T. L. Lim

I used to be an Apple fan and I couldn’t imagine life without Apple. The first stroke of epiphany came when my wife ditched her iPhone and got herself an Android. I played around with her phone and I knew I had been shortchanged all these years using an iPhone. You see, the iPhone is always several years behind other phones. For a long time I couldn’t understand why the iPhone camera did not have a self-timer. It was only halfway through iPhone 4 when Apple decided to include this essential feature in their phones. But I discovered that Android users had for years enjoyed more than the self-timer. Samsung even had the voice control when you want to take a pic. I ditched my iPhone and got myself the latest Samsung and there was no turning back. Because I had discovered what a gem other phones were. But I stuck on to my MacBook Pro because I couldn’t imagine life without a MacBook. Even before the MacBook, I was a PowerBook user. Last week, I needed to get another laptop but Apple which is infamous for not ever listening to their customers (they don’t have customers; they have devotees) have removed all USB ports and SD card readers from their new MacBooks. A month ago, my wife was again the first to try out the new MacBook Pro and she hated it. The external USB port sold by Apple didn’t work very well for her. She switched to a PC notebook and she told me to give it a try which I did last week. I can’t live with a laptop that has no USB ports and no SD card reader and I don’t want external units for these essential items. So I bought myself a PC notebook and wow, I felt like I was Buddha receiving Enlightenment after sitting for days under the bodhi tree (whatever that may be). You see, I discovered to my horror that I had been shortchanged for years. All PC companies do not use the Intel i5 processor because it’s too slow. At most, they leave these crummy processors to their budget low-end computers. But Apple uses only the i5 processor for all their computers, even their high-end MacBook Pro models. Apple users can only hope to use the i7 processors when PC users have gone on to perhaps an i10 processor. Don’t forget, Apple is always years behind its competitors whether we’re talking about the phone or the computer.

Now that I’m using a REAL computer as opposed to a Rotten Apple, I can see how fast everything I do on the computer can be. It’s easier for me to look through thousands of my photos at one go because the PC is just so much faster. You can’t blame an Apple computer. It’s only working on an Intel processor that other computers discard to their budget units. I can now have access to a lot more photos and a lot faster and I found this one which I had overlooked because I used to be a MacBook user.

<img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/32f64af008c0f7acc02e5496ae4dfb5b/tumblr_p1zld6KOnN1tk6duwo1_500.jpg">

<img src="http://68.media.tumblr.com/9ab73ffd57dda9d2c115df914b3714e1/tumblr_os5ml8dK0a1tk6duwo1_1280.jpg" alt="Suntanning" width="738" height=864">

Hedonism has a rather negative connotation these days. It carries with it ideas of debauchery and wanton living. But that was not the original philosophical concept of hedonism. A hedonist has always been one whose philosophical goal and purpose is the pursuit of happiness and pleasure, which is perfectly legitimate, by any standard.

The above photo was taken on 23 June 2017. I had wanted to tan myself in the sun while reading a book and drinking an exotic Chinese plum juice. But as luck would have it, as I was setting up my camera (yes, like most East Asians, I’m a selfie addict), it started to rain. My camera and phone are waterproof but my book is not. I decided not to let the bad weather put me out of humour and so I continued basking in the very light drizzle (which was quite pleasant) while reading from my phone and drinking my exotic plum juice. A hedonist will not let the weather ruin his plan. He makes the best of everything because, really, life is very pleasurable whether you bask in the sun or lie on a mat in the light rain. Later, the rain became a bit heavier, and my happiness scales showed me quite clearly that staying indoors would be more pleasant and so into my house I went.

When I was a boy, I chanced on a book by Edward de Bono called ‘The Happiness Purpose’. As I read the book, I had this curious feeling that de Bono must have by some means of telepathy filched his ideas from me. Because everything he wrote about how to achieve maximum happiness had always been a part of the principles of my life for me since birth. He was vocalising what I had always been practising.

Many people don’t understand what is really meant by the pursuit of happiness and pleasure. They assume that if a person seeks pleasure, he will probably have multiple sex partners, will drink in excess, smoke, do drugs, etc. Nothing is further from the truth than that. Excessive anything only contributes to the destruction of happiness and pleasure. Being faithful to one’s spouse actually goes a long way in contributing to real happiness and pleasure. But of course we are all not the same and we aren’t all immersed in the same circumstances and so what works for me may not do so for others. We all have our different routes to happiness and the purpose of life is to find the best route to maximum happiness and pleasure.

One universal truth I have discovered is that if you allow anything negative into your life, it’s sure to take away your happiness and pleasure. It may seem to give you pleasure or happiness in the short term but it’s sure to be ultimately inimical to happiness and pleasure in the long term. Long term happiness is much more desirable than a fleeting one. Hatred and evil (the two most negative forces) must be firmly repudiated. You must avoid people who are out to hurt you but you must never hate them or plot their ruin. Hate and evil are self-destructive forces that must be the hedonist’s greatest enemy.

Be a hedonist – make the best of everything and always see the funny side of everything. And never allow negative forces to enter your heart.

I have long realised that there are some of us who are born artistic and some of us who are sadly not. If the artistic ones were to play a musical instrument, you could tell they are talented. If they go into photography, you can be sure their talent can be seen in the photos that they take. Many things in my life have convinced me that I am not one of these artists and I'm quite accepting of that. Not everyone is an artist.

An artist is one who has an eye for beauty. I just saw this pic which was taken by Jacques Marie and immediately, I was stunned by its beauty. I mean just look at it. In the pic, you can see me getting myself photographed but as usual, I chose the wrong angle. That's because I have no eye for beauty. I just wanted my pic to be taken with the cows and I forgot the mountains in front of me.

<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Pdr2dGvA3JSgn3qBA4h16xQuEV7vmvG4hlPKssfZbcDG_AclCGPSVb2kjWjN1Ulz9-jgsq8Yar-kwZks2NN3wHiEAu_lfYEKNKWcdauZlRf8Mc-PniRTlqRjcPK-A5TBNV5LJsYKpc0aUTAl9qPeUUYSjV8jJN5mMqoIvsNFiMfLgIQBMBEhEXoLfMi2lb5gDKwU0YdnzBHkYyqh3fAOOBm3tzjJQ0IFV59bOOFQJkedcmNlc9rZm1GDWnVYhcoNiIuOiS9xOxabcQsVx631GceOrGpjFqrC01DR7dfLbXDGHXxwMUKKUTAldxSz4HBFDRfAT8c2qano28HfveNIrr6yj0Scu-_ErzXE5NpsRtZFcCCvT-gt_sAWuj5cOud3V-84ZsF-VRY0uAK9bzZxzNGYkvDQpiUuJxYieuRQjCpr6kmNaNXXS7u_yXE85-eHLj26-hMHPIUYTjiKp3fs2vOIa82vJ4z02wCLgeiW1vqoGl-8voXdH36cW4dPNWSsPqgSJskAaUXz_isXUl_dWxPqSGcpYDsKIUAppr9AFRAeGpRk49VpMKCgD4IgaUqLyKebYK6uqagg366tfm8bOkXE1dXHjRB3kBJtsQ0L_AF2VGHUKGYiidbRMQRAUZuR7dCQHjIXmZXEhPNJw4gd4hlTmFUOlrPXUOt6tqotRGQ=w660-h398-no">

I have decided that for this year's NEWT 2017, I will look out for a good scenery before I take pics. I must be alert for beautiful photo opportunities. People who are just like me, ie those who lack artistic talent can still take good pics but we have to consciously look out for the beauty around us. Frequently, because the mountains are so beautiful, we become so intoxicated by the surrounding beauty that we forget that some angles are more beautiful than others.

<img src="http://68.media.tumblr.com/53d96941f6c8953b78a9de134d1fa52e/tumblr_okfwp078YD1tk6duwo1_1280.jpg">

Happy New Year!!! It’s the Year of the Cock or if I must consider American sensitivity, the Year of the Rooster. You may not realise it but it’s probably one of the oldest new year celebrations in the world. It probably started in 2300 BC (that’s more than 2000 years before Christ!) but celebrations were on a small scale then. The celebrations became bigger when the New Year was turned into a religious ceremony in the Shang Dynasty (1766 BC – 1122 BC).

It was only in the Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220) that bamboo was first placed in fire to make a loud cracking sound and loud sounds were thought to chase away the forces of evil. That explains the connection of bamboo trees with the Chinese New Year or any Chinese painting for that matter. As you can see, I’m standing among bamboo trees for good effect.

It was only in the Wei Dynasty (AD 220 – AD 265) when fireworks were first used for new year celebrations.

But celebrants are usually required to put on red clothes, red being the traditional auspicious colour. Going nude while wishing others “Xin nian kuai le” or “Happy New Year” is not really what Confucian scholars would approve. But I thought since my skin was already burnt to almost a red hue, I was good enough to pass off as the auspicious colour.

I don't want to sound like a hypochondriac but we naturists should feel comfortable with our bodies and we should go for regular check-ups just to ensure we are ok. I say this because recently, a friend of mine who's only two years older than me discovered he had Stage 4 prostate cancer. And he looks even healthier and more energetic than most of us. Most of us neglect going for health screening because we usually just don't think we'd get it.

Last November, I did my colonoscopy and I also went for all the cancer markers which proved negative. The PSA which is a marker for prostate cancer was normal – 2.4 – anything under 4 is normal. But I understand that the PSA can sometimes be unreliable. This afternoon, I saw my urologist who did a prostate ultra-sound scan and a physical examination (the latter of which is rather uncomfortable). My knowledge of the human anatomy is quite inadequate – before today, I didn't exactly know where the prostate was and I was a little surprised when the urologist told me what he was going to do. I almost reminded him it was a prostate examination and not to see if I had piles.

Anyway, he said I was in perfect condition, at least, urologically. Some of my friends think I'm a hypochondriac and perhaps I am. But if you think about it, a simple check up that doesn't take up much time and apart from a minor discomfort was totally painless can save us from something as serious as cancer.

My advice is just go for it. Better be a hypochondriac and live.

Yesterday, a friend posted something on my social media to ask me to recommend a pair of hiking boots. I gave him the brand I use and I seized the opportunity to tell him about where I had used them to hike in last year and I included both my nude hiking in the mountains of Taiwan and of course the NEWT Alpine hiking. My kid who read it told me, 'But he only wanted a recommendation of boots and you went into a long story about naturist hiking'. But you see, I had an agenda. This morning, I reaped the reward. A friend of mine who was dead opposed to naturism and who would always avoid any post of mine about naturism posted something on that thread. She spoke about my recommendation at great length. You may ask what's the big deal?

Here's the big deal. When we talk about our own naturist experiences and we continue to talk about them, a time will come when the idea of nudity becomes normal and acceptable. I believe the world is so negative towards naturism because of sheer ignorance about it. When 99.999% of nude photos on the internet are pornographic in nature and many naturists are hiding their faces and genitals or turning their backs to the camera, what chance is there for nudity to be normalised in the minds of this degenerate world? If we keep posting our decent nude photos without covering our faces as if we were ashamed of nudity and without hiding our genitals as if genitals were obscene and should be concealed and if we keep talking about naturism and our naturist holidays and our naturist lifestyle, there must come a time when people are so used to seeing and hearing about decent nudity that it is no longer viewed with disapproval. That is when they are able to draw a distinction between nudity and pornography.

I have always taken the opportunity to talk about naturism in as unobtrusive a way as I can. Even at my aunt's funeral when my cousins asked me about my holidays, I somehow found my way to talk about my naturist holidays. Especially in my society, people sometimes just can't believe that I'm openly talking about nude hiking. They sometimes ask in shock, 'Did you just say nude? Nude as in naked? Totally naked?' I will invariably treat the question as if the person is concerned if I might be barefoot and what if I injured my foot? So I will tell him that of course I have boots on and nothing else. When I proceed in this vein, I'm forcing my listener to accept that nudity is natural. If you do this ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, you either lose your friend or you've made him or her accept naturism. My experience is you don't really lose a friend. That doesn't happen. But while you may make him or her accept nudity as decent, converting the person into a naturist is quite a different thing altogether. They usually remain firmly textile but I have no problem with that. All I want is for the person to accept naturism as decent. That's all.

If all of us do our part, the day of enlightenment will come soon enough upon the textile world.

Just the other day, I was out with a group of friends when someone commented that my shoes were orange in colour. ‘You are quite daring,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in orange shoes.’ Another friend immediately retorted, ‘Oh, wearing orange shoes is nothing for him. He dares to do more than that. He dares to go about naked.’ The first guy then said, ‘I guess if you dare to go naked, you dare to do anything. You can have no more shame.’

The concept of shame has a long history in Chinese philosophy. More than 3,000 years ago, Chinese philosophers have been debating about the question of shame. The debate culminated in Confucius summing up in his own eloquent words his rather warped idea of shame. According to Confucius, shame is an essential human trait. A man who has no shame is no better than an animal. But to Confucius, a cultured man or woman must feel shame if he or she transgresses any one of the many ancient precepts. These precepts demand strict conformity to tradition and rituals.

The tradition and rituals include (among many things) how a gentleman or lady should be dressed. The idea of going about naked would be anathema to Confucius. Confucius scholars will no doubt declare that a naturist is the ultimate shameless being who is no better than an animal. This may explain why there are so few naturists among people of Chinese descent.

When my friends said that there was nothing I wouldn’t dare to do because I had no problem going around naked, they were merely repeating this warped concept of shame.

But they are totally wrong. It’s not true that naturists have no shame at all. I would be most ashamed if I told a lie. I’d be terribly ashamed if I were guilty of discourtesy or an act of unkindness. I would be overwhelmed by guilt and shame if I behaved in an unjust manner towards another human being. But I’m not ashamed if I’m nude because there is nothing in the human body that is evil or indecent.

The traditionalists have got it all wrong. It’s true that a good person should not be incapable of feeling shame. But he should only feel ashamed if he has done something that hurts or harms another person.

Christmas is always a busy time for me. I got up very early this morning to get to church in time to tune my instrument and to do some final rehearsals with the rest of the orchestra. But I do try to put in a word about naturism whenever I can. Today, at breakfast between services, I managed to engage another musician in a conversation and I spoke about naturism. He asked a very pertinent question. After telling him that I reject the worldview that nudity is obscene or inappropriate, he asked why anyone would bother to go hiking naked. I was telling him about NEWT and hence the topic of hiking in the nude. He said you could always accept that there is nothing indecent about nudity but you don't have to go hiking in the nude just to prove that nudity is decent.

It again boils down to the question of sincerity. What's the point of saying that nudity is natural but I keep my clothes on all the time? And there is this point about staking our claim. If all we can do is to have an intellectual acknowledgement that nudity is natural and decent but we don't do anything about it, the day will come when we'll lose all our right to go naked.

This is one insidious thing that naturists must guard against. Naturism is not just an academic point. It's a right that we should lay a claim on. Naturists must continually practise naturism. We have to live it and not just give it mental assent.

Hence the importance of NEWT and other such activities. Multiculturalism is now very much a buzzword in our world and the day may come when sensitivity to a foreign culture (usually religion) may demand that we don't go nude. And if we haven't been engaging in nude activities, we can't insist on continuing with something we haven't even started to do.

Tonight I was at a neighbour's house for a Christmas party and again I had the opportunity of talking to some of the people about naturism. The more we talk about it, the more 'normal' it will appear to people around us. That is why those of us who are prepared to be open about our naturism should really be open about it. Closet naturism is totally ineffective in spreading the seeds of naturism.

Those are the things I did this Christmas day.

My purpose for writing this is two-fold. First, I want to give thanks. Next, I want to encourage EVERYONE (especially naturists because we tend to be healthy or we may think we're healthy) who's around my age or older to go for a a health check up. The second part is probably more important than the first.

For some time, I've been troubled about colon cancer. I have friends who have this cancer (it's the most common cause of cancer death for non-smokers. Almost everyone else I know has gone for a colonoscopy. When I told my wife that I'd be going for NEWT 2017, she urged me to go for my full check up first. She reasoned that it wouldn't be fair to the rest if I developed some health problems and we were up on an Alpine mountain. So I decided that I would do my test before I send in the booking for NEWT 2017.

I have just got home from the hospital and the first thing I did was to do this pic:

<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oNfmR5QB2jjoRLi2shMzhnw9Vmiqi7ynjOTDNxAfWWSEpHhdNvqPifNgBcTzov7MZ4z4Ks_ZowaaZn19Z3c6FzKmSRzqwz7lQyYWQpk4XYm9lOArvqwij3j1QJmlTplSeWah6F0uZ4tDaU-Sws2KLHNU2F4zpCTZ9mKcjPbhYOUFnbl1kcXjlHuyGkM3bIe3C0r_Tu0Hvo0cWqiXv1B2_4DzB5Ga5y1d17hHtEkpTMX4yyAjvmxJDy_s24nqDevX3jjYgKdwkjlD4oI3yvjsmMK2KU21lVOU1HQjXpeTERbZVUlU2RNAtWawMcCuPRpA8Yi8Sf0qgAVdTEvgLCtfw6M9YXnJfMBflqx8iHoV6doiy996hhPofUccFzwTZh1SurovrF9HDU9fj48k9AN5zyA1ogfpMGbAjm67hg7O_XGlRTkcWRRMpWRC0oIP8qyh1927wYP3crrnoEhGiPxAVL1VIjWbuCjVEDZ7gg2YRpFcjEY3Q8MlXtRz7dJHxsfr58A62ZUPzWMuVyy9N9ziWEZgY1tvN9_mtFqXoEWPX-8G3JOW_-u5rswomYpyyktuR1noeqOmj7acRt-8ANQsr6TQWs9-DkQMLPbfcWBlc2tGNF3sLA=w300-h750-no">

On my left hand is the full report of all the tests I did – colonoscopy, endoscopy (gastroscopy) and a full blood test with all the cancer markers. I had a great all-women set of doctors. My gastroenterologist was superb and really professional. She not only did a good job, she explained everything to me very clearly. She told me that I woke up as soon as the procedure was over and the first thing I said was, "Any cancer?" and when she replied in the negative, I fell asleep again. LOL

My anaesthetist was really good too. She knocked me out effectively and I didn't wake up even for a second while the procedures were being done. I've heard horrendous stories of people waking up in the middle of a colonoscopy but I was asleep throughout. I woke up just for a few seconds after everything was over and I slept again and woke up just after five minutes of being transferred to the recovery room. Even my phlebotomist who took my blood for the blood test was excellent – she did such a good job that I didn't even feel a pin prick.

I'm holding the Holy Bible on my right hand. OK, I'm not exactly a religious chap but I felt I should at least give thanks to all that is good and pure and true, however you wish to term it.

All the tests were negative which means I'm most definitely going to be at NEWT 2017 barring accidents and other unpredictable factors.

My advice to everyone is to go for these tests. There is no reason not to go for them. You may not believe it but one reason why I didn't want to go for the tests was I really didn't want to know it if I had cancer. I was that STUPID. The fact is if they detect anything harmful, early detection is always a life-saver. So, my fellow naturists, don't make the same mistake I made. We naturists need to be healthy since there are so few of us. Go for the tests NOW and may all of us be healthy and strong enough to go hiking at NEWT 2017. See you there!

As a daily selfie taker and one who can't live without snapping a photo every few seconds, I'm naturally quite interested in photography. Every time I travel, I take many many more photos than when I'm at home. NEWT 2016 afforded me an opportunity to compare my own photos with those taken by others. There are thousands of photos in total and one thing is clear to me – although I take a lot of photos, most of my photos aren't really all that great.

It's very easy for me to blame it on the quality of my camera which is the idiot-proof automatic kind but there are many in NEWT who don't use the DSLR camera either and yet they take great photos. Richard, Ian, John and many others don't use the DSLR and yet there is something about their photos that seems lacking in mine.

I now know what it is. I haven't got an eye for a good photo opportunity. Sometimes when I see one of them taking a pic, I take the same pic but when I look at both pics, mine somehow isn't quite there. It's that 'blindness' in me that makes my wife sometimes quite mad with me – I don't seem to notice many things around me. It's like when we enter a restaurant and I don't notice friends who are seated in it but my wife whose range of vision seems to extend beyond the outer extremities of my normal visual range is able to spot them immediately. I've examined other people's photos very carefully. They just seem to know how to get their photos right from the angle they take the pics and what photographers call the 'composition' of the photo.

There are many excellent photographers in NEWT and there is no space in this short write-up to mention them all. Yesterday I showed a few photos taken by Jacques Marie and Pascal to my wife and kids and they were particularly stunned by the beauty of the scenery as captured in these photos. As my wife rightly pointed out, my own photos are huge in quantity but small in quality. Some of the photos taken by Jacques Marie and Pascal seem to have been taken from a height and one gets to see the entire valley and all the mountains and in the distance, one sees a line of naturists hiking in the sun and oh my God! – that's me in the red cap right smack in the midst of such an incredibly beautiful scene.

One of my kids then made the suggestion that I should buy a Phantom drone. That will be unbeatable. Taking pics that show the mountains, the valley and all of us hikers would be a cinch if I used a drone. It would be like having a mechanical Jacques and Pascal up in the sky snapping pics – any selfie-addict's dream. But I dismissed the idea completely. If I want to use the drone, I need to check on the laws of the different countries regarding this. I need to know if there are military installations nearby and I certainly don't want to end up in an Austrian prison. And it's really not practical. A drone is quite heavy and bulky and I can't imagine lugging it around with me when I prefer to travel light. It's certainly not suitable for the kind of hiking that we do. A drone drains up its power very quickly and I'll end up carrying it around more than flying it. It's absolutely out of the question.

I suppose in the final analysis, there is no need for a drone. If my pics don't look good, there are at least 30 other people whose pics look much better. And besides, my pics only don't look good when they are compared with other people's pics. By themselves, they are impressive enough. And all I've to do is to be on the lookout for good photo opportunities. And honestly, when you're on the Alps, even a badly taken photo looks stunning.

For the past few days, I've been posting censored pics of NEWT on my Facebook account. Censoring the pics is essential because of FB's rules and the law of my country. My FB friends include a few high-ranking government people, bishops, priests, monks and all kinds of people you would expect to frown on naturism. I posted the photos and explained what we did and what we saw. Most Asian people don't hike in the Alps. They have visited all the tourist attractions in Europe but they just don't go hiking. They must have found my postings interesting.

I have noticed one thing about my attempts at promoting naturism. Whenever I'm home from a naturist outing and I post the photos taken at the naturist resort or place and I show my face clearly, people tend to soften towards naturism. The fact that I'm a family man helps. People generally expect a family man to be more 'responsible' and more conservative in my country and they take what I have to say more seriously.

And of course I had a lot to say about what naturism is all about on many of my FB posts. My daughter told me that it was obvious to her that I was 'on a mission to preach naturism'.

And it worked. A few people I know who have all along been most upset about my earlier posts on nudity actually made a few positive remarks. Of course in Asia we still have a long way to go. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that anti-nudity sentiments are extremely high still and I did lose a few FB friends for the postings I made on FB but that's to be expected. I'll continue doing what I believe to be correct and if there are still those who are offended, well, I wasn't born to please everybody.

It would be ungrateful of me not to thank the many participants of NEWT 2016 and the organisers for the MANY photos they have shared with the rest of us. When I took hundreds of photos at NEWT, I thought they were the best naturist photos I'd ever taken in my entire life. Most of them were selfies. But when I started downloading the photos taken by others, I was simply amazed to see how much better they were. Most of the pics of myself that I posted on FB were taken by other people because they are so much better than the photos of me taken with my own camera. I want to thank all the photographers for taking pics and for sharing them. And I want to thank everyone who re-tweets my pics on twitter. What the world badly needs is a deluge of decent nude photos. Most nude photos on the internet are pornographic in nature and that may explain why the world thinks nudity is sexual. The only way to correct this imbalance is for there to be more online photos of decent nudity.

If my diehard anti-nudity friends can have a change of heart, so can others. 🙂