Our branches
What is morality?
It is a set of rules, a guide to life, if you will, manifesting itself like blinders, keeping one on the straight and narrow. And what creates the very foundation, the soil that our core beliefs take root in? Family? Culture? Society? Religion? Specifically; through lessons meted out by law? values taught at home and in school? lessons delivered through religion? And what shapes how our branches grow in various differing ways? It is to a large extent, guided our personal ethos, our own guidebook to life, conclusions we have drawn based on having studied all that was laid out before us from the time we were born.
What then when one’s personal ethos, ever changing, ever evolving, branches twisting, reaching, leaves dying and growing, roots creeping out from under the ground, spreading upwards, falls out of line with that of family, peers and the state?
Do we allow our branches to be pruned, do we allow ourselves to be unearthed, roots crammed back into a pot to be shaped and moulded into uniform shrubbery, back to dotting the idealistic pristine landscape from where we first came? We are a tree! Surely we should be allowed to grow? Surely we are all different?
But the state is powerful, no? They are after all the caregivers, the ones tending to the land.
But landscapes too must change, trees will continue to grow, regardless of the amount of pruning done week after week.
Landscapes will change, will it in this lifetime?
All the space without you in it, is empty.
-iwrotethisforyou
Jo VS the rock
I simply cannot begin to describe the intense childlike wonderment and profound appreciation for mother nature that filled every fibre of my being as I stood in rapture for a solid few minutes staring at, a rock. My little brain could not comprehend what was before my eyes, perfect metallic cubic structures embedded within organic rock, formed, by mother nature herself. I read the little card in front of the rock: Pyrite- Spain.
It confounded me!
I felt as if I was staring at an element from the mystical planet kypton or the like. How did such perfect structures result completely unaided by human intervention/creation? Pure natural creation! From nothing! From the earth! Where did I come from? What did it all mean? I had an existential crisis right there, while standing between rows of glass display cabinets filled with the most wonderfully curated scientific curiosities and taxidermy.
Rock sits on my beside table now, a physical reminder of the beauty and wonder of creation.
PS: Pyrite was found in Wunderkammer a little shop of scientific curiosities artefacts & ephemera. Visit if you are ever in the city, hours of fun, and who knows, you might have a smilar crisis I did right there, between the taxidermized bear and cabinet of rocks.
PPS: The top cube is perfect (ok I measured, don’t judge)! Measuring 2.2×2.2×2.2cm!
Dad and the beanstalk
After years of felling trees, dealing with sawmills and importing and exporting timber, my dad threw in the towel two years ago. Passing on the business to his children was not an option, in a small part because both my brother and I have nary an ounce of business acumen, but a large part due to the increasing laws on responsible logging and the imense difficulty he has been facing with regards to exporting by sea, no thanks to the manufacturing boom in China resulting in exorbitant shipping container rates and lack of containers required to fulfil his orders. Small businesses were/have been hit hard. His 35 years of hard work has put food on the table, clothes on our backs, roofs over our heads and has given us opportunities to educate ourselves, in the hope that we can both carve a place for ourselves in meritocratic Singapore (a system which I have many gripes about, deserving of a separate post).
I digress.
I sat down with him upon his retirement, going through activity options with which to fill his time, apart from golf and bringing my gran to the day care centre for dementia. We whittled this down to two areas: volunteering with a charity and an activity involving flora and fauna. His years of experience in botany has piqued his interest in domestic gardening, since his requirement. Nothing quite as large scaled as the tropical forests he used to trek through, but requiring new knowledge he has to acquire.
My father, the typical chinese businessman, has always had to be waited on hand and foot after a long day at the office. Domestic affairs has always been left to the woman/women, as is the case in most families of my parents’ and grandparents’ generation. This translated to him having to find his footing again after being thrust into the domestic environment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Needless to say, my chinese businessman father was lost in this jungle of grocery shopping, laundry and other ‘mundane’ what have yous, and had to learn how to navigate the hum drum of domestic life, hopefully emerging at the other end, unscathed. I made numerous calls to various organizations, because, my chinese businessman father was not accustomed to picking up the phone and making these sort of calls himself 
No matter, patience is a virtue, one that I will need in large volumes of, in preparation of a life in medicine. Better start early.
There were many. National parks, the museum, the charity home. Short stints, and then nought.
“He’s not ready.” Chimed my brother, ever helpful, serving criticisms hot on a plate from behind his book/computer screen.
We persevered, my dad and I.
Then the most recent stint, by way of a friend’s recommendation, combining the very two areas of interests we had zeroed in on! Hallejuah! Well, not quite a charity, but a healthcare institution, with a vegetable garden! He has been performing marvellously well, and stuck with it even though he was tasked to perform weeding duties for weeks on end when he first began. My mom, who was a little skeptical at the start, reports that he has even been coming home with fresh produce on occasion.
I repotted some new herbs on the weekend, and thought about how proud I am of my boy scout dad, for turning his retirement around, for finding his footing, finding himself. No easy task for any man facing retirement and a life of uncertainty ahead.
2011
“What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land”
-Che Guevara
Non-verbal
There are a only a few personality traits/skills I am actually proud of, and one of them is being able to ‘read’ people’s body language and intonations and from there be able to deduce how they are feeling. A terribly inexact science of course, this so-called picking up on non-verbal cues, but something we are constantly reminded to be aware of during the clinical communication skills (CCS) component in Medicine. I am apparently so good at this non-verbal cue thing that my tutorial group has coined me ‘The CCS princess’ (a title I am not quite sure if I am proud of), after a session in which we had to break bad news to a “patient”, telling him about his infertility.
Anyway…
This trait can however manifest itself negatively, as oversensitivity. It is a fine balance, having this skill to pick up on emotions and addressing them positively, placing aside one’s prejudices and assumptions. The worst combination I feel, is oversensitivity coupled with a low-self esteem, which will inevitably produce a rather unpleasant entity. Scary entity.
I digress.
The thing is, there are some people in my life, that I cannot read. Zip. Nadah. Zilch. And it frustrates me to no end. I do wonder why that is. I mean, this CCS princess can even read strangers from the word go, and yet, there are some people, after years and years, I still find it difficult to figure out what is really weighing on their heart and mind. Clever, these beings are in masking their true feelings, they would make excellent doctors.
I do wonder why it frustrates me so. I suppose it is this inherent need to always want to remedy everything in my life, to, if it is within my power, make people feel better, be the soothing balm to their troubles, to solve problems, to be president of the world (kiss my ring)!
Ah well, can’t win them all.
Anyway, useless ruminations. Back to work.
Where Children Sleep
I have found the perfect christmas gift for all my nephews, nieces and friends’ kids.
Where Children Sleep by the brilliant James Mollison
What a beautiful tool as a point of discussion to teach kids not only about inequality, but cultures, occupations, the concept of humanitarian aid etc. This has got to be the best book I have come across this year.
Images as posted on ReflectionOf.Me (A wonderful blog on design, advertising and the odd journalistic post).
Never let me go
The film adaptation of Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro looks like a compelling watch.
“None of you will do anything except live the life that has already been set out for you.”
A predetermined course in life, although in this case one that is of a futile existence, how splendid. Not to have choice, to live as you are told, to live for a purpose.
Disconnect to Connect
By way of Mr.Brown
Lovely ad, and a good reminder that life is transient, connect with those around you today.
Evolution
Came across an entry from 2004:
“Contemplating.
Meditating.
I close my eyes.
How many hours has it been since I constructed my nihilistic army?
Admist my pillow wonderland of annihilation.
The annihilation of dreams that were.”
Dark days. And what a different person I was back then. Even the manner in which I wrote my entries, lots of swearing, lots of angry words, a lot more of an open book, a lot more concerned with trivialities. Interesting to see, through changes in subject matter and writing style in past blog posts, how life has evolved, .
It was part of who I was/am and a necessary phase to get to this point.
