A Bullet Without A Body is Like A Song Without Ears

About poignant quotes from 2 authors, commonplacing, and a surprise for you at the end

Dear Substack friends,

I’ve recently finished reading On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong and The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy.

Both are graced with a multitude of poignant quotes that resonate with me in a number of different ways.

Ocean Vuong speaks to me as a fellow South East Asian descendant living in the western countries (Ocean is of Vietnamese descent, living in the US). His quotes are particularly about feeling different and internalising it in his typically avoidant behaviour, while at the same time critically challenging the world. I read somewhere—starting from a Reddit thread I believe, and then following the breadcrumb—that East or South East Asian immigrants tend to portray an avoidant behaviour against racism in a different world. It’s probably due to the “work hard and to become economically successful” ingrained in our blood after hundreds of years of famine (and particularly, in SEA, the colonisation). So, we lean towards a sucking-it-up mindset. The younger generation, though, may disagree and be more articulate in expressing their right to fair judgment.

Charlie Mackesy’s book carries a lightweight, comforting read with illustrations and words that strike a chord in my heart. You will enjoy the inviting warmth of its beautiful cover. It was an activity I looked forward to after a day at work: reading his book in front of my (now inactive) fireplace and cocooned in a throw blanket in the wintertime. You might wonder what a children’s literature book has in store for adult readers. Boy, are you mistaken.

Through its simplicity of a story (no complicated plot and with the relatable characters that represent different personalities), Mackesy’s poignant scenes reach the deepest nooks of our hearts. And I find its universal message and retrospective property may be broadly received by readers of different walks of life.

I copied many quotes from each to my commonplace book, but for the sake of brevity, here are a select few quotes that will hopefully inspire you to pick up the books (or any books, really) and give yourself a space to be engrossed in your imagination, and ponder.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Who will be lost in the story we tell ourselves? Who will be lost in ourselves?

“To be or not to be”, a question, yes, but not a choice.

Because a bullet without a body is a song without ears. (Yes this is where the inspiration for today’s post came from)

Memory is a choice.

A new immigrant, within two years, will come to know that the salon is, in the end, a place where dreams become the calcified knowledge of what it means to be awake in American bones—with or without citizenship—aching, toxic, and underpaid.

You take their hatred head on, and you cross it, like a bridge, to face them, to enter them.

To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.

Because that’s what mothers do. They wait. They stand still until their children belong to someone else.

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

Nothing beats kindness. It sits quietly beyond all things.

Isn’t it odd, we can only see our outsides but nearly everything happens on the inside.

Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.

One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things. (Oh, this is lovely, isn’t it? It reminds me of a quote I live by from Victor Frankl, paraphrased: Between stimulus and response there’s a space for us to choose, where it lies our freedom.)

I think home is somewhere warm and kind, with lights.

Doing nothing with friends is never doing nothing, is it?

Tears fall for a reason and they are your strength not weakness.

What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever said? “Help.”

Asking for help isn’t giving up. It’s refusing to give up.

When the big things feel out of control, focus on what you love right under your nose.

You are loved and important and you bring to this world things no one else can. So hold on.

(This is also lovely and similar to my faith-based favourite quote by John Henry Newman: God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. Therefore, I will trust him.)

Commonplacing

Commonplace, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is an adjective meaning ordinary or unremarkable. It’s also a noun meaning an obvious or trite comment or something commonly found.

A commonplace book, thus, is a handy notebook to keep everyday thoughts and other pieces of information we come across. The documented history of the use of a commonplace book or the likes by prominent figures spans from the philosophical origins to the modern literary writers.

It’s different from diary journalling or travel memoirs, although in this day and age we might find fluidity in the forms which are suitable for our individual style.

You may find plenty of examples online about how to take notes in an app, of which the structure might be applied to your commonplace books. Mine doesn’t have a neat organisation. I rather keep track of it like a diary, so the headings are set to be dates, and subheadings in a different ink are sometimes the book title (like how I copied the quotes from books I read) or activity (Bible in a Year, a reflection, etc.).

I only keep one commonplace book at a time because I need to carry it everywhere I go, particularly during travelling to note down any amusing thoughts and new things I bump into. But over the years, my commonplace books have grown an arm and a leg, and I lost track of how many I’ve had, honestly. More than ten, and I definitely have lost some buried in my childhood home thousands of miles away.

If you’re more organised than me, you may find keeping a proper indexing system quite useful. My housekeeping of commonplace books has been evolving as well. My recent book has its first page left blank for me to write down the index. But given my way of compartmentalising the content by dates, I’m still not sure how to index it so that I can easily find what I need further down the road. By book titles I read, perhaps. For example, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Oct - Nov 2024, page xx — yy. I’ll have it sorted later.

Benefits of commonplacing

• Thinking structurally. Believe it or not, people who are used to writing have better skills in mentally organising their thoughts than those who don’t write regularly. This is because putting abstract and fluid thoughts into words—even in a free writing style which is permissive on grammar and vocab—gives shape to the thoughts.

• Forming a habit of not taking everything for granted. Whether your commonplace books will be read by another person isn’t an issue. You mould a habit for yourself to constantly be aware of your thoughts and information around you. You may filter them out because you understandably can’t copy your brain with unimaginable bytes of information into a mere stapled bunch of paper—your brain will always outrun your motor skill with pen and paper! But because you keep this book, you’ll be used to writing something down when the idea comes to you and not lose it.

• Taking the unnecessary mental clutter off your brain. It’s about a jug and water. You don’t want the jug to overflow. Having the noises fixed onto a sheet of paper means more thoughts can be produced. It’s like sorting your old clothes out of your storage so your space can now breathe.

• Mental capacity. Building upon the point above, now your mental bandwidth can be exercised for more thoughts that you can have a say on. Some interesting, book-worthy, ideas may be born out of these new thoughts. And in a way, commonplacing spurs your creativity.

• An easy no-screen activity to incorporate into your daily routine. I used to use a native Notes app which is synced between my phone and device. But since the mere act of opening my phone can abhorrently lead me to open other apps I didn’t intend to, I minimise my contact with this sneaky little tech piece. A book may be bulky (mine is A4-sized) but it outweighs the mental health issues I got from a phone.

The downsides?

• Search function. This is super personal because depending on your indexing method, you might find it difficult to access the information you need. You may remember years from now that you’ve ever come across a certain poem or a book from which you copied the quotes, but you’re not sure which book it is. Combing through the messily put-together index will have you sit for ages just to find it. But I don’t think that’s unhealthy. I imagine that with years of structured writing habits, our brains will have been trained to retain memories better, so recalling a bit of a thing wouldn’t be much of an issue.

• Physical consumption, perhaps? People could go down the Diderot effect of polishing their stationery pack when they’re sucked into another universe of bullet journalling. But this isn’t unique to writing. You can hoard any physical and digital items. Don’t let this stop you from commonplacing.

The hero’s journey - a year end journal by Sekar

As our 2024 draws to a close, I’d like to share with you my first-ever digital product: an end-of-year journal based on the hero’s journey.

You in Substack are mostly writers. You know how words potently shape our reality: the words we speak to others may build or burn bridges, the email we craft to others may develop our business or remove a potential ally, and that 2 am call with our close friends may save a life.

But most importantly, how we hold our narrative to our body matters to our life.

You can read further here how our body is one system (gut-brain axis and hormones and such). The thoughts we entertain and the words we use to converse internally traverse through our body, energising or weakening it.

(Hence, the journalling, commonplacing, and free-writing to help sort out our thoughts to hopefully build a better narrative)

I invite you to spend some time sitting down with a cuppa or joe to reflect upon your journey this year with this template. You can book the limbo week of the year (between Christmas and New Year) to slow down and ponder. I picked the hero’s journey to inspire and motivate you because each of us has a lifetime worth of a story; each of us is the hero in our story.

You can buy it here (a brief video tutorial is available):

Like commonplacing, you might like it printed and stapled so you can decorate the journal, or just upload the PDF to your favourite digital notetaking app. You do you.

And I hope, with this little act, you may find a seed of change, and in the compounding effect of how the world runs, we may make the world a little better next year.

Two seats left in the storytelling workshop!

This workshop is used together with the journal so that you may fully understand what the hero’s journey is about, how you can use the journey to reflect upon your year, and how my template is a good starting point because you want to not overwhelm yourself with different journal prompts.

Alright, then, I hope you’ll find a space and time to rest during the holiday with your favourite books. Write down the quotes in your commonplace books (if you don’t have a commonplace book, this is a call to start one), and I wish you a joyous week.

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Before you close the tab . . .

The Gentle Roadmap is a publication centred on my reflection on a holistic healing journey. As a practising Catholic, the articles sometimes portray my layperson experience with the faith. If you like my writing and want to be notified of new posts, please subscribe (it’s always free). You’re always welcome here regardless.

Until next time,