In french, the word difference can mean 'to differ' and 'to defer'. These are both concepts I have wrestled with for far so long and recent developments in my life have brought them to the forefront yet again.
Comments from classmates at a function yesterday has made me realise that I spend a lot of time with the foreign students. Firstly, my fellow Singaporean students asked me where the hell I've been. Secondly, a Chinese student peered at me for 2 whole minutes before asking me, "you're actually Singaporean?". I've known her for almost a year now.
Its not that I've become prissy and decided to shun my fellow Singaporeans. Au contraire, I spend my recreational time with Singaporeans, GMH, BJJ and Taichi cases in point. The point is that when I am in school engaging in intellectual endeavours, I cannot help but feel more comfortable within a more cosmopolitan environment.
It is a fact that Singaporeans are not very accepting of new ideas and that they are allergic to radical ideas. This makes life difficult for a student of post-modern/post-structural/critical thought to seek personal development. How do you explain the fluidity and spontaneity you crave in your daily life? It is as bad as explaining to a linkin park fan the finer points of appreciation for phillip glass or miles davis.
It is difficult to be different here. The tyranny of the masses ensures that you are oppressed, repressed and depressed through constant pressures to conform, be it pressures to engage in mass activities for the sake of fashionability or pressures to keep your more random musings to yourself for fear of incurring the wrath of scorn and rejection. This is no environment for intellectual development.
Life in the academia is no doubt challenging and extremely rewarding. Where else can you spar intellectually and bring up the most radical of ideas? Where else can a refugee from the mainstream not feel alienated?
For the professor who believes that I will make a good economist and this is the sort of work experience that is important for everybody, I'm sorry to report that I am not everybody. I am afraid of losing the spark that drives my curiosity and intellect. For the professor who believes that my gift with rational choice and numbers will serve me well in UC San Diego followed by a future in rational political science, I must still maintain that I live by the pen. Being able to follow rational patterns is a survival instinct honed over the years, not a gift at all. No matter how much I relish the challenge of mathematical formulations, I resent having to use such a beautiful instrument for the crude purposes of intellectual survival.
I believe we are all defering our difference in the hope of finding eventual acceptance. Another professor made an interesting point yesterday, he said that great ideas have tended to come from people in exile. In the highly-connected globalized world of today where concepts of national boundaries have become problematic, one cannot help but feel in exile anywhere at all. Perhaps I do not want to keep myself in my intellectual comfort zone.
I want to be challenged for once.
Ang Heng
4 comments:
This reminds me of something I wrote back in December 2006.
Its been awhile
I'm feeling rather tired and was going to hit the sack, but decided to make an entry here before sleeping. Got one more paper on friday, had a hattrick of papers last week. Haven't really gotten down to seriously preparing for the next paper, typical complacent me. The last three were marked by frantic last-minute studying - well not exactly frantic - but of a rather pressing nature, shall we say. I've grown sick of wondering how much better i'd be doing in school if I actually had the bloody discipline to do things when they're supposed to be done. Not only now in uni, but from earlier in secondary school upwards. What my life would've been like if I'd pursued a certain interest or sport more daringly, if i'd gone to a different school, if i'd met different people, or if my parents had understood me and given me that extra push. An alternate life I'll never know; wishful and wasteful thinking, but hard to not ponder nevertheless, given I am inevitably a product of my life experiences and my environment.
I know its a sin to take what one has for granted, but when I look at myself and my life, there are aspects of my life I would change. Then again, ask anyone and they'd probably feel the same way. When I see the things - notably people - around me, I can't help but feel there's something wrong with the world. I've actually not seen or learnt enough of the world to make that comment, but I do feel that way sometimes about the society I live in. There is something very wrong with this country, just ask the ignorant, materialistic, self-centred, apathetic people in it. Some will know but will not care to do anything about it. Some won't even know it. This island is dangerously imbalanced. Such high levels of so-called economic, technological and infrastructural development coupled with pathetically low levels of cultural, intellectual, political and civic awareness.
Just look at the standard of English. An undergraduate from a supposedly top 20 university worldwide cannot string together a proper sentence of English, and its alright not to be able to do so. Preposterous. I'll lose friends if I give names here. I blame the education system and the student himself. Do I think I deserve more credit for my language and content competency? Yes! Do I think the moron who has an inadequate grasp of language and poor articulation of ideas should get a lower grade than me? Yes!
Watched a discussion session on the GST increase in a local news channel the other day, comprising a supposedly qualified panel. The Minister in the panel was using economic jargon no ordinary person could meaningfully understand and the rest of the panel were like parrots, repeating the same bloody point throughout the thankfully only half hour show. Watch television for an hour or so, and all you will see are programmes and commercials catered to the upper strata of society. Such content wouldn't even be relevant to most people, who probably wouldn't even be home because they're out working to make ends meet. Do I find all this rather pretentious? Yes. But alas, these are just the flaws of a global capitalist economy.
When I see the behavior of people around me, I'm disappointed. I have to strain and look for pockets of behavior that reaffirm my faith in them. I am a strongly critical person, but one who is a product of his environment. Personally, I've paid the price for my frankness and honesty towards what I thought was wrong. My efforts to be true to my ideals and to the people around me have backfired. I've been cheaply silenced by what John Stuart Mills called the 'Tyranny of the Majority'. The fact that only I will fully understand this entry is testament to all I have said. And the fact that I have to be so vague in all I say is proof of the self-censorship I have to practice in my life for risk of being misunderstood and faulted.
not much has changed over the years haha
singapore doesn't really change anyway. its not even the calibre of the people (although that in itself is sorely lacking), its the blatant lack of curiosity.
people here are just not interested in anything new or foreign to them. ironic, since we all have a (vested) interest in the future through its impacts on our livelihoods.
just look at what turning a blind eye to the capitalistic behaviour of banks has led to.
Ang Heng
Ang Heng hor!!!! Another intriguing post that I can really relate to, maybe not in the ssame way as u though. Since our sec sch days, I've always wanted myself to be different from everyone else, to be unique. I think in many ways I've deviated from the norm of our society and to a very large degree, pple tend to ostracize me for that. Frankly speaking, it does have an effect on you. It makes you think if it's such a good idea to flamboyant, or to be more exact, different. Anyways, that's besides the point. What's more important is fri's supper! Lol!!!!!!
Its good to be different man, that means you are special and something that other people cannot be. Tell you a secret, society is generally jealous of ppl who are different, that's why they always try to ostracise us or make us feel bad in so many ways.
So the solution is to make them even more jealous and be ourselves!
Ang Heng
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