The Tributum

The blurring of Moral Sanctity

Last semester, I spent time writing an essay deliberating on how globalization affects Singapore’s national identity and its nation-building policies. While at it, Singapore remains very much a conservative Asian country rooted in her Confucianism values. In recent years, to ensure Singapore continue to see economical fruition, the state went on embracing globalization and foreign talent policies in spite of continual disdain voiced by her citizens. Then again, the irony lies in how Singapore covets so much to become a global cosmopolitan city and yet hopes to cloak herself in that specious conservative shell to preserve purity.

In order to establish a premise of sorts, it is described by many scholars that globalization, as a side effect, breeds decadent and hedonistic lifestyles. And interestingly, I observed this trend somehow manifested in many of her citizens, especially the ones belonging to post-teens and pre-adults categories.

Just for the fun of directing the topic at some specifics, say clubbing for instance. There is no indication whether the indulgence in these nocturnal activities equates to any matter that border on the topic of morality or the lack of; the after effects of intoxication often involve a plethora of less desirable circumstances — drink driving, date rapes, public nuisance, you know the pattern. When asked of a friend, these late night activities provide a platform for their consumers to let their hair down, have fun and care less about their image for one bit.

Meaning to say, during our everyday routines, we strive to upkeep our stolid fronts, untainted with nonsense and buffoonery. And if we are to see a man cavorting to his iPod music on the subway, we are prepared to incarcerate him in Azkaban but we are all right with the cavorting happening along the Clarke Quay on a Wednesday night. And probably because the activity is done in mass, suddenly, it’s trivialized.

There’s a plenty of individuals who pride themselves for having a fantastic upbringing and kudos to their parents, really. For the sake of an example, I have a friend who’s snippy when dealing with masculine approaches that’s overtly lascivious and yet they measure their self-worth against their attendance in clubs.

I don’t believe that everything can be illustrated patently in black and white, it’s often the greys which have the most controversies anyway. Rather, when we offer judgement on people, we tend to take a perspective from the ivory tower — as if it has nothing to do with us. And that puts me off.

We live in a fallen world, and before we start to dictate who’s more right than the other based on our inherited moral values, we should ask ourselves if a modicum of these values in us still exist.

Friends or Connections, really

I am reminded of how important social connections are in the lifestyles we are leading as these connections translates naturally into dollars and cents. The social media which we are consuming in this technological era become a new necessity in our quest for new connections.

When I was reviewing the number of friends which I had made in my freshman and sophomore years in the university, reality hit me really hard. I could recall Weiliang asking me a casual question along this line, “How many friends have you made?” The question came to me as though it came from a supercilious boss from your workplace examining your annual appraisal and lampooning at the pissant results you had had over the years.

So, when the offer came from Weiliang to stay in hall, I was immensely attracted to it, so much so that I felt opportunity emanating from him.

True enough, friend counts from Facebook and follower counts from twitter clearly increase as the days went by, and these figures represent how well-connected you are to the rest of the world. When a particular social medium like Facebook emerged, it became the solution and privilege to many. A solution to rekindle long lost friends and a privilege to know more about others whom you never thought you will ever speak to. And of course for the fun, just to add to the existing resume of friends.

The word Friends began to degrade in its meaning like a candle in the wind, and I could feel the breeze picking up. I’ve sought to remove connections (I can’t bear to use the words friends here) with people I hardly speak to, only to find such connection requests returning. Problem was, when I saw these people face-to-face, there wasn’t a slight inclination for any of us to start a decent conversation; how on earth these people could even be considered as friends?

Friends today no longer require you to know them at a personal level, rather, we become friends instantly right at a mutual click of the mouse button.

I hid my birthday from the profile two weeks before the actual event to prevent them from showing up on friends’ birthday reminders, just for a short experiment. This year, the greetings that derived from Facebook pales in comparison to the year before. And it begins to illustrate two things — that friends become just numbers to you to admire, and a social benchmark you’ve created on the Internet. Also, the convenience of digital reminders ultimately serve to dehumanize us, enabling us to keep important dates like these off our minds.

On a happier note, I observed that those who remembered to sent their well-wishes in spite of missing digital reminders were those who you should really cared for.

The hundreds and thousands are insignificant, just the handful ones will do.

Love Wars: Attacks from her good friend

I woke up to a harangue on my facebook wall yesterday morning. I must say that online disputes are one of those things that pains you in the ass, especially when the raucous one is some under-aged kid. Before you even deliberate on reading further, you must be forewarned that this article contains language and sarcasm which might trigger some form of images resulting in adverse effects. The impacts varies on the readers’ comprehension competence.

It takes a while to regain equanimity I must say.

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