it came around

Here it is, my FAVORITE PENCIL

A few days ago I brought grandpa to the hospital again for a post-hospital stay checkup. The check-up included a blood test all in the entire whole visit took 3 hours including a 90min wait for the blood test result.

Naturally I brought a book to read, and a another pencil to take notes. After I arrived at the hospital went through the admin process and sat down and took out my book, I reached into a pocket in my bag and as if my magic, my fingers curled around my favourite pencil. Its been in my bag this whole time. The strange thing was I don’t remember putting the pencil in that pocket, and to top thing off, during my search for my pen I went through my whole bag including that pocket. As far as I am concerned, it was a small miracle.

Being the overly thinking guy that I am, I had to over analyse things so here it is.

I went back to my last blog entry about losing my favourite pencil and read it again. It was true, the lost was real to me, even though the pencil was in my bag the whole time the loss was very real to me. At the bottom of my heart, I “knew” that it was lost to me forever, and I accepted it. We accept or reject based on emotion, and we justify by reason. This is the reason why so many smart and intellectual people are not happy, they are not addressing the basic human drive, emotion. They have an overdeveloped brain and a premature heart. But that’s not the point, I am ranting again. Back to my pencil, I knew that it was lost to me, and I accepted it. I moved on and started to use another writing instrument. At the back of my head, I swear I said to myself, now that I have reached the end of my education, I guess this pencil has run its course and the time has come for me to part with it.

When my fingers touched the pencil in my bag, I didn’t even need to take it out and look at it, I just wrapped my fingers around it and knew that it was my pencil. The feel of the plastic, the smooth rubber grip, the broken clip, the hole at the top of the eraser cap, I knew them all by touch. I even know how it smells like.

My mind started to fantasise, I imagined my pen after being dropped on the floor of the MRT, started an amazing journey to find its way back to my bag, back to my grip, like Toy Story 1.

So here is my though for the day, during the course of our lives, there will be episodes and events, people and persons who appear, walk in, walk out and disappear. We can try our best, be vigilant, like how I was with my pencil. But we cannot always be vigilant, and we are bound to slip up, as I have when I was tired and taxed. But my pencil came back to me, even after I have lost hope. If its meant to be, no force in the universe can make me lose this precious pencil, if its not meant to be, then no force in the universe can keep it in my pencil box.

Re-reading this post, it really sounds like I am over dramatizing a small incident. That I forgot I have left my pen in that pocket and I was not careful in checking my bag. The incident was simple, but what went on in my head space was far from simple, I came to terms with my many loses in my life, both material and non-materials, my mistakes and carelessness. And when the pen knew that I have learned my lesson. It came back to me, because now I am worthy of a 10 year old mechanical pencil.

I lost my favourite mechanical pencil

It has been a tight past few days. I am burning through books and running around doing my errands. Today spent all day at JB with my brother attending a seminar, it was really worth it I felt. The speaker was entertaining, funny and informative. I have learned much this weekend.

But alas, on my way back via MRT I was reading a book on the train. I was already stretched out and I was having 2 sms convo at the same time. Finally when my stop at novena arrived I made special not to keep my phone which was on my lap and my book. As I stood up and walked off I felt like I have left something behind and I kept checking my wallet and my handphone. It was my pencil that I was using to highlight which rolled off onto the floor of the MRT and I walked away from it focus on something else.

I stole that pencil when I was in sec 3 and has been with me for 10 years. Its pink with a yellow easer cap. It sat through every exam with me since then, and I feel very attached to it. In my moment of weakness I did not check properly. I only found out when I came home and emptied my bag.

I sat down thinking of all the material items I have lost… I lost 2 sets of home keys, a handphone and now this … my favourite pencil. Even though I was so attached to it, even though it has been with me for so long, and I expected myself to get worked up over it. But nothing happened, I just looked into my bag and thought… “oh … that’s too bad”. Kept the bag in my cupboard and sat down and picked up another pencil.

I felt such a strange feeling. I guess I have really changed a lot since I stole that pencil. I have gone through so much in the last 10 years I could easily write a book on it. Looking back, I guess I would arrange my books in chapters based on what I had to give up or let go in my life. At one point I gave up the hope that I would be a good looking guy so I started to harness other energies. At some point I gave up on trying to be an artist when I was 14, amongst other things.

Slowing and gradually life dealt me heavier and heavier hands, these hands weighted heavily on my principles. Soon I have a clear vision and sense of right and wrong and I have not looked back since.

When I realized I lost my favourite pencil, my mind went autopilot, framed it as inconsequential and flushed it out of my mind. When I hard to be harsh to one of my friends, my mind warped reality and I saw it as something I had to do to protect us and I said what I had to say without guilt.

Almost anyone can be extreme and give up everything for something, but it is my maxim that it take a mature mind to have priorities and keep to them, to be aware that our actions don’t only affect us but those who love us and embark on the most responsible path for other ourselves and those we are accountable to.

I lost something dear to me today, but to let it affect me would be irresponsible. Consider the long term, the bigger picture and one’s principles and one will be a more astute mind.

Why Singaporeans complain so much

In one sentence, I think Singaporeans complain so much become we have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. I am a sociology major, hence I personally tend to favour the nurture over nature argument. I hardly think anyone can possibly be born with an innate sense of entitlement. This sense of entitlement was ingrained in us by our parents, school and our government.

Our generation was born in the good times, into a country what had such standards for quality. Standards which we have come to take for granted and come to be almost invisible to us, so blind are we to our high standard of living that you have to go to other developing country to feel the differentiation. I did not have to fight a war for my country’s independence; I was born “free”. My girl friends did not have to fight for their right to an education or to vote, I never had to be afraid of other race and he never needed to fear me. We were born into a world which was cushioned, we were given but it was not our entitlement, we were blessed but we did not deserve it.

Since I could remember, I was told by my parents that I must study hard or else “next time” I will be a road sweeper or other such mediocre professions. When I entered school, I saw how the better students were given different treatment because of their position in “class”. So interesting that in school we are grouped into classes, its psychological training I guess to prepare us to accept out place in society when we enter as adults. Better students don’t have to go for remedial classes like me, they get more recognition by the teachers, more respect. Lesser students like myself make up for it by being attention seeking and talkative. Better student were awarded prestige based on their position within the system, we were shown that there were “entitled” to such treatment based on their grades. Social forces like demographical backdrops did not matter; socio economic class did not qualify as an influential element in one’s performance as student. It did not matter that you have to share your computer with 3 other siblings so you can read up on the net, it did not matter that you didn’t have a place to study because your father keep singing KTV during crucial study hours of 7-10pm or even a fixed place to keep your books. I kept my books in a cardboard box when I was younger.Nothing matter but your position in class, your position entitles you to its rewards everything before your ascension did not matter.

When we enter the employment of the biggest employer in Singapore, the Civil service our reimbursement was pegged to my GPA. As if how well I did for Basic German contributes to my competencies as a CPF officer, it does not matter how many dependents I have, all that matters is my position determined by a collection of alphabets averaged out into a figure rounded to 2 decimal places. But by this point in time we have already internalized positions within institution are legitimately allocated certain rights. Our depravations are heighten by being reminded how much those with positions are endowed and how we will be further depraved if we did not keep pace.

It is this overdeveloped sense of entitlement I feel which makes Singaporeans complain and complain. Some can even complain that the seniors working at MacDonald’s are slow. I mean come the fuck on man, try working at 70 in a fast food joint which did not exist in your era that serves stuff you never ate in your life nor like to eat with arthritis in your bones and cataract in your eyes thickening.

We complain of low pay for graduates... we expect a certain level of pay just because we are more fortunate than others to be a little more educated. Why not ask for a lower pay but perform at your new job? or do we complain that we are already proven ourselves in school its time to take it easy? Are we afraid of hardwork and performing after we graduate? or have we been socialized to think that we only needed to put in effort to learn and achieve till we finish formal education?

Of course there are valid reasons for complaining, a dead cockroach in your soup is a good reason. But there are also unreasonable complains. Like slow service during peak hour, its peak hour for goodness sake, or how crowed Little india is on sunday, where you expect poor immgrant indian workers to go on their one day off from hard manual labor? Sentosa? Holland V? Dempsy?

its really simple, people complain because they think they are not getting what they are entitled for. Singaporeans complain so much because we think we are entitled to a lot and this attitude spills over into many areas of our lives.

Lets learn to appreciate those around us and how fortunate we are, and trust me, we will complain less and compliment more, be less jealous and more joyous.

V

Weddings and Endings

A Day of reckoning

This weekend was a weekend of sorts for me. I attending two weddings, on Friday I attended Wenyan’s wedding. She was indeed a beautiful bride, and her groom was a foot Specialist at NUH, who was my age, 25. The dinner was substandard I felt, the air conditioning was bad, the video for the day’s activities was poorly edited, the Emcees were inexperienced and to top it up, the food was bad. I Took this opportunity to catch up with my secondary school friends, we talked about the reasons behind this marriage, how they have they been together etc. What will always been at the back of my mind is the fact that she broke the engagement once before. But a year after that the groom still came back to her. She broke it off because she “had not tried enough things in life yet”, that is to say they she had not finished being single. If she felt that way why did she accept it in the first place? Anyways, they are married now. Half the table I was sitting at had people I did not know, a mother and her two 20ish daughters. Quite pretty I might say, but their facial expression changed abit when I told them that I was a student. I am getting increasing sick of such a look. I feel like an impotent man. After dinner we stayed behind to make the groom and bride drink till about 1am.

The next day, Saturday, I attended the wedding of 28year old Alex my Platoon Sergeant upper study. It was there were I had the chance to meet up with a significant number of my army “friends”, the men who were under my command back in the day.

I felt that I utterly cannot relate to them at all anymore. Their words, their concerns, their jokes, even their consistent smoke breaks all felt like a lifetime ago. I felt that I was operating on a different plane from them. I was structurally aware, and they were not. I no doubt seemed strange to them, I had nothing to say to my men, whose topics involved girls, clubbing and drinking experiences which they have shared together. A few of them looked great, with their $100 haircut, Rolexes. They talked to each other about why so and so left what company and why, asked about each other’s jobs and pay. Naturally no one had anything to say to me about such things to me.

Was I envious of them? Not really, but the pain of being left behind the rest of my male counterparts was more acute that evening. I could not help but comparing my selves with those who were more successful. I did not have much to say, I felt so unproven, so mocked even though no one was mocking me, I felt that no one was taking me seriously. How could they? Whatever I had or upheld, they did not consider as valuable. They are the teeming masses.

When i am in NTU, I was a senior, I was good at what I did, I was looked up to my many for who I was, my principles and values were taken seriously. That evening, I was placed in a field where my habitus was worth nothing. The only capital that prevailed was economic capital and good looks, and I had none, I felt quite small indeed that evening.

I knew that given my education and capabilities I could easily outperform them in time. But I have always suffered from a problem. I had little patience for progress. I always want things to happen here and now. I guess it stems from my constant feeling of being supressed, by my commitments.

One day it will all be worth it, my patience will be rewarded. Hang tight Vernon