Tag: Reena’s Xploration Challenge

Change Your Mind – 23rd October 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 9 Comments

When evidence is not compelling
Even though it’s fishy-smelling
A balance is easy to find
What will it take to change your mind?

To update your view is noble
Even if it’s not seen as global
To admit you were wrongly inclined
What will it take to change your mind?

7th Oct 2024 – Shared with Reena’s Xploration Challenge #350

See the fruits of discipline and skill as the richest pleasures of all.

Robert Greene

Today I’m feeling:
am: flat – pm: happy and enthusiastic
Today I’m grateful for:
Being able to fix the number plate on my bike for just 69 baht. The first shop I tried the guy just pointed down an aisle but didn’t help me at all. I couldn’t find the part I needed so went to another shop instead and the lady there went and got what I needed. She gets my money. I guess I’m also grateful that I never got stopped whilst riding around without the plate for the previous 24 hours.
The best thing about today was:
Finally sitting down to play guitar again after a couple of lazy days. I figured I’d give it ten minutes but ended playing for an hour and a half. Currently reading the Clash bio and hearing about how quickly they became skilled has motivated me a bit more.
Take a selfie.
Not a selfie type.

This is from yesterday. I took this picture because this was the destination that I marked on my map that I almost gave up on a couple of times on the way. I want to go back and I want to keep going!

Get Lost – 25th April 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

How can you be lost
If you don’t know where you’re going?
How much does it cost
To be comfortable with the not knowing?
You take the first step
Outside the familiar loop of each day
And don’t you forget
You got ‘here’ but ‘there’ is a different way

*inspired by The Tiny Wisdom

9th Jun 2024 – Submitted to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #334

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Khalil Gibran

Where Go You, My Friend? – 25th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 12 Comments

I am not what I seem
I have masks to protect you from me
I stay alone in my house
And it will this way forever be

I am simply understood
Because I am a mirror in my ways
Yet you should not trust my deeds
Or my thoughts that reflect your plays

I hide from you my darkness
My skies of purple shadow
As you ascend yourself to Heaven
It’s down to Hell that I go

Your steps are taken with caution
Whilst my madness removes my care
There’s direction to your movement
But I feel it’s not going anywhere

My friend, you are not my friend
But how shall I make you understand?
My path is not your path
Yet together we walk hand in hand

Inspired by a Khalil Gibran parable, with the last four lines lifted word for word. I found this short parable very affecting and particularly relevant to my thoughts on friendship.

25th Mar 2024 – Submitted to WDYS with the above picture prompt

6th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #346

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Oasis restaurant for making yummy vegan food in Chiang Rai.

Same Old Song – 12th July 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 8 Comments

You were a Frankenstein
When I saw you on the screen
I was scared and curious
At the weirdness I had seen

What drew me to it
I don’t really understand
But the thing I knew is
That I wanted to start a band

Your face inspired my generation
Though now you’ll never know
You burned and crashed out
While others took the chance to grow

Ten years or so, later
And others inspired the same
They too destroyed themselves
Cos they couldn’t handle the fame

Exploited to make a buck
It happened again and again
Working hard to get where you were
But it will never be the same

Now little girls chase this dream
To get famous for a minute
As if life was a competition
And everyone has to win it

20th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #348

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the chicken that laid the egg that Amy is about to cook in the kitchen. I hope the chicken is having a good life and not stuck in a factory farm somewhere.

Subject to Change – 21st May 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Every time I found my place
I decided it was time to leave
Comfort never seemed to interest me
I needed something new to believe

But I always remember my friends
And the happiness they bought
I left to spread it further
And find new ideas to report

Shared with Reena’s Xploration Challenge #317

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the little mouse in our living room last night. It was small and cute and impossible to catch. Cap was only vaguely interested in it and scared when it ran at him. Amy brought Kim in from outside and she caught it immediately. She was very happy. I felt a little sorry for the mouse but I know it happens every day outside our living room.

I overheated yesterday, testing myself to see how long I could bear it. I was reading, and it was uncomfortable, but I was trying not to fidget or complain – ultimately, I had to get to some aircon. I was dressed in pants and a long-sleeved shirt, too – all tucked in. A dumb attempt at temperature assimilation!

Amy complains about the heat all the time – well, everyone does – it’s very uncomfortable at the moment. No wonder people go mad in temperatures like this!

Anyway, the result of this was falling asleep deeply in our living room aircon at about 5 pm. Amy woke me up at 7.45 pm to watch some TV, but then I retired to the bedroom to read a little before more sleep.

Whilst reading, Amy rushed in shouting, ‘There’s a rat in the living room!’ I got up quickly to a wild-eyed Amy and a bemused Cappuccino. She said it was behind the TV cabinet but I couldn’t see it. Eventually, she pointed it out, and it was a cute little tiny field mouse, balanced on the black cables from the back of the TV. No wonder I couldn’t see it. Some rat!

We tried to nudge it out so that Cap could have the honour to catch it and save his family from certain death, but he was scared of it and kept running away whenever it came near him. What a cat! Amy ran outside and called Kim Chi whilst I failed in grabbing the little cutie by the tail over and over again.

Cap had given up at this point, and I was chasing this thing whilst laughing my head off. Kim Chi appeared from next doo,r and Amy brought her in and instantly caught the mouse in her mouth. Then I picked her up to take her outside, and in doing this, Kim dropped the mouse and off it ran again.

At one point, the mouse was in the corner right by Kim’s tail, but she was looking the other way, totally unaware. I cracked up. After a couple more minutes, Kim eventually caught it again, and we managed to get outside. I made a feeble attempt to loosen Kim’s jaws to give the mouse a chance but gave up, and she walked off to play with it some more.

I resumed my reading back in the bedroom, wondering if I would be able to sleep after all this excitement. Fortunately, I was able and sleeping so deeply I didn’t even hear the storm in the night, which thankfully lowered the temperature somewhat by the morning.

As I’m writing this, not even 9 am, I can already feel the heat fusing my shirt to my skin with sweat. It’s going to be a long day, but thankfully, the weekend is coming.