Why Ben Lim’s case will always disturb.

It is not nearly enough to just dispense justice. That is the mechanics. The cold and metallic procedural aspect relating to the administration of the judicial process.

Far more important is the jurisprudential and moral aspect of justice viz-a-viz justice NEEDS to be seen to be done in the eyes of the public…..that is the humanistic and moral aspect that gives justice it’s legitimacy and raison d’être – by this the response has to be timely, reasonable and considerate to the public’s right to know.

But in this case, everyone keeps repeating the same thing like a robot voice machine..it’s under investigation…it’s under investigation….meanwhile no meaningful information comes out….it’s like a black hole.

And when there is no information naturally the blankety blank will grow and grow till it’s as big as the Grand Canyon – then these same brainiacs who were responsible for creating this informational vacuum……blame people in the internet for speculating and spreading rumors.

Meanwhile all the ‘leaders’ they go around as if it’s business as usual…..another black hole there as well…more Grand Canyons there are sprouting out like mushrooms.

The same goes for the pariah press (it’s not me who said they are pariahs…it’s the position in the international press ranking that confirms this as a fact, so if you are not happy please go and take it up with them, as to why they are sitting next to Daily Perpetual Pong Pyang Happy Post)…completely nothing….another super duper black hole.

Now that I have given you my opinion of how I see it all – you decide for yourself whether justice is SEEN to be done….how considerate was the response to those who experienced anxiety and grieve concerning this tragedy?…..and how was the pace of the response? Was it in synch with the need to know and palliate fears of the general public.

You decide..

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‘This is not the mystery of where in the world is MH370. Or where is the lost city of Atlantis. It is not!

If it is…I can well understand why information is not forth coming in a timely manner or why there is a need for more time to collate and corroborate information or why when questions are asked, there is no reply. But to me, there is no Da Vinci code here.

I could well be wrong of course, but I am a farmer and I have taken a vow to only call a spade a spade and nothing else – so to me that is how I see it – what is the delay?

So I don’t understand why so many of the questions which IMHO are reasonable and perfectly valid remain unanswered till this day.

Why does it appear there is no sense of urgency to conclude this matter to palliate the fears of so many parents who have children and do not want to see it happen to their own kids in schools and to provide relief and closure for those who are still grieving the tragic lost of this child?

Why? What are you trying to prove…that things will cool down with time? You’re kidding me right?

This is not right…after all to me, the investigation of master Ben it seems was conducted with such supersonic urgency that it was mentioned (true or false I am yet to confirm) that the boy had time for only one cold bun…is it true, he was no even given time to makan?….so if time of such an essence in that investigation, why does it appear time is negotiable and even elastic in this case ? – there is something very wrong with the picture here from a natural justice perspective. Why is one investigation moving at the speed of light and the other at the a motorized wheelchair speed?

Police are reviewing their procedure? Schools are going to do the same?

That is NOT the issue! No one is interested in that aspect.

What clothes were they wearing when they picked up master Ben? On what basis of natural justice was the decision made to cancel Ben’s school trip even BEFORE the investigation had been concluded? Who is responsible for this decision making process?

Those are the question I want to know. I have a right to know as a father!

If people are asking you what is the time and you tell them to encourage geraniums to flower, you need a bit of salt and water them at least three times a day – most people will rightly conclude you don’t know how to respond intelligently to a simple question.

And what is the casualty of a failure to respond with wisdom to the pressing public need to know….people will lose trust in the police force.

I hope this will NEVER happen in Singapore. Because I have worked in many basket case countries and I have seen first hand – what can and will happen when citizens no longer trust and lose faith in their leaders along with the law enforcement agencies to such a degree of finality…it’s beyond all rehabilitation…..it’s very sad….when one cannot believe in the system any longer.

There are many things that I have seen and done in those screwed up countries that I never want to ever talk about or even remember*…never….all I can say is if you have something good…then make sure it stays that way, if you cannot make it better then don’t make it worse and please consider returning back to running your private law practice or apply for a managerial position to run a food court in the Ukraine. But where possible try to take it to the next level of the gold standard by polishing it to a mirror sheen…the people who work in the police force have every right to deserve to feel a sense of pride and dignity of labor when they wear uniform …the people who rely on the police to serve and protect also deserve to believe in that gold standard of high professionalism. let no dirt ever come near to good things…if you cannot do this…just go lah!

* Somewhere along the endless serpentine laterite road between Davao city and Zamboanga in the Mindanao – during the evenings when men would sit along the long bench under the wan and hiss of cordite lamps to get high on Barangay hooch fermented from coconut and yam. On the last call when everyone is high as a kite and the only satellite TV in the village is switch off – and men have run out of topics to keep the conversation rolling on…someone may ask, ‘do you all remember Padil?’ And all the men would smile knowingly and fall so very silent….the legend of Padil like all legends in the timeless labyrinth of the shanty towns of Barangays comprised of one part truth and usually two parts make belief…he’s real name wasn’t really Padil. They all just called him that, as he looked so much like that much beloved bad boy action hero actor Robin Padilla. Others believed he might have been a third generation mestizo as he often mangled his Tagalog with Spanish sobriquets terms – a habit common to the landowning gentry of the Ayala’s, Osmenas and Arjuno’s. Others believed he had once worked for the CIA as a spy responsible for reporting on the secret construction of the largest military airstrip in the Mindanao in General Santos funded by bluefin a USAID front – then of course, all knew of the story when Padil had spotted an abandoned vine riven villa once build by a Spaniard Chopra merchant somewhere along the Cotabato mountain route to the West on Saragani on a hill – they said, he had stood there and looked at that ruined for so long like a man reminded of happier times in his past life in Africa and so Padil decided to stay and grow bananas right there.

The landowning gentry especially the ladies of the Wednesday club in the Marina Bay regarded Padil with a mix of fascination and endearment whenever he visited metro Manila – they were equally enamored by his impeccable manners along with his rumored illicit association with Gringo Honasan and the ease at which he was able to walk freely in and out of Abu Sayaff territory untouched…like an angel dancing on clouds of death..they all whispered to amongst themselves as they look on – but to the old men, the European Spanish power brokers who prided themselves with their purity of will in the same manner they kept their lineage entirely Spanish since Magellan landed on the shores of Cebu…the one’s who bank rolled noisy senators and pulled all the strings in Malacanang unseen by all, who were always content to play bridge and sip extremadura in the Rizal room sectioned off from the rest of the erudite crowd below – despite their collective suspicion for Padil. They found him useful and continued to give him land concessions…as Padil despite his youth and cavalier attitude, whenever he didn’t drink to much seemed to posses an uncanny ability to appreciate their reality of how power and politics could only be perpetuated by maintaining the tenuous relationship of mutual coexistence between the Christians and the Muslims thru the lost art of La Convivencia…..if anything good would ever come out from that God forsaken place where there was no semblance of law and order…that black heathen splotch…the old men all referred too as el terra diablo.

In the Barangay’s that dotted the edges of Padil’s banana estate – the kids knew his legs and pricks of his hairline moustache. He wore only mirror polished ankle high boots with flared ridding jodhpurs. As for the men, they looked on curiously with fascination at his habit of sporting a shouldered holstered revolver. As it was general knowledge, Padil the nocturnal marauder in a lawless land where only the law of the gun rule supreme – was renowned for his disdain of firearms and much preferred that other elegant weapon of antiquity, the Moros feared which they referred to as the whispering death – the bow. On one occasion, legend has it Padil single handedly picked off ten brigands on a moonless night who ambushed a bus of nuns. Or was it twenty or maybe thirty depending on how many bottles of San Miguel had been uncapped during the recount of the story. For effect Padil left cards on each man he killed. They all said, he once saw it being done in a movie and so like the movie star that he was…he did the same for la effect ..as for the ladies – they giggled all the time behind closed shutters while their mothers looked on pensively bitting their prayer beads, as it was widely rumored – only a man who is in league with the devil himself was not afraid of the Moros and that Padil could steal a woman’s soul with just one fleeting look. For most of the time, when the sun dipped below the ochre colored barren mountains. Padil installed himself on a rocking chair and nursed a Montecristo till nine and retired before ten. On the first Monday of every month, he wore a pristine creme suit complete with black and white spectator shoes and a creme Montecristi and visited the only bordello in Davao city which also doubled as the Sanfirono club for the rest of the week – Padil sat all by himself usually in the verandah overlooking the square as he played solitaire all by himself sipping neat whisky thru the night….he never ever seemed interested in what was on offer, except maybe to look up from time to time with a curious mix of having being so near yet so far from experiencing the prophetic whenever the madam of the parlor brought in a new girl only to return to his game of cards like a man searching fervently for something once lost….as if the only thing he ever wanted out of the evening laid somewhere in that other far and distant mythical realm that could only be discovered in the infinite randomness of the universe of cards – where chance and serendipity danced and all that Padil could do was to search….search….and search for her, for Padil the man who would usually sit all by himself from evening till the break of dawn, it seemed the only woman he was ever interested in was to find his mythical queen of hearts in a game called solitaire…but it always ended the same….Padil could never find her…..’

The man who is content to sit all alone

There is a planter who is always all by himself – no one acknowledges this man it seems. They invite him to functions only because they have too and even then no one ever talks to him….something to do his past…a scandal…a fall from grace perhaps. It’s as though he’s there, but yet invisible.

Every time when I chance on this man – I will always make it a point to ignore the others, zoom right in and greet him in the true spirit of brotherhood and to even ask whether perhaps he might consider joining me for a glass of whisky and a game of billiards in the smoking room.

After that…what follows is ALWAYS the same. Someone will come to me like a scuttling rat and whisper to me, ‘it’s not good for you…a man of such prestige to be seen in the company of such a lowly man.’ Or, ‘no one talks to him for a very good reason’ etc etc etc.

But nonetheless I make allowances for this one man who all have seen fit to condemn to a place called Coventry – as I can tell by his very demeanor. Life has been very hard for him. Many people cannot tell – but I can. As only a planter who always leaves the last button of his bush jacket undone is accustomed to the realities of life where angels fear to thread. Or the faint scar that runs across the far left side of face that lends him a menacing look….perhaps he was once in a war. Yes…and what of the curious manner by which he ties his laces with a double slip knot, which I have only seen Legionnaires do when they talk of that strangest of things – marching with the devil in that God forsaken pit in Africa…his strange habit of pinching his cigarettes ends flat at both ends ever so slightly before he lights them…I’ve seen sailors in the Coite de noire do the same. They say it keeps the ochre dust they call the sea of blood, the Harmattan from fouling the burn….and what of the business of wearing his submariner upside down. With the bezel always set at dead seven, a common trick known only to the most seasoned caravaners who regularly ply the that place they all know as the empire of the bones… the Sahara. As when one stretches out the hand and points to the belt of Orion, turning the watch sideways, the centerline between the where shadow of the moonbeam falls and the watch marker points to where sun will rise…a inner circle trick only those who know the desert very well would be familiar with – yes…these are very small details most people don’t ever notice, but they speak volumes of his previous life – this man’s life must have once been so filled with hardship and pain that perhaps what he has had to go thru to reach where he is today cannot possibly be ever imagined let alone comprehended by the rest of these fools. No wonder he regards them all with a quality of indifference in the way one regards children when they say and do stupid things – as I suspect this man truly understands to live in the world pain may well be unavoidable, but suffering is always optional….there is much learnt from such a high quality man…..if only they all know.

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‘There are many funny people out there in the world. Who might believe you can ALWAYS break a man in half…providing enough pressure is applied – but from time to time, even these bloody fools will come to the dead end of a realization….they’re facing off with a very hard nut that’s unbreakable. A superman.

But have you wondered – what accounts for his superpowers? I suspect it because ALL these men who have once experienced great hardship, all know of a country that lies between stimulus and response. In that space or country, they have all without a single exception had to develop this unusual superpower to choose how they might best respond to go on or die if they fail to do so. In their ability to craft their response lies real strength and that is why they cannot be broken.

This is not a new theme, not at all – I once read of a man who was interned in a concentration camp during the WW2. I cannot remember his name. This man was forced to straggle his own wife to death for the sake of fun to alleviate the boredom of his captors. He had to see his children waste away only to die and be placed like rotting vegetables in a human pile with the dead. His captors took virtually everything imaginable from this man….everything of value…till it seemed only nihilism remained.

But there was one thing that they could NEVER take away from this man – his intellect and the manner he responded to all the unimaginable indignities that man can inflict on the human spirit. To survive, he a consciously made an effort to ‘live’ only in this imaginary country in his head – a resident of this strange country where to bear the unbearable, one would first have to first acquire mastery of that space between the stimulus and how he might best respond. This man even appointed himself as an emperor of this imaginary realm by fashioning a flag out of the remnants of his underwear – may seem comical, but what we have is an act of emancipation of psycho-spiritual liberty in the cruelest circumstances imaginable….and whe the war came finally came to an end. This man thru his remarkable intellect in being able to fashion such a personal world within the world was able to remarry and reclaim his prestige, status and wholeness again….he did it all with grace. imagination and style….that is why, whenever fools come to me and tell me whether I would like to join their conceited clique to bring down this one man who is content to sit all by himself…often I ask of them…do you all not see, you are already so defeated even before anything begins….and usually these fools all look at me as if I too share the same madness as this man…and slowly, they all begin to walk away from me and soon the subject turns to football.

Research and study this ilk of men – do not be afraid to cultivate their company. Find out more about this strange country that resides in between their heads – observe all it like a spy and take notes where possible. As I suspect, there is much wisdom to be learnt in this secretive country.’

Sharp tongue

When a man’s tongue is sharp, his words will cut and those who will have to bear him will suffer. This man lives only for himself….NEVER for others…he is without a shadow of doubt thoughtless, reckless and very dangerous.

As to inflict a cut takes only a blink of an eye, but to heal will take days, months and years…even then it leaves a permanent scar.

That is the reason why wise men are usually very careful with words. Observe if you will…they guard their tongues like Praetorians. They never speak bad of others behind their back…..the wise all regard their tongues like very highly quality swords forged by master artisans and they are always kept lovingly in their scabbards and only use if there is no other choice…but once it’s drawn, the job is done with very little fuss and back it goes in again!

This is the Dao of all high quality swords…just like a superior man’s tongue.

The fool on the other hand, has a tongue like a sword that has no sheath. That is not surprising as is put together by cobbling the lowest quality materials – the buy one get another free pariah variety – and it’s used for everything from splitting fire wood to digging his asshole ..hence this sword like the fools sharp tongue is lowly thing. It is not a personification of his alter ego or even a symbol of his status. Or anything at all – it’s just a crude tool like a back scratcher.

Observe if you will the tongues of your family member, relatives, colleagues, friends and associates and soon you will see….because I shared this insight with you – observe: if the wise have nothing good to say…usually they will keep very quiet. But if there is a pressing need to convey their views – usually it’s done thoughtfully and delicately and directly and personally (no backstabbing or rumor mongering. That is the dao of the pariah ) and above all in the spirit of true brotherhood…which means, the person who yields the sword is highly skilled. He will never use an atomic bomb to kill roaches…only the fool will do that….the amount of force deployed is just right and the technique is so skillful….the job is done to perfection….this is the hallmark of brotherhood. As by doing so in this manner, not only does he bring out the best in people who he hopes to influence, but he teaches them the tongue can either be a like refreshing drink or cut like a knife.

Be always mindful of tongue…..this I tell myself at least twenty to thirty times a day.

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‘There is a school girl who likes to sing folk songs at the top of her voice as she wanders my lands. Since her voice sounds like a wailing walrus – often her singing brings pain to both the animals and my workers. When the birds see her they fly away faster than a speeding bullet. Even my Doberman dogs renown for their toughness begin to howl as if to implore this girl to stop. They will cover their radar ears with their paws. One of my dogs by the name of big foot even digs a hole and buries his entire head like an ostrich to seek relief from pain. Many of my workers have even implored me on bended knees..tolong lah(please) can you please stop this girl from hurting our ears! We are all suffering! Mati lah! Cannot tahan lah!

So one day. When I saw this girl wandering my lands and singing like she usually does. I told her, her voice is indeed so melodious. Because one has to do this with very young girls – as if one is not careful. They will be so hurt that life will suddenly cease to have any meaning and there is always a risk – they will so something rash and stupid.

After that I asked this girl – do you know what I find more beautiful than your singing – she looked at me wide eyed. That was when I told her she looks so beautiful when her lip come together when they are closed. I held out a flower just before it blooms and said to her…do see how the petals are like your mouth when they are closed….because once the petals are open…there is no more mystery…all is revealed. There after it can all only end. But in this state of tension where the petals are tightly closed like your lips….so many beautiful things can be imagined and anticipated. This is why flowers do not need to make a lot of noise to be beautiful. Their beauty is like X ray…it is silent and mysterious.

From that day onwards till present day, this girl walks my lands quietly with her lips closed and her head held high.

It is the same story with a haughty plantation lady who regularly invites me to concertos whenever I visit the city – this woman is always late. Always. Like a primadonna. And if there is one thing I absolutely cannot abide, it is a person who does not have the discipline to keep time nor respect my time and this just brings out the very worst in me.

So one day when we were seated together in a private box…During the intermission. I turned to this woman and asked her. Do you know why this recital is so sublimely magical. She looked at me expectantly and after a very long pause. I told her…because if you observe carefully although the musicians are of only passable quality, but what is able to transcend their mediocrity is the precision in which the maestro is able to time each stanza of the concerto to perfection…so it can all only come together in perfect harmony….but if one has to wait for the strings or winds to come in when they should….if one was to wait merely in a sliver of silence when there should be music….that is all it takes to spoil the whole evening…from there onwards, the mood is gone…and I don’t really believe it’s worthwhile to spend so much on a box seat to experience pain instead of joy. Because timing is so very important to me. I hope you can appreciate where I am coming from? This lady lowered her head in shame and nodded silently to herself. After that day, she was never ever late again.

The moral of the story is there are so many ways to skin a cat, but always be prepared to set aside so time to plan, prepare and strategize, if you want to get where and what you want without cutting others with a sharp tongue – ALWAYS use your imagination, intellect and worldly experiential knowledge to choose the best way to convey a message, that is the defining difference between a pariah and a gentlemen.’

The lost art of listening

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The sign of a superior religious man

The highest level of religion that a man can ever aspire to – is when another man says to him, can you please teach me how to be like you.

It is NEVER the simple case of how much this religious man claims to know about his holy book. It is NOT even how faithful he is to all the tenets of the religion he claims to belong to.

For example I know of many staunch Buddhist, Muslims and Christians that if Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus is still alive and they observe how these people interact with others – I have absolutely no doubt, they would probably take these adherents to one quiet corner and say to them, ‘here is one million dollars lah, please take it. Don’t worry you will not end up like Najib. I promise you! Please take this donation and go to the furtherest corner of the world and kindly disappear forever from the face of humanity and while you are at it – kindly do humanity another great favor by renouncing your faith. Because you not only a lousy example that can only bring disgrace, dishonor and hate to our faith, but you are also dangerous, destructive and a curse to all of humanity…tolong lah…please go lah!’

Because when we ask ourselves what is the crux of ALL religion – it really only boils down to a few key attributes, the capacity for one to empathize, to provide relief, to always be thoughtful and compassionate and above all to set oneself as a good example for all man to follow.

That is all it is…nothing more…anyone who claims it to be something other than what it’s not, is just full of shit and not worth listening too…as it’s probably embellished by the crooked and twisted mind of zealots, war mongers and confidence tricksters!

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‘I know a Buddhist who keeps boasting to everyone, ‘look at me, my karma is so good!’ And whenever he sees a man who has fallen on bad times – he is will turn to his clique and revel, ‘see how bad his karma is!’ So one day while this fellow was driving on a rainy day, his car skidded and ended up in a ditch and he ended up mummified head to toe with a tube sticking out of his mouth and when I visited him in hospital, I asked him, ‘why is your karma so bad?’

I think that sums up everything very nicely on the subject of what is real and false religion.’

Good, Bad and Bittersweet fortune

Yesterday after applying a round of super expensive fertilizers, it rained that very night itself – as far as rains go…this is exactly the five chili rain I was hoping for – the type that brings the good stuff. Not the violent thunderstorm torrential rains that washes all the expensive fertilizer away, but the soft pattering rain where I just know it’s so very good to go.

My gamble seems to have paid off handsomely…I am very very relieved. As to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t that sure the winds from the East would hold steady long enough to bring with it the much needed rain clouds…February has historically been a rain free month….but nonetheless, I rolled the dice and it all pulled thru wonderfully.

However, I am not out the woods yet though, judging from the rain last night – it was merely only two inches. I need a further five or six rains to be 100% certain the fertilizer will percolate beneath the topsoil and nourish the roots before I can be home free.

On the bad news front, one of my Doberman guard dogs seems to have been bitten during the night.

It’s very nasty…..right down to the bone. Her name is Big Foot and she can hardly walk. From the looks of it, I am certain it’s Cobra venom – fortunately the poison didn’t circulate, as the foot of dogs are very boney and have very few arteries and nerves – nonetheless, when the venom doesn’t circulate it had a tendency to eat into the flesh just like acid. I will have to put Big Foot on a special recovery diet and a regimen of strong antibiotics. But judging from her breathing, diet and stool….I am certain the venom did not have an opportunity to circulate and I am quite confident with plenty of rest plus a recovery diet, she will bounce back again in no time.

A large bird of prey has been swooping into my bird house and gobbling up my swiftlets – as a rule, I try to shoo them away. As I am especially fond of birds of all variety – but this one persistent….this one comes back again and again.

So today went out at day break in full camouflage to hunt it down, took a position with the morning sun behind to remain invisible – first saw it perched at a distance of eight palms…too bloody far! Held my position for a full hour and a half…then suddenly it moved closer…first five palms away…still too fucking far for clear shot…then finally at three…. But this time, the angle was all wrong. Could have been better. Had only a 30% view. Hardly a clear shot, but I remembered saying to myself – this is as good as it will ever get. Considered skirting around for a clearer shot, but that would put me down wind and since the grass are crispy this time of the year that could scare it off…so despite the lousy conditions. I decided to take the shot from where I was, didn’t need to make any adjustments for windage or elevation as I selected a target steel tipped arrow. Aimed straight using the first pin with a two degree compensate to the left – hit it squarely in the head.

Not happy about my handiwork as I stood there watching the bird as it remained still. I must have stood there for an awfully long time – but you forced my hand my friend….no left me no choice…don’t you understand, what I cannot defend….I don’t own….It’s never personal…it’s strictly only business.

No….I was not happy with that kill at all. Damn you bird! Damn you to hell! Damn you for forcing by hand!

Like I said, it’s one of those good and bad and bittersweet days.

The art of manliness – leadership & neutrality

If you are neutral in the face of injustice. That doesn’t mean you have adopted a wait and see attitude or that you are somehow wise or discipline to hold your tongue – it just means, you have willfully chosen to seek refuge in silence and by doing so, you have sided with the oppressor.

Do not think for one moment your silence is soundless….it’s speaks volumes concerning you and what you stand for!

There is no way to describe this attitude politely other than to refer to it as a very serious character flaw that has no place in leadership!

Do this once. And most serious men will probably conclude, you have your reasons to remain neutral. Do this all the time…and you will find the serious men of this world will at some point dismiss you as a cheap merchant of convenience….that is to say, they have formed the conclusion quite rightly, you are not only likely to stand for absolutely nothing. But it’s even conceivable you less willing to stick your neck out to do the right thing….in which case. You cannot blame them if they consider you both a very dangerous and inferior man.

That is how it is when you seek refuge in neutrality without wisdom.

Now you the know the facts of life….it is so very clear.

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‘Some time back ago, the village elders asked me to reason with a someone who they labelled a recalcitrant who does not seem to respect according to them, ‘their way of life.’

I turned to one of the elders and asked pointedly, HOW did this man become like this.

No one offered an explanation. They looked at each other pensively and one of them slammed the table and exclaimed ‘that is hardly the issue at hand! He doesn’t respect our way of doing things here!’ I held two chopsticks erect before all of these men and one by one they lowered their heads in shame – then I asked of these old men – do I need to remind each and everyone of you the laws of the old country? Do I need to even explain that the law cannot be negotiated around, not even by your stupid understanding of ‘our way of life!’ I went on to rebuke these old men.

It appears we have a serious miscommunication problem here. As I was under the impression, you have all come here to seek my assistance in the capacity of a prefect who is duty bound by the laws of heaven and earth to conduct a full investigation before forming an opinion on what best to do! If that is the case, then I am duty bound by the laws of heaven and earth to conduct ask how a man who was once reasonable and well behaved is now the world’s greatest troublemaker!

Thereafter I rebuked these old men – shame on all of you! To even harbor belief for one instance that I can be your hammer…your tool….your lackey to further your crooked designs without paying dues to law and equity….how you insult me!

The meeting ended abruptly and before I walked out of the door. I told them all. It’s best if seek the help some cheap gangsters to reason with this fellow….As since no one wants to share with me what once actually transpired…there is no way in which I can act in the capacity of a prefect.’

Gambling against the weatherman

These days farming is not so different from trying to beat the house at a night out in the casino…the experts say no rain is coming my way. I am betting against that idea. Just completed an expensive round of manuring using a range of fertilizer that takes advantage of moderate to light rain – these fertilizers will only work with this very specific type of rain.

It’s very simple. If Lady Luck is on my side. I stand to win big time. If it doesn’t rain…I lose my pants to the house.

With the crazy weather we have been having for last year and this year – it has really come to this.

5% body fat please!

I do not want to mention names…but obviously, we all know who they all are. Allow me to say this, when you are fat or over weight – you demonstrate not only a failure of discipline, but a total disregard of respect for what we stand for along with the fragrant disregard of what it takes to set a good example for your apprentice!

I will not mince my words!

30 days grace period….that is all gentlemen. It is not negotiable. Understand this! I do not care about your imaginary hormonal disorders or for that matter any other confected reasons why you are over weight.

Understand this. I do not care! After 30 days, if this requirement is not met. Please do us all the courtesy to walk the plank with dignity! I assure you gentlemen, heads will bloody fucking roll!

I thank you all very much for your understanding and reasonableness. As without the strategic precondition of 5% body fat…we will all end up with this fellow…please take a good look at this specimen of what appears to be a man:

This is no good gentlemen…it is no bloody good, with this the good stuff will never come our way…it will just past us right by – with this, we can never fit into the gold standard of the lean and muscular profile of this: this is the goal!

Nothing can be accomplished without iron discipline!

Nothing can be fucking accomplished without iron willed discipline…absolutely nothing!

Total 180 degree remake

This is all no good….deadly man eating Doberman’s…the outfield man….Gentlemen, the directive has come from the very top, we have to serious remake out image…from now onwards Givenchy, Zegna, J M Weston et al, it’s this!

It is what it is! So please bury your military fatigues…it’s no longer kosher! We are not going any where except big and small circles with our current image!

We need to move here!

The art of manliness – public speaking

Most men come across as woody, awkward and plasticky when they’re called to speak publicly. That is perfectly understandable as being in the spotlight generates a lot of nervousness and anxiety along with the fear of failure….hence most men much prefer to let others do the talking. That’s well and fine, if you’re just a follower – but if want to proceed to the next level of life. You have to be a leader – and at that level of the game, public speaking is hardly a matter of choice. As frequently as a leader, you need to take the lead to manage yourself and others to provide instructional and directional advise. You need to be able to influence others effectively. Convince and internally persuade those around you that your idea is worth going with.

The long and short of it, is there is no running away from public speaking….if you aspire to be in a position of leadership.

Key rules to public speaking

(1) Speak only about subjects, opinions and POV’s that you believe absolutely and completely in. Because if there is even a shadow of a doubt in your conviction – it will definitely show in your body language as your subconscious can never lie and experienced people will have absolutely no problems whatsoever smelling you out as a phoney con man. Cultivate the skill to speak without relying on any aids. This is the gold standard and it conveys commitment, authenticity and knowledge. Always allow your audience question time after you have finished. This demonstrates that your confidence and trust in the position you have taken to withstand the rigor of cross examination. Keep your replies short. With difficult questions keep the replies open ended followed by a curt, ‘next question please.’ But never seek refuge in silence…no dignity there…only perhaps the confirmation you are clueless and deserve nothing but derision from an enquiring audience!

Break this rule and the serious people of this world will say, he’s a lightweight!

(2) Never fake a foreign accent. Take exceptional pride in where you grew up and came from. Do this and you will give your audience the permission to do the same.

(3) Always frame the context of what you have to share with your audience in the common ground of brotherhood, camaraderie, kinship, tribehood and common wealth. Family and kids. Family and kids. Family and kids. That’s the way to go! That will create a very solid connection between where you are coming from and why you hold the beliefs you do along with where you want to go – this way since you taken great lengths to convince your audience they are stakeholders instead of just passive bystanders your message will go down with very little resistance.

(4) Never use con man words. Call a spade a spade. Avoid mind boggling words and double speak like right sizing, calibrate, ponding etc….use instead direct and clear words like retrenchment, there is further room for improvement, flooding….I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough.

(5) Use emotional charged words for effect. For example refer to those at home as ‘those of you at the home front.’ Or ‘those who you who have experienced what I have gone thru.’ Try to establish a common link based on experience or shared mission. This way your audience will feel validated even if all they are really doing is picking their skin on their big toe while munching on pot noodle blog surfing – what you want to do is appeal to the idea of shared mission and goals.

(6) Do not be afraid to spend time to create the emotional atmosphere for your message to be well received. Most people even those who claim to be well skilled in public speaking skip this jugular part, wonder no more why what they have to say goes down and disappears into a black hole.

For example, if the subject is emotive, divisive and charged with resentment – then tug on the emotional heart strings to FIRST prepare your audience for the message (if necessary) – you don’t need to break down, wail and cry to create the effect. Only con artist, good for nothing politicians and bent pastors need to do that. That is not recommended. Remember a little goes a very long way with emotional display involving men.

All that needs to be done is to stage a momentary emotionally charge break, pause or stammer during your delivery, followed by a very quick recovery. The process is incredibly subtle…as it’s just the merest hint…a faint suggestion of lingering sadness.

Remember a little goes a very long way….don’t over do it! Or you come across as a phoney.

Usually the way I pull this off is so subtle that most men in the audience will miss it completely…it will go over their heads…with men you need to cry openly and go thru at least two truck loads of tissue paper before they can register you’re sad…so Dowan lah.

Fortunately with women, they’re hardwired to be incredibly sensitive as they all have inborn maternal instincts along with super razor sharp emotional IQ. So they will definitely pick up these emotional cues you throw out along the way.

They may not be able to pin point exactly or for that matter precisely what it actually is – and this precisely the effect you want to create…a delicate balance i.e to create a subliminal lingering effect. Where later on when men and women are both and sitting down in the living room and reflecting on what your message was and the man is skeptical and slagging you off – the woman will actually come to your defense (believe it or not), she would probably exclaim, ‘I know at times he comes across like Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin…but aside from that, I believe he’s just highly misunderstood. Besides he has a heart of gold!’

Men cannot undertake that sort of perceptive leap of faith…but woman can. So leverage heavily on womanhood. They should really be your target audience.

I call this the shock wave effect. It ripples. After your momentary emotional display the message should be delivered hard and furious…..bang, bang and bang.

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‘Why do Asians lose out to the white man? I will tell you why, because we cannot speak for nuts….it’s not as if we are less capable, less resourceful or even lack the requisite number of brain cells….it’s just that we cannot speak for nuts.

That is reality…it is what it is! So deal with it! Because I don’t want to spend my time playing let’s ask twenty questions just to nail down the salient issues we have to deal with.

That is to say public speaking for Asians is usually at the very bottom of the our skill set list!

I want to share with you all the brutal facts of life – consider this case study: you’re bidding for a mining concession in Africa. Fact No.1. No one is going to read your 500 page unsolicited bid proposal! No one! It’s just going to end up in the KIV tray and rot! You want prime land in the Ukraine…ditto again.

But if you can stand up and mesmerize the audience…without notes, teleprompters, power point slides and just convey the clarity of your vision in full technicolor and THX surround sound thru the power of your belief….it’s all yours!

It’s all yours!

So if you want to aspire to a position of leadership. This is NOT optional! If you believe this skill set is in any way negotiable in such a manner where you can avoid it – please stop reading this now and don’t ever come back here again!

Because this is the next level of how the game needs to be played. Anyone who underrates this skill set if you notice is going around in only big and small circles. I am so sorry, you really need to get up to speed and be really so good at public speaking…no one even comes remotely close to you.

This is only reliable way to defeat the ang moh, to be beat them at their own game.

History is firmly on my side. As some of you may know, during the age of the rocket in our game…within 24 hours when the French won a majority in the Imperium. The lingua Franca was changed from English to French. You know why they did that, to silence us! What was our response? Within a year, we became so proficient in French, they gave me and decided to switch to German and when that happened again we beat the shit out them at their own game.

We spoke German so well. That during the Reign of Pandishah IX, they all gave up and everyone went back to speaking standard English.

So if we did all that in the game we once played….I see no reason why it cannot be done to in the real world!

I see absolutely no reason why it cannot be done in the Ukraine or Africa.’

The art of manliness – formality on the go

The life of the modern planter is not just about wearing military fatigues and a straw hat all day long…nothing could be further from the truth. In reality on certain occasions, there is a need to attend board room meetings, formal functions like a garden luncheon and candlelight dinner, an evening at the opera and since the gentlemen is always considerate to regard the night as timelessly young – perhaps the illicit thrill at the roulette wheel as a night cap.

With that kind wide spectrum social and work demand. I find that a formal single color suit is just way too corseted and impractical….if you buy into that idea. You would probably end up doing really stupid things like learn how to dress and undress in the car park. In the age where every mobile phone comes de riguer with a high resolution camera these days, that has to be a very risky proposition….so you would probably end wasting a whole entire evening explaining why you’re semi naked in your car to a policeman with a big moustache…Dowan lah!

Besides in this modern age. The very idea of a single tone matching trousers and suit just looks way to formal, heavy, uniform like and one invariably comes across as trying to hard – hence, men’s fashion is fast giving way to a more relaxed and casual combination look – the general rule of thumb, dark jackets and light trousers are the easiest combination to work with.

Don’t go the other way round or the good stuff will never come around.

I find the best results comes from combining a tropical bluish black suit with grey bespoke slacks. Remember what I mentioned above. Never go the other way i.e light suit /dark slacks – otherwise you will just end up looking like a dentist or a technician.

Attention and diligence to detail is key here: suit should be summer wear preferably silk mixed with wool. You want it to come across as feather light that balances the tension between formality and sophisticated casualness. I recommend only Zegna high performance summer range – lining and padding is not recommended (except sparingly on the shoulders) as all that adds to heaviness and weight and subtracts from your muscular 5% only body fat profile – you want to keep it sharp like a matador…get the balance wrong and it’s no good. Remember you want versatility, but you also want to make a memorable impression…it’s got to be cool to the touch, feather light and yet serious enough to able to hold thru the evening. Silk being a natural fibre does crumple as the day goes by, but fortunately most well heeled ladies regard this as a very sexy wabi sabi trait of man who takes pride in his masculinity and ruggedness, that distinguishes men from boys…if you are going out with Sengkang Sally, then don’t bother with bespoke, just go for the off the rack buy one get one free G2000 lah – she wouldn’t notice the difference – but if it crumples…you’re mellowing and acquiring a very desirable manly sympatico patina…enjoy. As for belts, brown before 6 and after that black – I wear a reversible two tone belt like James Bond.

The goal in this set up is to keep that tension between formality and smart casual. A tie in my opinion ruins the whole theme of smart causal sophistication – if you want to add a dash of savoir faire, a cravat and pocket square or even a Montecristi is good to go…more than that and it gets too heavy risking a disconnected or disproportionate look.

A very dark jacket and a very light pair of trousers can make one look unreasonably top-heavy. A good way to fix this is by paying attention to the cut of the jacket – a shorter jacket with more open quarters will alleviate and modernise the look.

Shoes. I will be frank. I love brogues. Nothing would give me the keenest pleasure to wear them all the time. But it doesn’t nearly go as well with this set up – I recommend single buckle monk strap shoes in polished leather – J M Weston. I much prefer French and Italian to British as they are thinned soled and they make a very pleasant pattering sound against marble. With sturdy brogues when you’re dancing it sounds as it you’re knocking two coconut shells like crazy and that makes you come across like a demented donkey. Do that and the good stuff will again never come your way!

I cut to the chase….sometimes when you want to make a significant social connection…you only get one chance. So the gold standard is one shot, one kill…you don’t want to do stupid things like let’s play twenty questions while you suffer cancer of wallet for the next six million dates and still end up nowhere…it’s got to be shock and awe…veni, vedi, Vinci ….minimal down time…highly efficient like a commando mission….it’s in the NTUC bag in twenty seconds flat…that’s the gold standard – sweep her off her feet! This is where shoes are strategic!…only J M Weston can fulfill that operational criteria…nothing else comes close!

Chestnut or oxblood is good to go…stay well clear from black or people will think you just attended a funeral wake and have no sense of occasion – only insurance salesmen, funeral parlor workers, policeman, estate agents wear and very lowly educated folk black shoes.

Keep it very sharp inside and out and dress to kill! Remember you are on a mission…failure is not an option!

(The art of manliness series is sponsored by both the Interspacing Mercantile Guild and the Interspacing Metal Exchange Guild of the Brotherhood 2016)

Kids in Singapore should wear boxing gloves to school

That way they cannot possibly be accused of brushing against the bottoms of female teachers. To compliment this anti sexual harassment drive that has reached pandemic levels (real or imagined) MOE should consider it mandatory for all female teachers to don somber color industrial curtains from head to toe and revise the female teacher curriculum to include a three month stint on how to teach without banging into furniture and falling into drains while wearing curtains in Saudi Arabia – where they have to get a distinction on that module to graduate. All schools in Singapore should also be gender segregated where girl schools are only staffed by ONLY female teachers or possibly eunuchs and male schools are only staffed by male ONLY teachers. For added security against sexual harassment. All girls schools should be surrounded by a moat filled with piranhas and an outer wall fence patrol by ball seeking Doberman guard dogs. While we are at it, we should also have gender segregated rail carriages. All Singaporean men with the possible exception of homosexuals must display a sexual meter on their head that is connected to an app slaved to their smart phone that is linked to the nearest police station – in an event of an unauthorized or highly suspicious erection that does not include building structures, signage, masonry, ladders or scaffolding and only unmentionable organic body parts, the said offender who is always presumed to be guilty first must report to block 7 of IMH for interrogation within two hours. Failure to comply will result in the summary surgical removal of one testicle which will be pickled and displayed in the Padang for a full week p with a caption and photograph of the said offender entitled, ‘lercher’ This will do away with the need to despatch two fuel guzzling cars and save on human resources and the need to print T shirts thereby lowering Singapore’s carbon foot print significantly.

Better still ask PUB to add anti arousal chemicals into the water supply and all our social ills will disappear like lemon drops….or maybe we should all be reasonable and not overact and make effort to see things in the correct perspective.

Stupid people will always think and do stupid things!…there is no cure lah!

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‘Why do men gawk at women? The short answer is because we are men lah – hello! it pays out zero to be coy about it. As it’s the most natural human impulse known to nature and at a primal level of perpetuating the homo sapien species. I can even argue that it’s hardwired into our very DNA because each time a man sees a sexually attractive woman our brain rewards us with a chemical high. It may just a two chili ripple of a high compared to a shot of heroine, but it’s still enjoyable and addictive.

This natural reward system is the alpha and omega of why men look at women. The same applies to women as well…they are hardwired just the same way. Though they do a better job of hiding that they’re sexually aroused by crossing their legs tightly etc etc…if you want proof…I can supply it. But that is another story I don’t want to get into by virtue of the law of defamation. So the end.

Back to the point. To exacerbate matters the marketing manifesto carpet bombs the already sexually frustrated man by titilating no end with streams of scantily clad women inorder to sell everything from cars to Bak Kuah. As a consequence of this unrelenting panoptical psychoing wonder no more so many men have developed a regular “habit” of looking at other women. This habit can become so ingrained that staring at a women becomes like a natural reflex and one that men feel they have very little control over.

Unfortunately, what is sorely missing from the narrative whenever we discuss sexual harassment is the culpability of women in piquing the sexual of interest of men – they dress provocatively in certain cases with their tits flopping out sans a la pasar malam style. Yet for some inexplicable reason remain skittish or are quick to take offense whenever men lavish attention on them – that whole idea to me smacks of double standards and can at best be described as an immature desire to set men out for the fall i.e to cut the cake and eat it at the same time. What beggars the imagination is while one on hand these schizophernic women continue to insist they have every right to dress provocatively but yet they see nothing contradictory in harboring a frigid and prurient attitude towards sex. What about my elemental right to enjoy a glass of red cellared wine without the distraction of tits and asses flopping all over the place…how might my rights as a man be protected against endless suggestions of the illicit thrill of sex? I mean if I unzipped my fly and flopped out my black mamba…or maybe anaconda and asked the girl next to me, ‘excuse me…but do you want some of this?’ No one would bat an eyelid if men in white coats came around and packed me off to block 7 of IMH…but if a woman dresses provocatively with her body parts exposed why don’t I have the same rights to prosecute on the idea my elemental rights as a man has been appropriated! That my personal space has been breached and that constitutes an invasion of my privacy! She is bloody disturbing me! Why can’t I dial 911. Why can’t I demand for a royal commission of inquiry to look into the proposition of demanding that all women in Singapore go around in curtains. After all don’t I have a right as a man to enjoy my red wine in a public place in peace?

Do you now see how hypocritical society is – and how a man, not even a decent one can ever win when so much weightage is place in favor of the woman.

That’s why every Singaporean man should always carry around a laminated card in his pocket that reads, ‘Please remain calm…I have absolutely no intention to fuck you!’ Through the years I’ve found this magic card to be the especially useful in managing myself and psychotic women who think that every man is out to climb down their panties – when things get too nutty, I just hand it over to her when she realizes all we want is for her to cover herself with to do is cover herself with curtains….suddenly the world stops spinning. Experience informs me, having a frank attitude to sex even if it happens to be brutally frank to the point of coming across as rude is far healthier than our sniggering skittish obsessiveness with sex.’

The art of manliness -wisdom

During my last visit to the city. At the tail end of a formal function. A burly man came up to me and intoned in a loud and aggressive tone, ‘I don’t like the way you look!’

I smiled dryly leaned close to him and whispered, ‘Listen to the sound of my voice…calm down and use your…consider this..you know absolutely nothing about me. That’s to say, you have absolutely no idea what I do for a living, what’s my nett worth or for that matter even whether this might all end happily…now use your mentality specifically your judgement. Remember I am on your side…everyone is looking at us. I am sorry to say this, but if you don’t like me, that’s your insecurity and immaturity talking…You see I don’t believe it’s the REAL you…that’s why I am trying my very best to save you….am I crystal?’

The man features soften almost immediately and soon he regained his composure. That was when I told him, ‘now I want you to do yourself a favor. Because everyone here is eyeballing us like we are like two cowboys facing off at high noon. Remember you have just created a scene here. Listen to the sound of my voice…shake my hand. There you go….that wasn’t so bad was it? Now we are both going to do something together – we are going to smile and laugh out loud like it was all a private joke.’

The man did exactly what I told him. Before I walked right out of the door – I turned to the crowd and exclaim, ‘all is well folks, we just wanted to bring some excitement to the party…it’s after all the year of the monkey wot!’

The rest of the guest burst out in rapturous laughter with some talking heads exclaiming…you got us there! A knot of plantation ladies even whispered amongst themselves, ‘for a moment, I thought that was real.’

I flashed them all a look of intrigue and disappeared into the night.

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‘I will speak plainly. The art of manliness is not about the business of stuffing straw to fashion scarecrows, it’s a dying craft to steel character in men – that’s to say, you can be the most well dressed man in a room, but it counts for absolutely zero – if you don’t bother to polish your character and intellect to be the very best it was meant to be.

I understand….by this I mean, these days, men no longer see any mileage in investing either the time or effort in thinking deeply about the whole idea of developing their character any longer.

I don’t mean they’re not interested in improving their lot, sure they are – they gym out regularly, chug down their protein shakes, dab moisturizer before they hit the sack, take diligently to evening course to get to the next level of life…they certainly do all that.

But you know what? Deep down. The vast majority of men today still feel inexplicably restless, unfulfilled and empty.

A big reason for this malaise is because these men are all seeking the things a sick and dysfunctional society tells them will heal their man spirit: like they need to be someone else besides themselves to gain acceptance, prestige and respectability. And yet many men find no relief.

Why? In my opinion – they’re all skipping out on perhaps the most crucial element that they should first and foremost develop – their character.

In the old days, when it was socially de riguer for gentlemen to regularly wear swords or carry firearms openly and the gentle art of dueling was still alive – paradoxically polite society was a much more civilized and convivial affair where men could very well embody the duality of being the rugged individual and still be a peka gentlemen.

Unfortunately, these days despite modern man boasting about his new age of emancipation. Most men these days are thoroughly confused about that species of men who once walked the earth – the gentleman.

To the post modernist man, this idea of the classical gentlemen is at best an abstraction that’s so embellished by blurring the lines of gender, roles and society’s expectation, that we even have the half male and woman man called the metrosexual – as a consequence of this chelating on what a gentlemen should be today. It’s no surprise these days, the age of the hybrid man cum woman has emerged and is even seen as desirable in our diseased age – the old school gentlemen on the other hand is today an old hat passé relic – today the classical gentlemen sits on the sissy end of the manliness spectrum, opposite that of the confused man who frowns on all aspects of manner manly expressions and endeavors.

Yet the paradox is our forebears understood that there was no contradiction in being ruggedly manly and a refined gentleman. The man who will always stick his neck out to right the wrongs of this world, even when it threatens his existence and survival.

A man who derives immense pride and satisfaction from the whole idea of dignity of labor and is skilled in the manly arts – like how to fix things around his house or to strip an engine right down to it’s chassis and is even prepared to get right down dirty and sweaty. A man who treats women with respect and honor. Serves and gives back to his community. Sacrifices for the common good. Indifferent to governments and much prefers to rely on the power of sinews to alter his fate line and seldom ever complains.

He never complains…not even when it hurts…sucks it all in and just goes right on like…that’s character.

A man of letters who embodies both the rigor of intellect and tender compassion. Has a confident swagger but isn’t a pretentious obnoxious parvenu. Is witty and diabolically well read without succumbing to the insecurity of sarcasm. Embraces instead of shirks responsibility. Confronts the controversial head on instead of sweeping it beneath the carpet and hoping that it will all go away magically or that no one is smart enough to notice his deviousness.

Many years ago, most men had very little trouble learning the ropes of manhood and they displayed and they encounter even less social resistance exemplifying many of the noble qualities that I have seen fit to highlight – this kind of honorable pride that can only be derived from a mastery of all things manliness.

But something conspiratorial happened in the last thirty or so years to cause these positive manly virtues and skills to disappear from the current generations of men. Men who would much prefer to see the world clearly without any embellishments were banished away as parochial, insular and old fashioned – like the ancient order of the Jedi and Templar knights, they were hunted down, emasculated by the mind dumbing juggernaut of the bone crushing machinery of the automata. The narrative was restricted by merchants of convenience to even make these real men feel shameful of their honesty to call a spade a spade. Fathers ceased passing on the art of manliness to their sons. Mothers no longer saw the need to teach their daughters on the what to expect from a real man. The brotherhood of man is seen as insidious, suspicious and regarded as something to be discouraged and hence our understanding of what a man should be these days is riven with so much anxiety, nervous energy and falsity, it’s no wonder, in our age we see absolutely no value in assigning any single set of timeless roles and virtues to the idea of the man….for in our age…man is well and truly lost and what has instead taken it’s place is a vicious, unprincipled, greedy poor excuse of a hollow man who delights in the cunningness of his deviousness to which such a lowly creature would have absolutely no hesitation in shooting a man squarely behind the back.

Yes I do most certainly rue the passing of the age of dueling, when honor meant more than just a membership into a clique of self serving cunning parvenus – if there was ever any promise of redemption for mankind in that tumult when real men faced off against each other in a foggy morn bearing flintlocks in some forest clearing – it was the very the idea what separate him from banishment was his preparedness to defend his name with the quality of his moral fiber….and to accomplish that feat character would have been the very raw material needed…to take precisely six steps, turn wait for the flint to strike the pan and ignite the powder that would send the ball barreling to kill a man…at least in that bygone age. A man had to at least fulfill the basic duty to actually look honestly at his handiwork….these days in an age when everyone delights in twisting, exaggerating and embellishing truths to serve their specious ends – all you really have are opportunist carpetbaggers scuttling in the dark like feral rats, which we are contend to all call men!

This is the age we live in gentlemen!….it is what it is!’

The art of manliness – pink

It’s regrettable most men these days shy away from pink. I will not mince my words – the only reason why men harbor reservations concerning the color pink is because they fear their masculinity will be questioned. This is perfectly understandable as the color pink has been hijacked by the homosexual movement to serve their specious ends.

Having given you the low down. Now the high points – pink is perhaps the only effective color that can soften the image of a man without him having to do anything….it’s a free ride at a cost of a shirt..it’s an automatic subliminal suggestion on the cheap…it’s psychological warfare – that’s how effective pink is as a mood influencer – sometimes that’s exactly what you need in business as projecting a cold and metallic Darth Vader image all the time doesn’t always work.

Wearing pink suggest you’re a new age sort of bloke (not that I know what that actually is). Someone thoughtful about people and planet who actually cares enough to keep his carbon footprint to the minimum (never mind the occasional open burning). Someone who can empathize and be there…sometimes you need that imagery just to get to the next level of the game lah!

Having said that, let’s put it all in perspective I wouldn’t exactly recommend pink for hostage negotiations or to discuss terms of surrender with isis – but I do find that when pink is worn tactically (on the right occasion) and deliberately (with a mission orientated focus) it can certainly have the effect of lowering the defenses of the other side considerably along with setting a very convivial mood, since no ever suspects you are actually in combat mode when you’re wearing pink.

The question is how does a gentlemen wear pink without blowing up in his face and causing a right mess? How can he maximize on the tactical aspects of mind bending pink to turn it into a competitive advantage.

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‘The question is why would any man wear pink? The short answer is pink is the oldest and cheapest and most effective wonder weapon known to mankind, it’s like the Klingon ‘cloaking device’ in Star Trek, that’s to say the color pink has a tactical psychological dimension in being able to not only camouflage one’s motives but to also take off the rough and brusqueness in one’s character to remake you!

Pink is a great color if you want to bully and intimidate someone without coming across as a bully and unreasonable person.

It’s also fantastic if the police knocks on your door at three in the morning to ask for your assistance concerning a murder investigation.

Personally I find that whenever I have to play the victim when I am actually the aggressor and no one believes me, then nothing beats the auto suggestive alibi of wearing a pink shirt….it’s very simple…I just shout out, I am innocent! Then a pause ensues and my large liquid brown eyes well up with the tears and the pink shirt does the rest…I am off the hook! The greatest get out jail card on the cheap in the world…can cruise pass ‘go’ and collect $200 some more!

To sum it all, it’s a color that’s able to lend one a benign, approachable and playful patina. That’s why all dictators, psychopaths and evil people are seriously leveraging on the strategic value of pink…they’re all heavily invested in the color pink – Idi Amin had a habit of wearing pink socks and cravettes, the shah of a Iran always rocked his pink pocket accenture square when the subject of the dreaded Savak cropped up, Sadam Hussein commissioned fifty pink Montecristi’s, Robert Mugabe has 106 shades of pink shirts, Adolf Hitler wore pink slippers when he ambled around the Berghoff…I rest my case.

For me full frontal pink is way too direct and strong – I would not recommend it. Not at all. if you do that. It’s just as good as painting a bull eyes on your ass for every gay man to hit on you! It’s no good.

The way to wear pink:

(1) Never go for just a full frontal pink shirt. The bloody color is like plutonium…a little goes a very long way – break it up with the orthodox symmetry of white or maroon stripes, that way you’re able the harmonize the fairy and alpha male effect – that way no one will ever mistake you as an emissary or special envoy of bum buddies club.

(2) Try not to wear a tie with a pink shirt or even a suit. As the color pink is already a very visually dominant color by itself and the last thing you want to do is to trigger migraine attacks by jumbling it with other strong colors. Keep it simple. Keep it as the Italians say una Bella figura – top button undone. Smart casual.

(3) To project a certain formality and business attitude when carrying pink, make it a point to wear cuff links. The contrast between hard and soft works best in that combination – that way you come across as assured of your masculinity and not skittish about being labelled a closet gay. Never roll up your sleeves, you will come across as playboyish and too playful, that subtracts completely from that purposefulness yet approachable image that you want to always project. Remember you are only wearing it to accomplish a mission!

(4) Never wear pink with black shoes, people will end up mistaking you for a faded out traffic cone or an ice cream man. Pink will really only go with chestnut and deep cherry slip on’s. Same goes for slacks, keep it very light – creme, durian, khaki and off greyish white are all good to go.

(5) In a function try to avoid other men wearing pink. Because if other people see both of you together clinking wine glasses, you really can’t blame them if they think you’re both an item and that’s instant two minute hara kiri lah.

(6) Wear pink only in day light hours. Works fabulously for garden luncheons, horse races and the regatta. Just be mindful under certain artificial light some shades of pink emit an eerie glow – you never want that because when everyone sees this, they will probably avoid you as they think you once worked in either Chernobyl or Fukushimaya and again the good stuff will never come your way.

The art of manliness – shoes

Having a nice pair of shoes is never ever optional, if you want to come across as a respectable and serious gentlemen in this world. You need to invest in a good pair of shoes.

Look here! I am not responsible for the rules that govern the game of life – that’s just the way it goes down.

Like or hate it….we all live in a judgmental world where everyone is judging everyone by their appearances, I do it all the time and I am sure that you do too even should you insist that’s not something you regularly do!

Many people like to say the outcome for a job interview is cut and dried within the first ten seconds of you entering the room. I much prefer to be specific and state categorically…it’s decided by the care and attention in your selection of shoes. What that means is your outfit and specifically your shoes plays a disproportional part in that decision making process – I am not saying, your smile, handshake, voice and the way you carry yourself counts for nought…but if there are two equally matched candidates and one is wearing dull loafers while the other is decked out in mirror polished brogues, then the choice is clear as day who bags the job or contract.

I can almost guarantee you that a crappy pair of shoes will be noticed instantly in virtually every significant social setting – which in turn will speak volumes about you! Serious men by nature are quite forgiving when it comes to your wardrobe. They rarely deduct points for that crumpled collar or even loose fitting slacks, but when it comes to shoes it’s an entirely different matter. That’s because for very serious men, it’s socially frown on to dress over the top. But when it comes to shoes, your choice and condition of shoes that you decide to slip into speaks volumes about you. The same goes for women, they’re likely to pay more attention to your shoes than any other aspect of your wardrobe. How do you think, women can read the time from tiny watches…they have a natural eye for details. So if your shoe is out of shape and you look like you’ve just slipped on Ronald McDonald’s clown shoes, it’s going to be uphill lah and the good stuff is really unlikely to come around….take it from me lah!

Besides wearing an elegant pair of shoes is the clearest testament that you respect yourself and above those who you are engaging.

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‘I wear only traditional English gentlemen brogues. These are the equivalent of all terrain Landrover shoes that’s never out of place in either the field or the board room.

They’re dead serious working shoes. They are Good year welted weather resistant and it’s constructed from 100% leather and cork inner linings, no plastic or rubber, just old fashion materials that’s commonly used in the age of sail and candles…they way shoes are traditional supposed to be made in an age when things don’t fall to bits just after you use them a couple of times. None of that buy and throw mass produced Aldo and Hush puppies bullshit that lose their shape in two hours or something really frivolous and distracting with tassels.

These are dead serious shoes…they’re weapons of war like thermo nuclear warheads that scream out that I am dead serious about how I see myself and my vocation. So serious that I even take the trouble to invest in the historical knowledge that goes into my purchase decision and how it might even come across to set the desired impression on my target audience.

So do yourself a life changing favor and consider investing in a pair of high quality Brogues. Because trust me, you always need a pair of Brogues in a your shoe collection.

Neither do you need to spend a fortune on a pair of JM Weston’s or Church. That’s not necessary. If you have the dosh…go ahead.

To me a Brogue is a Brogue! It’s like a T-34…a classic tank shoe..providing it’s Goodyear welted, it’s good to go for a least twenty years with proper care and set of cedar shoe trees. If it’s just a piece of rubber glued on, then it’s a fake Brogue and it’s no good! Don’t buy it…only bear in mind, traditionally constructed Brogues are NEVER comfortable…they’re like stallions, they need to be broken in, but once you run them in – they’re as comfortable as a pair of Adidas.

For example my pair of Brouges cost me S$80. That’s all I am prepared to spend on dress shoes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get build quality. It’s handmade in Calcutta India by craftsmen who used to make shoes for the British army…buy the same Brouges anywhere else and it might cost you ten to fifteen times what I paid for it – you just need to do your research on what’s on offer out there in the world!

We are not talking about prestige, haute couture or the stupid preoccupation of chasing brands – you will never hear me talk about such nonsense here…that’s just dumb – this is about the art of putting your best foot forward and winning, not about getting cancer of the wallet!

Do’s and Don’t with Brogues

– If possible try to get a deep cherry or burgundy full wing tip. As tanned wing tips that veer towards khaki tend to be to showy and often require Mensa color matching skills. Besides they clash with dark business attire and should never be worn in a formal setting.

– Never buy a black Brogue. I know they are sold in that color, but that hardly makes it orthodox – since Brogues are quintessentially country life footwear – they were originally never ever conceived in black and only in fair and dark shades of brown. Only uneducated people who don’t ever bother to read broadly think they look dapper and bespoke wearing black brogues. If you don’t heed my advice…you will be marked down!

– The gold standard for Brogues is the full wing tip with Scotch grain leathering (pebble leathering like mine, very hardy and scratch resistant). This is the most authentic period style that you can possibly find….it’s timeless and it’s versatility in being able to fit across a wide spectrum of social setting makes it the best choice.

– Where to buy, if money is no object, go for J M Weston. They are the Rolls Royce. End of story. Second place is Loake and Barkers – they’re like the Mercedes range for Brogues as they specialize in country life footwear. A budget alternative, but nonetheless surprisingly not too far off the mark is the recently revived from the dead, Clarks Goodyear welted craftsmen range of Brogues….you could get them for less than S$100 and in my considered opinion, they are good to go.

– Learn to take care of leather shoes. Never ever have the bad habit of wearing the same shoes two days in a row. Rotate. Shoes are constructed out of skin, they need to breathe, ventilate and return to their shape. Learn to use an appropriately sized cedar shoe tree to prevent curling, crinkling and going pear shaped. Cultivate the good habit of polishing your shoes before you wear them. If you do this every time it would just take about two minutes.

Why I always write about loneliness

Loneliness I imagine will always be an indelible aspect of frontier living. You could even say it’s climatic and permeates every aspect of my existence.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say loneliness bothers me….it did once…but these days I’ve learnt to come to terms with it thru some measure of personal understanding.

I feared it once. But then when I sat on a rock one day and allowed it’s cold tendrils curl around me….I simply saw thru it for what it is…not as something loathsome and ridden with pain and suffering.

Rather when loneliness fingers into one’s soul and tunnels into one’s very essence of being…that’s when a man really come to terms with who he really is.

I don’t expect anyone can outgrow loneliness completely. If they tell you they can – that’s just code for a deep yearning to live a life free from disappointments. Because that is really how it is with people who prefer to be lonely rather than marinating all of themselves with others….don’t ever believe them, when they tell you – ‘I much rather be alone!’ Truth is they have been hurt and disappointed and they’ve just reached the end of the road and they have all but given on the idea of discovering people who might have the sagacity and perseverance to understand them.

I see this all the time with people who wear their loneliness proudly like lapel pins as if it’s some badge of honor – they walk around in their hermetically sealed bubble world oblivious to what’s going on around them – as if only they’ve got it all figure out and they don’t ever yearn to find someone to fill that empty space inside them.

The worst part is these people are all sublimely clever, intelligent and awfully sensitive – and that should prompt any man to ask – why do they do this to themselves? What compels them to withdraw from the world?

I am not going to pretend to tell you that I have all the answers – I don’t! I guess these lonely people do what they do as they no longer expect to find people who will ever understand them and since it takes so much effort and will power to nourish that lofty expectation – they rather live with out it for fear that nurturing that sort of expectation will only grow into some all consuming disappointment.

So lonely people settle for the second best option…the default position…that I wouldn’t go as far as label as resignation or defeatism – as sooner or later, all lonely souls would reach the realization; the best one can ever do is to understand oneself, to know the four corners of who you are as best you can and not be too bothered about what the rest of the world may think or say about them…..there are no rights or wrongs….that’s just how I see it.’

The middle path

I am not so sure there is such a thing as the secret to happiness….and even if there was really such a thing. I don’t think I want to buy into that life plan.

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t belong to the anti happiness league and I definitely don’t derive any enjoyment from wallowing in sadness – it’s just that when I think deeply about happiness…it’s really quite an unnatural state like perhaps a firecracker rocketing high into the inky dark skies only to explode in a burst of colors and thereafter nothingness…that’s to say happiness as an emotional state will always require a tremendous amount of personal energy to achieve let alone sustain and because of that, it lacks the essential quality of sustainability.

I mean if the whole purpose of life is simply to be happy 24/7 for 365 days, then all governments need to do is add mind bending drugs into the water supply and voila! We would all be happy all the time.

Besides happiness takes you right up there….for a brief moment – you feel euphoric and some say it even has the power to give you wings. But like I said, it’s not sustainable, because at some point even the happiest person has to come right down and when all you ever want to have is happiness – then your default emotional state when you come right down has to be something very close to the opposite of happiness….that to me is the reason why so many people are estranged from happiness.

They’re so addicted to happiness as a concept – they don’t realize it’s elementally an unnatural state of mind that cannot possibly be sustained.

Besides the whole idea of sadness is terribly underrated – the only reason why most people seem to ONLY work consciously towards a happy state of mind is precisely because they’re told time and again…that’s the gold standard of how one should aspire to live. But this outlook discounts the wisdom of sadness completely – sadness, if approached wisely gives a man depth. It layers his character as when a man is sad, he naturally compelled to go inwards to seek answers to many of his questions….and that to me is not such a bad thing.

To me happiness is like a tree reaching up to the heavens and sadness is like the roots burrowing deep into the bosom of the earth – if one observes, they are always proportional.

That’s to say happiness would be quite meaningless without sadness and vice versa. Both required for a man to grow well mentally and spiritually. Both are one of the same reality.

It’s this state of mind in between happiness and sadness…this middle path that most people rarely speak about that I believe is holds the key to contentment – a state of mind where, one’s mind is neither influenced by the narcotic high of happiness or crushing depression of sadness.

As when one is living in only the extremities of these two diametrically opposite emotional polarities – how can one can one even be conscious of the present?

Naturally one can only feel miserable….

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‘It’s an El Niño year. And some days it rains. And when it rains…naturally I jump up and down with happiness. On other days when the sun beats down relentlessly, I am glum and in a foul mood….and it occurred to me just then…only crazy people live this way!

Where their state of mind is constantly sliding from one extreme to another; from a bubbly state like Champagne one moment and lukewarm the next…think about it….that’s not the way mature people go about the living a life!

I am not saying mature people don’t give two hoots whether it rains or when the sun beats down relentlessly threatening to crack the earth – sure they care….but they’re calm…that’s to say they have long since reconciled themselves with what will have to be.

Because when you think about it, you could be happy or sad ten or maybe twenty times a month…but in the final analysis that wouldn’t really change anything at all in the larger scheme of things….as what will be…will simply be!

That’s the constant…the great equalizer…the supreme leveler.’

Ending the vicious cycle

There is a forty something school teacher in my village who is always frigid, nervous and suspicious whenever she finds herself in the company of men. This lady is constantly under the deluded impression every man in this world is out to climb down her panties.

A few months ago, I had to interact with her. As since I give free tuition in Mathematics and English to village kids and no sooner had the meeting started – this lady started her nonsense again with me by eyeballing me suspiciously etc etc. I found her reaction too distracting. So I took her to one side and told her in a very matter a fact tone,

‘I know what I am about to share with you may come across as shocking….but do bear me out…. Are you ready?

I do not want to fuck you. I am just here to do a job.’

Thereafter this lady went on to suggest that I had outraged her decency by using vulgar language, to which I repeated again…

‘I would like to reiterate in the clearest possible terms….I have no intentions whatsoever to fuck you! I just want to finish this meeting and return back to my house to make myself a refreshing Ribena drink and feed my dogs.’

Thereafter this lady began crying and proceeded to give me to two tight slaps (which I have long since developed physical and mental immunity to) ….recently I heard from the villagers after that incident – this lady was much more comfortable around men as she now no longer feels that they are out to screw her…many even say she seems more relaxed and even more beautiful these days.

When I last saw her, this lady even apologized for slapping me. I simply told her, ‘one is always glad to be of service.’

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‘If we are not mindful of our thoughts and actions…then life can only repeat itself again and again like a broken record. And if you care to observe your family members, friends and colleagues and how they react to certain situations – you will see what I mean when I say, life can only repeat itself again and again.

For example I know of a very wealthy landowner who ALWAYS thinks that everyone is out to cheat him. Even if they are thoughtful and considerate, he is contend to only see the negative side – as he puts it, ‘he wants something from me!’

So there is no possible way to win with guy….as everything one does and doesn’t do is always construed in bad faith.

But why has this happened?

It is because this person has allowed bad experiences in his past to color his judgement of people and events to such a degree where he can no longer remain either objective and clear any longer.

And this is what will happen – if we are NOT mindful…. even we can fall into this mind trap without us being conscious of how we continually sabotage over selves. Instead of keeping our mind open to enjoy the field of possibilities that living presents us with.’

The discomfort zone and the frontier man

If you think about it deeply and carefully. There is absolutely no compelling reason for any man to migrate from the comfort zone to the discomfort of the frontier….none whatsoever..well that at least is my humble opinion on the subject of moving out of one’s comfort zone.

I for one don’t ever imagine even the incentive of a better tomorrow would be hard pressed to supply the necessary motivation to propel a man or for that matter any sane man to seek his fortune in the frontier.

If this man decides to go and seek his fortune abroad….to me, he is a man who harbors either a great pain that he secrets from the world or that he has nothing to lose any longer or both…that’s why there is always a certain measure of shared sadness that will always be an indelible feature of that man who we all call the frontier man.

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‘There is certainly an undeniable measure of romanticism associated with the life of the frontier man. That can never be denied. But that aspect of frontierism has to be closer to an imagined myth or perhaps a paper mâché stereotype that the movie business perpetuates just to keep the box office busy.

Truth is a much more mundane business as historically, people really only select to migrate from the comfort to discomfort zone when they believe all bets are off: a reputation in ruins, a bone crushing scandal, unrequited love, disappointment that leads to depression along with thoughts of suicide…..so to me, the choice to seek one’s fortune in the frontier is akin to joining a monastery – it’s an act of renounciation like how desperate men once opted to join the French legion as a last resort to save their sorry souls or to die trying to do so.

There is nothing romantic about it! It’s always laced with tragedy, necessity or just reaching the end of the road!

All frontier men know this deep down inside….they may never admit it or even choose to talk openly about it – but that’s only because society imposes upon them the obligation to be macho and keep a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. Besides beggars can’t be choosers – they can’t. But I guess, nothing prevents them from mythologizing their raison d’être to feel better.

That I imagine could be why when one Singaporean frontier man meets another in the furtherest reaches of civilization where angels fear to thread – they never ever speak about home, family or the past….it’s an unspoken rule in the fraternity of true frontier men – you never ask another or remind him about whence he came from – taboo – no one ever ask, which school did you go to? What unit did you serve in NS? Or do you remember that place in Changi village where there’s a stretch of pine conifers and huge boulders along with…I wonder is it still there…if someone did…everyone pretends that they didn’t hear it and life just goes right on – to paraphrase, no one ever wants to go back to the past in the outreaches of Africa where everyone has stayed so long. They know walking against tall reeds from east to west in December will only shred up your ankles and tights.

The legionnaires in Chad call this attitude of never mentioning the past -‘Zumba.’

‘Zumba’- a play of that other Swahili word, ‘Shum-bah’ means everything begins just like that…there is no past or future sense to speak of….like I said…it just begins from the point of time called ‘there’.

‘There,’ is where the frontier man prefers to see himself alongside the world. ‘There’ is the sanctuary from his unspeakable pain – in the Zumba sense of ‘there’…only the present matters.

And that I imagine is where most men who decide to go to the frontier much prefer to live their averagely miserable lives….for in reality, we are all dammed….just because one doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean all is well, it must means no one ever wants to admit he’s damaged goods or go back to their painful past…he has a past, so do they and especially those who try to make out they’re pure a spring snow…I am no different…we put the best foot forward as best we can..yet beneath all the show. Each knows, he’s condemned to always wander this world as exiles from that very idea called home.

That’s what frontier men never ever talk about….they just don’t…..it’s Zumba!

The unmentionable needs to be said, otherwise many people will just end up hero worshipping a loser….and that’s the unalloyed truth!’