Singapore's Weakness (1)

I was looking through my old Mac desktop when, in the dustiest folder of them, I found an article from an interview with Mr Stanley Tan, Chairman of SIngapore's National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre. And then I saw this screenshot of a  news article on Straits Times:

"Singaporeans’ weak civic responses and an over-reliance on the law may be an unintended consequence of successful inculcation of a key government doctrine: that only a strong state can deal with the visceral pulls and permanent fault lines of race and religion. Distrusting citizens’ ability to talk through differences, some Singaporeans seem trigger-happy in their zeal to police the frontiers of religious harmony. "

That just stuck on me. What is it about our people? Why was this screenshot made? It better be of some great importance. I don't just snip of articles from the newspaper for random reasons. So this has to be it. 

Those 2 articles were written quite some time back. And I could have sworn that I read it a million times just because I could not get a firm understanding of the concepts that they were trying to deliver. So much for speed reading. They gripped me. It was a hold tight that I needed to wrap my mind upon. It had to mean something. 

So I am going to read them again and relive the inspirations that got a hold on me. 

Straits Time article about Mr Stanley Tan

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=24515&sec=3

Singapore's weak civic responses

http://hatespin.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/why-hate-speech-doesnt-always-require-the-red-card.html

Short Changed Heroes Prologue

Okay.

How have you been? Was it a pretty long time since my last post? Got your fix of satanic music yet? Have you decided with your life just as yet? Still rocking that pair of stinky dirty sneakers? Still under the capitalism mindset?

Whatever it is, just be good. Whatever you do, whatever you become, think with purpose, do with reason. Your conviction paves your reasons, that's why when passion supersedes all, your actions become much more meaningful.

Speaking of meaningfulness, ask yourself, what have you done for the past 2 months for meaningful work? Granted, I've been more of a slacker than my current occupation of a research assistant. But what is meaningful work? Hmm.

I just want to let you know, that sometimes, only sometimes, things just work. But other than that, hope for the best, expect the worst.

"Maybe I'm just tired."

Greatest lie ever made. Weakness is a solemn way of the body, the mind or the heart indicating its nearing to breaking point. Some say when pain is felt, its weakness that is leaving. But does it really matter?

Get things done. The number one rule that we have to follow: Do with purpose. Think with reason. And without this rule, how could you move along?

So today, no stories. I just want to spend these times with something I found to be real.

Cheap and Nasty Fakes.

I am selfish. I am unkind. I am ruthless. I am me.

Spent the day well but ended in a whammer mood. Just did not expect these things to happen so suddenly. Work aside, I guess the worst of all was that I had a feeling of loathe so much.

How could one be so carefree on something so morally affecting? This is not about playing God. It's toying as God. That's fucking sick. You hover over the lines as though there were none at all. I guess the most radical thing I find is how unmoved one is about such matter. It makes you weak. I just displays your uncertainty. It suggests your cowardice.

I shall not hide the fact that I myself am not being a role model. But I just can't believe that our selfishness is this sickening. It's fucking sick.

We are such cheap and nasty fakes.

Burdens.

A burden resides. It transformed from a want to a need. It becomes to another responsibility and finally, it is a burden. A burden to become better. A burden to get the best. A burden of expectations. A burden to become. A burden to breathe. A burden to live.

Now, it's not that simple to live.

So we have come this far. We have reached. But the question is, did we get what we wanted? And the best time to look into that mirror is no other time but now. There's no later. There is no tomorrow. Graduation season kicks in for polytechnic students. 3 years passes fast. Perhaps time passes way too fast?

As I made myself comfortable in that seat, with the certificates in my hand, with the red scroll, with smiles all around, I found myself hearing the words from the master of ceremony that I had hoped for at the start of my diploma studies. But today, those words did not belong to me. They belong to them.

Man. It sucks, big time. It's at this stage, a feeling crept back. A feeling of disgust, irony, sadness and solemness. I should be there standing.

Did I work hard enough? Was I smart enough? Was I determined enough? Was I good enough? Did I try hard enough? Maybe if I tried harder, maybe if I was better, maybe if it this or that never happened. Maybe, is just maybe. And that was just enough for me to just shut my self-destructing mind.

I puffed my chest. I clapped hard. I got my smile back.

Some say, it's over and there is no use to cry over spilt milk. Some say, forward is the only way. Some say, when life is full of lemons, lemonade is the way it is. At this point, the valedictorian was speaking. She spoke with the exact excitement as one. She's beautiful. My phone received a text.

"Eh, you're not speaking?"

I replied, "Haha. Yeah. Nope. Didn't put in enough to become one."

Moments later, "Well, must try harder! Haha. You're not the valedictorian type anyway."

That made me smile wider. Not because of how it was just funny or how his sarcasm just made my day. It was not the nature of it. It has the real true meaning of life. It would be easier if I believed in destiny or fate. But here's the fact of life. If you're not made for it, you will not be it. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

You can't be all of everything. You are just you.

thinking and doing.

Some people fall in love and live. Some people fall in love and get quicksand.

And I get all these ideas from someone?

I'm in school doing some thing I shouldn't be. Basically, studying that is. Got some books on batteries and started understanding how they worked. It's a pretty good read. But here lies a little problem, I get bored way too easy. WAY TOO EASY. Just looking at my list of posts, I have about 3 incomplete posts in draft. That just goes to show how unfocused I am.

OH WELL. The last few days have been rough. But as how I have lived by so far, if I survived yesterday, I will survive today. On Monday, I completed my move to an adult world by passing a great opportunity to work with one of the largest multi-national companies in the world. I just simply passed it.

I questioned my motives, like always. It seemed so fucking surreal that I am doing such things. To think 3 years back, I would not have imagined my luck and would just say yes. Oh, now I get it. It makes sense now.

Being opportunistic, is the discipline to say no. It's not the ability to agree to everything and balance it all out in 24 hours of a life. I did that 3 years back. And it felt fake. It did not feel rewarding. How can one still be lost when he's receiving all the extraordinary chances?! Scholarship. Country representation. Management experience. Those make a good portfolio. A fucking good one.

On a long enough timeline, one's survivability rate drops to zero. And on this timeline, I became ingenuine in my work. Days grew longer and harder. All these chances weren't making me better. They made me a slave of my own expectations.

So I said no to a good job because I did not want to do fake work. I can't code much anyway. And I knew that I was not ready to change myself. Though we trained ourselves to be better, faster, efficient machines, we are still humans. Humans can't be machines, we make mistakes. Even machines make mistakes.

Don't confuse it with one's failure to adapt. We have to recognise that the only constant is change but when things are not right, you feel it. When you decide to adapt to that change rather then reject it, is the stage where you accept that uneasy feeling. It may make you an asset to a company to do whatever that comes your way but to me, it's not worth it.

Like in the adult world, there is a time where you are unemployed. That's my time now.

Be it the inability to adapt, stupid decisions or just bad luck, you have to make sure that you are thinking with reason and doing with purpose. Else, you might as well be dead.

Reality Check.

When you are earning money, all of a sudden, taking the cab seems to be an okay idea. Back in my bus concession days, I would go to extra lengths just to take a bus. Even if the urgency warrants a taxi ride, I wouldn't.

Weird huh? Just to save that extra cents or dollars perhaps.

I seem to not be the only person being so motivated by busses. The matter of fact is that I seem to accept the fact to be even later if I am late. I wouldn't take the whatever steps, be it necessary or not, to be urgent.  But I do feel guilty that is. It is a mindset that I WOULD NOT WANT my kids to follow. Being early is a definitely plus and the ability to be on time speaks golden of your skills to bend time. However, being late is just ugh.

It has become this unspoken code of conduct that being late is like being on trial for treachery. It sucks to be late. No shit. I become late most of the time. The unnatural feedback of the phenomena is how we, my group of friends, respond to the act of being late. They simply brushed it off. Now, that's just really weird.
 
I've had a great time today. It's wonderful to see those faces yet again. And it worries me again.

We start to talk about what we did and it just struck me, "Do I have something worthy to mention?". But that's not the real blow. I guess it is just the flow of thoughts on why I do not have something to talk about. That icky feeling that floats around. Then it dwells to why I am not doing the necessary steps to reach that goal.

Yeah, why not ah? But the thing is, is it a goal that I want?

It is a dangerous mindset to live by. That semi-ignorant feeling that failed to recognise the current needs and not take steps to solve or even salvage the situation. It is disgusting. It is the life of a worth-less.

Man, I got to take some time off.