Hope

Every year, at around this time, I have thoughts about my own mortality.
Every year, without fail, someone somewhere out there will try his very best to kill me. I do not know who he is, nor who he will be, the next year and the year after that.
Each year, I hope beyond all hope that it will not happen again, but I know better.

And it's not only me, it's my entire family who's involved as well.

I'm referring to CNY driving on Singapore roads.

*

Hope is really a topic best left unexplained - almost everyone knows what it is. It's the quality that makes the events of each day worth living. And it drives the search for meaning.

But for some, each day is "more of the same", and little brightens it.

Part of social work requires the rebuilding of hope. And it has to be the person's own reframing of his situation, and enlightenment about his support networks and habits of self-care, that allow hope to regenerate. No one else can do those for him. No one else can take those steps for him. He has to find within himself the emotion to change.

Often the way is obvious, even to the person.

This bears repeating. Often the way is obvious. But what makes him take it, is an emotion. It may be ratified by post hoc justification, or it may not. That does not much matter.

If I were to advise CNY drivers to be more careful, I could do it till I was blue in the face, and I would still have to drive as defensively as always. Because not everyone would see. Not everyone would see the need to not hurt, not kill, and not threaten to take by force another's life, simply because they are lost on the roads, or impatient, or, good grief, drunk.

Please. Do it. Feel it.

CD's Priorities, and Reflections on Writing

My present priorities in CD:

1. (1) Pseudonymity
2. (2) Expression of my thoughts and opinions on various matters
3. (3) Tailoring my writing to an audience (what audience? Invisible, unknown, silent <- this is why this point is ranked lowest)

The ordering of (1) over (2) is why this blog is primarily reactive for now - in my posts the reader will find many references to other blogs discussing current issues as well as a lot of quotes from and hyperlinks to various reading materials. What the reader will hardly find at present, beyond the initial few entries, is any valiant attempt to begin topics of discussion close to my heart that will be new in the blogosphere. I'm not quite capturing enough eyeballs for me to think it worth my time in terms of opportunity cost for other life activities - serious social/political writing is an endeavour of blood, sweat, toil and tears, for me. Pretty high toll.

The ordering of (2) over (3) is only because as said previously, I really have no idea at all who reads this and who has expectations of this.

Happily, (1) and (3) do not conflict. I know my writing style is very characteristic of me (this is why some of my friends, having passed by this blog, can do a double take and go, "This? Eh? Hmm!" and ask me in private if this is mine) and this fact doesn't trouble me. Consider how deep a blog persona goes and perhaps you will begin to see why being known to my friends does not bother me in the least.

Reflections on Writing

A friend passed me some material on how to write well in a scientific context (he has interests in that area), and I was struck by this particular paragraph:

[Sentence immediately preceding the following quoted paragraph: "Had the author placed all stress-worthy material in stress positions, we as a reading community would have been far more likely to interpret these sentences uniformly."]

We couch this discussion in terms of "likelihood" because we believe that meaning is not inherent in discourse by itself; "meaning" requires the combined participation of text and reader. All sentences are infinitely interpretable, given an infinite number of interpreters. As communities of readers, however, we tend to work out tacit agreements as to what kinds of meaning are most likely to be extracted from certain articulations. We cannot succeed in making even a single sentence mean one and only one thing; we can only increase the odds that a large majority of readers will tend to interpret our discourse according to our intentions. Such success will follow from authors becoming more consciously aware of the various reader expectations presented here.

- The Science of Scientific Writing
George D. Gopen, Judith A. Swan
more acknowledgments follow at the end of the text

This explains in more formal and restrained tone just why I need to know who my audience is. I assure you it is not because I am some egomaniac. =)

Some thoughts on Singapore Angle

In my previous stub written while I was still on break, FO asked me why I was aghast at the thought that my blog appeared to be a Singapore Angle clone. I didn't reply then because I didn't want to have anything to do with the blogosphere at that point in time ;-)

But it's a fair comment, and needs a reply.

So. Singapore Angle is great, and et cetera et cetera et cetera. With every article it makes an impact, and its quality remains consistently high, due to its doubleblind review process by prominent (...wordfind)personalities in the field for every article submitted - very academic journal-like. :-) As time passes it has also evolved - having spawned a smaller, cuter, bite-sized version of itself in Perspectives, perhaps it has come of age. Or perhaps not. ;-) Perspectives is still toddling along, but is doing well.

What has this got to do with my blog? Well. I wrote the stub not to diss Singapore Angle, but because I fervently believe that half of what made and continues to make Singapore Angle's success is in drawing many different people to comment on what was written there, to comment in a measured, reasonable, substantiated manner of discussion in the spirit of contribution to greater knowledge/understanding. Given that this blog CD has little to no comments of that nature, it falls far short of the standard that SA has set. And that is why I, as writer of CD, was in sum total aghast at the comparison.

Know Your Darknesses

"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."

- William I. Thomas,
sociologist

"Ask yourselves, all of you... what power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to Dream of Heaven?"

- Morpheus (Dream),
Neil Gaiman in Sandman #1

"Every endless night has a dawning day
Every darkest sky has a shining ray
...
It's a private emotion that fills you tonight
And a silence falls between us
As the shadows steal the light
And wherever you may find it
Wherever it may lead
Let your private emotion come to me."

- Private Emotions,
(singer) Ricky Martin

Something a commentor wrote in one of Mr Wang's posts caught my eye and set me thinking. Amongst other things, he wrote this sentence, "Surely a counsellor [social worker] should point towards the light, rather than dwell on the dark." Rather than hovering on the endless issue of the papanons, I am in favour of discussing this notion of light and darkness today.

The above quotes have expressed my position eloquently - in so many other words, I am who I am because of all the joys and sorrows I have encountered. My life and ability to help would be much poorer if I only looked at the light and never upon the dark. How would one know the qualities of light if one has never seen pure darkness? Nevertheless I understand the importance of being a light for my clients, as they usually come to us because of their various perceived darknesses, personal and/or structural. We bandage their wounds, and we fight for them when they are in a better position to challenge their circumstances.