night cycling and lessons learnt: something about chinese, dialects, and speaking English

Here, I'm not going to add the photoes that materialised from the night cycling. I hope the photographer would upload the photoes on facebook!

Rather, what I'm going to do here is to mention the issues I've discovered from night cycling.

I've realised there is a much more serious chasm between generations, one that is worse than I expected. The kids born after the 1985s can barely understand our parent's generation born in the midst of the post-war boom. How did I know this? You know something is wrong when kids can't communicate with the chinese/dialect-speaking auntie who is taking your order at the restaurant or kopitiam. Something is seriously dead wrong.

I discovered this revelation while I was night-cycling, and we entered a dim sum restaurant that I presumed was quite traditional. When your friend has to look at the English translation of the dishes...

I think this goes beyond any talk about class warfare. It is simply this: one generation cannot understand the other, and because of this, Singapore is on the verge of losing something very precious: our past. Perhaps the govt is trying to stamp out all visages of the past in order to preserve its image of modernity - which is another figment of imagination dreamt up by a certain founding father.

There is a lack of a missing savviness, some kind of street sense, that ability to mix around with other people of different socio-economic status. From the nightcycling, I observed that Singapore is really divided not between the haves and have-nots, but rather, between the English speakers and non-English speakers. The talk about income inequality I think, is really about those who can speak English well enough to compete in the global market, and the rest of Singaporeans who have done not-so-well in English. It really just boils down to the language divide.

There is however, a silver lining in all of these. The fact that everyone has a chance to learn English and to potentially participate in the global market despite the background - that in itself is a miracle. I look at my sec 4 class again, and easily more than half have made it either to a local university or elsewhere. Yet, Geylang Methodist Secondary when we came in was just like a neighbourhood school, not unlike other secondary school, with its fair share of troubled kids in a rough neighbourhood (it was geylang, after all). Yet in that secondary school, there is a class where more than half - in fact, almost all of the kids are studying in a university, despite the middle-class background, and having parents who might not have even spoken a proper word of English ever in their whole lives (my own parents were primary school dropout). My class is a testament of how neighbourhood kids can eventually grow up to take on the world, and it is a demonstration of nothing less than the success of meritocracy in ensuring social mobility - that our birth does not decide our destiny, that it is our own choice that decide where we end up, whether we choose to persevere in our own learning...

So between the understanding of our past - of our parent's generation, and the ability to hold our futures in our own hands - how do we choose? I would like to say that these choices are not at all mutually exclusive, that a person who eats potato can also learn to appreciate the diversity of cultures out there. I write English essays, but I also can converse with childhood friends in Chinese, and army friends in Hokkien if I choose to. My culture is part of my DNA - but it doesn't determine fully who I am. I can flow between these different places, and to think of it now, these kinds of cultural legacies that are only transmitted through families - these are gifts. That my neighbourhood friends have gone so far off on the other side and chosen to live predominantly in their English-speaking universe - well I'll just be agnostic about that.

But it just seems very weird that my neighbourhood friends can't exactly hang out speaking hokkien or chinese, despite their backgrounds in middle-class families, and most of them would also be chinese speaking at home... On a lighter side, it is something quite awkward when you go to a chinese restaurant and the auntie speaks chinese and hokkien....

something to mull about...

Singapore the Nonexistent Nation

Dec 28 was the last youth service.

Anyway, the more I think about it, it didn't make any real sense to have a third youth service. It would only make sense if there was a different message, or repackaged for the youth. And the definition of youth is well, kinda irrelevant too. And its about the demographics too. There are simply less young people than before.

Anyway, I attended the service on december 28th, and I was glad I did, because Pastor Khong talked about something that struck me. He said something like, 'its a miracle that Singapore exists!' And he went on saying that Singapore has no reason to exist politically, economically, demographically, because of the limited size and population of Singapore. And he went on saying that it is God's miracle that Singapore exists and prospers.

That thought really struck me. And since I'm on this theme of the Singapore and the future, and thinking of writing something long about it, I thought that that words, Singapore, non-existent, miracle should somehow be together. So I thought something along the lines of, Singapore: Continuing the Miracle of the Non-Existent Nation.

I wonder if it might work. Still haven't even jot down a single word about all the futures that I want to write about it. But yeah. I guess all these conceptualisations are just a start. Its difficult to predict anything, especially for the future - goes that wise saying.

Hmm..

while washing bowls...

I like washing bowls sometimes. Not because of the very act in itself, but rather it allows for the time and space for quiet meditation about some other stuff.

Like for example, I now realise that the source of people's entertainment is simply the recognition of our emotions, that there really are just that few themes that drive people to watch something. It really is about justice and love, and how we get there. I mean, what is drama? *drama*, is really, the means of acquiring either love and fairness.

But it is too sweeping a generalisation to think in these simplistic terms.

More reminders for myself. I should begin to write a book about Singapore's future, and to be serious about writing it. I'll write it for the point-of-view of various people and their socio-economic class perhaps, about the future of schools, work, technology, politics, activism and the environment. Some sketches about the regional future and the global future. How people live work, play, love and so on...

I hope it'll be optimism with a dose of reality perhaps... Not sure about everything else. Gotta write it... oh wells..

Reviewing Outliers

Outliers



I know this is not the first time that I'm talking about this book, but this book deserves a special mention because of the implications of its ideas.

Malcolm Gladwell looks for the reasons for success, and finds it in the social context and connections that people are brought up with. To sum it, connections + practise = high chances of success. He uses Bill Gates and his 100,000+ hours of coding, along with world class musicians, and the contrasting examples of Manhattan Project head Oppenheimer with a contemporary genius who has, erm, fallen on hard times.

The parts that continue to *hit* me. There was a part where he was talking about why people in low-income neighbourhoods don't do as well as people in high-income neighbourhoods. It is not that people in low-income neighbourhoods are less smart - thats utter nonsense, rather, it is because of the social environment and the likelihood of continuing to study at home. The truth is, people in low-income neighbourhoods really need more time and resources continuing academic pursuit, just as a kid in a privileged family would have books and nurturing families at home to sculp their minds.

In other words, the social environment is going to a large determinant of how a person does, regardless of innate ability. A person's innate ability IS important, but a poor environment would be unable to express that ability to its fullest potential.

But there were other reasons why I keep coming back to this book. Because all the time I'm thinking about my classmates in secondary school and some NS buddies, and what it is that differentiates me from others. Everyone is smart, its just that not everyone has had that opportunity to pursue that smartness.

There should be a place in every neighbourhood, where's there's WIFI, books, computers and someone down there who will be able to guide and push students in their studies. It would be a learning place, and place where students would be asked to consolidate what they learnt in their school and go a bit further. It ought to be a meaningful learning place, for them to ask questions. But first and foremost, it would be a place where they do their work, where they'll have the support of others.

Merry Christmas!

I thought it would be nice to pen something on christmas.

I had a very good time a Shaun's place, and still taken aback by the kinds of connections that he has.

Anyway, was reminded of my own projects that I have to do, a sort of an autobiography about making sense of my own life. But I guess its going to be boring unless I find interesting stuff to say at every juncture of my life. For example, looking back, I realised how immature and childish and naivete I was in my secondary and JC days, when everything seemed so important when in fact things hardly mattered at all. I guess that kind of perspective takes time to build up, to be mature enough to understand what matters and what doesn't.

I still have quite a bit of unfinished projects to do, though I think I have finished what I set out to do this holidays. I have started on various writing projects, but they might not looked finished. I have informed my professors of my writing intentions, although things might get a little tough from now on.

I need to think about the philosophy of science, the ethics of chemistry, and maybe a bit more about the environment.

Also, I need to finish up the competition essay, plan for HCAP, think about Model Asean.

I guess I live a charmed life.

I need to think about the potential reader's approach to my potential book - why would they want to read it. I need to set up a motive - perhaps about how people can make sense of things in their own lives, make people start thinking about the linkages in their lives. I'm beginning to think that the social connections that a person has in large part, also determines the kind of life that he lives. That's what I gather from Gladwell's Outlier, which I think shall be the subject of my review next blog.

Who the person is inside, can be fully actualised by a more densely connected web. Perhaps. The more connection a person, the more likely his inner potential will be fulfilled - as a rough guide. Because a genius takes a community to recognise.

Thinking about science writing, and the ultimate purpose is. The real reason is, peopele DO want to know, and a good piece of writing enlightens the reader, and causes the reader to think in new ways, especially in changing the perspective of something mundane. Good writing also compels the reader to DO something. Or sometimes, it is the sheer expression of the subject matter itself, that moves the reader.

Just 2 weeks more till this short little break ends. Hmm. fear and trepidation. Meanwhile...

Merry Christmas!

a book review: Natural Capitalism

I thought this was way overdue, but heck. Been reading Natural Capitalism, and its about the refashioning of capitalism to include environmental considerations - and how environmental concerns are at least compatible with business concerns.

Natural Capitalism

There are many, many ideas in this book, and what I'll try to do here is to summarise things. For one thing, the book talks about efficiency, and how contemporary systems in manufacturing, and in other aspects, can are actually terribly inefficient in things as arcane as the way pipes and plumbing are done. They talk about new systems of doing business, in the idea of many things as a service, not as a product, using the example of the Interface carpet company. For example, people want flooring as a service - so Interface sells the carpeting as a service, and not as a product. And the carpets themselves are made of materials that are almost infinitely recyclable. The concept extends to the chemical industry, where companies lease solvents and offering to clean up spills and all. By doing so, the companies need to be efficient in finding out how to do the most things with the least stuff, reducing wastage and all.

And then there was the part about cars and the making of ever more efficient cars and of course, restructuring neighbourhoods so that cars are not needed in the first place. Then the usual stuff, more efficient homes with better materials, and then on how to how to have more efficient manufacturing procedures using the concepts of Toyota and lean manufacturing.

And there was the bit about growing food more sustainably. By thinking about food growing as an ecology in itself, avoiding monoculture, and learning about the flow of nutrients and water, minimising the use of artificial pesticides and fertilizers.

All in all, it adds up to a transformation in the way we live and work. And then there's also the example of Curitiba - a Brazilian city that has transformed the urban landscape and at the same time, improving the quality of life for their inhabitants. Which is remarkable. I'm thinking about how a similar transformation might affect Singaporeans too. Can we invite Jaime Lerner to Singapore for like, say, 3 years?

Ideas like that make me think about the Remaking Singapore Committee, and frankly, I cannot remember a word of it now. It's been so many years now, and I don't think Singapore has been 'Re-Made' in any sense of the word.

birthdays and parties

I was at a friends's birthday party today and it got me thinking about what birthdays parties are about. I guess generally, a birthday party is suppose to be an occasion where the birthday guy shows appreciation and gratitude for all the wonderful things their friends and families have done in his life. And I thought about this again, about why and how I might do mine, since I didn't do a 21st birthday party. And I thought again, why do it at 21? I guess thats really just an excuse since it happens to be the age of adulthood here. 

I dunno. I think I might do one at maybe, 30, perhaps, throw a banquet or something, and invite close friends, and I might do a whole performance thanking people who have been impactful in my life. Maybe even do an entire life story, and then having one big party every ten years thereafter. 

I would want my party to be about something meaningful, not just to be about my own life per se, but about personal values and things of conviction. I would want people to network among my different groups of friends, to help each other out, I guess. I want to connect people with each other... hmm...

just a random thought. 

on the way to fetch shaun

I read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which essentially says that success is the product of hard work (100,000+ hours of practise) and having the social connections to opportunities.

There was a chapter on why kids in low-income families don't do well. Its not because they are stupid, but because they are not in the environment of education. That got me thinking, don't we have institutions that are suppose to serve this need?

I thought about our community centres and what they are suppose to do. But I realised that they are quite static institutions, serving as platforms for service providers, and not to actively reach out to the community per se.

So that got me thinking. Its not that we need community centres, its that we need community ENGAGEMENT centres. We need places and buildings to engage the community outside, serving the needs of the community. What do people in the community need? The kids, especially, need a place to LEARN, but also someplace where they can hang out too.

I am thinking along the lines of Dave Egger's Once Upon a School concept. I am thinking of a place, where you put nice tables and chairs, study lamps, daylights, wifi, computers, books, and lots of books, and you have volunteer instructors to teach the kids stuff when you need. And then I thought, maybe to improve the stickiness of the place, have guitars, keyboards, drums, so that groups of kids can come and do jamming sessions with their friends, and then, why not have skate parks, dance parks, so that they will stay essentially in the same area and not hang out with potentially unsavoury company. Ask music, dance, other kinds of instructors to come help out on a pro bono basis. Same for any other kind of say, visual art. Impose restrictions that people can only do their own things after spending say, 2 hours mugging.

Then invite people in the community to participate with the maintenance or in the foods, maybe selling small widgets. Better yet, let the community decide in how this community engagement centre might work. Make the building energy positive, maybe wait till solar power becomes damn cheap, have lush gardens to filter rainwater and contribute to the local community, then sell whatever excess energy and water to the local community.

Business model might come from the usage of the jamming facilities, or from the proceeds of whatever community entrepreneurial venture at the centre. Might even come from sales of excess energy or water from the building itself.

I know this is like a castle in the sky, but wth. The supposedly lower-hanging fruit would be to retrofit the existing community centres with the said facilities.

Its really a mash-up of two TED ideas, Dave Egger's Once Upon a School, and this Bill Stricklands guy.



http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_strickland_makes_change_with_a_slide_show.html




http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html

saturday-sunday

Today I learnt to trust God a little more regarding relationships. I hand that part of my life to Him again, knowing that all things will work well in the end.

Not a very productive holiday. many essay ideas, but only two concrete stuff so far. Arrgh. need the atmosphere to work. Home not exactly conducive. And that tempting CNC 3 disk... haha.

Ploughing through Natural Capitalism. Coolios. Wished I had read it sooner. Thinking about the concept of justice. oh wells. Thinking about non-cliched stuff in science to write. Which is damn. freaking. hard! meanwhile, seeing more allegories of justice in movies and popular media.

I guess the media of the entire world is really about looking for, defining, applying justice, or the failure to do so. The moral sense of goodness and evil. Could I summarise social sciences through the perspective of justice alone? What about geography? especially human geography - how might that fit into the larger sense of things? I could break the whole thing down into Political justice, social justice, economic justice, community justice, even? And everything slots into place. How we define what is right and wrong, how systems sort of, trigger people into right and wrong, how urban planning ameliorates or exacerbates social problems.

Another observation:some of the intellectuals today actually take a degree, and then go for another degree, before going on to specialise in something. I need the breadth too. Hmm. My mind refuses to be pigeon-holed into a single category - guess there are really multiple modes of thinking.

Thinking about citizen-scientist, soldier-scientist (if there ever was one), career-scientists, and 'social-scientists' - people who specialise in the social sciences, but we tend to call them specifically, sociologists, economists, political scientists, the like, or simply, 'writer'. What are their roles, and how do these separate identities harmonise or are in conflict?

What is the role of the expert in our time of crowdsourcing?

the truth is...

The truth is, I haven't been WORKING rather hard. I can imagine that I might live a *slack* life in the future, a calm peaceful life interrupted by an editor pushing me to finish up an article. And still get paid lots. Something like that. So I shrugged off defeating computer enemies n CNC 3 and rebooted my mac in mac os x and started *working* again.

Meanwhile, been struggling with the concept of justice. There are happy coincidences in life. The happy coincidence that relates to the concept of justice is that I was reading Plato's Republic AND watching Dark Knight. It then occurs to me that a lot of our entertainment are actually allegories about justice. Anything that has a good/bad-evil dichotomy can be thought of as an allegory of justice. The other dichotomy that is often explored is, the love-hate thingy.

And I was watching Dark Knight, and there was the Joker as a personification of chaos, destruction, and psychopathic evil, and there's Batman, Bruce Wayne trying to become the personification of justice itself... There was this quote that gnawed at me, about joker saying 'the unstoppable force meeting the unmoveable object' - Batman as the uncorruptible while the Joker as the irredeemable evil.

And then of course, the wonderful techno-orgasm inducing sonar handphones and that kind of power. One of the question is - having all that power, used in the pursuance of justice - is that good or bad?

Just a philosophical afterthought, I guess.

too many things to say

I have to be comfortable in my own skin, know what I'm good at, and keep working at it. So i'm an interdisciplinary thinker, So I ought to go in that direction of knowing what lies at the interface of different fields, like science and society being one of them - and all the minute details where I might find the meeting places. That's something I'm interested in. And the *trick* is to communicate all the possible strange things that happen at the interface.

For example, I started work with two essays, one was about knots and the way we think, the other was about understanding the weird concepts in science using the analogy of love and human relationships. Those things seem promising, and I'm on the lookout for other interesting mashups between things from different disciplines.

Michael Pollan wrote before, about how drugs might have spurred philosophy through altered states of mind, and how religions could also have been affected by it. It is noted that witchcraft was often associated with wild mushrooms, and some sort of fungus was known to cause hysteria within a population. So... that was pretty interesting.

I am not exactly interested in social issues perse, its just another hobby of sorts, a hobby I pursue half-seriously nowadays. Now that I'm in that perpetual state of one-foot-in-the-door, i don't really care. Its something that I can enter into, but its either the timing isn't right, or its just not my temperament or disposition. oh wells. I'm better off at writing.

So I ask God, WHAT CAN I DO? I consider my options, and I see none. I think I addressed some of these things in an earlier post, but its going to be a recurring question that I have to answer again and again. I think about chemistry and think about making new stuff, and that is definitely something open for me - to look for new materials, new bases for our everyday life, and other energy-related problems, such as a high-energy-density power pack, tougher and biodegradable materials, and things like that.

As for being an intellectual surrounded by piles of paper and books and writing and writing, thats a less-likely kind of position, but it might be in a consulting position probably, which is also quite likely, possibly a science-correspondent of sorts, but I realise now that as long as you are good at writing, and have attained the basics of the craft, the rest of life is just one road to become better and better, to write to capture the imagination of others, to communicate an idea, to change the world through the changing and turning of minds.

I could continue collaborating with Shaun on an ad-hoc basis, by thinking about ways to change the way people think and access to information, by thinking about interactive mindmaps and such - helping people to make sense of things in the world and in their lives. The barrage of information out there is waiting for some attempt to organise it. I hope Shaun and I can be the first, or one of the first, or be there helping someone who can be the first.

And one of the other things. Gotta keep on reading. listen to my own advice, do what i love - reading and thinking.

tired.

I got my macbook back and InteresThink 3

Yeah! I got my macbook back! Well, I had to sent it off because the palm rest was cracked. And the palm rest that I got right now seems to feel more solid than the one I had. The mouse button seems more solid too - harder to press.

Anyway, was at InteresThink 3.

The first guy talked about the mangement of information and how important it is to manage and share information within organisations and between organisations.

The second guy talked about social entrepreneurship and how he combined social work and business in his company.

The third guy is also about social entrepreneurship and how he employs the marginalised too.

The forth lady talked about toilets. Which was kinda cool.

I managed to grab an SPH representative to be there, and dragged quite a bit of USP people there, and saw an interesting exchange between Gabriel and Kelvin.

I miss my buddy Shaun. I wish I could hang around more conversations. The talks were great, and the diversity of life's experience was there for all to see, and as Douglas summed it up, it was about passions and how some of the speakers had a passion for the community, and so worked in that direction. Somehow in the middle of it, I just realised that well, I really don't have a passion for these social issues, as much as I might be interested in them. But it just seems that I don't have the passion that some of these people have even though they are all younger than me.

Maybe I just feel .jaded. Maybe I don't really get social change after all, and I guess that really means that my heart isn't there. My being isn't there. I guess I'm a thinker first and foremost, and I should learn to accept that. Or maybe the 'doing' part just isn't quite there yet. But I'm still quite a sci-tech-centred guy who likes to look at the techie and science part of things, and that is certainly one way I can enter into the conversation of the world.

I realised also a lot of things. That Singapore has quite a diverse blogosphere, and political ones at that. People are talking, and the label of apathy seems less and less justified with each passing generation.

But what does it take to really change? Other than that, met other cool people, and got some contacts, I think. Not sure what to expect. Maybe can add half the audience list on facebook! haha.

Steven Chu is Obama's secretary of energy!

reminding myself of the core of my being

I am learning again who I really am. I have sort of decided that I wasn't the social-activist sort, not the kind who will go for campaigns or demonstrations, nor am I the kind who will attend conferences and schmooze around with other like-minded people. I admire their dedication and wish that I had that kind of *spirit* to go for what they believe in. I guess for me its going to be about a different kind of path, and I really don't know where writing or thinking about science will take me. 

So who am I then? More like a original thinker who looks at ideas and the interface between different ideas and with reality. I think about ways of thinking, and about economy, education and the environment, mainly. I think about the material basis of our everyday lives, which in itself, is an intersection of the environment and economy, and I think about the way ideas *flow* in our lives, how we interpret, how we derive meaning from the things we know, and how to encourage a kind of thinking that opens minds instead of enclosing them, as how our education systems have tended to be. I think about the impacts of society, how technology changes the way we think, and the way we do things, social organisation being one of them. 

I see now that Singapore actually has a very diverse activist ecology, with many different people and different groups all in their niches. But there's a lot of coexistence, not mutualism, and I think this one of the reasons why Bernise set up SYINC... But to me, it seems that many of these NGOs, are like the politics of today, still stuck in the previous generation's way of doing things. Yeah sure, they are using Facebook more, but essentially, their mode of thinking has remained unchanged. yeah. Perhaps human rights is still human rights is still human rights. And the really sad thing is the state of things in Singapore's civil society, that it still largely a fringe movement. I know that some groups have had some success, but civil society is still as yet, not yet mainstream. How to shtick human rights ideas into ordinary Singaporeans who don't think through things, or don't express these thoughts? 

I know this is improbable, but is the civil society sorta anti-religions? Hmm.. There are a lot of things going on that I don't fully understand, I admit, but... the case of Singapore is a unique case where there is a dominant entity that wields almost all the political power, and there are a pluralism of institutions with different kinds of social influence... 

I think civil society might need to stronger connections between other social groups in order to really permeate into mainstream society... But all of these are already slowly happening anyway. 

so where do I enter into these tangled conversations about rights and dignity? Honestly, I don't have a clue...

its another midnight run...

I ran again. but this time, with an agenda. Now, usually, people say that your mind works in the background, and when you are wrestling with a problem, the usual advice is to give things a braek, do something mundane, and voila! solutions come at you. Now, that usually happens to me, so I decided to try something different. I ran tonight with some purposes in mind.

Someone at church reminded me of my past affiliations with SYINC. I say 'affiliations' because I was never part of the core team. Thats another story, but anyway, I began to think anew again about what the heck am I suppose to do. 

I shall start with my childhood. I came to know God because of fear. I had this fear about UFOs and the creepy aliens, and I would pray to deities for protection. Now, all of these seems laughable now, I must say, but when you're a 6 yr old kid with nothing else to bother your mind, alien-kidnap seems to be a serious thing. But I'm 21 now, and those things are laughable. So yeah. The other thing that probably set me up for faith was reading about the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide, and about all the massacres that people would do to each other in the name of whatever. That somehow brought up a kind of compassion within me, to want to say NO to all these things and these manner of evil. I guess these were the things that were sown in my heart, about the world and about the people that led me to want to pursue things such as social change and engagement, about how to PREVENT, societies from turning to prejudice, to prevent cleansings from EVER happening. Which has led me thus far. I think about compassion, and I see the elderly and homeless and the neglected, I hear disputes about money - insecurity and anxieties... and I feel pained... 

But, what can I really do? I thought about church, and about clusters, and how societal change is still about social engagement. That no matter lofty ideals, the work that you do in engaging people is still the ONLY thing that determines the success and failure of social movements. I thought about G12, about vertical and horizontal hierarchies, about the fact that horizontal connections between different subgroups are the most important features. Even right now, I think about how Hitler mobilised SS and SA and all that, and I think about Martin Luther King jr and how he organised and organised, and kept on organising people! I think about Obama and his campaign right now, about how he is now president-elect, because of his inspirational vision THAT MOBILIZED PEOPLE TO GO DOOR to DOOR TO VOTE FOR HIM!!! I guess in large part, it becomes about people inspiring people, and how eventually, communities become won over for whatever purpose - for the case of Hitler, it was his national vision of nazism. For Martin Luther King jr, it was about the civil rights of blacks and for the peace movement. For Obama, it was about the political transformation for a country based on the past. I think about critical mass, about giving people critical thinking courses to help them think about the world, but what about tangible actions? I don't know! People will only ever learn by doing! So what can I DO? I CAN DO NOTHING EXCEPT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT TRANSFORMS THE HEARTS AND SPIRITS OF PEOPLE! arrgh. I need the Spirit! That is all that can ever be done. Nothing else. 

I thought about religions and ideas as memes and their broad analogies to viruses and bacteria, how fundamentalism might be seen as a kind of memetic spanish flu, that might peter out because it killed people too fast, too horribly, that religions are moderate because of the benefits that they bring and how all these ideas exist in an ecology, in a context, cooperating... The memes that bring the most benefits survive, and they crowd out the other memes that cause detriments and peter out. That could be something worth an ISM.

But more than these ideals, I think about the removal of prejudices, about openness, about the minds of people - because people are God's creation, with potential, and our lives are about unleashing that potential for His glory and purpose. I think about what writing can do, how communication might matter - which I have no idea, and chemistry - about a materials revolution, abut making a better future possible because of my ideas about materials and the material basis of our everyday lives. I could intern at Cradle to Cradle and see how things work out. After all, the one half of cradle to cradle is a chemist!

AndI prayed. For cell leader, for cell members, for my friends around me. No small thing too. To juggle praying and running at the same time. I pray for the country, for compassion in the leaders. 

So what am I doing when I go to InteresThink? What is the *larger* agenda out there? Touch base with the TOC writers. Touch base once again, with Bernise, YW, and the whole gang. Meet new people, explore connections. I see myself as a connector of people and ideas. 

So what is all of these in the context of God? I don't know. I want to bring out the best in people, for people to use their minds, and think about the world, yet at the same time, enjoying their life and work. A society of philosophers, but thats... unrealistic to say the least. And who am I to enforce my own vision upon the world? I want people to lead happy lives, lives that will bring them purpose and joy. I want to teach them to think wider! So that we will disregard our prejudice and prevent us to do stupid things to each other. Like wiping out entire ethnic groups! A kind of awareness, a new kind of consciousness that maybe appreciates the interconnectedness of many things in a tangible way. 

I begin to see connections between writing essays and doing humanitarian stuff. I see that our lives are a kind of essay - we close read the whole world, and see something obvious that everyone else takes for granted, take it apart, examining it, and then come with an interesting motive and thesis, and work at it. That is how all the NGOs in the world can have their place. Some will be interested in animal welfare, others about indiscriminate killing of animals, others against pollution. That is all that we can ever do in the finite lifespan of our lives, I guess - a kind of word limit, so to speak.

And I worshipped the Lord, and continued to pray, and here I am, limbs aching, but a spirit still strong, a mind still sharp...

at home...

I interrupted the monotony of write-eat-pray-run-sleep (i don't run that often, I confess) of my holidays in order to go for a church retreat. it was there that i found myself confronting some ideas. 

1. i have legacy issues with past figures of authority.

2. i still think about church and social activism.

1. is certainly a personal issue which i need to handle with church leaders and so is OB for the blog, while 2. is something that I would think about here.

I think about the clique of people that I know of - the people who go do social activism, and are really hardcore about it. And I began to notice a pattern, that these people are either non-Christian, or they come from more traditional churches for whom outreach is still a rather *simple* thing of being there in a community. 

I guess being in FCBC, one of the package that comes along with it is a very extensive network of leaders with which to work with to reach out to do evangelical events in a rather organised manner. Part of it, I guess involves this rather complicated word called 'discipleship', which in *simple* terms, means to make someone to be more like Christ, and in more practical terms, to mean, building upon love and faith with God. And with that kind of agenda, there isn't a lot of space left to do *other* stuff, namely, other kinds of social engagement, especially in more activist terms. 

Now let me clarify, FCBC runs Touch Community Services, which basically does welfare services for the community, reaching out to the poor, and needy of the community. And it does splendid work. I believe that Singapore is enriched with the existence of TCS, and many people have benefitted from being recipients of the good work that TCS does.

BUT when it comes to things like... civil rights, the environment, the church is silent. Not just FCBC but also for many churches as well. Yet, these churches routinely pray for events in the world, such as political and civil crises in other nations and natural disasters. I'm like, WTH!!!

I understand that the churches would be concerned about events that affect the lives of their people, hence they pray for events such as the current financial crisis, where people lose their jobs and such. And for natural disasters of massive scales, they pray, like the 2004 tsunami. And they might pray for countries in the region or in Asia, because they might be have a presence there, in their members doing mission work, perhaps. But I'm just simply pissed, that they seemingly turn a blind eye to things in the world - and make broad generalisations about how these events seem to indicate the Second Coming. 

Well, church leaders ought to know very well that people have been saying the Second Coming is coming through the centuries since Jesus died. 

I respect these comments, but at the back of my mind, I go... 'err.....' 

I know the church ought to be rightly concerned with these things about the crisis and mission works, and the countries in Asia and others, but... HELLO!!! WE ARE INCREASING CO2 LEVELS LIKE NEVER BEFORE! HEY! THOUSANDS ARE STILL STARVING IN AFRICA!! HEY, THERE ARE CULTURE CONFLICTS IN SINGAPORE!!!!

Is belief in church-state separation something to confess about? I don't know. Was George Bush a good president? He might've been a strong christian, but maybe he didn't do such a good job. Should I care if Obama is a strong christian? erm... well, if he is, great, if not, well, i pray God will bless him in his presidency. Should I care if the European leaders are atheist or agnostic? Well, too bad they aren't believers, but I pray for open hearts! How should I respond about the political situation in Singapore? Well, I pray that PAP not make Singapore TOTALLY TOTALITARIAN. hmm...

hmm... hmm... 

I guess I blow the liberal/conservative divisions out of the water. I don't bloody care. All I want is to lead a God-fearing life and to apply the knowledge that I have for His glory. 

But back to my point. I realise that for many of the non-believers (of christianity, at least), their social activism, in effect, becomes a church, that secularism and humanism becomes their religion for them. Which is why they have all the time they have to do these wonderful things. I look at my own life, and...well, I love writing and ideas too much I guess. Its a matter of time-share and mind-share, to make the choices that I'm making now, to choose one thing necessarily at the expense of the other... This isn't really a complaint, but I'm wondering, I guess many people in FCBC have had to make concessions of one kind or another in order to do the things in FCBC and not other things that they might want to do, such as maybe, for my case, social causes and such. 

On the other hand, social activism is essentially social transformation, which is just another word for many individual salvation... a society is transformed when the people themselves are transformed, which is just another way of saying... God is there. But then... well.. i guess its just one of those things to struggle with... 

sigh. why does life tie itself up in knots...

i went for a run...

Here I am again, off the back of another run, still high endorphins even as I begin to feel the cramps and strains in my calfs and thighs. Anyway, thoughts come to me as I run, so here they go..

I was reflecting about the state of my social life, and the obvious always hits me. I have a wide array of weak links to various social networks - I count off FCBC, cell, VCF science, VCF arts, NGOs, bernise ang, kelvin quee, USP, ACJC, Gmeth, So yeap. So its not that I do not have friends, I just have very little close links people who I can count on... People whom I know and love on a first-degree basis... 

My life thus far has been book/study-centred, and with it, there are pros and cons. Pros being, intellectually mature - I know where the trends are, and I know how to explore them if I want to, because I was in a surrounding that never gave much in terms of encouragement or critical thinking. I was more in the neighbourhood of, 'study hard, make money' rather than, 'just learn about the things that you love, and see how you can move from there - doesn't really matter if it doesn't make money'... 

So yeah. I've pretty much been making my own decisions about what to do in my life, with my studies. And this attitude has created a spirit of independence, of self-reliance. At the same time, being slightly different within my peers as I came of age, I became a little bit socially-aloof. Thats the con part. Being immersed in books a little bit too deep might make a person a little bit divorced from the reality of human relationships, and its becoming obvious that it is something I should be working on - hang out more with friends and such. 

I really, really, envy my friends who have siblings who have gone on to NUS or colleges and such. At least they have God AND someone to talk to... As for me... I self-console. Which isn't much.

So thats that. Hang out with friends next semester will continue to be a priority, if not the highest priority besides studying time and running and praying. 

The second major thread that I thought of was WRITING. I need to join a writing circle of sorts, of that grey zone between amateur and professional, so I can improve my writing at a professional level. No, I don't exactly need SPH kind of mentoring, but I do need professional writers who *might* spare some time in looking after people. Maybe i'll ask someone about it. Singapore must have a writing circle somehow!

The third thread that occupied my mind was about activism. After reading Alex Au's article about foreign workers being oppressed in Singapore with complicity on the part of the government, it sent shivers down my spine. Here is the link

http://www.yawningbread.org/

And then it dawned upon me that there are at least 2 kinds of activists in Singapore. 

There are those who are acting as the Singapore's opposition - they question the policies and transparency of the incumbent, to challenge the irrationality of the government.

Then there are those who challenge the government based on universal principles of human rights and such. 

I guess you might label the former as Pragmatists and the latter as Idealists. 

There are really no hierarchies between these two kinds of activism. Activism is I guess, kinda like a spectrum, because all activism are based on the existence of ideals, but all activism also wishes to enact some kind of practical change. 

I look at the fading facades of my neighbourhood, and think about how long Singapore can really last... 'Singapore' as a coherent concept, of people living, dying, working, playing... but these are questions to big to ponder for me, and I ought to look at smaller details... 

There are the blue-blooded elitist people who have no regard for the rest of Singaporeans, and there are Singaporeans who have been disregarded by the rest of Singapore. 

I can guess now I realise the fine line that Bernise has been walking for her post-melbourne life. How to *confront* the authorities without really confronting them... 

And still musing... How long can a reign of irrationality and absurdity last? Does it become like the Soviet Union, when prison inmates joke about ten-year sentences for nothing? Or does it become worse? Even the USSR took a few decades to come to its demise. We've only had 4. Hmm... 

So yeah. 

thoughts about malcolm gladwell's Outliers

I just finished reading Gladwell's Outliers, and its a decent book, though thinking about it now, there are many questions about the validity about the points of this book, but I think one of the things that jumped out at me was that the socio-cultural conditions and just. pure. happenstance can basically account for whether people are successful or not. I especially liked the comparisons between the people of high IQ, between chris lagan and oppenheimer, and i can sort of relate to that because of the things that i've seen in life, and looking at how difficult it is for people in unprivileged positiosn to find success in lives, even though they might just be as equally gifted as everyone else.

I guess in a way, the book reveals the social conditions that make people, people-smart to schmooze with CEOs and stuff, that well, people in neighbourhoods do not have. It really is all about the social connections that people have, about how to handle high-powered people and all, and of course the hard work required... now... how am i going to put in the 100k hour rule of practise in writing?

oh well. That also means that the solutions to class divide is not just about giving people better education, it also means that people need to have better social education... thinking about regional centres of excellenc in neighbourhoods, so bright kids in the neighbourhoods can hang around and get extra lessons or guidance from some kind prof, perhaps. To get even neighbourhood kids to have the chance to work with high powered professionals and learn the social-schmoozing skills so that they don't get overwhelmed when they reach the atas places, as I was a little when i hit acjc. it really is about breaking social barriers...

met up with someone frm acjc. coolios

I had the fortune of meeting a schoolmate from ACJC. It was those kind of, 'hey, you look familiar, you're from ACJC, right?' - sort of thing. And we were from the same batch, and she knew my friends, so it was an excellent excuse to start a conversation. And I happened to know what happened to some of the teachers at ACJC, and had *slightly* more interesting stories about what happened to ACJC since we left - like ACJC sucking at sports and stuff even though academically we might be doing well. About the teachers and where they are, whether they are still at AC. 

So yeah. It was nice catching up and all. And we were just talking about what we were studying and looking at our future potential jobs. She asked the question first, about what would I do with chemistry after I graduate (she's doing finances and accounting at SMU). I thought about it... and my thoughts about my future after I graduate are going to be on this blog.

I used to ask this question to all my friends that I met. But after going through some personal experiences, and hearing stories from other working people, I now DO NOT ask that question anymore, because asking that question is well... just a polite conversation starter, and there isn't much point in doing that, since there are a thousand other better ways to start a conversation. 

Anyway, I used to think that I studied chemistry because I wanted to do some research in chemistry, because chemistry is inherently interesting to me, just as physics might be interesting to someone, or mathematics, or economics... If not, there's always the pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals/plastics, semiconductors... *yawn*... you know, the usual boring stuff. If not, there's always going into teaching, which is also not surprising. So yeah. The future is still open for me, and me studying right now, I'm not going to be closing doors anytime soon, but going into industry isn't exactly what I have in mind. Maybe I might do some internships there or something, but thats not the point. 

But now that I'm in university, and having gone through the Writing and Critical Thinking module, I discovered that I really like writing, because I like thinking about things, and to write for other people to understand the connections between the different disparate things that might have nothing to do with each other. So, you ask me now what I'm thinking I want to do, I would say, something in writing. heck, I don't really know, neither do I really care. Just let things be, you know, trust God, that everything will turn out fine, that the decisions I make in that future will be the things that He wants me to do. Of course from time to time you think a bit about the things that I might do, but the possibilities are really endless as to make that kind of thinking just speculative and fun to fantasize about, but these fantasies cannot be the basis on which you make decisions about the future about. 

In the end, there's still reality out there to think about, and reality is ALWAYS stranger than what we expect. Before school started, if you had asked me the same question about what I might be doing, I would NEVER have anticipated that I would end up loving writing so much. So I've come to realise that these questions about the future are just that - just *questions* to think about, but to answer only definitely in THAT future, not in this present now. Because who we are at this present moment CANNOT be prepared to make those choices in the FUTURE. Questions about career choices, lifepaths, there are only general principles that we can take with us - do what we love, work really really hard at what we love, but beyond that, we still have to choose between the possible futures, and we can only do that through the wisdom that we acquired in the process of growth, and realising who we are as God made us, and to make full use of that, for His purpose! That is ALL we can do...

Its kinda weird that the things that we do now are going to lead us to unexpected places in the future. Well, not quite. I might be studying chemistry now, but I might not be doing chemistry in the future. Does that mean I studied chemistry in vain? NO! Thats just pure nonsense! The point is not in the actual study of the subject content, the point was in all the times you had to apply your mind to some interesting question, to rest upon the concepts that you know, and learning how to apply them, in the training of the analytical skills, to spot common patterns, to organise the knowledge that you acquire - those are meta-skills that any good high quality job would need! Chemistry is just an excuse to acquire them. Ditto with mathematics and physics, or economics... Learning about the equations, and trying to make sense of the abstract and make it something you can relate to... thats a key skill too! To make sense out of the noise of everyday things, seeing that sometimes they might not be noise but bits and pieces out of a larger pattern... Even though we are pattern-seeking creatures, there is also the key point about learning how to distinguish between genuine noise and real patterns out there - those are also key skills that needs picking up! The subjects that we are study are EXCUSES to acquire those universal skills! In doing chemistry, I have the pictures of molecules in my head, I do mental rotations, I *see* the electron clouds, I guess at the possible reactions that might happen here, there, in the molecule. Or I *see* a material, and imagine how it is composed, how the individual moleucles are cross-linked together to form the entire material, and to imagine the possibilies and application of that material, or find new ways to apply the material... Others might *see* idea-spaces, some theory or construct embedded in some social space, or some philosophers might *see* the applications of certain thought-constructs in certain government policies or certain aspects of human behaviour... These are the tools with which we make sense of things, to think about them, and to communicate with others about, to try to see how we might see things differently, and learning how to implement these possibilties - all of these are things that we learn in university and maybe a lot more or less. 

Of course what we learn has bearing upon our future, its just that our future might be something that was totally unexpected by ourselves in the first place! (well, except for those scholarship holder stuck to their bonds) This expectation of the unexpected, this readiness to accept the randomness of life that takes us to somewhere strange, different, discomforting, new, this is something that we have to learn and acquire as we go on in our lives. 

And that is the reason why I'll never ask my friends about the future they see for themselves, because NO ONE, can really see for themselves what might happen in the future...

wednesday 3rd december

I wanted to go hang out with my army buddies, but then i realised i had something on at church, so the latter took precedence. it was a time where church leaders shared about the vision for next year's work, and there were many big words and simple overarching ideals.

FCBC's theme next year is about 'Loving Our Neighbour', and it will be I suspect, another year of growth in these areas, of coming to engage others emotionally, spiritually, and so it'll probably be another exciting year and semester.

Met up with cell leader and processed a lot of stuff. (don't like to use the word 'process' but anyhow...) It was a nice heart-to-heart talk and going through the many exciting things that had been happening for the past few months especially in NUS.

I enjoyed sharing about my first semester because i really enjoyed it! It has been a time of maturing, of learning, to begin to appreciate what God's love is about and trying to live that out, of learning about myself, and appreciating how God has made me, managing my own expectations, thinking about the immediate paths and the steps ahead, coming to terms with reality and how things really are... it was a really enjoyable time.

learning to *flow* with the Spirit...

a reflection about friends at the end of the semester

The semester has practically ended, with the final closure happening on the 23rd, when the *truth* will be known. Meantime, there is time for a break, for a little reflection of the semester that I've had. And one of the things that I've realised is that, I have been much blessed with friends - that despite my social awkwardness, I was never physically alone, that for most of the time, I've had friends - people whom I know physically close, that I really could be alone, but only by deliberate choice. I'm finally learning to be with people for the first time in my life, without being bothered too much by the timing of reaching home.

I love my friends. I really do. And to some of them, I appreciate them much more than they might realize. I realised the importance of 'touching base', that despite the busy-ness, it is ALWAYS important to say, 'hi, how are you, bye' sorta thing, even for just 5 minutes. These little acts are more important than people realise, I think, because it represents a person's intention in engaging others, that despite limited time, 'I still want to keep in touch with you, because I care about you enough'. I guess to some, it might seem to be a compromise, since nothing can replace dedicated time and attention...

And I'm sitting down here, thinking about the 'networks' that I've found myself in... these networks are hardly interconnected, but there are some linkages and overlaps between them. Like science VCF people who are also FCBC people, USP peope who are FCBC... USP people who do NGO stuff. and so on. But its an amazing breadth of networks...

hmm... many of these links can only be maintained by 'touching base', since its nearly impossible to spend time and effort in the administration of these networks... just wondering...

exams have ended!

1st december. my last paper! yeah! the most important part of the semester has ended. and everything now awaits the closure on the 23rd december.

many things have happened since i last blogged. i clarified some stuff with academic advisor about my undergraduate studies in NUS, i went back home, to find out that my mum had rearranged my books, and telling me that i could open a bookstore, which i can, i guess. I guesstimate that my book count is about 1/3 of the USP library. which is. quite. a. lot. most of it from my NS days. I am after all, a late-bloomer, I guess.

So here i am, at the end of a semester, many more to go, thankful for God who has brought me thus far, for the friends that I have, walking on similar but different journeys.

Learning, socially and emotionally, about what to do, learning to be WITH people, loving and all, opening up, and persist in opening up, despite people not accepting, but learning to love all the same.

Its amazing how the Lord has brought me up in the family that I have, that I can flow between different contexts rather smoothly, that I have a wide range of experience with people. That despite me seemingly high up in the heads with USP (which isn't really the case), I am still down there on the ground. The analogy is a false one actually. USP and everything else just isn't in an up-down hierarchy, learning to see these things as different elements, different dimensions of my life. areas to revolve upon at different times. in uni, learning how to engage other people in different ways, and of course, engaging my mind, all the time, my inner being is changing hopefully to be more mature in handling life and circumstance.

its a growing process, and i'll see more of it as it comes. oh wells.