Liminality - this word I remembered from some module...

Last semester I studied a module that had this cute little term called 'liminality'. Not entirely sure what the term meant, but the term seemed to have this meaning of 'here, not-here' kind of meaning. How strange - that a single word could be used to refer to a condition of contradiction! Being a social scientist/philosopher/thinker, I can't help but be amazed by the human mind to come up with a word, that in itself, is a contradiction. The only fall-back I can hold on to, is the probability function of quantum mechanics, the equations that say that an electron has a x% chance of being here, and a y% chance of being 'there'...

So what does that mean? A very simple application has simply been that the word nicely describes life - the personal lives that we live. Our experiences are experiences of transition; we are constantly in the in-between, not entirely in the present, but never stepping entirely into the future. Hence 'liminal' - we are never quite in the here-and-now, but neither are we in the 'there-and-then'.

Emotional, and intellectual, and the other things we experiences - they are all Janus-faced. The experiences are syntheses of our past and historical experiences, but they also project forward into our own futures.

The lives lived illustrate that we are never quite one thing at a time, but at any given moment, we are multiple things all at once. For some of us, the situation could be us being students but also lover, researchers, thinkers, community-leaders, and all of that, rolled into the same 24hrs that everyone lives through. Here I am, working and studying at the same time, constantly trying to move out of the present, and wanting to leap right in the future, which, as we all know, becomes always, the present.

How weird, to deny the present that always fades away, to want to enter into the future that always fades away too.

An ANT (some fancy sociologically-minded theory) would want to trace the geographical, sociological relationships between people and objects - how the electrons from my batery in my laptop are fluttering away to servers in America and fluttering back to my screen becoming photons that enter my eyes, and back to electrons in the neurotransmitters in my mind. Yet there is also that movement in time - that none of this happens simultaneously, of the onrushing future that fades away immediately into the past. I want to trace too, the movements in time that always accompanies the movements in space. I am in the present, dripping into the future; the flow of time that would be, had just flowed. I trace those associations into the past as soon as the future happens...

Oh well...

an annual report, of sorts...

How do i feel now?

I feel weird.

Future studies/approaches/saving the world

I feel that I’ve tried many things approaching my dreams, and almost all of them have faded or withered away. I’ve wondered about how the world gets changed - and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen how people approached the future, and how they managed it. I’ve seen how much further I have to go to arrive at that stage of intervention, and I’m now clearer about how to get there. For now, postgraduate studies in Knowledge/Information Management, public policy or future studies appear to be most relevant. The other component would include keep constant tabs in the local context - the focus on Singapore remains. These plans are still 2-4 years away. This is my own way of answering the question: “how to change the world for the better”, which for me, is how to act in it for a better future.

I have an issue for the present though. Do I go ahead with the sabbatical - to look at the policy, historical context of other countries, to examine their assumptions? What do I here in the meantime? Continue to study damn hard, continue to maintain good ties with instructors, and continue to make friends, to continue this Christian journey... - anything else?

Intervention in USP

Concerning USP, preparations for the future. Admin has decided that only the student management committee should take the lead, and so the space for spontaneous student engagement is limited. I will continue to introduce scenario planning for USP, knowing it’s limitations, without the knowledge of statistics of the student body. I will continue to draw people into USP networks - the creation of strong ties between students of different batches, between current students and alumni, and with the external contacts outside.

My own academics

Other than future studies/policy planning and others mentioned above, I still remain interested in Actor-Network Theory and Sociology of Science...

TED

Is a TED event possible at NUS? I still believe so. A major TED event could a catalyst for... everything else in a way that singly-themed events cannot.

blood and stress

It's been a while since I blogged, but that's only because I've been preoccupied with things. Had a wisdom tooth extraction, and I still have to do a root canal...

A wisdom tooth extraction is no joke, and had to deal with night fevers for a few nights.

If I had to deal with the extraction, that would have been fine, except of course, other things had to happen. Not meeting requirements at work, having to plan for events at school, all of that aggravated the stress and the pain for this week. This was the one week where so much pain had been concentrated in just a few days. On Friday, however, I'm able to thank God for the grace that He shows...

How to put it - the word 'surrender' comes to mind again.