not gonna leave it until it's much too late

so after 2 days of a programme which has the primary function (i honestly believe) of reducing the idealism within most of the participants, i feel strangely unaffected. perhaps it is simply a belief that things will be over soon, that what is happening is an anomaly that is tolerated out of respect for the rules of the game. the game. how odd that everything seems to fall under that broad, amorphous umbrella.

perhaps i have mellowed. there is nothing particularly cynical about saying the above because i express it without any form of resentment. at this point we are way past that already. call it going through the motions if you will. every year, they bring together a bunch of people who think they will somehow chart the course of the machine when in fact they will all end up as cogs. the machine is awe-inspiring. the system of government that we have is breathtaking in its efficiency, perhaps brutally so. who am i, who is so much a product of this system (like i've said so often), to curse the fact that this machine is not like another, when the machine has given me so much already?

people would say that there is always room for improvement. if that isn't a truism then i don't know what is. the problem with truisms is that they are utterly worthless. it is so patently obvious that most people feel as if disagreeing is an ends in itself, that it is in some way productive. it's so easy to ask questions that have no clear answer, to stump the person on stage. but what does that achieve? listen, learn, collaborate. 3 things that so many people find impossible to do.

to digress: i hate those who call themselves patriots. because those people use it as an excuse to argue against the very things which has made this country. i don't believe i am a patriot, because my love for the country is very much tied to a selfish love for myself. i want this country to survive and thrive because i want myself to survive and thrive. call me old-fashioned. i mean, isn't everyone rushing to move off this island to a so-called freer and better place? how idealistic of us in thinking that life outside is always better? that it is the west which has the best ideas, or japan which is the most creative, or whatever else. isn't it ironic how this attitude is so very singaporean in itself? that the very impulse which compels people to escape from singapore is in itself very singaporean?

there is something attractive about the american brand of patriotism. if nothing else, i think they got that right. patriotism is believing so firmly in your own country's path to be almost foolhardy. it's not about labels like 'quitters' or 'stayers', because they are almost inherent unnecessary. you are american or you are not. singapore is too stratified that way, too many divisions engendering too many contradictions.

how do we solve this problem, when the very scholars we have identified are cynical in such a unproductive way. we breed far too much arrogance, far too much self-believe to operate in the real world. everyone's being asked to look in so many different directions that we all come back with a warped sense of what life is like, when in fact life is merely life and nothing else. that there is no theory, no right answer and no one person who can answer the questions?

every day i am humbled by how little i know. i wish other people would feel the same instead of trying so hard to prove they are right.