May 21, 2025. Tony came to Ben wanting to share some life lessons he’d like to leave his currently 4-year-old niece! We push and pull at the life advice Tony has come to, his ongoing journey that brought him to them, and Tony shares many quotes from different figures that have shaped his current worldview.

Content warning: we mention the Ian Fang sexual assault case

Tony is currently residing in the overcrowded cage that is Singapore City. He aims to stay human for the rest of his life. That's a big enough project for him. IG at @the_seasons_still_change

Ben talks about movies on his film podcast at deepcutpod.com, and writes about film at thekinetoscope.com. He lived a past life working in film production. Find him online at benjaminyap.me 

Links:

Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise 

The Space
This episode was recorded in a Public Living Room, a crowd-funded community space in 195 Pearl Hills Terrace. If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to help us keep recording, please support the Stranger Conversations crowdfund. This supports their mission to build a third place at the intersection of self-exploration and collective good. You can follow them on Instagram @strangerconvos or go to linktr.ee/strangerconvos where you can find links to the crowdfund and find out more about what they do.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:58 Relationship with the space

09:48 Reason behind the topic

13:54 Maintaining your inner child

22:21 Education and parenting

31:14 How Tony rediscovered his inner child

40:08 Experience of the sublime

43:25 Recovering from trauma

48:17 Wariness and maturity

54:57 Tension between wisdoms

01:01:45 Iron ricebowl question

01:03:09 Tony plays the piano for us