Just imagine this for a moment. You're standing at a bus stop as the bus you're waiting for approaches. You board the bus, pay your bus fare and walk in to find your seat. Then suddenly you notice a guy casually doing a handstand against the side of the bus with the most deadpan look on his face. What are your most immediate thoughts of the person?
Some of the more open people would probably just think 'Cool' and move on with their lives without anything more than an impressed eyebrow raise. The slightly less open people may probably think 'Okay...', look confused for a moment but still continue on their path to find their seat without any negative impression of said person.
Now we look at people who are even less open and that is where things start getting ugly. Thoughts like 'freak', 'retard', 'crazy person' and maybe even 'mental hospital escapee' start popping up. Muttering "siao" not-so-under their breath or even blatantly just shouting it the person. Making terrible jokes about the person, thinking they're out of hearing range when really they are. And then suddenly, just because he's doing a handstand in a public bus, he becomes a bad person. It may not be entirely obvious but he has just labelled and socially outcasted just because he stood out.
I'd pose a question to everyone. What exactly is wrong with being weird, being different? I'll qualify my question a little bit. People who are weird in the sense that they hit on random people, invade people's personal space and stuff like that, those examples I concede are cases where it's wrong to be that weird but by no means can we pigeonhole ALL weird people with the above cases of weird people. Just because weird people are a little more difficult to understand doesn't automatically make all weird people closet perverts and axe murderers.
Now why exactly am I defending weird people? Well for starters I'd be lying terrible if I said that I wasn't the least bit weird but the biggest reason why I defend weird people is because they are often times the most interesting group of people I know. Weird people tend to have more character depth than conforming individuals who just end up being carbon copies of the next guy. I mean, the last adjective you would use to describe a weird person is boring. Take the time to talk to a 'weird' person and leave your mind wide open and you'd know this too.
I'll take an example of a conversation I had about doomsday. My friend said that if humanity was about to go extinct (for argument's sake we said that this was a confirmed issue), she'd want to quickly kill herself before everyone else died so that when she went to Hell (and face it, most of us probably will too) she'd be able to better picks on things like land and accommodation. Furthermore, she'd be able to hoard goods at cheap prices since supply would great outnumber demand and possibly make a killing by selling her hoarded goods back to the rest of mankind once doomsday hits. Now do I agree with anything she said? To be honest not really. Did I find it the least bit logical? If I accepted the wild premise that Heaven and Hell are just extensions of the real world, then her logic is technically sound. Then again, I never did accept her premise so by extension, I didn't accept her logic either. Did I find that doomsday discussion interesting? Heck yeah.
And that is why I like mingling with 'weird' people. I suppose all I wanted to say is that we should just have a more open mind to different people and take life a little less critically when we don't need to be critical. We're all human and we all have limits to our comfort zones but open up your comfort zones a little bit and you might just let in a brilliant new way to see the world you thought you knew.
OPINIONS ONLINE: Because that's what blogs are
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Confessions of a Sai Kang Warrior
(Pre-blog note: For those who don't speak Hokkien well/at all, 'sai kang' roughly translates to 'shit work' and is usually used to represent menial tasks or simply work that no one wants to do)
In my last post, I talked about one aspect of myself (being hyper) so I thought I'd use this opportunity to talk about another aspect of myself, being 'on'. A brief history lesson now, prior to coming to Singapore a few years ago I was pretty comfortable with drifting through life but the moment I came to Singapore I decided that I would turn over a new leaf to mark this new beginning. Thus, I hopped from the drifting end of the involvement spectrum all the way to the to the hyper involved end.
From my first year in Singapore all the back in Secondary 3 till now, I have volunteered/ran for/self-nominated myself for every committee position/key role/responsibility that I could get my hands on.
Trivia-break. Back in secondary school, my classmates nicknamed me 'Nitro' which was the result of some twisted train of logic which somehow went like 'enthusiatic --> enthu --> N2 --> Nitro' (surprisingly the name still managed to somehow capture the essence of who I was/am).
Anyhow, fastforward to present time. I'm currently in 4 clubs (one of which I currently president of >.<) and the dance choreographer for SoC's Rag Dance (Rag is sorta like a Chingay type parade, it'll take too long to explain in full). I'll be totally honest with you guys, never once have I wanted to run for the sake of filling my CV (though it does feel good when I look at my CV and say "Damn, it did a lot of shit"). I mean, it's kinda like working for the sake of the money, after a while you're just going to end up jaded and start hating your job. And that is why I've told myself that I'm doing all these jobs because I want to. That way I always have the resolve to see my work through.
I've come to the realisation that I'm sort of like a shark. A shark has to constantly swim in order to survive, much like myself. I constantly need to be doing something or else I start rotting. It's either I'm full out doing something or I'm full out nua-ing (like a tofu). I can't quite tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I have yet to find a middle gear between the two.
After all these years of being a sai kang warrior, I've discovered yet another rather important perk about being a sai kang warrior. I found out that the pre-working environment is the perfect place for all trial-and-error experiments regarding any responsibility-related. It's the perfect sandbox where we are allowed to screw up with (relatively) minimal repercussions. It's nearly impossible to not screw up the first time we do anything so why not try while the cost of trying is still small?
I'll end this blogpost with a thought that I was once told:-
Never call your work sai kang because if you call it sai kang, you're only degrading the work that you are doing. There is no such thing as sai kang because any work you do, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is still important - Patrick Loo
In my last post, I talked about one aspect of myself (being hyper) so I thought I'd use this opportunity to talk about another aspect of myself, being 'on'. A brief history lesson now, prior to coming to Singapore a few years ago I was pretty comfortable with drifting through life but the moment I came to Singapore I decided that I would turn over a new leaf to mark this new beginning. Thus, I hopped from the drifting end of the involvement spectrum all the way to the to the hyper involved end.
From my first year in Singapore all the back in Secondary 3 till now, I have volunteered/ran for/self-nominated myself for every committee position/key role/responsibility that I could get my hands on.
Trivia-break. Back in secondary school, my classmates nicknamed me 'Nitro' which was the result of some twisted train of logic which somehow went like 'enthusiatic --> enthu --> N2 --> Nitro' (surprisingly the name still managed to somehow capture the essence of who I was/am).
Anyhow, fastforward to present time. I'm currently in 4 clubs (one of which I currently president of >.<) and the dance choreographer for SoC's Rag Dance (Rag is sorta like a Chingay type parade, it'll take too long to explain in full). I'll be totally honest with you guys, never once have I wanted to run for the sake of filling my CV (though it does feel good when I look at my CV and say "Damn, it did a lot of shit"). I mean, it's kinda like working for the sake of the money, after a while you're just going to end up jaded and start hating your job. And that is why I've told myself that I'm doing all these jobs because I want to. That way I always have the resolve to see my work through.
I've come to the realisation that I'm sort of like a shark. A shark has to constantly swim in order to survive, much like myself. I constantly need to be doing something or else I start rotting. It's either I'm full out doing something or I'm full out nua-ing (like a tofu). I can't quite tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I have yet to find a middle gear between the two.
After all these years of being a sai kang warrior, I've discovered yet another rather important perk about being a sai kang warrior. I found out that the pre-working environment is the perfect place for all trial-and-error experiments regarding any responsibility-related. It's the perfect sandbox where we are allowed to screw up with (relatively) minimal repercussions. It's nearly impossible to not screw up the first time we do anything so why not try while the cost of trying is still small?
I'll end this blogpost with a thought that I was once told:-
Never call your work sai kang because if you call it sai kang, you're only degrading the work that you are doing. There is no such thing as sai kang because any work you do, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is still important - Patrick Loo
Friday, 17 June 2011
A Keen Sense of Insanity
Greetings poor Mr. Blog. I'm sorry I haven't been visiting you very often. I have been, still is and will be very busy with Rag Dance but I'll try to come around as and when I can okay?
Never mind that. I digress...
Back to the subject title. Recently I just came back from a 4D4N stayover camp better known as the School of Computing Freshman Orientation Camp (SoC FOC). I think the name of the camp best speaks for itself what the camp was about. My role in the camp was supposed to be that of a fake freshie but my cover was very quickly (albeit unintentionally) blown by one of my orientation group's (OG) group leaders (GL) so I ended up being my OG's fake GL/mascot for the rest of the camp.
Now anyone who knows me well enough will know that I'm a hyperactive bunny when I'm in camp mode. I figured myself to be a rather animated person under normal circumstances so being in camp mode just exaggerates the crazy person that I already am. This behaviour stems from one of my many life philosophies. I believe in creating moments regardless of the personal social costs. To rephrase that, I'm the type of person who doesn't really care if people are laughing with me or laughing at me, just so long as they are genuinely laughing, like being a jester of sorts. It's a whole lot easier to keep people hyped and keep their morale up when you have a hyperactive crazy dude prodding them from behind. That and generally people are more inclined to have fun at the same time.
Which now brings me to the final point of this blogpost. I think being slightly hyper is an important trait to have yet I don't think I'm wrong to say that most people shun it. Granted, there are a great many situations which call for utmost seriousness but that doesn't mean that ludicrousness has no place in our society. Maybe it's in our Asian blood to be conservative and all but I swear, sometimes we are just too quick to reject anything that either stands out or is simply out of the ordinary.
Nevertheless, I suppose I would be asking for too much if I wished that everyone be a little more hyper and I will also concede that not all people are cut out to be hyper. So that being said, I think I'll just have to contend with being one of the few crazy people around to light up people's days for now, for better or for worse =D
Never mind that. I digress...
Back to the subject title. Recently I just came back from a 4D4N stayover camp better known as the School of Computing Freshman Orientation Camp (SoC FOC). I think the name of the camp best speaks for itself what the camp was about. My role in the camp was supposed to be that of a fake freshie but my cover was very quickly (albeit unintentionally) blown by one of my orientation group's (OG) group leaders (GL) so I ended up being my OG's fake GL/mascot for the rest of the camp.
Now anyone who knows me well enough will know that I'm a hyperactive bunny when I'm in camp mode. I figured myself to be a rather animated person under normal circumstances so being in camp mode just exaggerates the crazy person that I already am. This behaviour stems from one of my many life philosophies. I believe in creating moments regardless of the personal social costs. To rephrase that, I'm the type of person who doesn't really care if people are laughing with me or laughing at me, just so long as they are genuinely laughing, like being a jester of sorts. It's a whole lot easier to keep people hyped and keep their morale up when you have a hyperactive crazy dude prodding them from behind. That and generally people are more inclined to have fun at the same time.
Which now brings me to the final point of this blogpost. I think being slightly hyper is an important trait to have yet I don't think I'm wrong to say that most people shun it. Granted, there are a great many situations which call for utmost seriousness but that doesn't mean that ludicrousness has no place in our society. Maybe it's in our Asian blood to be conservative and all but I swear, sometimes we are just too quick to reject anything that either stands out or is simply out of the ordinary.
Nevertheless, I suppose I would be asking for too much if I wished that everyone be a little more hyper and I will also concede that not all people are cut out to be hyper. So that being said, I think I'll just have to contend with being one of the few crazy people around to light up people's days for now, for better or for worse =D
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