Wei Kiat's Blog

In the beginning, man were like animals, man roam free, allow themselves to be swayed by urges and desire, need and wants. The savage and purity of animals desire is something that man had discarded, in its attempt to achieve a "civilised world" - one that is bounded by discpline, rules, regulations, censorships and control. Hence in an attempt to reach a civilised world, where emotions and needs are controlled, we began to lose the most important link, the very key to opening up ourselves to humanity, the very thing that brings about humanity. This were all replaced by rules, instructions, commands, discplines that bounded our freedom, blinded our emotions and restricted our thoughts.

In the transformation of making a more productive, economically not only stable but also increasing at an increasing rate, efficent society, we did not even spare a tiny fraction of time to come to terms with how much we as human beings, as a society has degenerated and regressed over the decades. In order to work efficently, we blinded our emotions, in other to conform and remove chaos from this world, we restricted our very own behavior and thinking. In an attempt to progress, to work towards the ultimate goal that ultimate belongs to no one (everyone dies), we have slowly but surely imitated the behavior of the very thing that we created. Machines. Computers programs. Machines and computer programs are highly efficent, they have nothing to distract them from work, no emotions, work endlessly and are not creative. We have patterned ourselves after them. To make matters worst, in order to progress selflessly, we shut ourselves from complains and critisims, not listening to what others have to say. In order not to waste time, we ceased to communicate.

Humans are one of the most communicative creatures that roamed the Earth. Bees communicate by dancing, whales by singing and bears by their body gesture. Man, in its highly evolved state, has achieved effective communicate by using not one, but all of the above methods. We even have poems, arts, movies, blogs, telephone, internet, fax, email... etc. Hundreds and thousands of means of communication exist that we are unable to list all of them. Whenever you think you have list down all means, your mind will suddenly come up with one more. The thing is, are we really communicating? As the population increase and more methods of linking everyone together exist, we are rapidly approaching the stage where there are as many human on earth as nerons in your brain. Yet, will be ever achieve collective intelligence? Will we really understand each other? No.

The human brain is a shut off organ, isolated and hidden away and behind the thick human skull. Though largely documentated, its processes and functions were greatly unknown. The few cubes of Estein's brain sitting in musems worldwide did nothing to help us understand how clever he once was or ow did his brain work.

In a family unit, parents and children exist. In the Singaporean context, only the television and the bed in the house exist. In an attempt to earn more money, to make life more comfortable, parents now often work long hours, and when they return home late in the evening or at night, there are too tired to care for their children. Wealth should never be equated to happiness. Wealth are just numbers printed in a bank book. If wealth is so great, use wealth to bring life for me to see. The thing is, politicans and the likes often want to have a very efficent workforce, as the government and the country could benefit as a whole. This is a good thing, and the very reason why Singapore has made it so far, from a third world country to a first world country in just 40 years. This is not the work of the government alone, it is also due to the hardwork put in by the people, whether they are doing it for the country or for their own material wealth. However, the momentum carries on and on, like a snowball rolling down the snow mountain. This trend did not stop, and have gotten worst.

In the past, people generally sleep 8 hours, now, 8 hours seems too much, sleeping so much at 8 hours meant valuable time are lost. People started sleeping lesser and lesser and doing more and more work, trying to imitate machines that never need sleep. Look at the amount of sleepy looking people on any public transport, and you would know how serious this problem is. Do you sleep on the bus? High chance you do.

Students, driven by their parents who forever seek perfection and result from them, followed a similar trend. I was talking to my friends on the mrt, complaining that i had too little sleep the night before, and was feeling pretty sleepy. I told them I only slept 5 hours the night before. "That is too much!" came the reply, from 3 mouths. 5 hours of sleep which i find highly insufficent is a luxury for them.

Schools exists to educate students, but somethings the concept was never realised. In early british, especially in Roald Dahl's younger days, we read about an educational system that would no doubt be frowned upon by today's singapore's society. Yet, are we any better? Teacher who tored up student's essay appeared on the news a few years back. Does this teacher have any clear idea in mind the purpose of her own existence? As a teacher, she exists to educate, to teach. She does not punish people. Punishment can never be equated to teaching. If that is the case priests in churches and buddhas in temples would all be carrying whips. We claim to be a civilised society, yet teachers, being role models to the student, did not sought to understand the student or to find root to their problems. This is why they exist, yet they did not even care. Did something wrong? Ok. I whack you.

Because of the influence of the press and the internet, schools are extremely sensitive to such an issue. They are particularly afraid if they did something wrong, and the press get the hang of it. If that teacher in question did not react in such an irresponsible way, there would be no one playing the finger pointing game. Why is there fear of students bad mouthing a particular college or school, when it is obvious that untrue rumours will always be defeated. Teachers are the ones who thought us that "rumours will destory itself" (a chinese saying), yet they are the very ones who became so nervous and jumpy when they did something wrong and people start spreading the issue. Convenient excuses, such as "protect reputation of the school" can be given. But yet, isn't not letting the public know about your bad doings as good as cheating the public? Take for example, the NKF saga. If what ST originally published on their papers isn't true, why be so afraid and started sueing ST? Sooner or later, the true will appear. No covering up will suffice. On the other hand, if untruth were spread, such untruths would soon be defeated. Only an organisation, or an individual with a guilty conscience will get worked up when people published negative comments about them. When those organisations or individuals got worked up, more often than not, the comments are true. Same goes to politics, although laws are such that it is best not to talk about it.

Brain turning this way and that, and I'm too sleepy to carry on my random discussion. I desire sleep, for now.