Disclosure

I think enough people know my real identity that I could not care less about being anonymous now. Anonymity hasn't furthered my cause in any way that I know of, in any case. Who likes talking to anonymous people who drone on and on about issues when they don't reveal enough about themselves to let others know why they talk about such issues? Nobody cares who I am and given how I write, I won't get sued anytime in the foreseeable future.

So. It has been said in my profile for some time now that I am a social work student. That is true. I am, however, a part-time social work student. In my normal daily hours I work. I work as a very little cog in a very large machine. I enjoy my paid work very much. Occasionally I get upset with the futility of being a very little cog in the very large machine, but on those days I remember I like my salary, if little else. Such upset phases often pass as unremarkably as they came, after some diddling and talks with the boss and colleagues, and I enjoy my work again. It is work of the type I can think about 24/7 and make some progress on, anytime 24/7.

As a very little cog in a very large machine I am, as I have said, part of a very large machine. I write this now because I have been doing a great deal of 'very large machine' work that I hope will further my little cog career, into a medium-sized cog perhaps. All is going well, but I am restless. I am restless that I am only doing things that will further my little cog career. This slavery to the 'cog'-ness of it all, the insistence that if I think this and do this I will get that (and I will be safe, because people say so), quite simply drives me up the wall if I do it for a long time without break, and I get itchy and rebellious. I want to be all aspects of me. The longer the denial, the more independent critical thinking I crave to do. So I talk.

I examine the things that matter to me on a larger scale. I cogitate on the Cognitive Dissonance blog (argh, stopstop). Love matters to me, as do hope and faith and the ability to define one's own path. Empathy and altruism matter to me. And you, who are reading this, matter to me. Because if you did not matter to me, I would not be writing this on a public medium. If you did not matter to me at all, if I did not care about you at all, I would be a happy little silent cog, content to be one, living in a bubble world pursuing my cog path. Content to be one day a medium-sized cog, and then a larger cog. But that is not my nature, I could never be happy that way. And so, perhaps, if you are like me, I want you to know that you are not alone, first. And that you will not die if you speak your mind.

How Do You Capture An Idea Or An Action Into Achievement

I.

From time to time, I start writing a post, and don't know what to say. So I was sitting here blankly after a two-month hiatus from blogging, and wondering that same thing. Everyone has ideas all the time, after all; walking is an idea, computer programming is an idea, and vegging out at home watching DVDs with your wife over the weekend is also an idea. My mother has a thousand and one ideas about my elder sister's upcoming wedding. How do you then capture an idea into writing?

II.

I had a conversation with a young one a short while back, and when I asked him to read more of what he loved, and do more of what he loved, and hang out with communities who do the same (he enjoys oceanography, not drugs, so this sort of advice is okay), he asked me, How?

He asked, how? That terrible lost look. How can I do it?

III.

I have read the recent series of discussions on how to discover one's purpose in life that Mr Wang hosted. His present post is on how to refocus one's sense of duty and obligation onto one's self. He has ambiguous feelings about that approach to life; on the one hand, he considers it necessary, but on the other, he wonders if it is selfish and bad.

I would prefer to think of Mr Wang's approach as self-centred. To do I. or II. or any other action, you must move yourself to do it. To move yourself, you must feel obliged to yourself to move, and your duty to yourself to learn. You must know the concept of the self-disciplined self as primary. How, again how?

*

We all ask "how?" so often, it has become a stopping point for critical thought. After taking the trouble to find something we might like, we stop, tear our hair out, and turn round and round in circles. We fear it can never be done. We hope it can be done. And fear and hope are a potent combination by themselves, in causing us to lose whatever sense of direction and purpose we once had. In causing us to build on worry, to panic, and to fear more, and in the end, to never find our way. Does this sound familiar?

*

You'd realise, in the entire previous paragraph, there was not a single word about rational thought, about planning, and about persistence. Yet these are as vital human qualities as are worry and hope and fear. And all involve only the self in some manner.

And strangely, my only answer on how to capture an idea or an initial action into achievement, is to keep going, and to always know that you are searching for your ultimate purpose, and to remember these two things when nothing seems right. That is all. Once you get moving in that way, you will know where you are going next. Rational thought is involved when you reflect on the actions you had chosen. Planning is involved when using those reflections to help decide what to do next. And persistence carries everything through dark times. So it doesn't matter what direction you take at first, as long as you are developing one or a few (best if all) of your present interests.

At the end of my young life, I found that it wasn't my lack of inspired direction that was stopping me. It was the fixed thought I had that I definitely had to pick the shortest and most "beautiful" path. No one path is beautiful, every life has its shortcomings. It is the greatest tragedy of our education system that we have been indoctrinated into thinking there is only one perfect way. Instead, I believe the way that belongs to you will unfold itself gradually in a process of constant feedback and refinement.

Incidentally, this post also encapsulates my views on university admissions.

On the Notion of Free Will

Work is falling on me like a ton of bricks. In lieu of a proper post, I offer you this, and note it for my own reference as well. =)

Edward O. Wilson writes this in his book On Human Nature, p. 72:

Consider the flip of a coin and the extent of the coin's freedom. On first thought nothing could seem less subject to determinism; coin flipping is the classic textbook example of a random process. But suppose that for some reason we decided to bring all the resources of modern science to bear on a single toss. The coin's physical properties are measured to the nearest picogram and micron, the muscle physiology and exact contours of the flipper's thumb are analyzed, the air currents of the room charted, the microtopography and resiliency of the floor surface mapped. At the moment of release, all of this information, plus the instantaneously recorded force and angle of the flip, are fed into a computer. Before the coin has spun through more than a few revolutions, the computer reports the expected full trajectory of the coin and its final resting position at heads or tails. The method is not perfect, and tiny errors in the initial conditions of the flip can be blown up during computation into an error concerning the outcome. Nevertheless a series of computer-aided predictions will probably be more accurate than a series of guesses. To a limited extent, we can know the destiny of the coin.

An interesting exercise, one can reply, but not entirely relevant, because the coin has no mind. This deficiency can be remedied stepwise [...] Let the object propelled into the air be [...] a honeybee. [...] The bee appears to be a free agent to the uninformed human observer, but again if we were to concentrate all we know [...] and if the most advanced computational techniques were again brought to bear, we might predict the flight path of the bee with an accuracy that exceeds pure chance. To the circle of human observers watching the computer read-out, the future of the bee is determined to some extent. But in her own "mind" the bee, who is isolated permanently from such human knowledge, will always have free will.

Pearls Before Breakfast, from the Washington Post

What if beauty is right before your eyes, and you walk past it unseeing?

What would you be, then?

Statement of purpose

The goals of this blog are as follows:

1. to assist in the ongoing social constructionist creation of the Singaporean blogosphere as a shared platform for civil and rational discourse,
2. to advocate for specific causes the author of this blog believes in, over the long term,
3. for the author of this blog to commit herself to engaging in heuristic learning with other people on matters of substance, so that we may all grow and mature as individuals and as a cohort,
4. for Singapore society to eventually become more vibrant, more open and more democratic.

The author of this blog is not affiliated with any political party and does not wish such affiliation. She blogs as an empowered private citizen of this country and will continue in this capacity and only this capacity. Draw what inferences from that you will.

The author also likes chocolate, for your information.

The Values of (Social) Work

Often I am asked about my profession: "Like that need training ah? So many volunteers around, all can do the same thing as you, only give out food and chitchat what".

(The other question I am frequently asked is "Like that can earn money ah?" Of course the short answer is No, absolutely not, but the payoffs come in other forms.)

I illustrate the first question with an analogy between physics and social work:

Work is done on an object if and only if:
1. a force is exerted on the object, and
2. the object moves as a result of the force exerted in 1.

If a force is exerted on the object but it does not move, no work is done.

If the object moves but not because of the force exerted on it, no observable work is done either, and the system is artificial and bounded wrongly - we must look outside this defined system for the source of the force. Implicit assumption: There is a force.

So the popular conception of social work is like saying that work is done only because the force of human generosity and compassion is exerted on the object. Whether any effect is achieved seems to be irrelevant. And if such effect is observed, it seems to be "understood" without question that it must have been due to the force of human generosity and compassion acted on it. This view of the profession is so ... wrong.

I have not even begun to look into the efficiencies of such forces, yet. :) And that is why social work is a profession and not a mere leisure activity.