A lengthy tirade
Hi to all. Well, the Os are drawing ever closer, and this week has been an eye opening one for me. I just had a few things I needed to get off my chest.
As we all know, the Os draw ever closer. This means that our stress levels go up. And for what? Seriously. Hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans have gone through this exam. But what does this exam really prove? That we are capable of cramming motherloads of information? I just think that the irony of the Os isnt lost on anyone. In an increasingly "paper" society, this is just a basic piece of paper, the one all must have, and a decent one at that.
In an era where nobody can excel anymore with minimal qualifications, what happens to those who are really not yet that mature enough to understand the importance of a month-long exam period in their lives? Are they supposed to live with the guilt? The consequences are heavy, but in a day and age where no one in society looks highly upon people with low qualifications, the implications are tremendous.
Gone are the old days of yore, when people like Bill Gates could rise to the top despite having little or no qualifications. Now, in order to even qualify for the bottom of the food chain, one must have qualifications which eluded almost everyone in the past. And for what? To feed man's everlasting hunger for success? To give man the satisfaction that he is better than the person standing next to him?
This may sound cliche, but it rings ever true. Do the number of qualifications one have automatically override one's character and moral upbringing? Man is never content with what we have. While this brings a drive and a desire for success, it also brings with it arrogance, greed and power. Power which corrupts the soul. Is it then any wonder, that all over the world, white-collar crimes are on the rise? While the heart would tell you that "I would rather be a nice guy than an asshole who climbs to the top by unscrupulous means", the reality is that nice guys finish last. Society nowadays is so cold that no one bats an eyelid towards heartwarming episodes. People nowadays question all good intentions, believing that all men are born evil, when in fact, it is the world around us who has developed this soul-consuming corruption and obssession with power.
And after the Os, so what? Years and years of studies just to ensure that we don't get left behind by society. And after that, upon emergence in the working world, we get embroiled in a never ending rat race. So what if we win this rat race? The winner of the rat race, is still a rat after all.
Along the road to success, people tend to forsake their ideals, having the mentality that "I'll be good when I succeed". This is the exact thing that the Devil uses to blind our eyes. Man's definition of success is ever-changing. A few generations ago success meant being able to put food on the table. Now, success means having the world at our feet.
All this fighting for material things which can never last forever, in light of recent events both home and abroad, seems really meaningless and pointless. Thaddeus Chong died at the ripe old age of 17, trying to accomplish his definition of success. His dream ultimately cost him his life, but at least he died living his dream. His death raises the point that if you push too hard, sometimes you're bound to fail. When will man wake up? When will society wake up? An aloof society is a far cry from the heartwarming communities often seen in novels. And maybe that's what they are, novelties at best.
How then do we conveniently sit back and allow this to happen? And go "tsk tsk" and wonder what the world has come to when people commit heinous acts? Isn't that a little too late? What's the point of being armchair critics? Society has a sadistic love of seeing people fail, and even more, them failing to get back up again. We love to pour out harsh criticisms when people stumble and fall, hoping that their fall means we climb higher in the food chain.
This has been all over the news, in that Chris Benoit killed his family and then himself, driving people to question and label him as a "monster". People condemn him for doing what he did and then not having the guts to face up to his actions and spend his life behind bars if that's what it meant. Personally, all who know me realise that I watch wrestling, and he was larger than life. He was a hero to me, cos of report after report of his humility outside the squared circle. John Cena says that he was one of those guys we go to war with. Benoit's last acts will forever tarnish his image in my mind. It's hard even now to write of him in the past tense. As a wrestler who went out to put a smile on my face and the thoughts of "how the hell did he just do that" in my mind, he deserved respect from all. How convenient is it now that he's dead, that we question his sanity and lifestyle. Society loves to do this. Even when the person's dead, we can't let him rest in peace, or in Benoit's case, probably rot in hell forever. Comment after comment has been targeted at his character, and how convenient are we to be arm chair critics, sitting at a safe distance to heap and hurl abuse at him and others who stumbled and fell. Yes, steroids he might have taken, but isnt that another example of how people do everything to get to the top, even though it isnt worth it all? Victim of society's unrelenting ability to corner people into making big mistakes? In my mind, yes.
The question remains, that having so many historical lessons to draw experience from, why is it so that we fail to acknowledge the increasing role society plays in trapping people in its bottomless pit? It all starts from a simple exam, which has major consequences on how our life pans out as society deems it.
Is there still hope? There always is. There's always light at the end of the tunnel, a silver lining in every dark cloud. We hold the key to our future. Society can force us into becoming many things and can take away many things, but the one thing it cant take away,is our identity. We can use our identity, unique from person to person, to change how the world looks at it's components. Is that a dreamy ideal? For now, yes. Could it be turned into reality? That's for us to decide.
Alrighty. My lengthy tirade's over. Just needed to blow off some steam before I get my head down and embark on a final spurt for the Os, diving headfirst into the vortex of society, desparately trying to keep my head afloat and trying to hold on to my own sense of identity. I don't expect any other comments from this post, with the exception of the "wah, you very cheem leh" type of comments.
Till the next time, this is Dan signing off.
