My God

Considering that I often call upon God (as in “Oh my God!” and the most recent “God, if you can’t make me smart, please make everyone else stupid!”), I figure I should give this God some good thought.

Firstly, it’s not really a spiritual God I’m calling for, so any spiritual God (should any exist) should ignore my cries. I don’t really mean to bother you. ‘God’ is but a figure of speech when I say it. So is ‘pray’. I could replace them with other mythical creatures, except that “Oh my Unicorn!” will sound quite strange and “I hope” lacks the earnest of ”I pray”.

This doesn’t mean that I agree with the book titles like “God is Not Great” and its likes that have recently made it into the best-selling list at major bookstores. God is great. All the Gods in the world have done a great job as moral guidance and emotional support for many people. Religion has been the major source of education for many people, teaching hygiene and other good practices at times when people cannot fully comprehend the need for such good habits.

Most importantly, they provide answers to the 3 most important questions in life – (1) Where did I come from? (2) What am I here for? (3) Where am I going to? If you accept their answers, very well. But even if you don’t, you can’t prevent others from taking solace in those answers.

I don’t agree with other atheists who take it upon themselves to convince the non-secular world that God doesn’t exist. Well, it really doesn’t matter whether or not God exists or what other people believe in, especially if you don’t believe in God. I couldn’t care less if one day my family wishes to conduct my funeral according to Buddhist or Christian customs. I don’t feel wronged whether it’s a church or temple I’m stepping into or if it’s an incense I’m burning or the Lord’s Prayer I’m saying. It doesn’t matter when you don’t believe, because they are only customs as simple as shaking hands, which we never question even if it’s not what we usually do in our culture.

I have my own theory for God. I believe that God is a collective imaginary friend, believed in by billions of people. God exists for as long as people believe in him, and he ceases to exist (or make known his presence, if you prefer) when no one believes in him. That’s why we have ancient religions that disappear with the deaths of their last believers, and new religions created once there is a cult following. A spiritual God may be created to be a subject of worship in order to easily spread beliefs, values and philosophy. (It’s like how the imaginary number is created to make some computations possible.)

What really matters, is whether the self-proclaimed religious people really do understand what they’ve subscribed to. If you consider something to be your religion, then you should be interested in studying the beliefs, values and philosophy of the religion. It should be something you believe in and something you can explain to people when asked.

I believe that religion is more than having an imaginery friend for you to talk to whenever you need some spiritual support, or pray to whenever you want some kind of convenience or help. If all you do is pray for a better future, good health or happiness, or simply believing that divine intervention will solve your problems and fulfill your wishes, then you are only being superstitious.

I may like to study religion one day, in the academic manner, just so that I may understand the values and philosophy behind them. Before then, if I must have some imaginary friend, I favor Hobbes over everyone else.

Running Dumb

It’s the time of elections for student groups. This means that there’s plenty of funny nonsense to pick up around school, nonsense in the form of election posters. Most posters are stupid, with silly slogans or none at all. Others are just plain weird. It’s time to fire some marketing managers.

If you’re the marketing manager coming out with a slogan to catch the eyes of bimbos who just needed some cosmetics and can’t be bothered about the chemical make up of such products, a catchy slogan like “Because you’re worth it.” is clever and effective. But if you’re running for office as leader and representative of the student population, it’s plain dumb to put “Because you deserve the best. =) ” (yes, smiley face included) under your name. Well I’m sure I deserve the best, but your poster is really not convincing me that you are the best. I don’t even freaking know what you stand for, other than some egoistic idea about you being better than everyone else.

If you’ve got a strange name that can relate to words with meanings, it’s not exactly the most intelligent thing to form slogans that play with your name. “If you wonder if there’s more to life than mugging, wonder no more.” just keeps me wondering about what plans you have. Do you mean that the “more to life” means living my life through you as you hold some office? Other slogans about adding drama and wonder into my life is just plain weird.

The worst type of posters are those that has only a professionally taken picture and no slogan or information except “Vote for XXX” and “Support YYY”. Such posters does nothing but scream “Support me because I’m so good looking!” Then there’s a dim-witted one that says “I’m running!” Well, I pretty much figured that out since you have an election poster. So do you mean I’m suppose to be so thankful to you for running that I simply have to vote for you even if you have no plans at all?

Some posters are much better, like the one with pictures of the candidate making funny faces and captions that include “crazy” and “eccentric”. The idea was that she’s funky, fun-loving and would spice up your SMU life. This is good because at the very least, I get a glimpse of who you are and what you stand for from your posters. There’s also a well thought out one with a list of values important to him. Many talk about change, nothing in specific but at least it’s not some meaningless and dumb slogans.

If we want to avoid becoming a university producing students who are “all fluff/looks/talk and no substance”, the least we could have are some good student representatives. From what I see in the posters, there’s no hope. Running for office means you need to show some plans, some ideas and something that you stand for. Catchy slogans are fine, but slogans that makes us wonder where your intellectual capabilities stand or what sort of personality you have is really, not helping.

I’m good, damn you.

I’ve noticed one thing in common between high-level executives, entrepreneurs, HR directors and most bosses. It’s that uncanny ability to give an over-enthusiastic “Hi! How are you?” to just about every person they meet, and the shameless heaping of praises on subordinates – “This is perfect! Just what I want!”, “Wow! You did such a great job!”, “This is REALLY good.”, even though I have the feeling they’d chuck the piece of work out the window the minute I turn my back.

The more of such people I meet, the more convinced I am that I won’t make it up the corporate ladder. There is little more that I detest than answering my phone to an excited “Hi! How are you?”, and having to figure out a way to say “I’m good! How about you?” without allowing my “Just tell me what you want, damnit” thought to affect the tone of my voice.

As much as I have soaked myself in the harsh world of corporate pretense and can sometimes pull off a “I haven’t seen you for so long, it’s so great to see you!” naturally, I really can’t make myself squeal a high-pitched “Hi! How are you?” to someone I really don’t give a damn about. I can’t stand asking a question with full knowledge that the answer can only be “I’m good. How are you?”, and then putting myself through giving an answer that can also only be “I’m good.” even if I’m really breaking apart and bleeding to oblivion.

Small talk is another thing that bewilders me. General comments about the weather really make an exciting conversation. “How was your weekend?” begs me to tell you about my sky-diving, bungee-jumping holiday. Asking “Did I ask you how was your weekend?” after I told you my weekend sob story is absolutely heart warming. And I’d definitely love to hear where you bought your shoes from.

If being friendly and eloquent is all about acting like I care and being able to articulate nonsense, then I’d rather be a sulky misfit.

Lament the lack of muggers

One thing I’m hearing very often in SMU, is people lamenting the disappearance of “the first batch of SMU students”.

Well, I don’t know anyone from the first batch, but most descriptions I hear are centered around “not as grade conscious”, “truly different” and ”care to have fun”. In contrast to the pioneer batch, the newly joined students care more about grades than learning, muggerish bookworms chasing paper achievements.

Sure, I won’t like seeing dorky, tunnel-vision nerds clog up the library on week 3, but I also won’t like seeing SMU graduates who can talk big and look professional yet can’t go beyond impressing people with boombastic ideas of no practical impact.

That’s not to say that I think the first batch of SMU students are “all fluff no substance”. I think that students who seriously care about studying and doing well in school is as important as a fun-loving and eloquent bunch.

As much as you can say that there’s more to university life than studying, let’s face it, our main purpose for attending university is to learn a trade and get a degree. If your main purpose for attending university is to make friends, join university social events and recreational clubs and party late every night, then you’re wasting your time. There are a million ways to make friends, join clubs and have fun without spending a full 4 years and a hefty university tuition.

Besides, learning can’t be done simply by going to class and discussing issues with friends or chatting with your professor. Picking up technical knowledge requires putting a lot of time and serious hard work into reading, studying, thinking and practising. It involves long hours in the library poring through thick books and memorising facts (yes you do need to know some facts at your fingertips).

And face it again, grades are your Key Performance Indicators in school. If you haven’t put in the effort and understood your concepts, your grades will show. If you did, your grades will show too. Negative correlation between hard work and results is an anomaly. Negative correlation between knowledge obtained and results is an even more rare anomaly.

At the very least, people who cared about grades will bother to study for it, and in the process, pick up the necessary technical skills and knowledge (which you are supposed to in university anyway). It’s really not enough to be able to talk about things or pretend to know them.

Be glad for the muggers, they’re setting a standard.

Where is the music?

To beat lethargy and shut out the world, I’ve been plugging in to old rock songs.

Raw and rude music, I like.

From the first time I heard good rock (i think it was Dream Theater’s album Scenes from a Memory), I knew there was no turning back to pop music. I was amazed, I didn’t know music could be played like this. I got addicted to music, bought into the “without music, life would be a mistake” cliche, and started feeling a need to carry a CD/MP3 player around.

Compared to rock, popular music is inadequate and commercialized. I can’t feel the passion for music in the young singers who managed to cut an album or two simply because they looked cute and were not entirely tone deaf. I can’t feel the amount of thought put into making a song with catchy, repetitive tunes set in a formula proven popular, and abstract lyrics that don’t mean anything. I can’t enjoy rhythm-less and tune-less music heavily masked by loud African drum beats.

Whatever happened to the originality and invention of music from the baby-boomers era? The best bands that can qualify for the “legend” category all came from decades past, while we have the likes of Linkin’ Park and One Republic producing pseudo-rock music that are far too formulaic and polished, a far cry from the signature honesty and rawness of rock. And let’s not even go into the overplayed likes of umbrella-ella-ella.

Maybe it’s the iPod effect. With music made available to everyone, market forces cause music to gravitate towards catering for the masses that favor catchy tunes, which are quickly replaced by new ones once people lose interest in them.

Music no longer needs to be classics that can remain popular forever. I wonder how many of these radio tunes we have now will still be performed 300 years from now, like how baroque music is enjoyed by many now.

Back to Led Zeppelin’s Since I’ve been Loving you, on loop.

(By the way, I’m pretty disappointed after revisiting Bon Jovi’s old albums. In my opinion, Bon Jovi is very good only for 7 songs: Livin’ On A Prayer, You Give Love A Bad Name, This Ain’t A Love Song, Bed Of Roses, Always, I’ll Be There For You, and Never Say Goodbye. That means the only Bon Jovi album anyone needs is Crossroads, which has 6 out of 7 of their most representative songs.)

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?”

On Shallowness

A couple of days ago I had a brief chat with a friend who was amazed by how some girls could be so passionate about shoes that to them shoes define their individuality. It was so baffling to her that she couldn’t help but let slipped that it was a ”shallow” interest. I could not understand too, how something like footwear could be so important. But something stopped me from agreeing with her.

If being passionate about shoes was shallow, then what type of interest would not be considered shallow?

A person with a voracious appetite for the world, the way it works and the cultures of people? Or a person with an ardent love of the fine arts, indulging in music, exploring art and studying literature? Or a person who places the most importance on interpersonal relationships, caring for family, friendship and romance?

Someone who shows an appreciation for the fine arts would normally not be described as shallow. Yet the only difference between a passion for the arts and a passion for shoes is the object of interest. Both people could be equally passionate and knowledgeable about their interest. Does this mean that, with everything else equal, the “shallowness” of a person’s interest is dependent on the object of interest? Does that also mean that if the object of interest is commercialized, or that it reflects consumerism, then it is of a shallower, more superficial form?

What about a person who considers interpersonal relationships and emotions as the finer things in life? Is he any less shallow? But a person who puts the pursuit of his own happiness as the most important aspect in life can’t exactly be considered much more sophisticated than someone who puts in much effort and emotions into the creation of an object.

I used to write off some people as shallow because of the things they speak about and the things that interest them. Yet, the fervor with which they share their interests and the amount of knowledge they have on it often change my mind. How can a passionate person with ideas and interests be shallow?

Great Expectations

I grew up in a society where pragmatism is valued over ideals, where being content with a cushy job providing a stable income is met with nods of approval while greed and high materialistic expectations are shunned like sins. At the same time, I belong to the generation that expects altruistic help to be extended to the needy, and charitable organizations that raise funds by providing incentives are dismissed as hypocritical.

Bullshit.

I subscribe to the ideals of wanton capitalism, to greed, to materialistic expectations and to biting off more than I can chew. How can I not, since I learned how capitalism, powered by human greed has led to so much progress and prosperity? If we had all lived according to the Confusian philosophy, we would all still be ignorant, starving farmers seeking solace in the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, completely unaware that it caused a tornado that ripped apart the homes of unsuspecting villagers elsewhere.

Altruism is nice. If people cared and shared as they should, the needy won’t be needy. But altruism cannot be an expectation and the efforts of incentive-powered corporations and people cannot be negated. If organizations get their tax breaks and publicity from making donations, so be it – The money that would have been squandered on bureaucracy or elaborate advertising gimmicks now flow into the pockets of the needy. If the possibility of winning a car is the only way people will make donations, so be it – The needy are fed with food bought from money, not altruism.

My City

Inspired by Adrianna’s post.

I love my city, simply because it’s the city and the culture I was born into. Sure, it has its kinks (which culture doesn’t?), but it is mine and mine to embrace and change. It struck me as quite sad that she has to consciously find something to love about this city, and it is related to a foreign culture which has always appealed to her.

What is beautiful about my city is not the foreign cultures it has in itself, but the way the country’s heritage is assimilated into a Singaporean identity. This, she has successfully discovered and loved.

What is less appreciated yet more definitive of my city, is the ugly HDB flats that provide a roof over the heads of most Singaporeans, the boring business districts that provide Singaporeans with the mundane jobs they need to put food on the table and disposable income to indulge in the national past-time of shopping. My city is about a competitive and harsh lifestyle complete with an elitist education system that puts everyone in school until the level he/she is able (or forced) to attain. It is cosmopolitan enough for one to find food which cannot be found in the foreign city it is named after.

And that, is really what we should love our city for, with all its faults and despite the misgivings.

As much as I support egalitarianism and believe that life is more than its materialistic needs, I do not subscribe to the romantic belief of keeping traditions or being contented with a simple life. There would be no progress without greed and materialistic wants. But I also acknowledge the problems that come with prosperity (apathetic citizens, sanitized media) and I see my city as one that has made many sacrifices.

True, there is much that my city needs to improve on. We now have the resources to support a more vibrant arts scene, to cultivate a gracious society, to encourage more involvement in state affairs and to preserve our cultural heritage as well as create an unique identity. In fact, we should already be doing all this.

Our pasture can only be made greener if we can, at the very least, love the city enough to stay and be part of the invisible hand making the changes. I agree that there are cities with richer and much more interesting cultures and that we should be appreciative of those, but first and foremost, we really do need to love what’s our own.

On Civilization

Last night, just before I went to sleep, I glanced out the window and thought I saw a star.
A very bright star.
But it disappeared once I shifted,

and I realise it’s just a reflection of light off the tip of the antenna on the next HDB block.

What can I say? City Life.

Don’t get me wrong though, I love city life, for the insane pace of life, the bustling activities and the wide varity of entertainment.

I don’t understand why some people aspire to live on a farm in the wilderness or rush to a beach location or trek in the forest or drive through endless highways of nothingness on both sides.

I enjoy civilization.

That rock-cut church in Ethiopia, amazing.

And I can go on…
The ruins of ancient cities, the treasure laden tombs of past kings, the multi-storey communal caves people built to live in to hide from enemies in wartime, the thousand years of architectural evolution, the thousand-year-old jewellery and cosmetics, the broken bits of vases, masts and anchors from sunken ships, that ancient gunpowder laden missile, the rich cultures of populations of people, the cave drawings, the poems, music, musical instruments, philosophical teachings, the scientific discoveries, the modern inventions, the domestication of animals, the millions of ways to prepare food…

I am fascinated when I read of things made by people. I am intrigued by the ability of people to create, which is learned and improved upon over tens of thousands of years of evolution. I would never choose to go to a natural heritage location over a place that shows people, their culture and their creations. It is the dirty street in a 3rd world country over the Grand Canyon.

“But the creations of Man are small compared to the creations of God!”, some might say. With all due respect, if the heaven and earth, the mountains and seas, the rivers and streams were all created by God, he is really great. But what amazes me, is how small a man is, yet how much greatness he can create when Man in numbers, put the effort and time to discover and learn about their environment and add on articles that reflect their beliefs and aspirations.

Living in the city is living at the front of modernization and human development. Some call the city “materialistic”. It is materialistic. The city values human creations that up the standard of living of people. Making all these creations commercial entities that are sold as commodities may not be the best way to value them, but the market puts a value to them nonetheless, where people who don’t appreciate scoff at them.

As much as it means that stars are but reflections off a man-made structure or a passing plane, I’m glad that I do not need to rely on the moon and the stars for lighting at night.