We must have pe…

We must have people who can lead, and have the desire to lead, on communal, societal, national, and global scales. Yet, in this rapidly changing world, we are gradually losing the best we have. What to? Not exactly to brain drain, but essentially to the rat race in the today’s dog-eat-dog world, and to the blind chase for some other form of apparent attainment. To something we’ve created that turns out stressful for the individual, and detrimental to the fabric of society. Without staying well rooted in our basics of management, it will no longer be the rest of the world, but ourselves, that we’re fighting.

On top of the big debates over management on large scales, we have to ask ourselves a very fundamental question – is ensuring a good life for ourselves more important, or providing a foundation for the sustainability of the world future generations would live in, be it its environment (which is most often talked about), or economy, society, and what we’re interested in here – world governance and leadership. Efforts need to be more concerted, and as with overcoming every challenge at all levels from individual to global, stakeholders must first see an area for improvement. Who would advocate for this?

Humans

We, as humans, are constantly on the lookout for the perfect situations. Taking a bite from the most meaty area from a pizza slice or choosing the more flawless half of a piece of material are mediocre instances that encompass this utilitarian cognitive framework. And it is this build-up in the mind that has allowed us to innovate through the stone and ice ages into the industrial, technology, and information ages of the modern-day.

On hindsight, is utilitarianism more boon or bane? Clearly, we can’t seem to cast any doubt on it that it helps us maximise our benefits, which can in turn motivate us cognitively to do better and achieve more. Adam Smith articulated the Invisible Hand which pushes every homo economicus to maximise their utility, which in turn creates the best possible output for society.

John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, asks “what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you.” In a world where humans built to be communal are so competitive in partaking in the rat race with umpteen dog-eat-dog situations, have we stopped caring for each other? What is life all about, actually?

One person’s gain doesn’t necessarily need to be another person’s loss. That’s how, in economics, societal welfare is created.

Obligation

Every day we drag ourselves to do the things we deem necessary yet feel nothing for. There is no passion involved in obligation, but there still seems to be this covalent relationship between the things we hate and the things we love. Probably that’s what led to the coinage of the term ‘love-hate relationship’.

Humans are typically hedonistic and despise work. They find no joy in work. They seek no solace in a job. Humans are simply naturally hedonistic, and often stay low on Maslow’s Hierarchy for what they do not love. They do it for simple reasons and look forward to gratifying ‘silver linings’.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Developed by Abraham Maslow, the framework contends that the reasons humans do things can be classified into five categories – the lowest being for physical livelihood (and hence providing the least fulfillment in life), and then for security, affection, esteem, and then actualisation and realisation. At different points in time, they need different things in life – which can all be generally categorised into these five types.

Do conduct a quick search for more information. The onus is on you.

A paradox of today’s world

The people who build our houses will never get to stay in them.
The people who assemble our cars will never get to drive them.
The people who make our shoes will never get to wear them.
The people who build our bags will never get to own them.
The people who prepare our food will never get to eat them.
The people who build our highways will never get to travel on them.
The people who extract our diamonds will never get to admire them.
The people who collect our money will never get to use them.
The people who assemble our mobile phones will never get to use them.

And as for the people who make our lives happy, are they happy?

Rainbows

Another humble attempt at poetry:

What vibrant colours they wear,
They appear everywhere.

They make people happy,
Without spending a penny.

Amalgamation of water and light,
Your day may just be made bright.

They may make you stop and embrace
Within them their beauty and grace.

The Questions of Life

I sometimes happen to be lost at some point in life, and I ask myself these:

1. If being myself isn’t good enough, what else can I do? Is putting up a facade befitting?
2. Am I built for success? And what does that mean? How can I change myself for that?
3. If every failure is meant to provide a lesson in life, it must be hard. Why not just accept it?
4. Is moving on and letting go a teachable skill? How can I truly put the past behind?
5. Look at how far I’ve come and the path ahead. How much brighter does the future appear?
6. Is it, hence, worth it to continue setting foot on a rock that’s shaky and sinking, and give up the many opportunities that lie ahead?
7. Why can’t we focus on the long term more often, look further ahead rather than just right below our feet?
8. Is every bad experience the same? Will an aggravating event arrive to knock me to my senses and urge me to wake up?
9. If we really feel for something, is that true dedication and passion? Why are we always afraid to pursue them?
10. Why must emotions, only seemingly the most difficult to control, be allowed to take over rationality?

Our system

I was packing up the room when I chanced upon a set of JC GP notes which, upon a quick glance, bore a sub-heading “The Easier Approach”. That struck me rather hard, and what struck even harder was that under that section recommended writing for one side of a typically two-way essay. Either way, this kept me pondering for the rest of the night.

Our students in this current system, have been infused with the mindset of doing things the easy, tested and proven way. It becomes instinctive in them. In a system where people vie to outsmart one another, people vie blindly. They devise uncanny tactics which inhibit true thought, and more importantly, learning.

My fellowmen deserve the right to be thought how to think, not to be told what to think. They shouldn’t be coerced into a path of thought just because it gives them the end-result. No one is too young to have their minds let free to roam around the plains of thought. If the brain is dead by not thinking, it must be a vegetable by being told what to think – there is no considerable difference.

There is no actual knowledge took away from constitutional education nowadays. Almost everything learnt in the classroom, the bulk being exam-skills used to trick examiners and trump classmates, lingers just around the campus. Little or no knowledge about how to think is brought to the workplace, if any to begin with.

That, my friends, is the bane of our system, workforce, community, society, and eventually, legislation.

Winning and Losing

I’ve learnt that, in the real world:

• Two losses can make a win. You come back twice stronger, and even if you do not succeed, you’re still a winner in your own aspect for improving.
• Two wins can make a loss. So what if you sweep every championship? Do you have the true mettle and worth?

Talks and Dreams

Recently, I’ve been engaging in a number of small talks with people in the Navy, where I serve at currently. I’ve managed to gather some very useful yet touching information that put me close to tears one evening, and further able to stratify people and their dreams and aspirations, not just in work, but beyond that, in life.

Two weeks back, I met two of the cookhouse operators in camp at the bus stop waiting for the bus to go home. I’ve always greeted them with large grins from time to time regardless of my work, for I take meal times as a time to let my hair down, and they seamlessly facilitate that. So I easily struck up a very, very casual talk  with them by a very ubiquitous “Hi Auntie”, its language was none other than Singlish, with constant infusions of Malay words and trying a little to say it their way (e.g. rabak, teruk, cepat), and I learned a bunch about their hopes, dreams, and difficulties in life.

• First, these people truly don’t get paid much. They have been working their lives for very similar pay grades, and there is little chance to upgrade or do a career switch. They would be more than happy to attend courses to increase their skill levels, just for a better pay in order to better support their obligations. When asked why don’t they leave, they cite habit, but that is secondary. Besides the oligopolistic industry, there is probably no other place in the job market that could allow their existence. That’s how cruel our society is, my countrymen.
• They are really content with what they have. While this can get quite controversial with flamers possibly claiming that all they see is money, they don’t complain much about the meagre salaries and make do with what they have. The only reason they are on the lookout for greener pastures is simple, and it would be explained in the fourth point. Never seen in them is an obsession with wealth, fame, gratification, or power, and they work for obligation, not for themselves.
• It’s not that they despise the government, they sometimes prefer the life back when they were much younger, when kampongs still existed. There are many intangible stuff that living in a corporate-looking HDB flat they miss and have tried to salvage, yet have failed. People are constantly changing, and their neighbours might not share the same mentalities and interests – probably more interested with money and nothing else. Not even human-to-human relationships. They seem helpless at narrow-minded money freaks coexisting in the same dense urban community yet do not recognise coexistence at all.
• Lastly, their children are their everything. Same goes for their family. They work so hard to rein in nominal payrolls without a degree whatsoever just to ensure that their children get to university, they have enough for them to marry, and that their aging parents are well-taken care of. The concern for every family member is evident just by their tone of speech, or can even be seen through the eye. They seldom have other worries – all they want is for them to live in happiness, and they slog out just to see that, and when it’s their time to leave, they expect nothing more.

The Thought Depository

“If the brain is dead, then the man is dead.”

It is exactly because of this stark fact about our cognition that we have to keep thinking, and through thinking our brains generate thoughts. Sounds logical enough doesn’t it? And that’s why I’m in this business of penning down my thoughts before they slip away and become another distant, forgotten idea that have came so close to materialising.

If I haven’t already introduced myself, or you don’t already know me, you might want to use the following:

http://kohkl.wordpress.com
http://youtakecontrol.wordpress.com/about

This blog aims to chronicle every single strand of ideas that comes through my neural system and crystallise them in sizeable ideas for archiving, or probably a start-up if I’m found to be a little more enterprising. Some like to call it rants or musings, I’m fine with that. It can be anything about life, about the wind and leaves, about home, or about people. There would be a subtopic specially for Singapore issues as well, as with our current obsession with the National Conversation.

I am already doing so for economics, politics, policy, and foreign affairs at:

http://theaveragedollar.wordpress.com

Start thinking!