was pretty much invisible anyway. To pass unnoticed through an image-obsessed society is surprisingly liberating"

"Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough. They don't get up and go, they sit down and stay. For them, lethargy is an art form. From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are - a meaningless waste of nap time.”"

"One of the many ways in which cats are superior to humans is their mastery of time. By making no attempt to dissect years into months, days into hours and minutes into seconds, cats avoid much misery. Free from the slavery of measuring every moment, worrying whether they are late or early, young or old, or if Christmas is six weeks away, felines appreciate the present in all its multidimensional glory. They never worry about endings or beginnings. From their paradoxical viewpoint an ending is often a beginning. The joy of basking on a window ledge can seem eternal, though if measured in human time it's diminished to a paltry eighteen minutes."

"I was really concerned with how conservative audiences in the Philippine were going to take it, because my career up at that point was just very wholesome. And I was a child entertainer, performer. I was about to turn the page in a really big way. Because back home actors especially actresses you were really either wholesome or really not. There was no gray area"

"My son and every single trans kid out there, they are bravely trying to navigate the world as who they are, despite an environment that seems hostile to their existence, so I have to lift up every single kid that has to do this."

"You have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised."

"The worst you can do is believe yourself to be any more than what you actually are."

"My first job, my first time in front of a paying audience, first time to get paid for work. I don't remember the paycheck being anything big (it's theater, meaning it wasn’t) but I loved the experience so much!"

"It’s a song [about] being a Filipino that’s been transplanted to another country, and you are remembering what it is about home that you remember and love so much."

"The story is important but not to the point of emotional manipulation of the audience. It has to supplement the talent."

"The funny thing… kids are easy to mold. They’re so easy to teach and they’re so open to suggestions."

"If [you’re] a mom who remembers the first movements of your child while they were still in the womb, it’s the excitement of that."

"You discover how much motivation you actually have. Really."

"You can basically throw all the stuff at the wall and see what sticks. In her case, she throws everything at the wall and everything sticks."

"I look at the awards and I'm incredibly grateful. But a career like mine would not be possible without a village, without a support system, without the people who are actively behind me"

"I'm here in this very strange country with a culture that's so very different from mine. I need to hang on to a little bit of home to not go insane."

"This is my 18-year-old. My artistic, sensitive, creative, smart, beautiful, affectionate, loving, incredible 18-year-old. I’m beyond blessed and fortunate to call this one mine."

"I try to be cool and not get too emotional, but it's like 'Oh wow.' To be able to be that person to someone, it's pretty crazy and really wonderful, and to continue to work in the Philippines where you're with your people, creating theater."

"Playing her again 30 years later is going to be illuminating."

"It’s important for me to speak up for kids like my own kid, because trans folks are being erased, as if their existence never happened. But trans folks have been around forever."

"This is the most precious human being in my little world. The one who captured my heart from the word go. The one that made me realize how insignificant my life was, until that initial piercing cry at 12:12 PM on May 16, 2006."

"Just a reminder… I have boundaries. Do not cross them. Thank you,"

"External link=="

"And now for me to come in as a woman from Southeast Asia, as a woman from the Philippines, and kind of getting into this mix, it's just one episode, but it's like, it's nice to be able to center women's stories and the stories of women of color."

"Just now woke up to this bit of amazing news!"

"The only thing that trans folks, any LGBT person wants, is to exist and to live and to love in the way that they were born to. Full stop…"

"The one thing I’ve learned is that you have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised… As a parent I want to set my child up for success. I want my child to feel safe and strong and ready to conquer the world on their own terms."

"It means the world that there is a universe in which these kinds of stories are able to attract interest and wide viewership where we are centering the experiences of not just Southeast Asian people, but it's Southeast Asian women."

"With each step into adulthood, my heart grows in ways I couldn’t have predicted. That he is, with honesty and courage, growing into who he’s meant to be makes me incredibly proud."

"And if you really believe in your heart of hearts that you have the talent, go for it."

"Just believe in who you are. Period."

"You have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised, where they are, no matter their background or identity. Literally any kid. Queer or otherwise."

"But the one thing I’ve learned is that you have to raise your child the way your child needs to be raised."

"And it's incredibly empowering to be a part of something like this."

"It has to be talent first. Because that’s how we got them in the first place."

"As a parent, I want to set my child up for success. I want my child to feel safe and strong and ready to conquer the world on their own terms."

"Musical theater is quite an unpredictable, sometimes think-on-your-feet type of art form. I’ve learned how to raise a child who is their own being. I mean, there are obviously expectations. I’m glad this kid can cook and do his own laundry and doesn’t forget to feed the cat."

"The missionaries were vortices of force thrown out in advance by the force to the eastward that was making west. They thought that they came to bring Christ but in thinking so they were deceived. They were agents of a historical energy and what they brought was the United States. The Indians had no chance. If it looked like religion it was nevertheless Manifest Destiny."

"No one will ever tell in full the heroism or the stupidity of the foreign missions, the holiness-saturated devotion of the missionaries or their invincible foolishness. There were only two agencies for the extension of civilization on a large scale, armies and missions, and in the light of history the primitives who drew the armies were much the better off. The missionary was a man glad to submerge self in a holy cause but, except in a minority so small it does not count, his dedication locked him away from reality so completely that at this distance he seems crazed if not crazy. The heathen were not people to him: they were souls."

"History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance."

"Mr. Lincoln was telling his countrymen that the achieved West had given the United States something that no people had ever had before, an internal, domestic empire, and he was telling them that Yesterday must not be permitted to Balkanize it."

"Between the amateur and the professional, ... there is a difference not only in degree but in kind. The skillful man is, within the function of his skill, a different integration, a different nervous and muscular and psychological organization. ... A tennis player or a watchmaker or an airplane pilot is an automatism but he is also criticism and wisdom."

"The dawn of knowledge is usually the false dawn."