I’ve told this story to multiple people now, so much so that it makes sense for me to write a blogpost about it. I was on the bus with my wife one day, around 2020 or 2021, when I found myself getting inexplicably anxious. And I kinda managed to figure out what it was, or at least triangulate it somewhat: we were in the east of Singapore, and we were on a bus, and the sun was beginning to set. All of these in concert triggered an emotional flashback to when I was a teenager, and I would be staying out late with friends, and I would be heading home– and I would be in trouble with my parents, because it was already dark when I got home.

I decided to explicitly ‘repattern’ this feeling of anxiety by going to Tampines Bus Interchange– where I spent a great deal of time in my youth (ages 10-21) – and sitting there to watch the sun go down. I hadn’t been there much in the decade since, because my wife and I moved to Yishun, which is a whole ‘nother part of Singapore.

It worked. I wrote a thread about it. I’ll update this post further in the future the next time I feel compelled to talk about it.