Being hopeful in the face of uncertainty

I know what everyone thinks. The monsoon rains is finally here. Evil has been vanquished….the serpents head is crushed…the good times are back again..the dry spell is well and truly over.

I don’t believe that’s the case. Not at all – as it has only really rained twice this whole entire month followed by scattered showers. For me at least.

The way I see it. Most of the rains will fall mainly on the southern tip of peninsula this year. So if you’re in Singapore. You’re good to go. But since I am located up North the best we can hope for this year is intermittent showers from now till the end of May i.e Mickey Mouse rain. Thereafter another dry spell will close right in when the winds shift again in early June – this may not mean anything at all to most people. But to farmers it means the real rains will only come somewhere around in September. From now till then, there will be very little of a very precious thing.

But this does not mean a bountiful harvest is out of my grasp. There is a way and I have been experimenting with new fertilisation techniques that the Israelis use to grow Jaffa oranges in the Sinai – if the fucking Jews can grow juicy oranges in the desert don’t tell me the same techniques cannot be adapted to grow oil palm!

Yes, these methods are radical to say the least, where I split the dosage per palm into micro quantities so as that they can be absorbed despite the low rainfall. So instead of broadcasting 3 kg per palm. I will split it into 1 kg and broadcast it over a wider surface area – naturally the farmhands are not happy as it’s three times their normal workload and this is completely alien to them – and since the calculations of required nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, boron and magnesium are so complicated there is no way I can possibly explain it to most people. Even if I could, no one will believe me.

Everyone thinks I am crazy….but I know deep down in my bones I am on the right track. I just know! They way I see it, let the yield speak for itself. I don’t want to talk too much. Let the yield do all the talking lah!

Let’s see how it goes. I am hopeful.

We will win!

I don’t believe in meritocracy per se. I happen to be one of those who believe this word has been so evacuated of meaning since its regularly embellished to justify all sorts of dehumanizing policies.

The way I see it. If meritocracy has to come at an exorbitant social cost of watching droves of people lose their standard living while they get systematically marginalized on an industrial scale only to end up at the bottom of the heap as either taxi drivers or security guards. Then to me that sort of shitty corseted definition of meritocracy has as much utility as weed killer in a cocktail glass…it’s no good lah! I dowan lah!

The way I see it, if meritocracy is so narrowly defined to exclude so many important things such as the human spirit and whole of idea of dignity and respect – then it’s just an unimaginative and lazy man’s way of making things work really well – as everything is premised on the no brainer calculus i.e either you make the grade or you’re toast, it has to be a clearest form of reductionism.

Like I said, there is zero skill in just FINDING the right fit – any bloody fool can do that. As when the word meritocracy is hijacked, embellished and defined so narrowly that it can only elide so many factors that make up life – then to me it’s just a mindless efficiency theory that doesn’t even question what the social cost may be if all we do is select the best and set aside what we have to work with – it just means meritocracy (in the Singaporean context) can only mean life as we know it will increasingly become binary without us realizing it – you’re either a scholar or a cookie cutter, successful or a failure, switched on or off, team player or dyfunctional, with or against us.

Life is NEVER like that! The way I see it, if things are no good. I will MAKE it good – put in the effort, try harder, try everything and anything and just keep on hammering the shit out of it, till it gets better. That way even if someone or something comes to me as a thing most people will throw away and consider garbage. I can always strip it right down to it’s chassis and rebuild it all over again to be the best that it can be….I’ve done this many times. Taken stuff that someone has thrown away, rebuilt it and make it work better than new! If this can be done with things, like pumps, tractors and farming equipment what more, if it’s alive!

The way I see it, no one needs to be ever left behind. Only people who are bankrupted of all imagination throw away things that can be improved on…to me these are incredibly lazy people.

My vet for example is one of these fucked up people. He keeps insisting Kee Kee is retarded and should be terminated as he doesn’t know how to run and jump like a normal puppy. But what the fuck does he know!

Recently I did some research on the internet and found that horses which had lost their natural instinct to run after recovering from a prolonged limb injury were put into a swimming pool to wake their muscles up – so I have been regularly giving Kee Kee swimming lessons in a home made tank.

Kee Kee doesn’t seem to have any problems threading water with his front paws. The problem is, he doesn’t use his hind legs at all…so I help him along.

I am starting Kee Kee with just a few minutes a day and I plan to slowly increase the duration bit by bit.

Let’s see how it goes…I am hopeful.

We will win!

That to me is how life really is…we are all born with flaws. No one is perfect. And those who tell you they’re the best thing since sliced bread are perfect liars!

Sometimes when things don’t go the way you plan it. You just need to work at it to make it better….instead of just throwing it away or saying to yourself, it’s a big mistake. Above all you need to hold on to the idea: things will get better…..above all you need to cultivate the discipline to go your own way and not to believe them….but to just hold on to that idea….it will get better if you continue to work at it.

I remain hopeful.