I can’t believe

Back in secondary school, a kind and sensible classmate looked me in the eyes one day, “Oiying, I’m very worried for you”, she said very solemnly, ”I think you’ll go to hell.”

It turns out she somehow realized I don’t believe in a higher spiritual being, in particular, her Christian God. Well, I probably will end up burning for eternity (if there’s a hell and if it’s hot), but I sure hope it’s not because of that reason. I might have to burn in many hells, one for each religion I don’t have.

The last time I wrote about religion, I got an angry comment. Religion seems to be a taboo topic if you’re a non-believer. But religion shouldn’t be so sacred it can’t be talked about. There’s no need to over protect your faith from discussion, if you are sufficiently confident that it can withstand all criticisms from non-believers.

In any case, I don’t criticise.

I appreciate your concern, from the classmate to the random passerbys on the street and strangers knocking on my door to share with me the bible and your faith. It’s good for you that you have a belief and something to look up to, I’d never discourage you from it. But I can’t believe, and I’ll tell you why.

Just today, I was asked, “Things in nature were created with such precision that they have to be made by an intelligent designer. If you don’t believe God created it, then how do you explain it?”

I can’t explain it. I don’t know how everything’s made, but I can’t accept intelligent design as the ultimate answer. If we believe that everything that cannot be explained has a spiritual source, then we have just taken the easiest answer rather than investigating and understanding the true reasons. For instance, mental disorders were commonly believed to be caused by demons and evil spirits in the ancient times and exorcism was widely practised as a cure. But to recommend a spiritual healer to someone suffering from mental disorders these days would be viewed as pure ignorance.

For things we can’t explain and can’t understand, we have a tendency to associate with the spiritual, things we also cannot explain. When I first saw an animation showing how an engine is put together, I was equally amazed by the precision each nut and bolt was placed in and how someone could design something so intricate and complex. I’m not an engineer, so I can’t understand the concepts behind them. But I know fully well that it was man-made, otherwise I would have tend to believe that man can’t possibly create something that looks so advanced.

True, in the case of the engine, there are engineering concepts, but ultimately, it was created by an intelligent designer. Still, to apply our own method of creation to the entire world seems too narrow-minded a view. We have understood perhaps only a fraction of the natural laws. The world may be running on a complex web of logic based upon layers of natural laws, that until we understand it completely are we able to discover how the world has gotten to what it is.

Maybe, we’ll eventually find out that the world was indeed created by a higher being. But to believe that now, and to decide which God or Gods to believe in, based on our ignorance and cluelessness is too much of a leap of faith for me.

Perhaps there is much evidence and proof that you can throw out to show that your God exists, but really, what we want to know is not whether God exists. God is looked up to by many people so that there may be an answer to the questions, “Where do I come from?”, “How should I live?” and ”Where will I go?”.

What we really want to know are the answers to those questions. At least that’s what I wish to know.

Rage

It couldn’t have been the waking-up-on-the-wrong-side of the bed thing. My bed has one side against the wall, and I don’t recall making a hole in the wall.

Maybe it’s the ill-timed call received early this morning or the frustrations of getting to the door 20 seconds after my mum locked it and me not being able to reach my keys because I was balancing 2 bags and had a hand glued to the phone glued to the ear hearing a voice emitting orders.

In any case I was angry all the way to work, and the work attitude of some people just makes even the mildest of tempers fume. And I’m not the mildest of tempers, so I was just short of strangling her.

 

In-need-of-a-good-strangle: I can’t do it.

Me: Why?

In-need-of-a-good-strangle: Because of x.

Me: Try y.

In-need-of-a-good-strangle: It will be difficult, because of z.

Me: Try harder.

In-need-of-a-good-strangle: I can try, but it will be difficult. Besides, there’s already so much of abcdefghil to do.

Me: …

In-need-of-a-good-strangle: So do you have any suggestions on how we can improve after this interview? Otherwise it would just have been a waste of time.

Me: (I wish thoughts could kill.)

 

I’m glad I’m not the boss.

Learning from the bosses

So I’m not going to The Philippines after all.

It’s alright because I’m given a very important task here in Singapore. But I was looking forward to Philippines, much more than Japan and Korea. Partly because I knew going overseas was entirely possible, unlike the uncertainty felt when planning for the previous trips. More because I was looking forward to experiencing Philippines, a place I would otherwise not likely visit.

So much for the jokes about “poor people going to far away places to work” and going to work in a place where most of the citizens work overseas.

The best thing is, Big Boss sees what I’m doing as value-adding, and so the boss made the trip sounds like it’s a mandatory thing just to complete the round of trips around the distributors when the person going on the trip is not around. That’s why they’re the bosses.

Learning point: If you can’t give grapes to everyone, make the grapes seem sour to the one who doesn’t get it. ;P

Blindness, by José Saramago

The best book I’ve read in a very long time. (Okay, especially since I haven’t been reading a lot lately.) Despite having a mountain of half-read or untouched books, I read 3 chapters of this one in the bookshop, bought the book and devoured the rest within a day. It’s that good.

What happens if one day, you wake up blind, a blindness that cannot be explained by any expert and it quickly spreads to everyone around you until eventually, the entire city you live in is blind? What would you do?

You could expect the city to be in chaos, with no water and electricity because everyone working at the utilities companies can no longer do their job. There would be no government and no organisation, no policemen, no ambulance and no fire brigade. As the civilians panicked, many rushed to draw out all their savings in the banks, resulting in bank runs. The entire economic system collapses as there was no one capable of running it with everyone blind and terrified. Others would choose to make use of this opportunity to rob and advance their own selfish agendas. As food became scarce, grocery shops and supermarkets were pillaged. People cannot make their way back to their own homes and sleep in random abandoned houses, shops and vehicles. The list of catastrophic events continues…

What is most brilliant about this book is that it reduced the unnecessary accounts of societal disintegration to quick summaries in a few paragraphs, and instead, acutely described the issues most pertinent to a person’s survival and to humanity and morality.

When everyone is overcome by blindness but all the other bodily functions remain intact, it’s as though the same person remains except that the identity is taken away and replaced with anonymity. The author mentioned many times, that when everyone is blind, names do not matter. After all, there is no need to watch your actions when no one can see it.

What makes the book so gripping is the most basic necessities that the characters had to deal with. With no sanitation facilities and the blind unable to navigate around, people freely defecate on the streets and corridors. With limited food supplies, people gave up morality to satisfy their empty stomachs. Hoarding food even if it means others like you have to go hungry. Closing the door of the supermarket storage room to prevent others from discovering it. Standing naked on the balcony during a downpour because it’s the only way to clean yourself of the filth accumulated over the past few days. Living like complete animals and blinding the eyes of the holy images in a church so that even the gods could not see.

At some points, the brutality and suffering faced by the characters were so explicitly described that putting the book down to go to a proper toilet feels awkward. When it was dinner time, the table of fresh fish, vegetables and rice seemed too luxurious for the stomach to handle.

But it’s not a book of gore. It’s the sensitivity with which the scenes were described and the pertinence of the issues discussed that makes the book so thought provoking.

Why we K

The teenagers on vacation jobs at Kbox must be really puzzled when they passed by our cubicle.

Karaoke outings with nostalgic me and my bunch of nostalgic friends has always been for songs from the decades passed. The songs we sang on the bus while going out for primary school excursions. Sappy love songs with music videos of heavily made up singers wearing padded blouses, and the loud band songs with ridiculous dance moves and outfits that never leave out the skin-tight leather trousers. Once, we even put on songs from our mothers’ generation.

It’s never about pitch perfect singing at karaokes. It’s precisely the songs that are impossible to sing without going off-key, voice breaking and bursting into laughter at some point in time that are so fun. Somehow, retro songs do the trick. Old songs always give me the feeling of “they never make them anymore”. Or maybe it just takes the going-out-of-fashion part to put the enjoyment  into some things.

Yesterday, when I told my dad I was going to karaoke, he was surprised and asked me, “But why? I don’t even hear you sing at home.”

Well, at karaoke sessions, we laugh more than we sing, which is where all the enjoyment is.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Sometimes, cliches remain cliched because they’re true.

Relationships with people remain happy when they’re there, but not there enough to load the obligations and expectations on your shoulders. Like the long conversation with a friend I haven’t seen or spoken to for a year. Like the occasional phone calls with good friends to catch up. Like the infrequent gatherings, night outs and dinners. Every time we meet, I get reminded why we are close friends, why we have kept in touch despite being away and how we can always meet up any time and chat like we’ve never been apart.

I find it much more important to know that they’re well, enjoying themselves and leading their own lives somewhere than to be around, or to know everything, all the time.

Because it’s always the ones closest to you that can make your life miserable. Close enough to be taken for granted, and then make sure you feel terrible for taking them for granted. So close they’ll take you for granted, and then make sure you feel horrible for letting them know they’ve taken you for granted. Close enough to even consider that any minute lack of verbalised concern is a clear sign of “taking for granted”.

If people look beautiful only from a distance, then let me stand a mile away from you.

Making the most of time

With 5 full days at work and no flexibility to the working hours and working place, the weekends are especially valuable.

I’m falling prey to silly greed, trying to do as much as possible during the weekend even though I’m tired. I figured since I’m going to be tired anyway, it might as well come from play rather than work. So I was out shopping half the day yesterday, and out at East Coast learning to roller blade, then off to explore Tampines and took a super round-about route home across Changi, Geylang and Kallang today.

It was especially bad overseas. Desperately trying to maximise whatever time I have to go around, I dashed across several places in Seoul in a day, even if it means carrying an umbrella and getting drenched because of the rain. Even if it means walking around Tokyo at 11pm with a flush from fever. Philippines should be tough though, considering the poor public security.

Maybe that’s why the people who work full time always complain about being tired. They “work” 7 full days a week!

When I start working full time (which is creepily soon), I think I’m going to miss mostly the freedom to control my own time when I’m in school. And I might pick up some exciting hobbies because the weekends are far too valuable to be wasted away at home.

Not-quite-there

I got a SMS this afternoon, informing me of the meeting time and place for a gathering of old friends.

In any case, I was back in town. Civilization. Places where I’d see familiar faces and meet random friends on the streets. And I did. I met at least 4 people I didn’t intend to meet. And this time, I remembered every one of them. But I didn’t say ‘hi’.

It’s such a funny feeling, when an old acquaintance walked directly towards me, I remembered him, but I’m not quite sure if he remembers me. He didn’t say ‘hi’, so I didn’t either. And with the others, I was in the other position, I walked past pretending not to see them. ‘Hi-Bye’ is tiring, and not knowing what more to say is awkward.

With other old friends, we sat together and talked for hours, about everything. Just like before, we could talk, enjoy the conversation, yet never quite feel like close friends. The only times we ever spoke to each other was when there are specific topics and incidents to talk about.

I don’t understand why is it that when we have common interests and similar viewpoints, when we have good conversations on interesting topics and when we enjoy each other’s company, we still can’t quite seem to relate to each other. Yet with others that are much less interesting and much less similar, we hit it off and became close friends. It’s strange.

Dear Singapore,

You have been so effective in parenting me. You put me in school, prepared me for my all-important career and even set up a fund for me to use all the way into my university life. You built affordable apartments, giving me a house I call my own and upgrade it every now and then. You put amenities in my neighborhood, allowing me to take for granted the convenience of easily available inexpensive, good food until I got hungry in a foreign land at night, craving for a simple something I can’t get. You gave me a green environment, clean air and plenty of air-conditioned malls to pass time in. You worked hard to bring in the money and jobs, doing ‘necessary evils’, yet strive to protect me from temptations. You plan for my retirement, teaching me the values of saving and thriftiness. You set strict laws against deviants and petty crimes, strongly believing it is necessary to protect our values and making me believe it’s the reason our streets are safe.

You have done great at nurturing and providing for me. For that, I am thankful. But now, I’m grown up. Like a stubborn parent, you have continued to protect and make decisions for me. I am dependent on you, and sometimes, I doubt my ability to make wise decisions for myself, especially if it defies what you told me.

I hear of things I’m missing. Like falling hard, breaking a leg and learning empathy for the crippled. Like speaking up whenever I disagree and learning to put my argument across convincingly. Like making friends with strange people dressed in stranger ways and embracing their alternative points of view and lifestyles, even if it’s not one I’d choose for myself. Like being encouraged to pursue an interest that will open my mind and color my life, even if it doesn’t bring me any material satisfaction. Like doing harmless things simply because I feel like it, and not because I’m allowed to.

It’s time you let go. We will become stronger and learn to make better decisions if we grow up with scrapped knees and some scars. Your streets are beautiful, you have interesting people and some wonderful heritage. If only you would spare us the time away from academia and material success to explore more of you and create our own legacy for your children. If only we won’t be overenthusiastic in replacing our history with prosperity. Let us truly celebrate the differences in our society, for being different is not being wrong. And how I hope you would encourage us to keep our own language in this global city, please leh.

Let’s play together. We’ll go roller blade without knee protection and hike without insect repellent. Let’s put down work for a day and explore your people’s alternative culture. I’m sure we’ll enjoy ourselves and return home in one piece.

- Submitted to Stories.sg for the first issue with National Day round the corner: “What would you write to Singapore, if she were a person you knew?”

An Unnatural Calm

Life has returned to a calm.

The past 2 months has been a frantic rush of interviews, meeting person after person, knowing more people from different generations in 2 months than I could possibly know in years. Moving alone in unknown places, hearing strange languages I don’t understand and being constantly bombarded by new inputs is extremely exciting, yet confusing at the same time. Despite spending so much time on my work and thinking that I understand what I’m doing, I seemed to have trouble answering questions coherently. My processor is not fast enough for all the information I’m getting. I’ve lost the ability to speak without consciously thinking of what to say in the next sentence.

Now, sitting at my desk and doing my own work, finally having the time to think through things proper and plan some scheme of things is like a blessing. But it feels somewhat unnatural. Too slow. An uncomfortable, unnatural stop. 

The mad rush and fire fighting has been fun. I could get used to a corporate lifestyle. In fact, I don’t even feel like going back to school. This is not my dream job, but I crazily offered to work 3 days a week even after school starts, since I’ve as crazily planned a 2 day week with 1 full day of classes 8.30am to 6.45pm. The boss enthusiastically soaked up my time, telling me they have much more needed to be done. And I feel sluttishly happy to hear that.

This madness has to stop some time. And I really hope it’s not going to be Week 8 of the coming term.

Next stop, The Philippines.