Two things I miss most about the old internet: personal blogs and forums.
What happened to that? People writing. Organically. For no purpose than to share their lives and thoughts and interests.
With no concern for commercial gain, nor image and brand building. When did we start commodifying our selves and our thoughts, and will we ever stop?
Has that time really passed us for ever?
Sometimes I feel like a lone voice in a sea of void, holding on to the last vestiges of raw, unfiltered writers on the internet.
Finding an old, abandoned blog of a peer is like visiting a graveyard. I mourn its end and that eternal effigy and death date stoically carved into its last post. The death often – no, always – without warning.
Forums had more insiduous an evolution. At some point we fell off the cliff, a slippery silence. You no longer have that one real interaction that doesn’t feel like an echo from a faceless throng or mass of bots.
I struggle to encapsulate this difference.
Forums didn’t use to be a place to say your say, at least not only that.
They were a place for genuine connection. Even with complete anonymity, you feel known by a human. Gaiaonline. Taverns. Chatterboxes. Just a stream of nothing important, but even pointless response then felt that much more … personal, than an entire Reddit thread.
Even KidsCentral.sg forums. I knew and could conceive of the person with their keyboard, their earnestness of thought; their being in context of time, space, and life.
Now, I see only an array of funhouse mirrors, distorted variations of the same me, the same voice, stretched, squashed, or made silly, cleverer, but an identical thing repeated ad nauseum.
Why do so many beauty practices, especially for women, necessitate pain?
From teeth sharpening of the mbenjele, to feet binding in imperial China, to injections and fillers in today’s world.
Some practices can be explained (although, to me, not justified). Such as squeezing oneself into corsets to achieve an ideal waist-to-hip ratio, since evolution perceives a WHR suggesting high reproductive health to be attractive.
Others are arbitrary standards of beauty that pass with time. The suffering and permanent damage far surpass the constructed ‘attractiveness’ it promises.
Many of these painful practices, I have concluded, are a way to signal exclusivity, commitment, wealth, and thus social status. I.e. only when you have the money to survive do you have excess left to spend on fillers. Only the privileged in imperial China bound their feet, for they have access to medical services that ensure their survival after, and servants to carry out the multitude care it requires.
Even the teeth sharpening of mbenjele, I believe, is a sign that one is ‘committed’ to this arbitrary, but community-defined standard of beauty. The pain is an offering and sacrifice to show one’s extreme devotion to societal standards.
And it made me think of allll the things we are insidiously influenced – or even pressured – to do to our bodies. I look in horror at pillow faces of who were the most beautiful celebrities. Fillers moving about in faces. Starting skincare or facial augmentative therapies that are the norm these days, but finding oneself unable to just stop going for them any longer.
Anyway, I have made myself a vow. That I will not cave to needing to maintain my appearance or youth.
Firstly, I have never been known for being attractive anyway, so why is it of such importance? I’m no celebrity or influencer. As long as I’m keeping my base level of hygiene and am put together, all other preservations or augmentations are unnecessary.
Secondly, and something I’m very grateful for, is that my husband makes me feel undoubtedly attractive – to him! Which i think all husbands should do. As long as those who love me, and are worth my consideration, are content with my appearance, why should anything else matter?
Thirdly, I want to start practicing the mindset that it is okay to age, to not look ‘as good as I did before’. To be alright with my face and body changing and not what I used to deem ideal. Undo the ingrained anxiety of ‘not looking good’ by digging deeper and asking ‘so what?’
I want to be a happy old person, to embrace aging. Not someone inching with dread towards the inevitable of more wrinkles and white hair. Why, really, does it matter so much? If the people who love you still love you? Who are we really trying to impress, or keep up appearances for?
Exactly 5 years ago, a second date that started everything.
Galleries, a young artist who paints with a mirror (“the way you spot imperfections is through inversion”).
That strange short film we watched on deflated beanbags.
Discovering Handlebar. Every weekend a hike and dinner. Those familiar voices behind masks revealing a face through the years.
That day K gave me a ring, I spent the whole night watching it sparkle under the strung-up lights that have illuminated so many of our evenings.
Pearl’s Hill Terrace
My first internship. Climbing up rooftops for a break. Those moss drenched greek statues and abandoned office chairs.
Tacos al fresco, tall minty cocktails, picnics in the park.
Dance classes, hen’s day, up the wet hill with heels for our wedding dance.
An eclectic mix of flyers — tarot, improv, French, pottery, stuffed squirrels.
Memories clattering with impatience even as I rush to create more of them. The cling clang of de(con)struction to come. Massive beaks that paint old things a shiny chrome.
At age 7, in the back of a school bus, I asked my Indian classmate “Do you know what an ah-bu-neh-neh is?” She blinked blankly back at me, an uncomfortable tension set in her jaw I was too young to decipher.
In response to her terse silence, I helpfully pointed at a sleek, black sedan visible through the droppings-splattered rear window. “There! Ah bu neh neh means you’re black like this car!”
Not a year later, I learnt that this isn’t something I should have said to her. Years later I learnt it’s because I could have – probably did – hurt her feelings.
Will I ever do this again? Never.
I was a child who didn’t know any better. Children are quick to notice differences and address them. Children pick up terms they hear from adults around us. Children want to share what they know. I didn’t mean to hurt, or harm, merely inform. But children also realize and learn.
And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? We learn and acknowledge and be better, or try to be.
I knew I was innocent in my childish intent to share. But intention does not matter. How I said it does not matter. What I said does not matter. What matters is the fact of how it made her feel: bad.
So it is ludicrous for anyone to deem themselves able to know, dictate, and insist on how another is feeling. If 7 year old me had been told that my words had unintentionally hurt someone, would I say “No, she is not hurt.” “No, she cannot be hurt because I didn’t mean to hurt.”
Speaking of Piaget, maybe Vygotsky’s work can explain why some never develop to the cognitive stage they are expected to. Because of socio-cultural modelling. By family, by authority figures, by – dare I say – the authorities?
Came across some heartbreaking news about someone I hold with great respect, and has shown me nothing but genuine kindness. It is shit that speaking the truth can mean persecution, but we cannot forget that Kuo Pao Kun was thrown into jail for years before being granted the Cultural Medallion.
I never realized how attached i felt to Earth – and nature, really – until recently. Attached may be too casual a term. It’s a strong sense of … belonging, love, emotional connection, to this place we inhabit.
Yes, it’s always been on my agenda to stay green as much as i can, within the realm of comfort. I’m a convenient environmentalist, you can say. Although i did once have a mental meltdown crying in my dorm because i accidentally printed a thick bunch of notes one-sided by accident. I felt like i’d manually chopped down 10 trees and robbed 10 ecosystems of their home. Anyway.
The first hints of this overwhelming emotional bond i hold for Earth would probably be when i first read Station Eleven. Without giving away too much, there was an apocalypse, and civilization was no longer as it was. Although not explicitly nature, i felt the utter loss of a world once ours. This line, particularly, cut too close to home:
Recently, i picked up The 100 on Netflix (and have since blazed through two seasons haha). It’s such a fantastic show in itself – the natural gender equality, the moral dilemmas, the fantastical settings, the character developments and the strategies. But that deserves a post on it’s own.
Earth has been irradiated for a hundred years, and generations of mankind were circulating up in space in an Ark. They learn about life on Earth through literature, films, word of mouth. When the Ark became unsustainable, they had to venture down onto Earth. This was late into the first season, when Abby (one of the older adults) who have lived her whole life up in a spaceship, found her way to Earth. She steps out into vast waters, the brilliant sunlight, the trees and mountains. She couldn’t stop drinking everything in, just standing there in absolute rapture.
On her headset, she communicated with the Chancellor who had no chance of heading down.
“Tell me what it’s like.”
“It’s so green, there are trees everywhere. It’s just like I imagined. And the air… it’s… Sweet.”
At this point i straight out ugly cried and couldn’t stop.
I could feel, so acutely, the pain and loss of being away from Earth, our natural home, where we were formed from dust — where we were dust for billions of years. I felt such an immense longing, an appreciation, and joy, all at once, for being here on my natural grounds. It was then i realized that Singapore wasn’t my home, Asia wasn’t my home, my true home was Earth.
—
Yesterday, i attended The Lesson by Drama Box.
The premise was simple: of seven sites, we had to collectively choose one to evict.
The halfway home: A place for rehabilitation of drug addicts and offenders.
Columbarium: Has a rich history and houses the remains of our ancestors.
Wet market: A place of significance for the elderly who are friendly with the sellers. For sellers, their livelihood depends on the market.
Marshland:It had rich biodiversity and houses many of plants and animals. Only 0.02% of Singapore remains as marshland.
Cinema: An old cinema, seldom used, that runs Indian films on the weekends and is a place where migrant workers gather.
Flea market: The only remaining market where it is rental free for sellers. Their livelihood depends on it.
Rental homes: Houses underprivileged residents who have lived there for years.
The choice for me was simple:
If i had to protect one place – it would be the marshes. There were many pertinent points brought up by others at the event:
– Marshland cannot be transplanted or replicated, unlike man-made buildings. Once destroyed, its unique ecosystem is lost forever.
– If there are only 0.02% of marshland left in Singapore, why are we so hellbent on destroying something of great rarity?
– The effects of destroying nature might not be immediately felt, but it will show itself for our next generations.
– That nature had no voice of its own to stand up for itself. It has no sob story or sad old people we can relate to or sympathize. But just because it doesn’t have that angle of human interest it doesn’t make it any less significant.
Don’t get me wrong, i feel for the plight of the underprivileged, for rehabilitating offenders, for migrant workers. I really do. But to me it’s about whether there are alternatives, and considering these alternatives, which eviction would cause the least/most damage?
I chose to evict the cinema. I do believe in fighting for the well-being of migrant workers, which was the main argument against evicting their place of gathering. BUT, i don’t feel that this particular cinema has great bearings to their well-being. There are alternative locations to social gathering. Sad stories about migrant workers and their hard lives here is moving, but distracts from the fact that they are irrelevant to the objective importance of this site. In short, evicting the cinema has the least collateral damage done.
One realization struck me, hard, yesterday as i observed everyone making their choices and explaining why they protected certain sites. Many of them started with “I have personally encountered offenders / I’ve worked with migrant workers / I regularly talk to wet market hawkers.”
Right. Even though i personally have a soft spot for the columbarium holding my grandfather’s remains (i’ve never met him and always associated him with this location i’ve visited since infancy), but why should PERSONAL sentiment rule when making a decision that affects community as a whole?
Why is YOUR personal encounter with a rehab offender any more important than another’s personal encounter with an underprivileged rental resident??? Your singular experience doesn’t allow for a broader appreciation of cost and benefit. I’m not saying any of their suffering is irrelevant, but how do we minimize suffering WITH ALL POSSIBLE VICTIMS HELD EQUAL?
As a human race, we need to look beyond our immediate selves. What does our world need, what do our future generations need? How do we decide beyond what directly relates to or affects us? If stripping down a site of sentiment is robbing you of a fond memory, what have we done to the land? We have robbed 99.98% of nature from this land we stand on. We need to see beyond ourselves to appreciate the broader implications of tearing down nature.
I felt VERY AGITATED yesterday when we were asked to stand at the location we would evict, and i saw that some chose the marshland.
I know everyone is given freedom of choice and opinion.
But. I can’t help. Boiling.
To me, it’s the most self-centred who cannot see beyond what directly impacts their lives. And this is my theory on all the greenhouse-hoax declarers. Trump is a perfect example. He is a piping infant who cannot comprehend making a decision that doesn’t immediate gratify himself.
And that’s how i see anyone who doesn’t give a damn about harming mother earth just because it still seems fine and sunny right now. Look beyond your damn little bubble. Think about the future, think about broad implications.
Breathe. I need to breathe.
—
We have taken too much from this beautiful, generous land that borne us. It makes me sad.
That said, i chanced upon this song after my rampant raging for Momma Earth. It came at an opportune time and i’m v moved.
Earth is a beautiful young girl, dying but still smiling. This is for you Planet Earth.
1.
Took a really long time warming up to the whole elections heat. In fact i cruised past the rallies, cooling off, and actual voting in a surreal blur: did not participate in any political discussions online / irl, embarrassingly meh about my own voting preference.
2.
What exactly does ‘voting wisely’ constitute? Is it different from voting rationally? Does voting wisely really lead to the best political outcome? It seems to me that voting is based on personal ideals, preferences, woes, situations. There isn’t a universally ‘wise’ choice.
The only sure conviction i have about ‘voting wisely’ is to not vote for idiots, i.e. the 2.6k Han Hui Hui fans.
3.
Gaffes are hilarious. They are about my favorite parts of GE2015. NSP’s Choong Hon Heng got me in stitches. There’s a truly disproportionate number of CMI folks in politics. I guess it takes a certain amount of courage to stand against such a strong incumbent. That, or idiocy – which really explains the extremes in capability/total inability when it comes to opps.
The majority of Singapore associates PAP with government, and is fundamentally unable to fathom a government shared by parties or that is non-PAP. Votes are but a reflection of current sentiments towards the government, which many ultimately think of as the PAP.
My strong suspicions about the mindset of the silent majority / vote swingers – Not happy? Don’t vote for government this time. Happy, feeling very SG50? Support government this year. In both context, there is still a party consistently conceived as government.
Other parties’ job for the next 4 years is to not frame themselves primarily as opposition, but as viable leaders. As long as Singapore knows them as opposition, they will remain but a token to throw against government when convenient, where ‘government’ remains inextricably linked to PAP.
5.
I’m proud of TPL and her media trainer.
6.
First time voter, expected the underwhelming procedure, but thumbs up for the usual Singaporean efficiency. Got mine done within 10 min!
This post has been on my deck for awhile. My plan was to pen it when i’m ready to do it full justice, but have come to realize that this state may never come. I’d rather try, though, than never getting the message across: so here it is.
Firstly, excuse my lack of knowledge and true experience. I have never been depressed. The closest contact i’ve come to it is dealing with the depression of loved ones, and through university courses (far less useful). So anything i’ll say is not representative of all victims of depression.
Heck, i’m barely gonna skim the surface of what depression is. Today, my foremost concern is with a very specific aspect of depression – a response to it even: self-blame.
Sufferers of depression as their own, most unforgiving, critics.
This may be especially prevalent in my circle, where we’re all relatively privileged. I hear extreme self-blame and guilt as the greatest fallout after a depressive episode.
“I know life has been good to me, so why do I still feel this way?”
They feel selfish, undeserving, and most of all confused. Whatever the trigger might be (insignificant, or non-existent), they tell themselves that so many others have it much worse. I shouldn’t be feeling the way I feel, but I do.
It’s easy to explain that everyone, innately, has different thresholds and response tendencies. It’s not your fault. But to ease the guilt that comes with it is close to impossible. As someone prone to guilt (I blame this on Asian parenting), i imagine myself being wrought up with these self-destructive thoughts.
Emotions are biological too.
Psychology and neuroscience are infants in the scientific world. It took awhile to convince us that the world isn’t flat. It might take a little longer to grasp that how people feel is governed by a complex interplay of neurotransmitters; that dysfunction in the balance of neurotransmitters is as biologically real as, say, diabetes.
But we’re getting there. For every person who refuses to recognize depression as a real illness, there is another who is empathetic to sufferers of the disorder.
Just as how you could never blame someone for fighting cancer, for having Alzheimer’s, for losing both their legs – anyone who has tried to understand depression as it is will not blame the victim for suffering.
The greatest contradiction in response may come from victims themselves. On one hand, they know most intimately how utterly devoid of control they are of the condition. On the other, they are the first to experience it as an emotion than a symptom. Therein lies their desire for others to understand depression as a disorder, and the disturbing thought that it isn’t an inflicted illness – just themselves.
A disorder or just who I am?
Depression is so closely tied to cognitive function that, unlike more physical disorders, it denies the sufferer their ability to perceive self as victim. And sometimes that is important. Rhetoric can play a huge role in recovery: we overcame suffering, we fought a disease, we recovered from an illness. The origins of depression, though, is often cast in doubt.
A victim’s own traits and cognitive tendencies are apparent to them throughout their lives, relative to latent genetic information embedded in DNA. It is precisely this self-understanding that leads them to suspect: what if it isn’t actually depression, but how i am chronically?
In my opinion, it’s both.
Innate disposition – that is otherwise healthy – can tend one towards depression if met with certain situations. Neuroticism, for instance, is one of the greatest predictors of depressive symptoms of all personality traits. In moderate amounts, or in a safe environment, it can be very adaptive. It keeps a person from risky behavior, encourages meticulous work, etc. When met with triggers, though, the same person is more susceptible to spiralling down depression. If a medical parallel were to be drawn, it’s akin to a patient having a genetic predisposition to cancer.
You’re the last person to be apologizing.
So yes, it’s you chronically. Part of your personality, who you are, it may even have a role to play in why you’re an amazing person. But it doesn’t mean you have to be chronically depressed. No matter how closely you had tended to depression (for as long as you can remember), depression isn’t who you are. You are a victim. Like many physical disorders, it happened to you beyond your conscious control. You didn’t make it happen. So as much as you can, go easy on yourself. Please.
That said, things can be done. However helpless or uncontrollable it may be, it can be contained with professional help. I can never understand it fully – but i do know that in the darkest of your times, trapped in your own mind, relief becomes an impossible feat. There is no bodily pain that propels you to a clinic.
Many may not even realize they are depressed, and may trudge on thinking the mental torment they deal with daily is part of life. Herein lies the finicky part of depression. It is so difficult to separate mind from mind, and notice that something is wrong. Perhaps even more so for the depressed than people around them.
To those whose loved ones are depressed.
It breaks my heart that on top of coping with depression, many sufferers take up the burden of guilt. They cannot forgive themselves for (they believe) unnecessarily stressing loved ones. The truth – that it is stressful to care for someone with depression – doesn’t help.
Friends, family, spouses of those who are depressed, for every ounce of frustration you face dealing with them, get this: he/she is doing it with much less mental resources. Often, they lack the hope, optimism, and even blind naiveté we instinctively rely on.
Depression exists on such a wide spectrum there isn’t a universally appropriate way to provide support. But from personal experience, one thing we should prioritize is absolving the depressed of their guilt. It’s an elusive task that i cannot yet complete, but for god’s sake try. Never let a loved one with depression feel like they are to blame for their illness. Never ever try to imply that it was well within their control to prevent depression from happening. Because they aren’t, and it wasn’t.
I have made peace with sporadic LKY critics on my newsfeed.
On the first day, the offense i took was visceral and instinctive. With knowledge of his faults and failings, but respect for his brilliance, i had felt a personal loss. To have others take away my privilege to mourn this loss – much less to say for Lee’s family – seemed unfair. They can do this any other time, i thought. Why now? Why the need to be cruel?
On the second day, it became a more diffuse disappointment. I shook my head as friends showed me the latest snark amidst the mass of adulatory tributes. But this time, shaking off the bias that came with my private attachment to LKY, i reviewed these critiques. The anti-LKYs posts were varied: there were the irreverent, the pompous; the political, and the emotional. Some raised relevant arguments against his ideology, others dived straight into cold satire.
I then realized that these voices are necessary.
It is not that i agree or condone them – far from it. But it is exactly that: as we are allowed to mourn, to exalt, to love LKY; others have their right to do otherwise. How can we condemn others for not feeling the way we do, as if it were a choice? As we are allowed to decry critics for their lack of appreciation, so are critics free to denounce what they perceive as blind idolatry.
If every. single. citizen. in Singapore expressed only grief, what would that make us? North Korea.
Ironically, education for our generation – which Mr Lee had placed a premium on – is precisely why the nation consists of a multiplicity of voices. It is why we are discerning, capable of appreciating or disagreeing, bold enough to ram a foot against authority where ideology clashes with one’s own. In a twisted way, we should be proud to some degree that we have space for dissidence.
Mr Lee was a political legend. A controversial one. And rightfully, such a legend should have his fair share of fans and haters. It means he has been doing it right. If he had been as much of a tyrant as some claim, there would be no criticisms (allowed).
There was a particular thought i came across: “you cannot separate the man from his politics”. And it’s true. Much as most wish for compassion towards him and his family in a time of mourning, it is inevitable that the outpouring of love will be met with comments from some of his detractors. Many have the tact to keep it in, but others would see this as exactly the right time to voice out against support for LKY — because it is now that it has become most apparent and effusive.
So here i am to take back my words, or at least dilute them. Yes, i can accept the need for criticism, even if i do not understand it. I’m heartened, of course, that such a vast majority of us care enough to grieve, to be angered by critics. But it is also assuring that Singapore has come to a place where disgruntled netizens can speak up without the fear of arrest.
I have been accused of many things in my life, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind.
– 1955, The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew
Mr Lee, if as a hypothetical other, may have been proud of the presence of dissent, might have been the voice of dissent himself.
Loss, i have learnt, finds us in new ways unique to the one we mourn for.
This morning, groggily, i flipped on the tv just in time to hear PM Lee collect his quavering tone. Cut to you, black and white, wreathed with orchids, a rousing speech; you stoically wiping tears away in the scene we’ve played and replayed through social studies class. The LKY i knew from textbooks.
Then came the later years, the you i knew throughout my childhood: sharp eyed and articulate. Of these, the most recent images of you in NDP 2014 was especially touching. In them, you had neither the solemn face of a man on a mission, nor the polished, polite smile of a politician. Instead, you held a carefree expression; a smile wide with abandon. You regarded the celebrations and your fellow countrymen with a simple content you so rarely wore.
It was then that it hit. Perhaps because you looked as any benign, friendly coffeeshop uncle would, perhaps it reminded me of how beyond a hard-nosed luminary, you were a loved husband, father and grandfather. It hit that there would no longer be wise, sometimes entertaining, always brilliant words newly said by this man.
Sir, all I hope for is that you felt the nation’s gratefulness, that we did (and will do) you proud, that you went knowing your work was fully worthwhile.
Thank you, and thank you again. With all my heart I pray that you’re now resting well with your beloved wife.
Q 