sunset conversations

If you happen to be narrow minded, a Christian fundamentalist or just a woman, please move on to the next excellent article and do not read this.

JDAM: “I am tired of arguing with all of you!”

Astroboy: “OK, JDAM since you are so smart at figuring out the intentions of women, let’s just ask Darkness for his opinion.”

Darkness: “Look here boys. Why are we even talking about this? We are in the middle of jungle. Why can’t we talk about power tools or how to make things that don’t blow up, blow up? If you people want to know how it all happened – it’s really very simple. Look what we have here is a 35 year old woman who allegedly slept with those two monkeys to secure contracts.”

JDAM: “See, even Darkness agrees with me, it’s the chicks fault!”

Darkness: “Not quite. There is no right or wrong here JDAM. Can you blame a cobra for hissing before a strike? A hawk from shrieking, once it has decided to go for the kill? It all boils down to human psychology. You see it is like this, once a woman goes over 30, that’s it – it’s really downhill from that point onwards. Every man and woman knows that, except maybe those two monkeys. It matters very little how beautiful she once was – all she really has at age 35 is a residual beauty of her previous self – so what we are dealing with here is a woman who knows that time is not on her side. She’s living on borrowed time – added to that, I suspect she doesn’t know the business process very well – so she’s insecure not only with her looks, but also her capabilities to perform her job. And combine this with the fact, this woman believes beauty is a wonder weapon, she’s accustomed to using beauty as a skeleton key to open doors that cannot be opened – strategically, this is how she sees the world through her Simple Simon brain. Nonetheless, crude as it may be, its an accurate depiction of life. Now put this woman in the same room as a man or for that matter any man who has the power to validate her miserable existence, what do you think will happen. They didn’t stand a chance in hell.”

Harphoon: “What do you mean Darkness – they didn’t stand a chance in hell? Coming to think of it, I actually feel sorry for those poor sods.”

Darkness: “Like I said, she is a woman with a mission. Have you all asked yourself, how did the news leak out? Either way, it’s mission accomplished. Beware of women who have a mission. They’re worse than the Mounties, dead or alive, they will get their man.”

Scholarboy: “Now we know why you only stick to dogs Darkness.”

 

 

Somewhere in the Suriman Trail – The Brotherhood Press 2012

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The Oracle: “From today onwards your name will be Darkness.”

Extracted from the Book of Ages under the Chapter: The Man Called Darkness – Page 2,839 – The Brotherhood Press 2012

Many years ago…..

There are two things that you can do when you see a man driving a big car. The first is to curse him for being a capitalist animal and to hurl all sorts of expletives at him. The second is to find out what he has done to be able to accumulate such vast reserves of wealth.

Question: which is the most productive attitude that we should rightly adopt, if we genuinely want to make sense of the world?

This is not an easy question to answer as many of our attitudes concerning money are forged from childhood experiences. I don’t have anything against rich people. In fact, when I was growing up, I had a very rich friend, her name was Sarah. Sarah was very kind to me, she was the only child of a timber baron and I would often visit her house to play the piano. Her mother was also nice and I remembered how she would often take the trouble to fry banana fritters and serve up iced cold orange cordial during the afternoons.

When I went to university, Sarah still kept in touch with me – but by then, I had mixed up with a bunch of poor students who lived in this really old and decrepit house somewhere in Brixton. These people hated the rich, they hated them because their life was hard and I can understand how a young man can learn to hate so completely when he feels the world is tilted dead against him – when you are poor, everything is hard. Even really simple things like making it on time for lectures acquires a laden quality as the poor have to juggle all sorts of challenges day in and day out.

One day during CNY Sarah visited me in this old house. I can still remember the scene clearly. She had brought me some bak kuah. But I was cold and distant to her as I didn’t want her to see where I lived. It was as if an imaginary line had been drawn somewhere in the pavement, where I stood was my world, my beliefs another country even and somewhere where the line merged with hers was a land that I could never hope to gain entry – As I stood there surrounded by the rest of the boys, it never occurred to me that the rich and privilege could just intimidate the poor by just breathing – all I wanted her to do was to go. Leave that good forsaken place.

I never saw Sarah throughout my university days although she was just half an hour’s ride away. You could even say, I could not see her, if I wanted to keep my illusionary world intact – but when I reflect back to the moment of my youth, maybe I was just being childish – petulant- stubborn. Truth of the matter is there was never any divisions between us except that which I had imagined and breathe life into – there was no great battle being waged between the have’s and have not’s, not the type that involved me and Sarah.

When I think back, it was such a waste to have invested so much of my being in hating and finding differences when none actually existed. The irony these days is, I no longer view my estrangement nor the depth of my repugnance for the rich as something that even makes sense.

Darkness 2012
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“When we were all young. We all lived in a big leaky house when we were studying in the UK. There are only two things, I remember about that house. The first is that in 200 days out of 365, there was no electricity or running water. The second was we ate only curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner and we never got bored of it. I was the 7th leader in this house. Every year someone would graduate and we would all look at him like one of those soviet cosmonauts who had managed to break out from the gravity of the earth – he was now free! We all sang.

These days, we are not so young. But it seems, we are still living in a big house. Only this time, the house looks quite nice. I think there are many things, we need to reflect on. I think, there are many useless things, we may need to throw out as well. If I had the power to step into a time machine and go back into that big leaky house again – I think, I would want to speak to all of those angry young men. I think, the first person, I would speak too would be myself. I would tell that young angry man, to seek out similarities instead of differences.

This is life, we all live and learn.”

Darkness

Excerpt of a conversation extracted from a thread in Phi Beta Kappa.

Why do leaders fuck around?

Let us start with a very simple question: why do successful men fuck around? Well one reason may have to do with how men are “hard wired.” Men have evolutionary reasons to sleep around. A lot of women roll their eyes when they hear the Darwinian explanation. But from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense. The primal drive to reproduce is strong (trust me, I have been in the jungle for a very long time and by now even the cows who come to graze look very attractive).

The other reason is men are genetically programmed to hunt (my theory accounts for why watches for women are smaller than men’s – since women suffer from myopia or tunnel vision, they are usually confined to caves to do sewing and taking care of the kiddies). It’s challenging for men to fuck around as this is often seen to be the modern equivalent of bringing down a mammoth or dinosaur. Hunting also validates a man, as to do so successfully he needs strategy, social intelligence, interpersonal skills, persistence and plain luck (I find luck very important).

There’s also that “itch” that comes around when a man reaches a certain vintage where he is confronted with his own mortality and yearns to “live on the razor’s edge” again.

Whatever the reasons accounting for why powerful men like to sleep around – it’s a misconception to believe it all boils down to the adage, “boys will be boys.”

The question of “judgment” comes into sharp focus eventually whenever a leader fucks around – you could even argue, one reason why the public is so intolerant of leaders fucking around is because sexual judgment and policy judgment are not so easily segregable i.e if a leader can’t even so a simple strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat analysis before he decides to unzip his pants for a quickie, then how can he be expected to act wisely when it comes to deciding on policy issues? That in a nutshell is why most people expect leaders to exercise self control. As the ability to “tahan” is a form of self discipline.

Of course the ability to “tahan,” by itself, is not a rational basis to justify putting someone in a position of power and responsibility -  but it sure commands respect, as those who overindulge easily are usually considered as weak, untrustworthy or flawed.

Darkness 2012

 

“I think men who have affairs were mainly driven by their insecuriti­es – when they were young, they didn’t fuck around, so the vagina becomes a sort of great mysterious abyss of hidden consciousness like one of those mystical caves you heard hermits retreating into to find enlightenment – then there are those who fuck around because, it’s just a way of proving their manliness – now these people were probably kicked around when they were younger, so what they are doing now is rewriting history – but then there is another type of fucker, he is the man who enjoys the illicit thrill of fucking around. That’s to say, he knows, it’s game over, if he’s caught – nonetheless, he accepts the risk and plays the game – I think, this is a very dangerous man. As he thinks, he is God.” 

Quote

(Somewhere along the eternal stretch of the Sardonxy Front during the Ascension Wars)

Harphoon: We have to go now!

Darkness: Where do you expect to go?

Harphoon: I don’t know…anywhere, but here? They are bombing the shit out of us!

Darkness: And where would here be, if it did not look so much like there? No apprentice. This is here where we will put up a stand against the mighty Aryanian army.

Recorded by the Chronicler of the Brotherhood Sar-bat-hat in the Book of Ages, Chapter: The Quickening, Page 7,023 – The Brotherhood Press 2012

Stilling the self

Listen to the world around you. Feel your breath coming in and going out. Watch the trajectory of your thoughts. See how they merge with other thoughts and convalesce into other smaller tributaries of thoughts.  

In this modern world of fast, fasterer and fasterest getting things done fast are the default modes, if not with our bodies then at least with our minds, with our attention. We rush around all day, doing things, talking, emailing, sending and reading messages, clicking from browser tab to the next, one link to the next.

We are always on, always connected, always thinking, always talking. There is no time for stillness — and sitting in front of a frenetic computer all day, and then in front of the hyperactive television, doesn’t count as stillness.

This comes at a cost: we lose that time for contemplation, for observing and listening. We lose peace.

And worse yet: all the rushing around is often counterproductive. I know, in our society action is all-important — inaction is seen as lazy and passive and unproductive. However, sometimes too much action is worse than no action at all. You can run around crazily, all sound and fury, but get nothing done. Or you can get a lot done — but nothing important. Or you can hurt things with your actions, make things worse than if you’d stayed still.

And when we are forced to be still — because we’re in line for something, or waiting at a doctor’s appointment, or for a bus, train or friend — we often get restless, and need to find something to do. Some of us will have our mobile devices, others will have a notebook or folder with things to do or read, others will fidgety. Being still I have observed isn’t something we’re used to – that could well be the problem.

Take a moment to think about how you spend your days — at work, after work, getting ready for work, evenings and weekends. Are you constantly rushing around? Are you constantly reading and answering messages, checking on the news and the latest stream of information? Are you always trying to Get Lots of Things Done, ticking off tasks from your list like a machine, rushing through your schedule?

Is this how you want to spend your life?

Darkness 2012

 

“Rushing to do something is a modern day poison. Because when you rush something that means, all you want is to get it over and done with as soon as possible. In other words, what you are doing is not really important. You feel the need to be somewhere else or do something more important. This is the reason why I never carry a mobile phone with me all the time – I only switch it on, between the hours of 12 to 2. I find this is the best way to manage the modern day

Obama’s forlorn pipe dream – jobs will return back to the US

Last night, in the State of the Union address, President Obama mentioned his blueprint for a new vision for America begins with manufacturing.

He talked about many things – the revival of the American auto industry and said that what is happening in Detroit can happen anywhere and everywhere in America – he even went to cite since the end of 2009, business investment has grown by a rate of 18 percent, and exports have increased by 32 percent — for a total of $2 trillion. That’s great news for American manufacturing, which has added 334,000 jobs in the past two years. To achieve that vision, the President will focused on three key themes.

Tax reform. Obama told Congress that the U.S. needs to push for comprehensive corporate tax reform. “It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas,” he said. “And start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America.” Right now, a company that packs up its factories and relocates production to another country can write off that expense from its taxes. The President said that practice should end.

I don’t deny what Obama seems to be suggesting make perfect sense – if only you didn’t realize that fledging manufacturing output is the least of the problems plaguing a beleaguered American economy.

The main problem why America is fucked has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CHINA AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE US. America is running the biggest deficit in the history of humanity – to inject a sense of scale into the whole debate, America currently runs a deficit with over 88 countries – to exacerbate matters savings in the US is virtually non –existent. That means interest rates and inflation will remain high and both factors will continue to militate against economic recovery. This in a nutshell is the problem that America faces today, tomorrow and probably ten or twenty years down the line!

Even if Obama proposes a 20 percent income tax credit for companies that bring jobs back to the United States – this is hardly going to make a dent on the already frenetic pace of manufacturing transplants to China – three reasons will ensure China’s primacy as the world’s preferred manufacturing sweat shop. Firstly, the allure of a cheap and non unionized workforce. Secondly, Lackadaisical enforcement of environmental laws and regulations that renders the cost of manufacturing dead cheap. And finally, many of the goods currently produced in China are not only consumed by the US and EU, but rather China itself – combine all these three factors together and what China offers to the world is really something that is hard, if not impossible to top.

As for Obama magic bullet, all I can say is – both he and his advisors clearly suffer from a lack of appreciation for manufacturing strategy and basic mathematics. While what he holds out clearly has all the set pieces of a prescriptive cure, it fails on two counts.

No American firm is going back to relocate back to the US no matter what is on offer. The hard facts about doing businesses in America can at best be described as dismal. There is no longer any advantage in starting manufacturing enterprises in the US. Land is prohibitively expensive, so is infrastructural capital investments and as for compliance requirements that really only works to increase overall cost – added to this problem is my personal belief, the average US worker doesn’t even know the difference between a monkey wrench from a dildo, so how are they going to get a whole generation of Americans who have never ever worked in a production line to even start producing stuff that all of us are supposed to buy is beyond me.

No. Obama dream of revivifying the US economy makes as much sense as throwing out cannon balls to propel a boat forward. I am afraid reality offers a much more sobering outlook – these days, the only thing preventing the US from spiraling into a third world banana republic is its weather. But give it enough time, opportunity and stupid politicians, this may come sooner than later.

Darkness 2012—————————————————————————————————

“The serious men amongst us always say: be careful what you decide to throw away and set aside. We live in a world full of implications and consequences. Today if you look around you, even in Parliament, none of those million dollar ministars can speak properly even with cue cards – that is because Lee Kuan Yew and his gang thought it was a good idea to chuck out the Westminster model. They wanted a kwai kwai Parliament, so now you know why Parliamentary debates are really not much better than sand box politics that you will find in a kindergarden. This is what happens when you throw away something that is valuable, you lose it. The same goes for agriculture. Singapore had a thriving research core competencies in agriculture. One day Philip Yeo declared like Stalin, “There is no agriculture in Singapore.” Today, Singapore does not even have the basic capabilities to ensure food security in a sustainable manner. We can’t even do simple things. Instead we have to rely on the Philipino’s and Malaysians to get advanced tissue strains of oil palm. Gentlemen, it would take us at least 20 years to redevelop the core competencies that we once had. Again this is what happens when stupid people decide to throw good things away. Now the Americans are telling the whole world, they will somehow be able to reclaim back their manufacturing prowess by bringing back jobs to the US. But what they have not asked themselves is a fundamental question: are they any Americans left in the US, who know how to build stuff? Again this is what happens when stupid people decide to throw away a good thing. Life I do not think is so simple Gentlemen.”

Darkness 2012 (this article is written with extensive inputs from the ASDF)

Meeting with the ASDF (the think tank of the Brotherhood) on board the deep space mineral cruiser KDD Tally Manakhan off the Saracenian neutral zone of Ismuzth Bilbao – The Brotherhood Press 2012

Same shit, different day with a twist

Check this out: “In a statement released by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday evening (24 Jan) to the media, MHA has confirmed that both former Commissioner Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) Mr Peter Benedict Lim Sin Pang and former Director of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) Mr Ng Boon Gay are currently assisting the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in its investigations into allegations of “serious personal misconduct”.

The timing couldn’t be worse, just AFTER the great debate on salaries for government high flyers. This revelation more or less rubbishes every single argument forwarded by the government of the day that high salaries is an effective buttress against corruption. Yes, they were all earmarked, they all went through the yellow brick road of the scholarship system and yes, they too are human and it seems fallible and yes, the high pay and status did absolutely fuck all to the whole idea of ensuring only “the very best and most qualified” are allowed to man the reins of power.

Well done, great own goal. Just one question: why wasn’t this tid bit released to the general public BEFORE the debate on ministerial salaries?

Didn’t the public have a right to know prior to the Parliamentary debate on sky high salaries? Whatever the reasons and whoever is responsible, let me just say this: the timming stinks and you should lose your job as well.

Darkness 2012

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“I think if we all wait and do absolutely nothing everything has to finally collapse. It is really only a matter of time. You see, they are their worse enemy. They may not know it now. But as time goes on, all will be revealed. We need not do anything. Nothing is required. Logic will take its natural course and the end will come.”

Darkness 2012 – The Saracenian Seige in Prima Maritima – The Book of Ages, Chapter 2,001 – Page: 10,738 – The Brotherhood Press 2012

Enemies

Making enemies is part and parcel of life – just as life without a breathing, eating and shitting is far removed from the idea of living; to suggest that we can all go through life without having to manage our enemies from time to time is at best naïve – whether we wish it or not, enemies will be made, the very moment, we decide to take a firm position on an issue – it matters very little whether, those enemies are in our inner circle or circling like shoal of sharks in the office, church, temple or the various nooks and crannies that makes up the whole idea of what it means for us to be part of a community.
Enemies cannot be avoided. They can however be successfully managed, their efforts to undo us can be blunted and the good news is they can be neutralized.

“If your enemy is secure at all points, be mindful of him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, harass him and give him no rest. If his forces are united, divide them. Attack him when he is least prepared, appear when you are not expected.”
Sun Tzu

Darkness 2012

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“Many people think they when they take a bite out of someone’s arse and just slip away, hopefully everything will be forgotten and forgiven. I do not believe life is that simple. It may take 10, 20 or even 30 years, but if the man you once crossed is a serious man and if he circulates in the company of serious men, then I assure you the accounts will be squared one day when you least expect it, it will come like fire from the heavens, if not in this generation then I guarantee in the next. Time is not an issue with these people, they are ruthless. Perhaps I am old fashioned, but where I once grew up, this was the way politics is conducted. That is why when I have a problem with someone, my advice to them is please come and see me and let us sit down and discuss it over coffee. I have found through the years, this is the best way to resolve conflict. Getting on with your life and pretending as if the matter will just dissolve away magically like gall stones is immature, it is childish as it is woefully hopeful. It is only after ALL options of diplomacy has been exhausted that you should consider the unthinkable. This is life. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never lived before.”

Who is that stranger in my head?

Everyman reaches a stage in life where eventually, he finds himself looking back at the long journey of life – when looking back, some of the experiences stand erect like church spires punching through the landscape – others are less spectacular, resembling a row of fences, rolling hills and meandering country roads – but when one reflects on the past , it’s best not to be nostalgic – I say this as the human mind has a way of forgetting the bad times and at times glossing over the many challenges we may have once encountered. You could say this is the nature of everyman: he is inclined to remember ONLY the good times, even if at one time in his life – those “good” times may not be so good.

Looking back honestly on the past is necessary: If I don’t even know whence I came from, how do I even know where I have ended up. Or for that matter chart a new direction?

But peer as hard as you may into the distant past, one thing will certainly stand tall, the destination that you find yourself in NOW was in part determined by where you once began the journey of life, it is true, I suppose, for all of us. When we first began the journey of life (some many years ago, others not too long ago), many of us were probably young, starry eyed, idealistic and armed only with a few tubes of superglue and duct tape – since we knew very little about ourselves and less about the world, all we really had was a general outline of where the journey of life would lead too. For the vast majority of us – we end up settling for a “compromised existence.” That’s part and parcel of the journey of life, like a man who is accustomed to driving a clap up bone shaker, he soon realizes that superglue and duct tape are often indispensable, if he wants to get to his next waypoint, along with perhaps the reality of having to drive at a sedentary fifty kilometers per hour / any faster and something will either drop off or start to smoke – the same “compromised existence” logic invariably kicks in somewhere in this journey of life, we all have to make compromises with our dreams and aspirations – some more than others, I reckon, but we are all cut from the same cloth. The dentist who believes he is the best settles down to a 9 to 5 existence in a little practice; the young climber who once saw himself scaling Everest in his mind’s eye in the moment of his youth now really cares about how much he can peddle his mountaineering gear to Cash Converter . I am sure, if you look back on your own journey of life, you could just as well drawn your own comparisons between the theory and the reality of having lived X number of years against what you have really accomplished.

But even with the best knowledge that hindsight can offer us to clarify the way forward, it is clear that having experience alone may never be enough, if the goal is to successfully make it somewhere down the line in the future – the future is never clear and those who claim to see it clearest, ALL happen to either trying to sell us something or get us to buy into their dogmatic packages.

Truth is the imagined world can never be translated into the actual world, not even for the likes of Michael Jackson – I bet, he didn’t see himself being snuffed out at 50. Because the truth is once we have left our childhood crèches and started out to make up our lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret is not “there’s no place like home”, but rather that there is no longer any such place called home: except, of course, for the home we have somewhere in our heads surrounded by the many set pieces of our past experiences – here in this dusty darkened interior somewhere in our minds, that we have somehow fashioned from tid tibs of what life washes before the shores of our consciousness is the idea of anywhere and everywhere, except the place from which we began – and it is this place that we often find ourselves retreating too whenever we feel the need to do something unconscionable.

For better or worse, home is here my dear perceptive reader, now, in a universe of a grandeur of which I had no idea at the beginning, at a place somewhere along the journey of life that reaches hopefully into the future like another stretch of winding road – I suddenly realize that I am not alone.
Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of that stranger in mind’s eye during an afternoon walk in that familiar stretch of road called the journey of life – I recognized the lightest of his gait even his carefree demeanor and air of recklessness. There he was standing before me with his hair slicked back attired in a black suit radiating evil.

I asked him, “How long have you followed me?”

The stranger replied,”Old man, you’re losing it. I’ve never left you.”

I pressed on, “Who are you?”

The stranger did not answer – he just looked on from afar pulling on his cigarette as if waiting for me to connect the dots.

Then I realized, it was the Singaporean gangster in London, there he was standing before me with his mischievous smile of sweet victory that said it all – “You have come full circle my friend. I am so proud of you for what you did to that fatty last night.”

The birds were chirping, the leaves rustling ever so gently as the sun began its languorous swan dive into darkness.

Darkness 2012

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Happiness & Grief

This is a question that has always preoccupied me, precisely because I don’t know how to answer it satisfactorily – you could even say this is the one question that I will eventually ask you, if we spend enough time together.

What is happiness? Most people seem to be happy: they’re not conscious about it. But I can tell. Others find happiness in the idea of pursuits: “I’m going to get a great husband who loves me too bits, a big home with a well manicured lawn, raise three kids, keep a Doberman as a pet etc etc”. While this keeps them fixated on the whole idea of happiness, they are really like people searching for lost keys: they don’t consciously think: where did I last place my keys? They just keep moving and tearing away till they have found their keys. And when they have found something, off they go looking for the next happiness way point. Eventually, they fall into the illusion that they are making good progress in the journey towards happiness – have to get that discounted shirt or dress that really makes their day. Sometimes, they even manage to get really expensive stuff like a handmade mountain bike or a sexy Italian sports car – and before they know it, everyone of them without a single exception think that the meaning of life resides in these things they have surround themselves with – so eventually they never feel the need to ask the question: what is happiness. Yet, despite all that, they have managed to accumulate what really betrays their insecurities is the idea, they may have invested too much of themselves in chasing the wrong goals – to put it in other words, all they are really doing is pursuing a perfect imitation of happiness without really realizing it.

I don’t really know if everyone is unhappy. I do know that people are always on the move all the time: working to met datelines, raising kiddies, getting serious about aerobics, promising themselves that this year will be different from the last – things will work out this year!

But things NEVER ever work out do they? There is always something that needs reworking or doing over before they can really feel completely satisfied about their lives to really feel happy: the proud owner of a new start up who chases the whole idea of fame and fortune, the cookie cutter who works incessantly to please her boss in the hope of getting more money and opportunities to see the world, the new graduate who wonders how he’s going to make the very best out of his degree after graduation, the journalist who really wanted to tell the truth like the magic sitar, but now has to settle for something less – all these people have one thing in common, they are all moving. And they move all the time!
Even in this party I am attending now – as I sit quietly in one corner writing this on my Ipad – people are streaming in and out like a busy train station, I bet that everyone is so caught up in the whole idea of coming across as successful, no one really bothers to ask: will this add or subtract from my happiness. A tall elegant lady in a Cheong Sam sashays in, she lights a cigarette and throws me a glance – I know they type, I bet she spends her days denying herself like a monk fasting, controlling what she eats, because she thinks the sanctity of her love depends on it – surrendering herself to another bak kuah, will probably mean the end of her happiness. On the far side of the lobby, I see a stylish couple with two children in matching red shirts. They seem lively and even intense happy, but I notice the man is busy tapping his smart phone. Perhaps he is bothered about that deal, maybe he is going through the numbers and just realized, he pitched too low and that might just work against him, how will he continue to be happy, if it doesn’t go through the way he saw it in his minds eye – will he be happy tomorrow? The day after? How is he going to keep his stylish wife in style and their trendy kids looking happy – when all they really want to do is play with my Ipad.

I decide to leaf through some really glossy magazines before lunch is served – the place is filled with high powered people. I should have worn my lucky blue shirt, I muttered beneath my breathe: everybody seems to be throwing their heads back and laughing, everybody seems happy. But since I know how politics is conducted in this segment of society, I know not everyone is happy – a stout woman with a giant necklace of pearls leans over me and ask,“What edition is that, maybe I am in it?”, she looks pensive, when I can’t seem to make out her image from the many group photos in the magazine – I know what she is thinking, “how I hate it, when they don’t publish my photo’s in that magazine, now how am I going to disguise the fact that my husband has had his land raided last year by a strange fellow who everyone in the village calls, the Devil – didn’t my super duper efficient husband send thugs in the dead of night to visit him – didn’t he warn that stranger not to show his face around here – if this continues any longer I never going to have enough money to be a prima donna!”

Then I see the man – my enemy – today is the day that he will eventually know that his estate has been secretly bought up. It happened only just yesterday, in the dead of night around a poker table and all I can really say is the cognac was sweet and clear. Ah, yes, when everyone was happy or pretending to be happy. I don’t have to do anything – there are no thoughts in my head – I am like the wind, here and unseen. I am just a witness.

Perhaps, happiness is like sex, its overrated – I will probably not be happy when the serious men in this party takes this man to a quiet corner and tell him what we have just done – the truth will cut through him like a samurai sword – perhaps, if one of them lacks the resolve, I will have to step in and do the dirty deed – it is CNY after all, red is the order of the day – then again what is happiness, maybe it doesn’t really matter, there are after all so many other things in this world that can make one happiest besides happiness – revenge definitely ranges as one of them.

All I ever wanted was to be a good man, but it seems so difficult, so very difficult.

Darkness 2012

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“Listen to the sound of my voice, you are all foot soldiers – sent here by your motherfuck master to die – do not try to seek me out in this darkness, do not move one inch and continue to listen only to the sound of my voice, if you all want to see your wifes and children again. It is impossible to find me in the dark, I know every blade of grass here and all of you are already dead in my mind. There is no law here, only the law of the jungle – take your wounded now and leave this place – tell your fatty master that the man he has harassed and calls the devil will seize his land soon and chase him out of this place. Come, come use you mentality, you could all be working for me one day. I need men like all of you. Men who even dare to come here in the dead of night. I came in the name of peace, but it seems all you people seem to do is poison my trees and dogs – this cannot continue, one of us has to leave and it shall not be me – go now and never come here again, till I knock on your doors one day to invite you to work for me. Go now! Obey your new master.”

“It is true then what the villages say, the Devil has come to these parts.”

One year ago, somewhere in the Eastern side of the plantation in the middle of the night – The Suriman Tales – The Brotherhood Press 2012

Why it’s not cool to hate FT’s and Foreigners in Singapore

I shared this charming story recounted by Coelhe to a group of aspiring students from the Agronomy faculty today in my plantation during a hearty lunch. It seemed right to do so, as the conversation veered to the realm of FT’s and how THEY are so DIFFERENT to us. Perhaps it’s the residual effects of prolonged isolation – but there are times, when I feel as if the entire internet has been fixed by some evil spell, where instead of finding similarities, all we really seem to do is revel in our differences. Under different circumstances, this might well be a joke. But I know the process of hate only too well – do it often enough and a point will come when the line will simply be rubbed off – that more or less sums up my views concerning why I feel most netizens are simply selling themselves short whenever they decide to take their frustrations out on foreigners. It is easy to generalize, pigeon hole and even label someone as X, Y or Z. But when one naturalizes the whole process till we are so desensitized to the whole idea of alienating others that we don’t even realize it – then what does it really say about what we have to say to others? How do we actually come across to the reader?

Darkness 2012

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We are at the restaurant of a German University. A red haired student, and undeniably German takes her tray and sits down at her table.
She then realizes she has forgotten her cutlery and gets up again to pick it up.

Coming back, she sees with astonishment that a black man, possibly sub-Saharian by his appearance, is sitting there and is eating from her tray.
Straight away, the young woman feels lost and stressed . But immediately changes her thought and presumes that the African is not familiar with European customs concerning private property and privacy.
She also takes into consideration that perhaps he does not have enough money to pay for his meal.

In any case, she decides to sit in front of the guy and to smile at him in a friendly manner.
The African responds with another dazzling smile.
The German girl starts to help herself, –sharing the food with the black man with genuine pleasure and courtesy.
And thus, he took the salad, she ate the soup, both took their share of the stew, one took care of the yoghurt and the other of the piece of fruit,
All this peppered with numerous refined smiles – timid from the man and smoothly, encouraging and kind by the girl -.
They eat up their lunch.
The German girl gets up to get a coffee.
And it is then that she discovers, on the table behind the black man, her coat placed on the back of a chair and her food tray untouched.

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I dedicated this charming story – furthermore an authentic one – to all who are wary of immigrants and consider them as inferior individuals.
To all these people, who with the best of intentions, observe them condescendingly and with paternalism.
It would be better that we free ourselves of prejudices or we run the risk to make a fool of ourselves like the poor German who thought to be at the height of civilisation whilst the African greatly educated, let her eat and share her meal and at the same time was thinking : how mad these Europeans are.

Making the perceptive shift from money crazy to real wealth

A shift in consciousness is a subtle business, like finger nails and hair, one doesn’t really notice it, till it gets too long – nonetheless, that shift can at times be profound totally altering our behavior and the way, we make sense of stuff. When money becomes the primary focus for a shift in consciousness, it’s easy for anyone to buy into the great lie: prosperity = security =happiness = well being.

Last week I was invited by a fellow scientist to give a guest lecture to a class of aspiring agronomist –during the informal sharing in a cafeteria, one of the students who had not succumbed to my comatose inducing droning asked: whether I had really given much thought to the environment when pursuing scientific farming on a large scale?

Now as far as questions go, this is probably the mother of all perceptive shifts in consciousness questions – as what it attempts to do is challenge many of our assumptions concerning wealth and how we usually think about the whole subject of money – we think that the more money we have the greater our latitude for self emancipation, that belief is responsible for causing many of us to focus exclusively on chasing money – but that idea is also a fallacy, as when we begin to streamline everything in our life just to chase money – what we are inadvertently committing is to treat everything that cannot be monetize as secondary.

Wonder no more why ours is an age of broken fellowships – it stands to reason: there is no money in nourishing relationships any longer. As a consequence, when we are nice to someone, it’s probably because that person is either useful or valuable to serve the goal of chasing money. The same goes for the whole idea of ethics, morality and humanity – since all of these attributes cannot be possibly monetized, they’re really just sound bites that most people are content to pay lip service too without real deep spirited committed – now you know why, the world is so messed up – once we begin to focus only on money, everything else in the foreground and background fades away.

When we consciously make the shift away from money – what we are able to regain is a new prisma of seeing real wealth (if we give ourselves plenty of time). When we consciously make the effort to hold on to this way of seeing the world – we begin to realize the paradox: wealth of life has absolutely nothing to do with money. Coming to terms with this new perceptive shift can bring a deeper sense of peace as we can now view money simply as a means to an end and not as an end by itself. Without the emotional baggage of money, it’s easier to be conscious of making money work for us rather than be used by it – neither can the candy manipulators (get rich pastors are the worse) who regularly use dollars and cents get us to jump through hoops to all the phony prosperity propaganda sell us the quick fix.

Being consciously aware of money for what it really is, rather than what most people think it is, is nothing short of personal empowerment – we become wiser in the choices we make concerning money matters. Most importantly, we keep ourselves in synch with our communities, as money and delusional behavior seem to go hand in hand.

At the end of the lecture, a student jumped in and asked me, what techniques I regularly use to plan a farming strategy. I told the youth, there were real limits to science and technology – and it’s best, if we just come to terms with the idea, that we may not ALWAYS know best – I went on to recount my own personal experience of having farmed for over a year and how at times my over reliance on technology may have contributed to many of the setbacks I’ve encountered last year – and how in some countries, it’s not uncommon for someone with a Phd in agriculture to still seek advice from an old man who lives on top of hill. And the old man who has seen the coming and passing of more seasons than he cares to remember will walk with the scientist to the field, pick up some dirt and by just looking around make pretty decent predictions about the weather, yield, crop etc.

I went on to share with the class – the old man was probably a very observant person. He notices small things and jots them down, including reaction of animals, shapes of clouds, direction of winds, signs that most of us hardly care about. And in his village he is the only one that everyone goes to see when the specter of famine hangs menacingly over the country side.

In truth, there was no old man, I just made up the story in my head – but in my mind’s eye, that’s really how I wish to see myself in 30 or 40 years – an old man who pays attention to little things and hopefully a little wiser for it.

Darkness 2012

The Brotherhood Press 2012

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sustainability – a study of the self in a selfish world

Sustainability is a word that gets bandied around a lot these days. Everyone and his dog seems to be using that word – politicians use it to convince us that it makes perfect sense to bear the pain of the short term in return for long term benefits, estate agents do the same, only they guarantee the promise of sustainable returns. As for conservationist, they use it in the context of finding a sustainable way to feed the world.

My feel is whenever a word gets popularized, then it probably means somewhere down the line, it’s meaning either watered down or embellished – in some cases, when a word is used again and again, all too often it loses its intrinsic elasticity – take the word, passion and meritocracy – what does it really mean? To be frank, I have absolutely no idea though I have to admit, it used to mean many things once upon a time – but since politicians and corporations hijacked that word, it has been evacuated of all meaning.

That’s why from time to time, I always find it necessary to define a word especially when I find myself struggling to find meaning in it. In my case I would simply define sustainability as growing from strength to strength – sustainability, in the context of farming has to add rather than subtract from the whole equation of financial emancipation and probably include indices such as emotional and spiritual well being –Of course now that I’ve managed to flesh out a few set pieces that make up the word, sustainability. I realize it’s not quite as simple as it seems. Truth is there is always much more than just turning a profit while being able to keep one’s sanity – I am always mindful of the various nuances that makes up the word, sustainability. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact, I am relatively new to commercial farming.

Being new to an enterprise carries with it, it’s own set of baggage. For starters, one is never really certain enough to be really confident. I mean, I have a whole lot of theorems in my head, some that I have successfully used to increase yield and to even improve growing conditions. But every now and then, I still find myself straggling over really simple and mundane stuff that I can’t seem to make sense of. Perhaps it has something to do with the gaps in my knowledge.

These gaps bother me – they vex me, because by nature I am exacting and meticulous – yesterday, I took an opportunity to read some of my earlier entries in my daily log – it seemed as though, I was reading the confessions of another man. A man who was not too sure of himself – It was a foreign sensation, reading one owns thoughts, yet being assaulted by the feeling of alienation at the same time. If I had to mention one theme that kept on repeating itself last year like a broken record, it has to be the whole idea of dealing with loneliness and isolation in a plantation.

Somewhere in my numerous entries, there are also moments of epiphany and little discoveries – the small things, like the shape of clouds and what do they portend – how after a heavy rain, eddies in the river will swirl in the deepest waters – what it means, when the dirt acquires a reddish tinge etc. These small things have a tendency of accumulating and at the end congealing into knowledge that makes the whole idea of sustainability easier to grasp.

I’m not completely sure that I will ever make it to the point where I can just look at the horizon and sniff the air to say for certain whether, it will rain tomorrow or the day after. Or be really assured of success without having to worry about the prospects of failure. What I do know is a large part of sustainability begins first with AWARENESS, many of us are content to go through life skimming the surface of our identities. That is, we don’t truly drill deeply into our thoughts, feelings, ego, insecurities, desires and dreams.

Part of the problem is that we’re always so fixated with sustaining ourselves that we often lose sight of the larger scheme of things such as sustainability. When daily task keep swelling, self-exploration takes a backseat. How can it not, when we dont even set aside some quiet barely time for self-care?

Embracing the idea of sustainability involves taking a closer look at our own thoughts and auditing our actions. It’s looking for the roots of who we are which allows us know where we are going — answers to all the questions we have about ourselves. Nevertheless, despite my haphazard approach, I’m always striving for sustainability along those lines!

Small movements, one step, at a time that’s the first lesson the land teaches the farmer.

Darkness 2012

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Quality – Lessons from an old Raleigh bicycle

I am now in the final stages of completing the restoration of a really old Raleigh bicycle – it’s been more difficult than I had originally anticipated. For starters, none of the tools exist any longer and I’ve had to improvise on a mucho grande scale. In some cases, even fashioning my own tools and making sure that modern materials are suitably matched to blend into the whole restoration – despite the setbacks, I have to say, this has been one of my most satisfying evening projects – partly due to the constant need to touch base with many bicycle cognoscenti’s to seek their advice and the need for me to unlearn many of the things that I have been scripted about engineering.

Not only have I learnt a lot from just speaking to people in the internet. But I’ve also gained a new appreciation of craftsmanship – that’s to say learning more about the philosophy of how things were ONCE built.

It doesn’t take very long to figure out why old things are made to last – they were all built with quality in mind first and foremost; there is no skimping or shortcutting just the honest application of technology to the challenge of creating a great bicycle. Over time, I came to understand that the goal of these craftmen’s who once built these bicycles were set on the deepest level – they weren’t interested in flash in the pan sales or were out to make a killing. The game was much more studied and measured and it was about the art of practice makes perfect . And practice was about trying to do something over and over again, failing and failing, and then finally succeeding somewhere down the future. Practice was about showing up and building bicycles day after day and getting more confidence rather than chasing short term faster, fasterer and fasterest – and if by chance any improvements came, it always did so by way of tiny increments, and then discovering that by the end of the year you had become a better craftsman.

That to me sums up the whole idea of the pursuit of excellence. It isn’t about getting a self improvement book or making sure you attend every enrichment course or for that matter working everynight at the office till everyone has gone home.

IT IS ABOUT THINKING REALLY HARD ABOUT YOUR WORK AND TRYING TO FIND MEANING IN IT. IN THE WAY A MAN YEARNS TO FIND GOD. AND WHY NOT? JESUS, ALLAH, YAHWEH, BUDDHA AND MICKEY MOUSE COULD JUST AS WELL SIT AS COMFORTABLY IN THE SPROCKETS OF A BICYCLE GEAR AS HE DOES IN SOME CAVE, OR ON THE PETALS OF A LOTUS FLOWER.

These days, it’s hard, if not impossible to distill the whole attitude that gives rise to real quality and excellence – it’s hard, because the lifespan of appliances is an issue that really gets under my skin. Thirty years ago you’d buy an appliance and it would last you forever. Twenty years ago you’d buy an appliance and it would last maybe ten years. Now I see often see stuff that only last weeks and months before they fall apart or keel over and die, when you most need them? Unbeknown to many of us, our insatiable appetite for endless choices and variety along with our terminal ambivalence to quality just motivates manufacturers these days to cut corners endlessly. The result is burgeoning landfills, wasted materials, increased hazardous waste – worst of all, we all end up buying more than we really need – that’s because these days, there is no incentive to build quality stuff any longer – the natural common sense assumption these days is, if it’s cheap, it’s probably nasty. If you really want quality, you’ve got to pay for it – that wasn’t the case in the olden days. Take the case of the bicycle I am working on – they weren’t manufactured by a faceless production line of technicians drilling one successive hole after another into steel tubing, as much as one lone craftsman who took great pride in seeing the product from blueprint to finished product – these people knew a lot about quality and they took great pride in their job. They weren’t just making bicycles – they really believed in the idea of churning out machines that could change the world.

These days with the advent of fast, fasterer and fasterest, It’s as though everything is just given a sprinkling of style – stylized eau de cologne in stylized bottles, stylized stationary and stylized phones and stylized coffee. Stylized cupboards filled with stylized clothes in stylized bedrooms in stylized homes with stylized playmates dressed in stylized please fuck me lingerie. Plastic stylized toys for stylized children, who all go to stylized churches on Sunday in stylized cars with their stylish parents in tow to hear their stylized pastors speak sporting stylized Korean haircuts. One has to be really marinating or drowning in style not to get sick of it. It’s the style for style sake that really gets to me whenever I work on my old bicycle.

No real quality doesn’t need to cost more, neither is it rare like diamonds – it just needs someone to roll up their sleeves and kneel down and look at it very carefully to discover it – it’s really as simple as that.

Darkness 2012

Will the ministerial salaries debate be PAP’s Waterloo?

It’s sad, very sad indeed. After so much debate, the PAP still can’t get the vast majority of netizens to see their point of view by half. They still cannot get people to buy into their logic, let alone secure a decisive buy in. But why should anyone in their right frame of mind be internally persuaded when the MP’s who are supposed to deeply influence the electorate don’t even bother to prepare their speeches – I am sorry, but that is really how this whole caper is coming across – it’s ironical, as what was supposed to be a move to heal a rift between the government and the people is now slowly, but surely turning into a farce.

To justify the case for sky high salaries and creamy bonuses for MP’s, LHL said:

“My bigger concern is for the long term; for future Cabinets and potential office holders, people who have not yet come in, people who must make that decision and that commitment.”

I’ve listened to all the PAP MPs arguments that their concern is for the country and that good salary is necessary to find good capable people. But all these arguments are at best half baked and seem to miss the salient by a good mile – the facts are hard. They are clear as to suggest many of the concerns regarding sky high ministerial pay is remain a very contentious subject for very sound reasons. Instead of addressing these public concerns in an organized and logical way that is able to effectively persuade the public about the merits of paying out sky high salaries. What the PAP has done instead is to allow a whole lot of MP’s who are simply too lazy, shallow or ineffectual to haphazardly add their two cents in the hope that all their disquisitions will hopefully produce a coherent argument.

As it stands today, the PAP’s position when it comes to ministerial pay is as clear as mud –as for their rational, it too suffers from serious gaps – as judging from what I can make out so far, most the arguments forwarded by the PAP seems to be a rehashed version of what, we have always been told about why sky high wages for elites are not a privilege, but rather a necessity. The reasons are as follows:

(1)There is not enough talent in Singapore. Not everyone can be a MP. As our talent pool is just a puddle.

(2)Singapore is a unique case. It is a special case, like Atlantis, we are very small and vulnerable/ so we need good people to helm the government, just in case a meteorite slams into earth.

(3)If we don’t pay ministers well, then they may succumb to the temptation of corruption.

To the perceptive reader, a few important key points are missing from the debate, the widening income gap, unequal wealth distribution, the pressures brought forth by having to manage a new economic climate where wages are not only stagnating, but in some cases regressing, runaway inflation, the rising cost of living etc etc.

The debate on ministerial salaries has produced a rather depressing impasse where most netizens cannot even comprehend the mission and vision of the PAP. This is in part, due to the overall dullness of many of the justifications forwarded by the PAP to hike ministerial salaries – instead with each successive PAP MP adding their ill-conceived arguments to the already simmering debate – what’s rapidly coming across to the general public is a sort of contrivance that the “truth” isn’t really trashed out at all – as much as it’s overlaid with a veneer of “insistence” to make it more acceptable for public consumption. And that has to be an effrontery to anyone who is interested in quality reasoning. That just makes it all the worse. Now it’s not just depressingly dull, it also comes across as phony. Put the two together and you get a pretty accurate description of everything that is flawed about the PAP when it tries to float the balloon of sky high ministerial pay to a skeptical electorate.

A great opportunity to engage the public in a meaningful way has been squandered, yet again.

Darkness 2012

The Brotherhood Press 2012

old raleigh

When the sun goes down. I have alot of spare time. I’ve taken a shine to a really old Raleigh bicycle and I am working to restore it to it’s original pride and glory. The first thing one notices about old bicycles is the sheer amount of craftsmanship that goes into making it – metal isn’t just stamped, it’s delicately curved, precision butted and lovingly welded to create one of the strongest ever two wheelers.

These days, bicycles never ever last more than five years (even though, you hardly use them). In the old days, bicycles were not just for recreation. They were the equivalent of work horses. In the countryside, there are stories of rubber tappers carrying over 150 kg of produce on their Raleighs often through dirt roads. In the olden days, these weren’t just casual purchases, they were one in a lifetime purchases. Something that father hands down to their sons. Eventually with the advent of obesity inducing mopeds and motorbikes, these bicycles just faded away.

What started as an evening project has now turned into something far more serious than I had originally anticipated. Removing parts is one thing, finding parts that don’t exist is another – and this has led me to write directly to Raleigh to seek the original blueprints. Believe it or not, they still keep original blueprints of their various makes dating all the way back to the 19th Century.

Let’s see how this project turns out. If it’s a decent job. I’ve sell for SGD$2,000. Make the cheque payable to Pathlight School. I don’t need the money. But I know those kiddies, caregivers and volunteers do. And it’s yours to keep and admire for another hundred years.

Show you the pics, when it’s ready.

Darkness 2012

Is it possible to get a HONEST debate about Ministerial pay today?

The question is simple: how true is it that high salary discourages dishonesty? Let’s examine the subject anecdotally – while the truth is certainly valued. No one can deny, some professional callings do demand deception for success or at least survival (what is the right answer for, “is my bum sticking out from this dress?” I reast my case lah). Physicians are also adept at negotiating around the truth. Politicians are another group who don’t seem to have any problems finding a multitude of reason to be hard-pressed about telling the truth.

The reason for the attitude of evasiveness is the general belief (real or imagined) nurtured at the very top: the truth may not be palatable for public consumption – Hence it must first be sugar coated or at least given a feel good spin. IMHO, there is nothing sinister about the whole idea of lying or withholding information from the general public – it’s being going on for centuries – ever since Eve openly lied to Adam about gobbling down that apple.

You could even say, lying is inevitable given that politicians and the electorate will always share differing goals. While the latter is preoccupied with long term goals. The former may have neither the patience or inclination to appreciate the long term as much as succumb to the pull of the immideate. Perhaps dishonesty is too harsh a word to describe how politicians frequently negotiate around the truth. A more accurate way to describe this process for lack of a better word is to be gleaned from how the MSM usually embellishes the truth not by outright lying – rather the process is subtle, if not innocuous, suggesting, the goal of political speech is to hide, soften, or gloss over inconvenient truths. I wouldn’t go as far as to say, the both the MSM and the government have adopted Orwellian logic where the truth is often given the obligatory treatment designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectability and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

But anyone who is in the business of ferreting statistics from government bodies or regular readers of state owned news enterprises will testify that there is no lack of lacunae’s, opaqueness, grey areas and even gaping holes in the way information and especially statistics is regularly presented to the public. In some cases, dishonesty can be outright – such as promising to do A before the elections, only to derogate from the promise after the votes have been casted. In other cases, it’s just a case of embellishing the truth by creative accounting and resorting to statistical manipulation to render the facts more palatable for public consumption.

This should prompt us to ask: in what way does paying out higher wages to ministers, civil servants and corporate figures in quasi government owned bodies further the whole idea of the truth – when even as we speak now, so much of the “truth,” as we know it has either been embellished, exaggerated or given a less than open treatment? Don’t believe me, then why don’t you write to GIC and try to get detailed annual reports. Seems strange that one is not allowed to even allowed to peruse through what the Singaporean sovereign wealth funds are investing in when what we are really talking about is essentially CPF monies.

It would be naïve for anyone in today’s world to act shocked whenever a politician tries to hide the real truth from the public. Like I said, this has been going for yonks – and contrary to popular belief dishonesty is only rife in third world banana Republics. Nothing can be further from the truth. Its very much alive in even well oiled democracies. During WW II, Winston Churchill fibbed, when he deliberately hid from the British public, the devastating effects of Hitler’s wonder weapons that rained down with impunity from the skies – the guiding philosophy in this case was the moral of the country needed to the preserved at every cost and opportunity and the truth in this case was simply expandable –as the allies were prosecuting a war with the axis.

It seems honesty is not an absolute standard that we can usually expect from politicians and corporate fat cats.

Given a choice – I would much prefer it, if both governments and corporations come clean even if the truth stings. As the cost of not coming clean and simply going through the motions is a price that is simply too expensive for any society to tolerate in the long term – as the assumption that people can be generally taken at their word, is required for all sustained civilized dealings. No civilization can tolerate a fixed expectation of dishonest communications without spiraling out of control and breaking down into mutual distrust. All human relations rely upon confidence – honesty builds and solidifies a relationship with trust; and too many breaches in honesty can corrode relations beyond repair.
Indeed, there may be a growing perception (that is in vogue these days) in many key areas of contemporary life—that expecting honesty on face value is a naïve these days, a “Mr nice guy’s” way of operating. Such a perception is practically a card blanche to endorse corporate and state dishonesty – and it fails to address the cogent question of what’s the cost of hiding information from the general public may be. To frame the question in the right context, the problem as I see it, isn’t so much the problem that many leaders these days don’t seem to have any aversion to routinely tell lies. The problem now is that we seem to be reaching a tipping point in which an essential commitment to truthfulness no longer seems to permit ordinary people who may be interested to know more about certain things to discover the truth through official means – instead what we have to regularly put up with these days is selective reportage that tells you only one side of the story and conveniently elides the other significant half (which in my view is something that the SPH seems to excel in) – and selected statistical publications which are made public and only seem to provide a vignette instead of a whole disquisition of the truth – or for that matter, just plain stonewalling and keeping silent. While the approach of giving the truth a “selective” treatment may have worked in the past – I don’t for one moment believe, its sustainable in the digital age – as even if that were really possible, there is still the stresses brought forth by social, cultural and economic changes to further amplify the effects of income inequality, limited opportunities and wealth imbalances – hence, the need for the truth is likely to grow exponentially. And this simply means both governments and juggernaut corporations such as Temasek may have very little choice but to loosen their monopoly on the truth.

As Parliament prepares to debate the contentious brief of ministerial salaries – two options lie before the government of the day. The first is to go through the motions without really bothering to ventilate many of the issues that has been responsible for such widespread dissatisfaction that has led the government to revamp the pay system for ministers – should government choose the short cut, then it could be said, all they are really doing is adding fuel to the now-familiar fire what we often come across about officialdom, “It used to be, we could trust you to do the right things, but those days are gone.” Whether government cares to admit it or not – the truth is starling, when we ask ourselves a very simple question: how many people these days really believe the government is honest? The answer to that question is best answered, when one considers how in the last five years alone state led journalism has been steadily hemorrhaging credibility with much of the public for its perceived biases in representing the facts. Instead of whole disquisitions these days, all the public seems to get these days is doggy bite sound bites. As a consequence, most people have already too fatigue to take an avid interest in political discourse these days– why should they? As it’s no longer considered a bona fide exchange that promises to beacon out the murk. Rather, it is assumed that when leaders speak these days, they are at best disingenuous and at worse dishonest, by merely posturing facts to fit the argument and often refusing to engage in deeper discussion or debate. In such a climate of mistrust, facts may be easily manipulated or made up in service of a predetermined interest. This I hope will not happen when the government sits down in Parliament to debate the highly derisive subject of ministerial pay today – otherwise, as the Americans say, it’s the same shit different day.

Darkness 2012

Why we can NEVER accept the idea it’s just pay, pay and pay….

Singaporeans are a puzzling lot – take the truth for example – how well do we respond to it? Well judging from how so many netizens managed to get the wrong end of the stick when it came to the issue of ministerial pay – it would not be too far off the mark to summarize the affair as one, where the truth knocks on the door and most of us simply shooed it away, with the words, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away.

What am I talking about? Specifically? Well consider this theory as to why most of us are content to remain flustered about ministerial pay: is it possible many of us simply harbor unrealistic expectations about pay these days? This might seem at first incredulous, but when was the last time you heard anyone jumping up and down over how much movie stars, bent pastors and corporate honcho’s are packing home every month? Why do we even expect our ministers to be different in so far as demanding them to be righteous and self sacrificing?

One clue that may account for our differing standards when it comes to pay, specifically ministerial salaries – may very well lie in how we regularly need to seek comfort in the lies – we often tell ourselves and others that public service is synonymous with national service. The whole idea conjures up images of self sacrifice, hardship and monkhood. Or maybe I should paraphrase the above statement to give it an edge – we have to believe in the idea that there are actually people who are primarily motivated by altruistic reasons when called to serve the nation and not merely driven by primal instincts of greed and career advancement.

You could even say, when we peruse through the various turning points of man’s history, only one theme really only stands out to describe our attitudes when it comes to paying for services rendered in the name of King and Country . The idea that when humanity is pushed and shoved, the only people who can be entrusted to set the accounts right are really men who are driven by the most honorable goals, other than money or fame.

History is redolent with “good triumphed over evil” fairytales of how when a species, race or people are threatened by overwhelming odds, it has survived only because these selfless men have stepped forward to serve. In the WW II, Winston Churchill famously framed a nations crie de couer, when he made a speech entitled, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”, referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force pilots who were at the time fighting the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe with Britain expecting a German invasion. Here the Allied airmen of the battle ultimately became known as “The Few”. Some two thousand odd years ago, the same was said of the doomed three hundred in Thermopylae, when a small brigade led by King Leonidas of Sparta blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. And so on and so forth. My point is I can give you at least ten pages of heart rendering chicken soup tales to warm your cockles about how good once triumphed over evil, because just at the tethers the last, a few good men stepped forward.

When we are distanced, the very idea, that evil can only be defeated by a few good men (who were probably paid in kind with sunflower seeds and cottage made cardigans) may seem preposterous at first – after all cult worshipping heroes have always been used by crooked dictators to legitimize their raison detre – the idea seems contrived to the point where none of us can really believe it completely without at least harboring a tinge of skepticism.

But the haphazard course of human history has also demonstrated with uncanny frequency how evil can at times be defeated by just the self sacrificing efforts a few good men. During the recent Fukushima disaster, as radiation levels dangerously spiked, Tepco—the Tokyo Electric Power Co.—pulled most workers out of the plant, leaving only the general manager and what became known as the “Fukushima Fifty,” a small beleaguered group of volunteers who risked their lives to bring the reactors under control – even today, nuclear experts agree unanimously that these efforts were pivotal in keeping the meltdown from growing much worse. And what about the events that unfolded after the first planes slammed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 – what could have accounted for the remarkable and orderly and altruistic manner in which the victims responded. The disabled people who worked in the Towers were not abandoned by panicking colleagues. They were all carried out by their workmates – including people from floors above where the planes hit.

It’s often implied being self sacrificing is naïve, dove eyed idealistic fictions that will always be trumped by self-interest and greed. This is at the core of a particular kind of ideology that has been ascendant since the advent of globalization. But as we have seen, when the stakes are highest, the opposite seems to be the case. When everything else is stripped away, when the buildings fall and the seas rise, we remember all that really matters is caring for each other – so the myth goes.

This raises a jugular question. Is it really true to say that the whole idea of a few good men is just a fairytale?

Hard to say – all I know is this is likely to be a century of escalating economic disasters, since with each passing year all mankind seems to do is destabilize all the appendages of the world economy further, in the face of plain economic warnings. It’s hard to extract any hope from the picture this fact presents us with. But there is some. Alongside this impulse to denial and mankind’s inexorable path towards self-destruction – I happen to believe, there is something fundamentally good in us. We are after all humans, ants cannot make this leap of faith. We care about each other. We will at the most crucial and final moment – sacrifice for each other, like the technicians who tried to prevent the nuclear plant melting down in Fukushima, knowing this is probably reality TV hara kiri.

Or maybe I am just one of the hopeful. Either way, the paradox of mankind may well be as we find ourselves barreling deeper into an economic wasteland and as self confidence gives way to mass confusion and disullionment – we may need to hold firmer to the idea of that “sentimental dream,” a few good men is all we really need to give evil a good boot in the ass while ushering the return of the happy times. The seers may well be right after all, we may all need our fantasies and fairytales to make an unbearable life more bearable, it seems. This I dare say may well be one of our greatest strenghts and weakness as a species – the ability to hold two diametrically opposite ideas in our heads at the same time.

Darkness 2012

The Brotherhood Press – 2012

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“I have to believe that when we have to fight the Aryanian army one day, there will be good men who will step forward. This I have to believe in this. But I am also aware, these may well be happy illusions that I have to nurse; as this is probably all we have gentlemen – a hope and a prayer.”

“Maybe, that is all we need Councillor, a hope and prayer.”

“Yes, maybe, just maybe, that is all we really need.”

Councillor Vollariane – The Eve of the Great War – extracted from the Chapter, “The Quickening!” – Pages 2,095, The Book of Ages – The Brotherhood Press 1999. Foreword by the Chronicler:

In the reign of Padishah IX, when the 1,000,000 strong armies of the Aryanians marched across of the Carpathian steepes. A small of force of less than 3,000 men readied themselves somewhere along the valley, the Saracenians called the Eye of the Needle – on the fifth moon of the Arcanian Calendar, all 3,000 were slaughtered – this subsequently became the rallying cry for freedom across the universe – remember the fallen 3,000. It would bring down the end of the Aryanian Empire across the Orellian sector that is now ruled by the four houses of the Brotherhood.

Grace Fu makes a fool of herself again

And how did she do it, this time? Consider this extract:Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Environment and Water Resources Grace Fu said the public might have misunderstood the remarks she made on her Facebook page on Wednesday.

In her latest Facebook post made at about 5pm on Thursday, she responded to the barrage of comments critical of her earlier remarks by saying she is “honoured” to be given the opportunity to serve the people.

“Thank you for all your candid views. I respect all of them. I realise my last posting could have been misunderstood. The committee has done a thorough job with a substantial recommendation over a fairly emotive topic. I accept and respect the recommendations,” she wrote.

What Grace doesn’t seem to understand is the general public doesn’t give two hoots whether she feels honored to serve the country. Coming to think of it, didn’t LHL say, it was unrealistic to expect public servants these days to step forward and serve ONLY in the name of King and Country?

If that was the original premise to raise ministerial salaries i.e dispelling with happy illusions – then pray tell, why does the likes of Grace Fu seem to have so much difficulty in understanding that no one gives a shit about her happy illusions as to how she sees herself in relation to her job.

The vast majority of tax payers are really only interested in customer service, quality management and value for money.

This is after all the default new compact between citizenry and state, the very moment, the PAP decided to pay themselves creamy salaries and sky high salaries – wonder no more, why most tax payers since then have benchmarked ministers and their ministries according to how we normally judge the performance of another Fortune 500 firm.

The agreement between citizenry and state is really cut and dried, there is nothing further to say, except maybe, if you cannot deliver value, quality assurance and customer satisfaction reliably to those who pay your salary, which is incidentally, the tax payers and NOT, the state – then please go Grace. Or for that matter anyone else who claims to be honored to “serve” the people. Bye bye and have a nice life. And if you don’t mind send in the next job applicant.

As for all talk of king and country. I agree with LHL completely, it’s all primroses and parks, that all means very little these days, when most taxpayers have already accepted the terms of the new compact, where government is simply the service provider and taxpayers are just customers.

Darkness 2012

“Money can make or break. If money is the only thing that unites husband and wife, then when I whistle, my wife must jump. If one day, I run out of money. I do not expect her to stay by my side. This I can accept without too much fuss. The same goes for mercenaries. If you die, that is really an occupational liability. King and country doesn’t come into it at all – it is a quid quo pro transaction. But if I love a woman with all my heart and I even do things for her which I would never ever do unless I loved her more than even myself – that is a very different arrangement – here I have a right to ask, “why will you not stay and fight with me in my hour of need?” And if she is a real woman of substance, she would lower her head in shame and shed a tear. I think we should never confuse ourselves as to what money can and cannot do. Experience informs me confusing the idea of what money is supposed to do usually ends being a very unhappy enterprise – that is why the serious men of this world are ALWAYS very clear and brutal about using money either as a means to an end or just regarding it as an end. They are very clear, so clear as to suggest, if anyone is in doubt, you can always rely on them to spell out the rules of engagement.”

The Arcanum

I happen to have two life’s – the first is the life before Darkness, the other was the life after Darkness. Before I was called Darkness, I ran a circus in the virtual— it was poetically called “The Arcanum” located in the seedy side of Primus. It’s a really wonderful Georgian storefront, something that you would find perhaps in Hampstead in London and in this shop, I would curate over people —they’re not for sale, but they were just there and anyone could just buy a ticket and sit for as long as they wanted in my shop to see the show.

The idea of “The Arcanum” was based loosely on the idea everyone is like a book —if they could figure out how to tell their story that is —and The Arcanum provided such a platform – so people came by and they talked for however long they wanted, and it’s not a speech or presentation of some kind. As it remained very much a sharing – I love that idea, because I know a lot of people who have super weird ideas that they weren’t really allowed to speak openly about when they were in university; but nonetheless they’re things that you can learn about life.

I had one guy who knew everything about trains — trains are his love. He knows absolutely everything there is to know about trains. This fellow has even published e-books on trainspotting and was responsible for starting the Singapore trainspotting club. For most people, trains are long and noisy things that runs beneath the ground, and you don’t have the slightest idea how they are supposed to work, and the less said the better, but this chap sees them as works of art, and he can recount details about trains that is so fascinating to hear about.

Another crowd puller in The Arcanum, was an autistic painter – he doesn’t talk a lot, but what he does is paint – not in a linear way, but in his own way. He doesn’t begin with the sun and sky – he starts off in one tiny corner and works his way inwards into a painting like a spider web. The mystery there is most of the audience has no idea what he is going to come out with, till the very last minute. This boy was incredibly gifted and he sold a lot of seats in The Arcanum.

Then there was this Japanese man who made paper trees – he used to be an industrialist or something. I know that he is rich, because he is the only one who works with a team of assistants – now each of these paper trees are interactive – they are rendered with the latest CGI and it’s really a rendition of art where you see the trees germinate and even fruit – the audience went crazy over that act.
So these are people who weren’t interested in telling you why they do their work, rather they were very much people who just did their work.

I learnt many things when I ran that tiny shop called, The Arcanum. One day, the Brotherhood invaded my planet – and I remembered putting up a sign on my shop window, “BE BACK IN FIVE MINUTES!”
I never came back. But one day, I when I’ve made enough money abroad – I want to be able to open up a real shop called, The Arcanum somewhere in Singapore.

What book are you? Start writing your history – I might just call you up one day for a show in The Arcanum.

Darkness 2012

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“Let me try to understand this. The man leading the largest army assembled by the Brotherhood used to run a human flea circus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“That is correct Sire. He is the curator of the human book library.”

“WTF is that?”

“We have no idea, our intelligence is sketchy, but that could explain, why he has been able to outwit even our best strategist.”

“Remarkable, find out more about this character, they call Darkness. I want to know more about him. Better still, capture him alive and bring him before me.”

“That wouldn’t be necessary, they will be here tomorrow.”

“So the circus is coming to us it seems.”

Intercepted by the Deep Space Mineral Cruiser – KDD Asamozo just off the Aryanian Orellian Galaxy – The Brotherhood Press 1999.