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One Date, Two Destinies: A Book Release

Hello, everyone!

Happy Malaysia Day to all of you who are from Malaysia!

On another and related note, those of you who know me probably know that I am a big fan of Lee Kuan Yew. 

Well, that’s a bit of a small understatement. I mean, it would have to be for someone who was somehow so moved that he decided to write an entire book about Lee Kuan Yew, which is by the way exactly what I did. 

This Malaysia Day, 16 September, I’m very happy to announce the release of “One Date, Two Destinies: Lee Kuan Yew and the Birth of Malaysia and Singapore”, at a (Malaysia Day) discount!

Pick it up here or here:
https://victortanws.gumroad.com/l/september16th 

Also, here’s a sample that you can have a look at to preview the contents!

One-Date-Two-Destinies-Lee-Kuan-Yew-and-the-Birth-of-Malaysia-and-Singapore-SAMPLE-1Download

This was a fun project to engage in, writing about the entire track of Lee Kuan Yew’s history from his birth up until the end. 

I think it is crucial to look back at the past to understand history better, and this is one of the first things that a person will understand, I think, if they look just a little bit beneath the surface of Malaysian history and that which we call Malaysia. 

I don’t think that there is quite a project that is like this, but I think that it was an extremely fun one – It contains many of my own personal reflections about Mr. Lee and the role that he played in Malaysia and Singapore, and in our shared history together, one that was born from a time of what can rightfully be called trauma. 

I hope that you will find it meaningful and valuable for your own personal development and growth even as you reflect on these stories. 

Thank you for your support in advance if you would like to purchase the book!

Yours, 

V.

A Small Thought On Equilibria

As you know, I recently lost quite a lot of weight, maintaining all of my muscle ever since the beginning of the year – people consider it a great success and I do as well, but the question arises:

Why did I have to lose weight again in the first place?

It was because I fell off.

Succeeding at something is always temporary, it is fleeting; the person who becomes fit, intelligent, strong, or rich occupies the position only for a brief while, whether “brief” in the sense of the 70+ year median lifespan that notates the lease on a human existence, or for the months or years that attend complacency after the euphorias of success.

From trying to lose weight and succeeding and losing it again, I’ve come to realize that life is about our little equilibria – the things that we maintain and keep up at little mental cost because they are habit; the things we repeatedly do so much to the point that it’s unthinkable that we wouldn’t do them; the workout, the music practice, the sales process, the managing of people, the filming, the socializing – everything is about those little equilibria and refining them.

I was able to cut down from 79kg in November 2025 to 69 in March because I understood that fact, and I managed to live it out – but does that mean that I’ve managed to reach an equilibrium?

Could I repeat the set of activities that have led to my being able to achieve this result without thinking about it, without worrying, without even considering the question of whether I need X, Y, or Z with no deep application of effort because it all comes naturally?

I think I need to grow along the way to make it happen, but I think we’re getting there 🙂

On Learning From A Mentor

One thing that you learn from being on this planet for a while is that at times, you may actually end up better than a lot of other people at other things, but at the same time you have to be open to learning because others can teach you things that you may not know.

The thing is, though, the fact that a mentor may know things that you may not know doesn’t mean that you should tune out, allow them to be the sole source of inspiration or knowledge – no; listening to another person and echoing everything they do as a parrot does is an invitation to ruin.

Some mentors are more experienced and others less, but I think that this is true.

For a bit of context, I am currently learning the cello and also how to DJ formally, with guided instructors.

To say the least at the moment, this is the most learning-dense period that I’ve had in my life, with a lot of transformations ongoing that I would never have imagined or thought possible at my age – and I look forward to what’s coming next, imperfections and all, as I navigate and respond to these new challenges that somehow I’ve found myself capacity for 🙂 

A Small Project

A small thing that not everyone might have noticed is this:

I’ve lost about 8kg from November till now (we started at 79kg), or 5.7, if you’re looking at the first recorded picture in which I started tracking my journey.

I like the idea of weight loss, and how it makes a person think about how to manage their life – how they eat, how you push yourself, how they think about the world; all of these things offer different and interesting points of reflection, because they’re all related to a broader question:

How do we allocate our resources and time to condition ourselves towards optimality and decide how we look and how we feel?

What you eat basically encompasses the physical things that you choose to consume or digest – if you don’t deal with that properly by deciding correctly what you should or shouldn’t eat, you’ll end up in trouble because the resources that you’re putting in decide what kind of physique or body you’re going to get.

On the other hand, how you push yourself in the gym decides what muscles grow stronger, how they stabilize and what will recover – how hard you push yourself in the gym and when you do so affects what your body will direct resources towards and in turn the direction of the healing process.

Lastly, how you think about the world is key – it decides whether you will work or if you will rest, even your attitude towards rest and life at large, even as you shape yourself as a thinking person and in the different and broader aspects of your life.

Embarking on this journey was unexpected but has been deeply rewarding, and I’m looking forward to sharing more (gratuitous shirtless pics? We hope not but I think it’ll be at that point LOL) on my new Instagram feed, @fitsepup, which you can follow right over here!

Thank you for reading, and catch you in the next ones!