cynicism and the lack of imagination
I had a great special term, and though I've obviously said it before, I just want to say it again.
I learnt many things about life in Singapore from this special term. One of them is that the conflict between passion and pragmatism will always nearly remain - it is an unescapabale fact of life in Singapore, in our highly consumerist society where everyone is just urged to spend more through shopping because 'it is our national pastime and it is our national identity' - is just nonsense.
It just so happens I know someone who hates all of these pushes towards consumerism, who is now doing something she doesn't like, but is forced to do it simply because it will supoprt her lifestyle. Now it is one thing to hear of such things in the newspaper when some bimbotic girl says it, but its another thing when someone you know says it with such... blase. Yes, she hates, it and she hates it even more because doing it is effectively suffocating her passion.
Honestly, I have no mercy for people like that. I couldn't be bothered with people like that, and sometimes talking to them might simply be a waste of time. I'm not even going to apologize because they will know that I'm not wronging them, or accusing them or anything. It's just the path they have chosen, that though I may despise their path, the truth is, they despise themselves even more than others despise them. I just hope they can truly live their lives in a way worth living. And pray for them, of course.
It leads me to this thing: why are people finding themselves supposedly trapped in the conceptual fallacies that they build for themselves. So... what am I suppose to do? They don't want to help themselves, only the spirit can help them...
Which brings me to this point about why Singapore might be in a terrible state... It is because people are so stuck in their own cynicism that they have lost the power to imagine something better for themselves, to imagine better futures, better scenarios for their own lives and for the surroundings around them. It is when they fail to imagine something better that they start to lose hope and faith in the things around them, and eventually, becoming, cynical and bitter. It doesn't take rocket science to know all these...
The thing that I find fearful from all of these is that these things are being said by USP students, of all people, people who are of a different kind, for a different kind of mission, with a different kind of mission, for a different kind of future that they ought to be thinking of creating. But no, they are creating their own traps and falling into cynicism. And we are supposed to be, honestly, to be in this elite section of society who have the fortune to undergo a university education. So what now? If even elites think like that, what hope might there be for the rest of the average people who just want to eke by?
Wake up, university students!
I learnt many things about life in Singapore from this special term. One of them is that the conflict between passion and pragmatism will always nearly remain - it is an unescapabale fact of life in Singapore, in our highly consumerist society where everyone is just urged to spend more through shopping because 'it is our national pastime and it is our national identity' - is just nonsense.
It just so happens I know someone who hates all of these pushes towards consumerism, who is now doing something she doesn't like, but is forced to do it simply because it will supoprt her lifestyle. Now it is one thing to hear of such things in the newspaper when some bimbotic girl says it, but its another thing when someone you know says it with such... blase. Yes, she hates, it and she hates it even more because doing it is effectively suffocating her passion.
Honestly, I have no mercy for people like that. I couldn't be bothered with people like that, and sometimes talking to them might simply be a waste of time. I'm not even going to apologize because they will know that I'm not wronging them, or accusing them or anything. It's just the path they have chosen, that though I may despise their path, the truth is, they despise themselves even more than others despise them. I just hope they can truly live their lives in a way worth living. And pray for them, of course.
It leads me to this thing: why are people finding themselves supposedly trapped in the conceptual fallacies that they build for themselves. So... what am I suppose to do? They don't want to help themselves, only the spirit can help them...
Which brings me to this point about why Singapore might be in a terrible state... It is because people are so stuck in their own cynicism that they have lost the power to imagine something better for themselves, to imagine better futures, better scenarios for their own lives and for the surroundings around them. It is when they fail to imagine something better that they start to lose hope and faith in the things around them, and eventually, becoming, cynical and bitter. It doesn't take rocket science to know all these...
The thing that I find fearful from all of these is that these things are being said by USP students, of all people, people who are of a different kind, for a different kind of mission, with a different kind of mission, for a different kind of future that they ought to be thinking of creating. But no, they are creating their own traps and falling into cynicism. And we are supposed to be, honestly, to be in this elite section of society who have the fortune to undergo a university education. So what now? If even elites think like that, what hope might there be for the rest of the average people who just want to eke by?
Wake up, university students!
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