It all started off in July 2020, thanks to the pandemic, when I decided to write again. The last time I had written anything was about eight years ago back in college.

It has been a fun journey so far and I’ve managed to be consistent for a whole nine months with over 260 published stories — a combination of poems, articles across various topics and areas of interest.

While the thrill of people reading your work and the odd dollars you get to make in the process were always good incentives, the mysterious process of “curation” was probably the…

Old habits die hard, they say. If the habit relates to troubling behavior of constant violence and abuse against women, it isn’t one to be taken lightly.

Yet, the judicial system of America failed to foresee a crime that could have been easily avoided.

Albert Flick was an army veteran who was known to be a “good man” but had a troubled childhood of violence, which probably left scars in his own mind.

The first time this troubled childhood manifested itself into a serious crime was already a bit too late.

Back in 1979, his wife, 35-year-old Sandra Flick served…

Finally, I had an email from Medium that wasn’t spam about a submission or a random comment or clap.

It was something I was excited about. Medium’s Research team wanted to hear from its writers to improve based on feedback.

I have always thought of myself as an advocate against any kind of discrimination especially sexism and racism.

I have also extensively written on both subjects voicing strong opinions against anyone who was racist or sexist.

However, I have recently realized I am racist too — always have been and probably always will be. It is probably how I was wired and isn’t a thing I can change.

It also just not me — it is everyone. We’re all racist. Let me take a step back and define the word “racist”

prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people…

The most dangerous type of advice is bad or wrong advice that comes from a position of authority. You tend to trust the person’s “expertise” and follow it blindly, never doubting it in the least.

You go in for heart surgery because your doctor tells you your arteries are blocked — there’s no way you’re going to verify that yourself, apart from possibly seeking a “second opinion” from yet another doctor.

Hence, trust becomes the single most important factor in your relationship with your doctor, probably even more than that with your partner!

But hardly any of us goes and…

I recently got back to Hong Kong from a short trip to India and had to go through the mandatory 21-day quarantine.

We picked a hotel that we’d heard made the quarantine period quite seamless with some services that were small gestures, but big impact. We are a family of three — my wife, our two-year-old son, and I, and so we’d booked a suite, so we had a bedroom and a living room. …

Before I actively started writing about eight months ago, I always thought that you need to be an expert on a topic to write about it or write well anyway. Only Warren Buffet can really give advice on how to be a billionaire, and only Bill Gates can truly tell you how to be a master programmer starting as early as your teenage.

However, if that were truly the case, the world would be very limited in terms of brilliant writers. I quickly realized that the best writers aren’t so good because they’re subject-matter experts. …

I have recently noticed a trend. There are two kinds of pieces that go viral — ones that I look at and think — “Now that is a good template I want to follow and try to crack virality” and the others that make me feel “Wow, 54 comments, I bet most of these are bashing the author than praising them.”

I bet I am not the only one that has noticed this trend.

The first kind of virality is great and most of us aspire to emulate that and hope lady luck smiles at us.

The second kind I…