The shimmering warm morning sun marks the repeat of the 'cycle', once again. NUS has successfully dehumanized me, my friend. Call me a spartan, a robot, or perhaps a Gurkha. Thankfully (or rather, depressingly), most of the people around me are like that, all hungry for that First-Class Honours, that we would 'do whatever it takes' just to get that piece of paper with First-Class Hons. emblazoned on it.
As I was up and about my daily routine to teach tuition after school, God was out to make me feel slightly MORE miserable than usual. It rained. Oh horrible... Right beside the bus stop was a long stretch of rainwater collected due to poor drainage system (seriously, i've nothing else to complain. Singapore has awesome "long kao" [Hokkien for drains] system). Oh well, people were avoiding getting splashed.
Right there and then, I saw these two little girls, about age 5 and 7, coming along with their parents. They avoided the umbrella instead, and stepped right into the puddle! In fact, they loved it so much they were jumping in the puddle! Onlookers gave a queer, disapproving look while their parents happily chatted among themselves as the girls were finding their own fun.
Hey, isn't that what I used to do in the past? Isn't that what we all used to do in the past?
Urban life consumes and brainwashes us more often than not. We get caught up with the preppy silly stuff of 'looking good in front of others' that sometimes we lose ourselves. Yes, what happened to the us who once 'played in the rain'? What has happened to the 'doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, artists, celebrities' we once used to dream about? Do the ideal no longer exist? Would we allow the world to rob us of the dreamer within us and cage us up in conformity?
The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the ugliest facts of life we blatantly see. Normal jovial college students turned into prisoners and guards over a span of a few days, just because 'system power' dictated their roles. The guards were torturing the prisoners, and the prisoners submitted themselves to them! Was it not just an experiment? Why didn't they quit if they were being abused?
Was it not just an experiment? Why would we take life so harshly by the neck that we willingly give up our human rights to sleep, to love and to take time to smell the roses, all for the goal that's ahead of us? Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying you should give up the goal. Why not then choose to make life better while running this race? God did not make it mutually exclusive ya?
The saddest thing is that the richest people are most often the saddest people (counting low on the Life-Satisfaction Scale). It shouldn't be. If you've the privilege of reading this (well that shows you've access to computers, and you're perhaps not starving cuz you've no money to eat), count it a blessing, and make it count.
Another thing that got me thinking recently - How heroes die
You know, my Psychology Coursebook defines heroes as "people who are able to resist situation forces that overwhelms their peers and remain true to their personal value". I am not kidding, I have to learn this definition as a science terminology to pass exams! My my... Heroes are always, always anti-conformist, never-say-die fellas. Not geniuses, not rich people, but people with a strong mind... A mind of their own despite all odds...
How did the heroes of our time die? All the saints, including Jesus and St Paul were killed. Madhamas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. died of assisination. Great presidents of our time, maybe Mr Wee Kim Wee, died of sicknesses. This is madness. How can these people die of such weird causes? Gandhi didn't fast himself to death. A bullet killed him. Fancy an activist, the voice of tens of millions in India, enduring as the Sun, dying because someone put a bullet through him?
And Jesus. Whatever has he done to deserve all these, to be the perfect, the healer, the kind and compassionate, the teacher of the people, the Shepherd to those without a home, to be accused, mocked, tortured and eventually crucified?
Face it. Life is so fragile, the only thing that makes us (look) strong is our faith in ourselves, in God, in people around us. And a dream is what makes hero heroes.
Ok ok, the last thing that got me is this - IQ
Seriously, I'd been really blessed all my life to be the top in my own marketplace of sorts. Never seen what real competition is like, never felt there's so much more to what I can be, till I came into NUS.
No joke, the competition's tough. Hard work just isn't enough sometimes.
I used to get things really quick and helped those who were slower to catch up out of my own accord, because I know it just isn't their fault that they're left behind (for laziness or whatever the reason, it really doesn't matter. They just needed some help and encouragement). Honestly, I'd always thought I was so good at studying that nobody can beat me, till today...
I realised I'm far from being labelled a genius.
Now imagine there's a scale to measure success. Success is industriousness + intelligence.
Plot accordingly, where you are, and draw a line to ultimate success. The shorter the line, the closer you are to succeeding.
Ok, I came up with this scale, lah. Of course, it's really too generic. Luck, inheritance, resourcefulness, opportunities, literacy etc are all not factored in. But yeah, basically this is really what you need to survive in this world.
And of course, I forgot to mention, God can give you intelligence [James1:5 For if you lack wisdom, ask of God, who will give it to you liberally and without reproach] and you just gotta work hard on your part.
And hey, God is the one who gives you opportunities ultimately, and perseverance, and courage to persist. So yeah, don't ever give up on the giver when you have all that you need, because Job in the Bible had all he needed, but it was all taken away from him within hours. The richest man ever lived had to live in the garbage dumps.
So that's all for now. More than a mouthful to chew.
- Keira
learningtofightthefightoffaithandleavealegacyonearth
