The one difference I have noted is that it's made me more tender to my students and to young people particularly. It's made me mellower. I began to have a different perspective, because I may not be around much longer to be hassled by life's pressures.
Shirley Geok-lin LimThis condition [irony] has nothing to do with writer's block, a psychological syndrome, which is one of the few I have not diagnosed for myself!
Shirley Geok-lin LimI feel compassionate, because I know [students] all have to go down this road of suffering and it's going to be tough.
Shirley Geok-lin LimSaul Bellow has that character in Henderson the Rain King say: "I want, I want, I want!"9 I remember reading this passage years ago and thinking, yes, that's the human.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim