What does “Family” mean for Isaac?
I build ecosystems of belonging—spaces, programs, and stories that help individuals rise through opportunity, training, and mentorship. With lived experience in recovery and a foundation in non-profit work, I’m committed to empowering others to rise above, defy gravity and grow.
When we use language, we often mean different things because of different life experiences and life stories.
Darryl Lim 00:00
What does FAMILY mean for you?
Isaac 00:02
Father And Mother, I Love You.
Darryl Lim 00:05
Okay, okay.
Isaac 00:09
I think family is something that... there's only two things we can't change in this world: our family and our place of birth. Family is our, I would say, it's our first comic contract, and everyone who is born into a family, your child or your parents. Family is a means of learning from each other. It's the first lesson to parents to show that there are things beyond your control. You can shape the kid in however way you want, but they will never listen until you stop trying. Okay, the more you try to control, the more you don't get what you want. I think that's a common lesson across all families. And then you go into the families who lost children. I always have this idea that families who lose children are... there is something that the parents have to learn. Okay, I would say when we talk about purpose, purpose in life, some children's purpose is they are brought into this world to help the parents learn something, to resolve some unresolved learnings, or issues, within themselves to help the parents grow, so that the parents can use the experience to do something. I think we're all intertwined in the tapestry, this very, very complex tapestry called existence. But we don't see how the tapestry is being weaved, how it all ties in together at some point. Um, but it starts with the family. Your family is the first thread. And through this, our family, our place of birth, is where we start on this whole yarn of existence. As we walk and move along, we interact with every other threads. Um, every other knots, every other family, and how we choose to either tighten the knot and make it even harder to resolve, or we start pulling at different threads and unfolding some knots as we go along. We help, either we help others, or others help us, or some of us have... we're not knotted, but we are weaved. Yes, it's not a knot, but it's a weave. So when you talk about knots, it's more like those who kinked out -- like something they need to resolve -- and once they resolve, they become a weave, where a weave is like once everything at home and family is settled, you can go on to help others resolve the knots, or you can go on to continue helping others with the yarn. Um, basically making a difference in in other people's lives, but it starts from the family first.
Darryl Lim 03:01
Yeah, it makes sense, but I want to clarify that this yarn that you're talking about is a metaphor for existence, or what?
Isaac 03:13
A metaphor for relationships. We all meet so many people in our daily lives, and sometimes there's this feeling called [sonder], which I learned a few months ago. Not sure if you've heard of this word before, [sonder]. [Sonder] is a sense and a feeling. It's a sudden sense of sudden feeling of [sonder], like a ponderment, of how like... it's this sudden realization that as you walk along your street, right, and you look at other people, right, that all of them have their own yarn that is, their own yarns, in their own little corner of the tapestry of existence. Their yarn crosses each other, but it doesn't meet. You get it?
Darryl Lim 04:04
Yup, so it's almost like everyone has their own life and complexity.
Isaac 04:12
Yes, and you may never know what they are feeling at all. Sometimes I just stare, I look and stare. And some people I meet, I just feel an extreme empathy for? Like sometimes, to the extent that you can see the hard work in their eyes, how much they've been through. It's just the energetic sense that this person needs a win. This person needs some form of blessing. Yeah, then I just mutter a silent prayer for them and move on. But yet, knowing that I cannot be much help either way, and it shouldn't be on anyone to to save the world, or to be the savior of everyone. It's more of like, what can we do with what we have to give a little, it doesn't have to be money, it doesn't be time. It can be just even a silent acknowledgement and a support that I think on a deeper sense, people do feel and sense it.
Darryl Lim 05:19
How did you come to this? Come to define relationship, people, existence with this yarn? How did you arrive at this kind of like image and definition?
Isaac 05:36
I guess I'm a very visual person. I see things in my mind first, and I know that language is a translation of ideas, and how proficient you are at a language determines how well you can communicate your ideas in that certain language. So when I think about the tapestry of life, as a figure of speech, it has already existed for a long time, the tapestry of life. And then we break it down into... contextualize into how our individual... how we fit into this tapestry. See that we are just a string... not the most accurate, because we are young. We do meet other yarns. And then slowly we form knots. We form relationships. We form, you know, weaves, and then all this, and then they... other yarns also form from weaves. Other people do form their own weaves, and together you come and make a tapestry of life.
Darryl Lim 06:36
Okay, but how did you come to this realization that LIFE IS A TAPESTRY?
Isaac 06:43
It's my experience in prison. I mean, I have met my guide. So in a sense, I have been exposed to concepts and ideas that usually I wouldn't get a chance to get into the state of mind, but once the awareness is there, yeah, I mean, people can go into... many people can go into prison and come out different. I guess the difference is on the reflection, the awareness. What do you look out for? I think we all can look at the same image and the same scenery, but we notice different things. When I look at people, I notice the things that people don't usually notice, and I commend them and name them, for example, like, oh my gosh, your nose is really unique and special. And then they'll be like, no one has ever told me that before, but okay, they don't know if the compliment or not, but it's just for me, deep down, I want the underdogs to have a win. I really champion the people who... I believe that there is so many... that people can stand out. They just need an opportunity to, a platform to, and reason to [stand out].
Darryl Lim 08:05
How did you come to reflect on all these? Because not everyone would naturally go and reflect. How did you personally realize that, okay, I need to think about life again, and then your reflection starts, and then the concepts come. How did you start that process?
Isaac 08:24
It really started that in prison, the second time I went in, and then you get into a room, and then the doors close on you, the metal doors just close, and sound echoes throughout the room, and you know that, oh shit, this is where you gonna spend the next 10 months of your life? Leave this alone with your own thoughts. Many people will find a way to pass time. I will read books to pass time also, but I think the books does, the books does figure certain sense of how do I apply, and suddenly, the books I read give me an image of something where I okay. So since young, I've always, I've always dog-ear pages where I really found that the concepts are interesting. Concepts are interesting or things that I will say out, I will read out in a voice-acting kind of voice. So like in fantasy books, I will dog-ear those, those pages where, you know, there's something philosophical and something, uh, something cool that I want to say out, and then hear myself saying it out. So the same goes for self-help books and psychology books and philosophy books. It's all things that I want to reflect upon. I will dog-ear. I'll read. I'll say it out, and then I will listen to myself saying it, then it will be applied. I don't really reflect so much upon it, but I do know that they're all building blocks, I would say, building blocks towards a certain ideology. I've always been a man, someone of breadth, and not depth. So I believe that all these ideas across disciplines have helped me look at existence and look at life, at a kind of semi-detached level, and a zoomed out level of, not so much I'm higher than everyone, but more of I'm observing everyone. I kind of have a top-down view, or detached view of existence and life, especially when I'm in this kind of state of mind, where a question comes into mind, when a question comes and then you sort of take a step back from just from being enamored in your daily existence, and just look at life. I think the very first thing that started this whole thing was when I understood the word awe (A-W-E). Like the sense of awe, the feeling of awe. We always think ourselves as part of the world, but we don't. We just don't know how big the world is. It's very easy to have confidence in small successes, but then you realize that that small success, within that few 1000 people that you met or spoke to, they are 10,000s. There are 100,000s, and there are millions of the people that is beyond your scope of imagination. And when you start to think from the down-up, and then you arrive at the level where it's like, "I cannot fathom," and then you're just in awe of the entire state of being, the enormity of existence, the enormity of the universe, the enormity of how small we are in this whole tapestry of life, and when you go down this road of thinking, it's very easy to be realistic, like, then, does it matter? What matters? Then what do I do? But then, since I've always been rooting for the underdog, I always know that there is power in how one person with a strong enough story can inspire many more to come together and then share their stories and inspire more and more and more. And I think together, people can make waves.
Darryl Lim 12:58
Maybe to wrap things up. Let's say we move along to your metaphor of this tapestry of life, as well as the weaving and the yarn. How would you describe UNDERDOGS? How do they fit in, in this tapestry? What would the image for underdogs be?
Isaac 13:19
They are yarns. But not woven into enough of the tapestry to find doors and doorways and paths that can lead to where you want to go, whether is it for lack of opportunity, lack of connections, or lack of platforms, they just need to be woven into the right... to someone well connected enough or driven enough to give them the opportunity and path and connection and doorways that will allow them to make mistakes, a safe space to make mistakes, a safe space to explore and then a safe way to guide them gently on the way that they want to go to figure out what they want, which path they want to take, I would say. But if they're not even woven into the whole yarn right, it's very difficult. A yarn can, yeah, they can go out and knock doors and explore, but the basic structural experience is not there, it doesn't support the desire or the ability to go and knock on doors. So, yeah, it really takes this one person to champion them, [and] they will have some place to go.
Darryl Lim 14:28
Would you consider yourself an underdog?
Isaac 14:30
I've always thought I was an underdog, but the more I meet other underdogs, the more I feel like maybe I'm not that much of an underdog, but by coincidence and by God's will or by the universe pushing, all my experiences, they have brought me into something that I think it's a very... I would say it's a different form of motivation? People always ask, oh my gosh, your gym all this, why you don't target all those expats? People with money? This kind of thing. But it takes a certain kind of like motivation to want to create something like this, like to create pathways for people. For the Underdogs.
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