Unknown, voiceless, silenced
But so beautiful a song seeking word and melody
A yearning to be accepted, a passion longing to be quenched
Why must tragedy be the spark to begin its icy thawing?
A love that dare not speak its name
Love unknown - a minority among minorities
Perhaps the ice was still its only protection
For where will it go when the ice has thawed?

Happy are those who fit nicely into the world order, for they fret not.

No, it's not alienation or anomie in the purest sense, but yes there are most certainly elements of these that are hitting me hard right now.

It has come to a point where the principles and beliefs I cling on to are causing me severe distress. The God of compassion and justice I believe in, the Marxist leanings, the irrepresible impulse I have to do in action what I profess in principles. It has come to a point where I see with incisive clarity, the innumerable and indeed multiple-layered systems of power and oppressions at work all around me. I see them so clearly that: I feel powerless to do anything against them, and even more drastically, my ability to move on in life, to get things done, are crippled because in principle, I should not be helping to perpetuate systems of injustice and oppression by participating in them.

Let me give a concrete example. Today, granddad asked if I would like to learn golf. Simple enough. Why not? But it is not a simple decision for me! For me, the only reason I would say yes is to perhaps be able to spend time with him. He is, afterall, my granddad whom I grew up having around. But alas, it is also very conscious in my mind that golf courses take up way too much land. Valuable land that could be put to much greater equitable, social uses. Land as it is in Singapore is already scarce. Yet, the rich few own large houses, and as if that were not enough, they add insult to injury by displaying in such grand spectacle, their immense wealth by using large amounts of land just to hit a ball that is smaller than a tennis ball around. The common folk in SG live in HDB blocks, piled up vertically, and they are getting higher and higher. This is a world where some have plenty and others struggle to survive. Where is the justice? How can I participate in contributing to golf's demand?

Yes, not an easy decision for me to make. But what makes it worse is that no one sees this. Hardly anyone even understands. My family most certainly does not understand. I just said a one-sentence "I think golf takes up too much land" which is really not even the 1% tip of the iceberg of what I really feel about golf and my brother immediately shoots back and says "you dun like u dun learn lah!" I do not feel appreciated for taking a step out and trying to make it a family thing at learning golf despite my strong beliefs. Additionally, whenever I try to voice out my struggles in seeing these complex interplays of power, I am brushed aside almost 90% of the time by both family and friends, them thinking that I am just trying to make things difficult.

Alas, I find it hard to understand. I need to know, as in really really need to know:

1) Do people really do not care how their lives contribute to global injustice and suffering for the poor and oppressed? ie. I am right in principle.

2) Or is it that people do care but find it difficult to be confronted with a true but hard-to-face reality of their lifestyles? ie. I am right in principle.

3) Or am I really simply and truly an anomaly in the vast functioning world and that everyone, both rich and poor, privileged and disadvantaged really love what is happening and only I am seeing things this way? ie. I am wrong in principle.

The truth of the matter is that for the sake of being able to do simple things (like learning golf) without having to think so much and make it so difficult for myself, deep down I actually do hope the answer is 3), ie. that I am wrong in principle. But in order for me to get to 3), I need to know HOW to demolish my thinking. I need a NEW principle which I can abide by faithfully in action. I am simply that sort of person: I NEED to live by principles. Unless I seriously solve this problem, I am gonna have major problems moving on in life. Getting a job, doing well in career, in school, in social life, etc.

I have inklings of a principle I think might work but it needs convincing and refinement. But maybe I should outline its skeleton first.

1) God created and ordered the world according to his/her will. Some will be rich, some will be poor. Each individual shall squeeze out of the earth as much abundance as they can for themselves.

This sounds pretty much like the traditional kind of conservative Christianity with the "blessings in abundance" doctrine except that I twisted it a little because it is simply not true that everyone has the same amount of blessings... so this will account for inequality and justifies it. However, it still does not justify why human suffering cannot be aleviated. Hence, the following must be included too:

2) No matter what an individual's circumstance, each, through God, has the capacity to find happiness (the opposite of suffering). Should this be unsuccessful, it is through a lack of God's favour and hence there should be no pity for sufferers. Each is responsible for his/her own happiness.

This second clause will remove the anxiety over human suffering that arise naturally and/or accrue to individuals considered in isolation from the rest of society and the world. However, clause 1 also provides that some will inevitably benefit more than others in order to seek maximum abundance which is God's will for them. And as we already know, the systems of economy and society are such that those at the top benefit at the expense of those below. Hence, a clause is needed to aleviate anxiety when we consider individuals NOT in isolation from the rest of the world. In other words, to remove the guilt that those at the top might feel in directly/indirectly causing suffering to those at the bottom. Hence:

3) Minimize suffering wherever possible, however, if this is at the expense of maximizing personal abundance, the latter takes priority even if it means maximizing suffering for others. Afterall, the isolated individual at the very bottom is still capable of finding happiness through isolation and meditation.

These outlines of a new principle implies the following: contribute to charity only if it gives u personal satisfaction; human rights activists and similar forerunners are divinely justified only if it provides themselves with the aforesaid "abundance", and most importantly, I can ignore systems of power/ oppression with justification at the level of principle whenver I do anything that pleases me. Ie. I can move on in life more easily.

Essentially, I feel a lack of understanding around me, I feel trapped and isolated. So either I am right currently and everyone else is at odds with me, or I am wrong and need a new system of principles. The former is much too tiring and hard to even move on personally... it is also very frustrating, distressing and depressing. It is for these reasons I realize, that I love the night hours... with no one around doing anything, saying anything or telling me anything which I find completely at odds with my beliefs. So I am hoping now for the latter.... but in order to do that I need 2 things: first is to poke many holes in the current Marxist God of compassion and justice; the second is to strengthen a new belief system perhaps based on the above 3 outlines and to make it convincing and livable.

I need help!...

 

I was thinking back on the 377a debates in 2007 and I just want to try out a thought experiment on it. I really need to be corrected if my reasonings are faulty.

What if: the government at that time indeed decided that there was good grounds to repeal the law and they did indeed do so... BUT they say that it will be repealed ONLY for the 2000 or so people who actually signed the petition that was handed in to parliament. For all other persons other than the 2000 or so, the law remains applicable to them.

Question: Is this acceptable?

My answer as it stands now: Yes, it is.

But I need to stand corrected if there are good arguments against its acceptability. Anyone with any thoughts?

I challenged myself to open myself up to the possibility of traditional naive idealism once more. I am happy to say that the challeger's wager was lost and at long last (it's only been several weeks actually), I can resume comfortably in tackling life with concrete harsh realism without all these naive notions of some mythical ancient traditional utopian state of life. The challenger's wager was to assume dominant control of my psyche should it win, but to accept banishment should it lose. Banishment has been dealt harshly and swiftly and the one true monarch has resumed control of my psyche (ie. concrete harsh realism).

With me now back in complete control of myself, concrete, efficient steps shall be taken to prevent a re-occurence of this unacceptable attempt at usurpation. The challenge should have ideally not taken place at all. I will learn from this mistake to ensure it doesn't ever again.

I find myself losing the ability to write at length. More and more, my writing styles go straight to the point. Unable to express, unable to explain myself in simple language. The only thing stopping me from mercilessly babbling in a tongue comprehensible only to myself is whatever is left of my good humour to work within common cultures of understanding. Having treated culture as something external to myself to be studied for so long, I realize more and more I find myself alienated from it. That's why I say it requires my "good humour" to work within it. But it's not just good humour is it? It's more than that. Don't I need it? I speak as though culture is something for me to manipulate, to be used according to my will at my will's pleasure. But no. Culture is the means to connect to others. After all this time, I hate to admit I still cant exist on my own. So why study culture if it created such trouble for me? Wldn't it be better to just be immersed in it? Answer: no. I will tell u why.

Modernity is a matrix of contradictions. It is riveted with conflicting messages and plagued with confused sound bytes.

1970s was "stop at 2", now it's "3 or more if u can afford it".

Primary school they teach us: shou3 wang4 xiang1 chu3... look out for your neighbours... fuck, I don't even talk to my neighbours: I wouldn't recognize them on the street if I ran into them.

"One people, one nation" "united we stand" "together we make a difference"... but I don't even talk to fellow country(wo)men on the train, much less work together with them, or even know them. National Day is one hell of a bloody spectacle: not to be taken seriously.

Face it: there is no constant. Modernity is so complex that nothing is certain. Today's truths are tomorrow's fairy-tales. Today's fairy-tales can turn out to be tomorrow's reality! Who would have thought in A.G. Bell's day that they'd now have handphones that can make pancakes and rub your balls now? Bombarded constantly by mixed messages, I wonder how does the human psyche cope? "Oh! our leader is a great man! He did this this and that." Next moment, we hear "Oh he's a horrible man! He did that that and this." With society so complex and elaborate, I tell you there is NOTHING any leader can do to please everyone. He becomes both good AND bad at the same time! Talk about paradox that's it man! Forcing 2 complete opposites together is really smthg the human mind can't actually take.

What does all this do to the human psyche? I believe we tend to layer our minds. We have abit of space for everything. Not only that, we compartmentalize. We are X at office, Y at home, and Z in church. No way we can try to synthesize and reconcile every single part of our lives. Unless of course you are a cognitive superhuman. Maybe in the future our minds will be able to take it! Societal development has occurred too fast for our biological evolution to keep up. The great titan gods of sociology have worried about precisely this even as far as a century ago! Durkheim in particular was very worried about what rapid development will do to us. Whatever he said is precisely what's happening now. We have become more specialized - a different persona for a different context in life. Weber talked about bureaucracy and about how all our value systems will be increasingly rationalized. This means that we will no longer so much do things because they are good to do or desirable in its own right, but we do things calculatively, efficiently and for instrumental rather than substantive reasons. This goes hand in hand with Durkheim right? If we are different persons for different contexts, then the WHOLE person configures less significantly right? Emphasis is placed on the position of the OFFICE we hold, not the PERSON. We are to serve certain contextual FUNCTIONS. It's just functions functions functions functions functions!

In such a climate, existential turmoil becomes endemic. Always there is a tendency to rationalize and simply fulfill what is needed of our roles and that's it! Next! Even in a place where overarching coherence is an emphasis like church, there is also that rationalizing tendency to treat our roles as mere functions. Bureaucracy has not only established itself in social life, but its spirit has enroached even into our very souls.

Who am I? Who the bloody hell am I?? Who can answer that? The individual in modernity has become a living breathing walking paradox. He/She is both X and not X at the same time. And the ancient religions that have worked so well in the past has not really caught up yet. Religion preaches a coherent system to make sense of everything together. Coherence is good for the soul. Alas, they have not been able to account for the paradoxes. I hereby advance a theory of religion: industrializing or newly industrialized societies tend to breed fundamentalism because certainty is needed in an increasingly complex society. Fundamentalism also tends to ignore all evidence to the contrary. Because complexity increases gradually, not abrubtly, these religions still bear relevance. However, as evidenced in Europe, really advanced industrial societies will see a decline in religiosity as single-system coherence religions lose all their relevance. Evidences to the contrary cannot be ignored forever. More relevant secular religions will replace the old ones. The ultimate survival of old religion therefore rests squarely on whether it can update itself fast enough vis-a-vis society, especially economics. But if u're like Marx, you'd say, destroy everything and start over.

Have you ever talked to a friend or a counsellor and find urself having mixed feelings? Or feeling very opposing forces pulling u in different directions? That's probably because today, paradoxes in life are very rampant. If you can decide easily, thats probably because one of the voices in the whirlwind of noisy soundbytes in your psyche is strongest. In a different context though, that strongest voice may not be the strongest anymore. So try and decide which is really you. Maybe you say both are you! But what if they present you a paradox? See eg: saving the environment and yet not being able to stop using shitload of resources! Did you know that the average human being living in today's society consumes way more than he shld be? That's because we HAVE to get to places on time and fast (petrol), we HAVE to satisfy red tape and bureaucracy (paper) and we HAVE to carry on being productive at night too (electricity/light). No tribal society ever needs to use this much! So here we are confronted with environmental degradation with nothing the hell in the world u can do to stop it! Planet earth is doomed unless u can stop and reverse the economic giant from advancing! FAT HOPE! We are headed for hell, and we KNOW it and we can SEE it but there is nothing we can do to STOP it. Talk about dealing with paradoxes in ur head... HA-HA-HA

 The complexity of modernity generates so mcuh contradiction. The human soul is therefore left being pulled in many directions, not knowing which way to go. Finally and inevitably, it divides itself and goes in various directions it has to. So that is where we are right now in paradoxical modernity - divided. And I am not just talking about between fellow human beings in society, I am talking about internally - psychologically and spiritually. Of course we are also divided from one another: complex society means that everyone specializes. They turn out differently and they do different jobs. How is it that we can connect with each other despite such differences is a miracle in itself. How do u find common stuff to talk about?? Half the time u are merely just trying to understand the fella. We are alienated from each other, alienated from society, and alienated from ourselves. Triple whammy.

Even at this point where I end my rampage, I note a paradox. I began this essay saying that I find myself no longer able to write long and well. I just contradicted myself. I NEVER did intend this to be an essay (1410 words). Yet, things happen. Life is a complex fuck.

Holy, holy, holy, insight almighty,
Bow we to function, conflict and rationality.
Holy, holy, holy, omniscient and mighty,
Society in 3 persons - blessed trinity.

Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx.

theonlinecitizen.com/2009/10/wps-sylvia-lim-rebuts-ministrys-reply-on-lift-upgrading/

1. This woman is really sensible.

2. I'll vote for the first time next elections.

3. I hope she contests in Aljunied again.

4. I hope the morons KEEP me under Aljunied.

5. Can't wait to vote Labour.

www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20091017-174159.html

1. This is very shocking

2. Because she got away with it for many months

3. It shows Singaporeans respect their elders

4. It shows Singaporeans respect their elders enough to take humiliation, degradation, suffering and lots of pain

5. Singaporeans are masochistic.

6. No wonder we always vote the way we do.

7. I beg to differ

8. I believe respect is earned, not ascribed

9. I would go to great lengths to take you down if I think you're being a power-abusive asshole

10. I would have taken this old lady down on day 1.

More potent, more effective, and more certain than any measure aimed at leveling the great divides and injustices of human life - it has to be the greatest equalizer of all: death.

Surely all that mankind labours for would be in vain. And it does not matter whether you have laboured for yourself or for others - all is for naught. Yet we, poor humans, struggle to make meaning of incorporeal temporality. Old religion talks of rebirth, modern religion talks of salvation, atheists might talk about the survival of the human species as a whole rather than individuals. What are these but illusions? What are these but non-falsifiables?

Faith in non-falsifiables has had many harmful effects - depending on who emphasizes what aspect of it. Faith groups go to war, faith groups oppress minorities, faith groups ignore evidences to the contrary. Yet, what is life without faith? Shall one recognize that everything is disenchanted and meaningless and simply take as much as he/she can while yet alive? Surely faith - faith that emphasizes a better world for all, has been able to generate the greatest good in a human being ever seen. Why should one bother caring for others if in the end nothing matters?

Surely then, we need illusions and non-falsifiables. Woe unto humanity if humanity knew everything there is to know.

And yet, the possibility that everything is for naught lingers on. We try but never reach our goals. Pity the poor human who struggles to make meaning for himself/herself. Perhaps then, one might wish to reconsider investing everything in faith, whatever form faith manifests itself in concrete terms: a cause, a goal, the conversion of the world, money, love, power, etc. Perhaps the human shld pay tribute to the greatest of all equalizers at least half the time. Take everything you can, take advantage of people, and detatch from the world. With confidence somewhat, that all labours would ultimately be in vain, we need not try too hard... because this same confidence gives rise to confidence somewhat, that all suffering for all peoples are not forever either. Sweet death, with bony hand outstretched, embraces all. None shall escape.