An old song

After long enough of being alone, Everyone must face their share of loneliness. In my own time nobody knew the pain I was going through and waiting was all my heart could do.

Hope was all I had until you came, Maybe you can't see how much you mean to me. You were the dawn breaking the night The promise of morning light. Filling the world surrounding me.

Only yesterday when I was sad and I was lonely, You showed me the way to leave the past and all it's tears behind me. Tomorrow maybe even brighter than today since I threw my sadness away. Only yesterday...

A difficult period in my life...

Love can really hurts. I heard that verse pretty often but never thought I would one day be feeling it for myself.  When I was still in school, I've been through a couple of relationships but when it ended. It doesn't seems to hurt that much. Perhaps we were still young and naive.

Things have changed. I have grown up a little, seen a bit more of this world and started to treat relationship seriously. Not too long ago, I fell in love with someone I thought I would be spending the rest of my life with. Everything started off so beautiful, like a fairy tale. Unfortunately it didn't end up "happily ever after."

I do not know what went wrong. I tried everything possible and along the way I gave up a lot of things too. All for the sake of a relationship which I thought would last. How naive I am. 

You no longer shed a tear or feel a deep sense of sadness within. All that is left is nothing more then just a tingeing sadness and numbness. You have kind of lost faith in love, not knowing where to go or what to do. Life seems a bit difficult now dat you lost someone dat used to share the day wif you and everything just seems so different and for once memories can really pierce through the heart. 


   

 

Life gets better, yet people feel worse

Life just gets better?

Progress is measurable and quantifiable. The statistics prove beyond doubt that people in the industrialised world - which includes much of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and newly industrialising economies like Singapore and Taiwan - are far better off than they were not only five to 10 years ago, but better off than human beings have ever been in history.

And yet, why are so few of us happy? Why do so many of us go through life fervently believing that if only things were a little better - the car a tad more posh, the house a trifle bigger, the sofa just a little deeper, and so on and so forth - we would finally, really and truly, promise, be happy? And of course, when the car is a little more posh, the house a little bigger, the sofa a little deeper, we persist with our dissatisfactions.

Each shiny and alluring ceiling of material existence, once it is attained, turns almost instantaneously into a tawdry carpet underfoot. Get rid of the carpet! Replace it with marble! But the marble, too, will, in due course, turn - or seem to - into cheap linoleum. Get rid of... The cycle repeats itself endlessly, and will always end where it began - in disappointment.

It is amazing to reflect, but I remember Singapore's political leaders always telling the young not to forget how much better off they were than their parents as far back as 1970, only five years after independence. Thirty years later, the politicians who were young then are telling today's young the same thing, and meeting the same incomprehension. Of course, I'm not better off. Of course, I will be satisfied if you politicians made my life just a little better. And of course, I won't be when you do.

Part of the reason few of us are convinced we are better off is that progress may be measurable but it cannot be directly experienced. It is possible, of course, with the application of just a modicum of imagination, to recall how it felt living in a three-room Housing Board flat when one is now living in a five-room HDB flat or a private condominium. But it takes effort; the past is always a passing experience; and what occupies the foreground of one's mind is almost invariably the altogether imperious present - and that bungalow I just saw in district 10.

Imagining progress over a longer timeframe - 100 years, say, or 500 - is virtually impossible. You can tell a Londoner, for instance, look chum, 500 years ago, your sewage system consisted of pigs, dedicated to St Anthony for some reason, roaming the streets, chomping on the muck. He might thank you for the information, but it wouldn't make an ounce of difference to his appreciation of the present.

Just 150 years ago, Londoners were still dumping everything - faeces, rotting vegetables and dead cats, not to mention 'the foul and gory liquids from slaughter-houses' and 'the purulent abominations from hospitals and dissecting rooms', as one contemporary document put it - into stagnant pools that stood, as eternal as the Styx, between homes. It was not till the end of Victoria's reign, just 100 years ago, that all of London, rich and poor, got a sewage system. One contemporary writer called it 'the greatest achievement of our age'. And so it was.

But would it strike a contemporary Londoner as still great? Unless he is sewage engineer, he wouldn't have given more than a moment's notice in his entire life to where his shit would go today after he flushes. Where it didn't go to a hundred years ago would be a matter of profound indifference to him. He can flush now; it disappears; end of story. To all intents and purposes, that describes too our experience of progress: Time flushes it from our memories, both personal and historical.

Is it any wonder that progress, especially over long stretches of time, has made nobody happy? It is altogether real; economists and historians can prove its existence; but we can't experience, taste, feel or see it - so obviously, it has no power to move us. 'All told, except for the clamour and speed of society, and for trends in popular music, your great-great-grandfather might say the contemporary United States' - or Britain, France, Japan and Singapore, for that matter - 'is the realisation of utopia'. Yet, virtually nobody in these countries feels that to be the case.

It's astonishing that after all the progress humankind has achieved over the centuries, all of wisdom should boil down to something so simple even a child can understand it: Just try to be a little kinder, folks. It might actually make you happier than owning a Lexus.

Idiots, they can kill you

Idiocy is a social disease. You cannot cure it with medication, a healthy diet or regular exercise. You just have to learn to cope.

DURING a recent trash-talking session among friends, I was asked for the one thing I would remove from the human race if I had the power to do so.

Things like certificates of entitlement, sexually transmitted diseases, home-made bombs, anti-homosexuality uproars and even radio-DJs-with-pseudo-American-accents had already made the rounds. I was stuck.

'Idiocy,' I volunteered. Hey, it's a problem.

On Aug 1, the Weekly World News (WWN) - a sensational, over-the-top American tabloid not unlike The National Enquirer - reported how dim-witted co-workers can be just as unhealthy, if not more so, as cigarettes, caffeine or greasy food.

The report was based on a study conducted by Sweden's Lindbergh University Medical Centre. The author of the study, Dr Dagmar Andersson, used a data pool of 500 heart attack patients.

Of these patients, her team found that 62 per cent of them had relatively few of the physical risk factors, such as old age, heredity, obesity, high blood cholesterol or pressure, commonly blamed for heart attacks.

After in-depth questioning by the study team on these patients' lifestyles, it was revealed that their heart attacks came within 12 hours of a major confrontation with a stupid colleague.

Stupidity, the report implied, can be murder.

While the WWN may not be the epitome of sophisticated medical journalism, the report raises a valid question: Are stupid people raising stress levels at the office to unhealthy levels?

Don't get me wrong. The idiots I'm referring to are not the ones who shred documents instead of copying them.

I'm talking about people who have dreadfully low emotional quotient and usually insist they're right all the time. They don't work with a complete set of tools, and they are everywhere.

In the health and safety employee handbook of a multi-national IT company, employees are told to 'blink your eyelids periodically to lubricate your eyes'.

Then again, we're all guilty at some point in our lives. That's why a copy of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix has become a paperweight for me.

A 1999 report by Australian consortium Creative Management Consultants - a group of corporate management psychologists and human resource specialists - states that idiots are primarily 'two-thought screamers'.

These people are defined as 'individuals who draw an impetuous conclusion after considering only a single idea'. Their very first thought is followed automatically by a loud, emotive conclusion.

Hence the old saying, 'shallow brooks are noisy'.

These people cannot conceive of the possibility of being wrong. Leaping at value judgments and self-righteous conclusions without proper investigation is much easier, as anything else would require too much thinking.

They are so steeped in personal bias, they do not recognise or respect the reality of other people's frame of reference.

An acquaintance of mine who works in public relations, called Casey, is what I'll term a 'must-debator' - someone who abuses his position of legitimate authority and power to emotionally damage the minions who are dependent on him for guidance and support. He is a bigot and he knows it.

He confesses gleefully: 'It's self-preservation. I have to kick up a fuss so that people will overlook my inadequacy. Someone else must take the fall. It's them or me. The best defence is always a good offence.' What a walking cliche.

Fans of Scott Adam's popular but true-to-life comic strip, Dilbert, will also vouch that idiocy can double or even triple the workload in the office. More work has to be done to compensate for the culprit's inefficiency.

Even documentary-maker Michael Moore, who gave us the clever anti-gun expose Bowling For Columbine, has acknowledged the idiocy problem in a book he wrote last year called Stupid White Men.

In a chapter called Idiot Nation, he scoffs at the person in charge of the free world, President George W. Bush, saying: 'Our Idiot-In-Chief does nothing to hide his ignorance - he even brags about it. During his commencement address to the Yale class of 2001, George W. Bush spoke proudly of having been a mediocre student at Yale, 'And to the C students, I say, you too, can be President of the United States!' '

Idiocy is a chronic social disease. You cannot cure it with medication, a healthy diet or regular exercise. And it's not going away anytime soon.

If you want to survive, you will have to learn to cope with it.

Depressingly, Dr Andersson also says in the WWN report: 'Most people have very poor coping skills when it comes to stupidity - they feel there's nothing they can do about it, so they just internalise their frustration until they finally explode.'

I've decided that since I'm alive and well and have real friends, I've got loads to be grateful about. I'll just beaver away in my corner of the world, keep my sanity intact and sleep well at night.

After all, idiots may have their opinion, but it doesn't have to be part of my reality.

H2o + 

Be chaste, or be chastised

Recently I read an article from the straits time about a Christian-based group to promote virginity and it disturbs me because of how it is using morality and religion to warn the young against sex.

SINGAPOREANS are an immoral lot.

That seems to be the implied message of a pro-virginity drive initiated by Focus On The Family Singapore (FOTF), a Christian charity organisation.

The group, which is affiliated to a worldwide United States-based movement of the same name, seeks to strengthen family values here.

Its sexual abstinence programme is titled No Apologies, and it has convinced about 7,200 teens and young adults to pledge to remain virgins and 'save themselves for marriage'.

Under the programme, which comes with workshops on sex and relationships, these non-apologetic virgins sign abstinence pledge cards, which they can keep in their wallets presumably in place of condoms.

Whenever temptation rears its wanton head, they can pull the cards out to remind themselves of their vows of chastity.

All this is fine with me. I applaud any attempt to inform our young how to say 'no' to sex, especially if they are not ready.

What disturbs me is the holier-than-thou tone the group adopts in spreading the message.

In a Nov 23 report, vice president for programmes Joanna Koh-Hoe, 29, was quoted as saying: 'Our message is this: If I have pre-marital sex, I am not a person of good character. In fact, any sex outside of marriage is immoral whatever the age of the person.'

I don't know about you, but to me, such a mindset reeks of moral segregation.

A reporter from the Straits time approached Joanna Koh Hoe and she took pains to explain that her group is not condemning or judging people who have pre-marital sex.

'It's not just a moral issue, but a health/relationship/emotional issue,' she said.

'Nonetheless, you need to have good character to abstain from pre-marital sex. Aspects of good character include self-control, a sense of responsibility and honesty.

'You need to have such characteristic traits, too, if you want to overcome other things, like overeating or the urge to slap someone when you're angry.'

She added that her group also welcomes 'secondary virgins', young people who have 'blown it and want to start all over again'.

'In our workshops, we tell everyone they are of good character, capable of making good decisions.'

'Blown it'? 'Good character'? Aren't these value-laden terms a reflection of the same patronising view that virgins are good people and non-virgins bad?

While older folks might seethe at such highfalutin ideals, but know better than to take them too seriously, what about teenagers who are already confused enough as it is trying to grapple with their raging hormones?

Instead of relying on education to drive home the point on how they should be careful when it comes to sex, why is the group scaring them with this morality-sex argument?

I HAVE other concerns regarding the No Apologies programme.

What is its definition of virginity?

Mrs Koh-Hoe said it defines virginity as 'purity, be it physically, emotionally, ethically, intellectually or socially'.

'We leave the teenagers to draw their own lines, to decide for themselves where sexual arousal begins.'

So let's take former American president Bill Clinton's definition.

He got away with his 'no, I did not have sex with that woman' spin by insisting that Monica Lewinsky only engaged in oral sex with him.

So, if a teenage couple does everything else except have sexual intercourse, would the group still consider them virgins, and therefore of good character?

If virginity, and good character, are defined by the lack of sexual intercourse, is the teenager who goes into online chatrooms to seek partners for heavy petting more morally upright than a couple in their 30s who have been seeing each other for a long time and have sex with only each other?

Then, like any lawyer who knows how to work evidence to his advantage, the FOTF overemphasises the unreliability of condoms to argue that abstinence is the best contraception.

While I agree that condoms are not 100 per cent foolproof, won't it be more responsible of them to give an objective picture? That is, that contraception can and does work if used properly?

Won't our young then be able to make more well-informed decisions? Won't an incomplete understanding get them into bigger trouble?

Finally, what alarms me is how a religious-based group is seeking to dictate the collective morals and mindset of a secular, pluralistic society.

The group has insisted that it is not proselytising, but there are clear Biblical undertones in its linking of morality and sex.

A booklet on homosexuality which it distributes, for instance, has phrases like 'God clearly condemns any act of sex outside of heterosexual marriage.'

Discussing social issues through the lens of one religion can't be good in a multi-racial, multi-religious society. Not to mention how alienating it is for the less religious among us.

YES, we live in sexually permissive times. The young are frighteningly more savvy yet cavalier about sex.

A survey of 350 Nanyang Technological University students showed that about one in six had pre-marital sex.

Of them, only slightly more than a third use protection all the time. Half of them think that sexually transmitted diseases do not pose a risk.

Yes, there is a lot more that can be done to guide and protect them from sexual diseases and even sex crimes.

Against such a backdrop, shouldn't those in a position of power and influence adopt a more pragmatic approach when dealing with the young and sex, instead of a message that harps on morality and, worse, appears to be based on one religion?

What about this tagline: 'Abstinence is good and you don't have to have sex to be cool'?

Beyond taglines, arm them with all the necessary knowledge about sex and birth-control so that if they really decide to do it, at least they can do so safely and responsibly.

But Mrs Koh-Hoe said that providing more comprehensive information about contraceptives will dilute the group's message of chastity.

She mentioned to the reporter,'If you're an Olympics coach, surely you'll tell your athlete to go for gold rather than bronze? How will it sound if we say, 'yes, abstain, but there're condoms if you really can't?'

The group has also maintained that the young are smart enough to make their own decisions.

If that is really so, then give them an objective picture on sex, and spare the rest of 'unchaste' Singaporeans the high-handed moralising.

Let's fight for love

Breaking up appears to be an easy option these days. Is the independence of modern women or intolerance for less-than-perfect relationships to blame?

BREAKING up is hard to do, or so the old country song goes.

But if the experience of my friends and family in recent weeks is anything to go by, it seems that breaking up is the easiest thing to do these days.

When I recently went out with two friends who are serving national service, they told me that they had just ended relationships of several years.

A female friend in her mid-20s told me a few weeks ago that she had just broken up with her boyfriend of two years.

Two female former schoolmates whom I caught up with two weeks ago also found themselves single recently.

One was married and the other was in a relationship of a few years.

The parents of my closest cousins in Canada are getting divorced.

The list seems to go on and is not just limited to my immediate circle of family, friends and acquaintances.

A recent article in an American men's magazine claimed that divorce has become as common as the blind date.

It quotes figures from the United States Center for Disease Control which studies divorce rates as an indicator of national health.

They show that nearly 20 per cent of first marriages involving brides between the ages of 20 and 24 are over within five years.

Should I really be surprised by this phenomenon?

The recent call by the Government to have more babies to stem the declining birth rate made me wonder whether we shouldn't be first addressing the issue of how to get couples to stay together.

You would think that, since so many of us are supposed to be Sexy, Desirable and Unique, we wouldn't be having this problem.

But that's another story.

So what is it about the world today that makes it hard for people to stay together?

Most of the friends I spoke to point the finger at societal factors such as the importance of careers and the rat race in general.

They brought up the 'McDonald's' syndrome which seems to have infected so many people, as seen in their obsession and dependence on fast food, fast cars and fast living.

Everyone I know or knew growing up seems to be fixated on getting ahead faster, graduating earlier and making more money speedily.

So much so that when a relationship begins to go awry, it's become the natural reaction to look for the fastest resolution, and more often than not, that means bailing out.

All this made me wonder what had happened to the much-extolled virtues of old - like consistency, staying the course, determination to see things through, and working at things even when the going gets tough.

But I am not immune to the winds of change either. My previous relationship ended because of some differences. But a part of me still wonders what might have happened if we had decided to stick it out.

When I mentioned this to friends, some said this brought up another probable cause for so many short-lived relationships: the burgeoning independence of the modern-day woman.

I have to make it clear at this point that I consider this a good thing. And my friends who were making this point are in fact all independent, intelligent and very well-educated females.

They pointed out that the emancipation of women since the middle of the last century means that they are just not very likely to put up with an unhappy relationship as they previously did.

A friend, said she saw an even more significant factor.

'We're all so used to demanding excellence from ourselves in all aspects of life, be it school or work, that people are becoming less and less tolerant of less-than-perfect situations.

'This means that we are more prepared to give up what we may have now in order to have a chance of finding something even better.'

When these factors are combined with the usual suspects of boredom, the dreaded 'seven-year itch', growing apart from each other and the other traditional reasons for breaking up, what chance does love have?

After thinking about this, I realise I don't really know myself.

Being a bit of a romantic at heart, all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that when the real deal comes along, I will be smart enough to recognise it and stubborn enough to fight for it.

And trust me, with the odds stacked up against us, we'll need to fight to make it work.

At least, at the end of the day, when things finally worked out. You will be glad that you didn't give up.