Sad Scene in Singapore (Coming Soon...)

Plumber and Philosopher (Coming Soon...)

One day of Karang Guni work

When I was in school, during one of the school holidays, a group of us did one day of Karang Guni work (collecting old newspaper) to raise fund for the purchase of our NIKE sport jerseys. Being students, we could not afford them.

We hired a lorry with a driver, who accompanied us the whole day and helped us to sell the newspaper collected.

One full day, 14-15 of us. We were totally dirty and exhausted at end of it.
It was hard work and one of the participants commented she enjoyed it thoroughly.

When I heard the comment then, I was momentarily glad and proud of her, a rich young girl appreciating hard manual work, ... ... until I took a glance at our lorry driver, who has been most helpful and silently follwing us around. Whose family dailyhood depended on him as a Karang Guni man, day in day out.

Living in a penthhouse unit, commuted daily to school in her sport car, I believed my friend has never experienced any maual work before. So I guessed it was fun one-off experience for her. Good exercise for the body, maybe for the soul as well.

I wonder what similar one-off hardship / sacrificial experience I have "put myself through" for the enrichment of my soul? A mission trip to the less developed area, an occassional "simple" living ...?

I wonder when Christ came, was it also like that?

Psalm 73 in my own words

I know You are good....
But I have strayed...
I have envied others.
I feel small besides them. The speak while I have nothing to say.
I feel shitty, for what is the point of me trying so hard.
I cannot speak for I cannot speak with integrity, the trueness of heart, for I myself am not convinced.

Till I enter into Your sanctuary and you restore my perspective...

Sorry that I have been stupid, but Lord you know I am always with you,
because where else can I be.
So Lord, be my refuge and rebuild me.

The Departures - he faces up to the fact he is a mediocre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBiJOB-0Sfg

The synopsis in the movie Departures reads "A premiere symphony orchestra in Tokyo disbands, leaving Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) suddenly unemployed. Suffering from an innate sense that he is a mediocre musician, he faces up to the fact that not everyone who has devoted their life to music can become a top artist."

I read the description after viewing the movie. Well, I am not sure why they put such a description in the synopsis. I defintely did not see this part when I was in the cinema. Everything was sadly beautiful.

It is a description that is quite hard to admit, as it was such a heart warming MOVIE.

Well a fact is a fact, facing up to the fact that one is a mediocre, despite our best efforts, our highest devotion, our purest prayer, our earnest imagination, is hard. Being misled by our inflated ego, fantasy and the one last hope one has left. And we pushed ourselves to be not the mediocre, that we innately know we are.

Is mediocre really that bad? Why is it bad? What is so bad about, if despite our best efforts, our highest devotion, our purest prayer, our earnest imagination, we are a mediocre?

What is best? what is excellence? what is the benchmark? who decides? with such limitation of trial and error, how can one be so spot on of being the best at one try, and when we don't even know ourselves well.

Daigo 大悟.

In hope of a better life - Singapore and Hainan

My grandfather is 94 years old this year and he came to Singapore when he was about 14. It was the hardship at home (Hainan, China) that drove him to leave his home (and mother) at such a young age, took a voyage to Singapore.

3 years ago, we took a home trip with him, to his childhood home. The living condition there has not improved much.

Today I am staying in a materially affluent Singapore but the same thought of leaving home has recently come to mind. I am thinking of moving "back" to Hainan.

80 years ago my grandfather travelled from Hainan to Singapore for the hope of a (materially) better life. Today, it is the blinding materialism of Singapore that is driving me to take the route my grandfather took but in a reverse direction.

Arthur Ganson at TED

www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arthur_ganson_makes_moving_sculpture.html

I have enclosed part of the transcript of Arthur Ganson's presentation at TED.
Cos’ I really like this man’s way of living and expressing life.
I have underlined the portion that is meaningful to me.
As I was doing it, his introduction and his conclusion caught me. U must really READ him, then u will discovered he is speaking very subtly (and it can seem ambiguous) but actually very simply and clearly:

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A few words about how I got started, and it has a lot to do with happiness, actually. When I was a very young child, I was extremely introverted and very much to myself. And kind of as a way of surviving, I would go into my own very personal space, and I would make things. I would make things for people as a way of, you know giving -- showing them my love. I would go into these private places, and I would put my ideas and my passions into objects, and sort of learning how to speak with my hands.

… … … …

And that leads me to the thought that all of these pieces start off in my own mind, in my heart, and I do my best at finding ways to express them with materials, and it always feels really crude. It's always a struggle, but somehow I manage to sort of get this thought out into an object, and then it's there, OK. It means nothing at all. The object itself just means nothing. Once it's perceived, and someone brings it into their own mind, then there's a cycle that has been completed. And to me, that's the most important thing because ever since being a kid, I've wanted to communicate my passion and love, and that means the complete cycle of coming from inside out to the physical, to someone perceiving it. So I'll just let this chair come down.

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The Machine that Enjoys Being Trivial by Dragging around in circles
"Now, this kind of machine is as close as I can get to painting. And it's full of many little trivial end points, like there's a little foot here that just drags around in circles and it doesn't really mean anything. It's really just for the sort of joy of its own triviality. "

The Machine that Enjoys Bathing itself in Oil
"The connection I have with engineering is the same as any other engineer, in that I love to solve problems. I love to figure things out, but the end result of what I'm doing is really completely ambiguous.""Now, a completely different thought -- I'm always imagining myself in different situations. I'm imagining myself as a machine. What would I love? I would love to be bathed in oil. ... Read moreSo, this machine does nothing but just bathe itself in oil. "

I will show you how to waste your life (John Piper)

I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who "took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells." At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: "Look, Lord. See my shells." That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.
(Don't Waste Your Life , John Piper)

Ten challenges ahead for S'pore

1. How to maintain high economic growth and improve living standard?
2. How to convince Singaporeans their lives will get better?
3. How to satisfy transport demands of the next generation?
4. How to stamp out new diseases and keep health-care costs down?
5. How to design job training programmes and wage supplement schemes for low-income older workers.
6. How to get younger Singaporeans to marry and have children?
7. How to support the growing elderly population?
8. How to deal with scarce land resources?
9. How to bond Singaporeans overseas to their homeland?
10. How to ensure Singaporeans of different faiths continue to mix with one another and respect one another's faith?