Tuesday 15 November 2005

There was a segment on CNA about Deng Xiaoping earlier and I think my dad's a fan of his, and was like talking about DXP's idea of one-country-two-systems and how the poor-didn't-go-to-school-but-turned-into-a-national-leader-bloke called the world his university.

That led me to think that ironically, the modern privilege of going to school from young somehow stifles our children and enforces a systematic rhythm to society, and that's where all the social ills of a cold and failure-condemning world like Singapore comes about. The elusiveness of study and the harsh situations people like DXP had to endure gave them a passion for learning and a purpose in life. So, with all due respect to the honourable people who've went through a shitty childhood without proper education and became leaders, I guess maybe not being able to go through any form of institutionalised study can be a privilege in itself that many people now won't dare to risk taking.

I've always been one to advocate free learning in place of study drills, art instead of science and creativity rather than conformity. I think it's laughable to think that art can be taught the way they are now in schools. As a victim of conformity largely in part due to my folks, I've been going through my academic life via the science route, when it was obvious my inclinations are very much towards art. I was at my prime in lower secondary and even managed a top 10 placing due to general art and design technology studies, and when I embarked on the triple science journey that everyone else seems to wanna take, my results just hurtled downhill. Once again due to societal and familial pressures I went on to take maths, chemistry and physics in junior college, and emerged with pretty mediocre shit for my As. Unsurprisingly, GP was my best subject and paper, the only thing I'm proud to mention about after two years of slogging through. I've never been one to sit down and mug coz I really really detest reading for the sake of studying, and anyway I can't sit down just to swallow notes for nuts, so it's really no wonder now I feel so unfulfilled after all these years and I'm more than determined to go to perhaps mass com or take arts and social sciences in university. I'm always convinced that there really isn't a point ultimately to study something you don't believe in or lack a passion for because you're not gonna benefit from it other than getting that grade for a subject you actually find distasteful, so in the end I guess it's all about how true you wanna be to yourself.

I recently read an article by Colin Chee in the Newpaper and there was this quote which caught my attention: "... be a society that can stare failure in the face until it blinks." And he mentioned about a society that has individuals who dare to take the lead and show the way without having to look for someone more senior in age or appointment, and how very true that statement is. That article was about the rigidity of modern Singapore.

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