So I was struck with fever for over a week. My doctor tells me it’s dengue but of course, who wants to trumpet that one is down with such a disease when one is already a month deep into the dreaded course and has survived 3 live intro-venous infusions? Nonetheless, my somewhat capricious temperature took its toll several times on me while I was in camp, with me severely losing patience with some of my oftentimes desperately jejune platoon mates. There are a few, definitely less than a handful, who are around my age, one at least who is already close to thirty, and the vast majority simply youngsters who are – in my opinion – still fresh from school, be it the polytechnics or JCs. I was telling Ying on Sunday when we met for a truly nice, heartwarming lunch and ice-cream at Serene Centre that even when I was in BMT five years ago, I had serious trouble communicating with my bunkmates. We just hardly shared much in common. The only rare common ground on which we could often only build shallow conversations on was the typical bitching of sergeants and our horrid time on the dreaded island. But my bunkmates’ interest in the then-oh-so-popular game CS and all the other LAN games that were in vogue never figured as a particularly comely activity to me, and the characters, moves and cheatcodes that they were so obsessed with were just the bulk of a rather alien tongue that they conversed in. Now, it clearly is worse, because #1, I had serious issues talking to my colleagues in office before my course started, #2, I have even graver issues talking to my coursemates now since my morale is way lower after each day of pottering about slaving over the most mundane and pedestrian of chores. I lamented to Ying about this, who well managed at least to master a rather comforting statement. She told Hsueh (and I’m sure Hsueh told her too) that she was a weirdo since she hung out with (and still hangs out with) weirdoes, and well I readily agreed to be labeled a weirdo since I do hang out with weirdoes, if I hang out with anyone at all.

Sometimes I do feel like I’m some antediluvian zombie that forgot to die some centuries ago. I have been whining about the absence in Singapore of properly close friends to hang out and chat with for ages, probably even before I came back. Nat was probably right to say that one reason is that my interests are too narrow. If candour is demanded of me, yes, I would say that there is more than a grain of truth in that. I don’t like most of the films that many people (my peers, those slightly younger and even those a decade older) like to catch; in fact I don’t see much sense in catching a single film in this country where every film screened in every legal establishment called a cinema costs an exorbitant rate. The most rational justification for catching films in this country in a cinema is that you pay for the sound and visual effects you don’t get if you watch it in any of your friends’ homes. That’s true, but what if you don’t watch films that need that kind of effects cardinally? The only genre I’m drawn to is simply drama, and clearly you don’t need big booming speakers to listen to Meryl Streep weep to get the message. Well basically, my whine is that I’m a lonely, dejected old fool who’s been bitching about this loneliness and dejection since time immemorial.

Today while we were waiting for one of our beloved sergeants to start his enlightened teachings to us fledgling life-savers on *dang … I forgot the lesson*, I was talking to Andy who was telling me how much he misses his *platonic* girl friend and his chats with her, all of which made me realize how sodden in solitude I’ve been. I’ve been scrambling to the same old Oxford clique since Xmas effectively every weekend; while I must admit that I’m comfortable most of the time being left alone in my room reading during the weekend, I certainly need a breather with some close friends who can understand my brand of sarcasm and who can really tickle me into incessant bouts of laughter, friends who can talk to me about (the precious few) things I am interested in and well basically friends I enjoy hanging out with. Ying has been back for at least two years now, but she still finds it hard to relate properly with the SG Singaporeans here. I’m beginning therefore to empathise with the Singaporeans who left the country in their formative years and tried to fit in but left in the end given the reason that they just couldn’t quite find their comfortable little niche in their social circles (if any). I never quite agreed with SM’s simple ‘stayer-quitter’ dichotomy, but now I see another dimension to the emigration problem. Ying herself isn’t sure if she’ll stay in SG for long, and when I met Liz randomly on the bus some weeks back, she is admittedly tortured by the stultifying nature of her job in OCBC (understandably, given that she is a linguist) that she is quite bent on leaving. I’m not talking about the friends I have who never even tried to fit in occupationally into SG. I’m talking about those who stayed, but later flirted with the idea of quitting, and ultimately quitting, as it were. I’m still going to try out my stint in the civil service and hope to like it, but jobs are one thing; the company you have and the environment you work and play in are quite another.

But that said, I haven’t quite put my finger to the reason as to why so many Singaporeans I know who were overseas for their tertiary education decided to stay out of Singapore when settling down. Clearly, part of the reason is that these are the young ones, those who are mobile, who are probably not married and even if so, don’t have children and even if so, have children so young they can quite easily supplant them from the system here and find new soil to sink their roots in. Clearly also, there is more than meets the eye. ‘Overseas’, as we like to call it, often has a connotation of being westward. Perhaps it’s the liberal lifestyle that may be led there that cannot be led here that is in question (liberal not in the lewd way but in the liberalism liberal way), but why then is that ideal so popular it reaches almost categorical multitudes? It’s something I’ve never really understood. Admittedly, liberalism is almost a logical corollary to ‘The West’ or ‘Westernisation’, but if the appeal of liberalism lies so simply in the fact that it is a baggage of Westernisation, the conclusion that must follow – that so many people here are taking to the West in a way as if they have no alternative or reject all possible alternatives – is a harrowing one. I myself am tempted to say that this liberal lifestyle is increasingly endearing, not because I want to be liberal but because I want to choose between being liberal and being not, and the beauty of liberalism lies precisely in its flexibility of being liberal on a fundamental level or on a higher or secondary level. I remember when I first read of John Rawls’ Theory of Justice, I was enthralled because I thought there was finally a systematic (and well just to be unhelpfully tautological) Rawlsian means of justifying liberalism. However, sad to say, his theory was only a justification on the secondary level, as his veil of ignorance must catapult his entire theory towards that end point. Ultimately therefore, his theory drew flak from multiculturalists who sought to defend liberalism on a fundamental level, if I may try to paraphrase their views broadly. While I don’t quite know if I’m a multiculturalist myself yet, I know that their objections have my sympathy. That’s probably why from my second year in Oxford, I sought to work on comparative philosophy, or at least I sougtht to understand ways of thinking entrenched in cultures radically different from the Anglo-American tradition of philosophy that Oxford preaches. My hunches after LEP already told me that Chinese classical attempts of thinking philosophically were radically different from the Western tradition, and now as I try to understand Islamic thought in a historical context, albeit at a pitifully slow rate, I am myself becoming confused as to how US foreign policy could betray so abashedly an ignorance of the various Islamic nations they are so fond of dealing with. I cast doubts on my own understanding of Islam and the tradition of Islamic thought for sure; I am but the greenest of novices. Nonetheless, the radically different systems of thought, presuppositions, and priorities in societies, ethics and culture have always intrigued me. My request to do a thesis on Chinese moral philosophy invited a slight concern into the Oxford sub-faculty of philosophy, as I recall.

I know I am gravely mistaken if I think that migrating to the US or the supposedly ‘liberal’ states in Scandinavia would allow me to experience liberalism on the primary level; I doubt any country will allow that because it would probably call for the construction of a national culture based precisely on the obliteration of any homogeneity of separate cultures. I doubt that any heart will be magnanimous enough to allow for the stripping of traditional pride and tradition, and I doubt any mind capacious enough to draft a constitution or letter of laws to manage a state as heterogeneous as that. Multiculturalism as multiculturalists see it remains an impossible ideal in my opinion; attempts may be made to approximate towards it, but just as the Form of the Good in Plato remains incorporeal, multiculturalism traditionally understood is beyond any human society, in my opinion.

Therefore, I still have a fear for SG. If there is indeed that massive wave of Westernisation breaking into the country and with it an unstoppable tide that will pull away with it our most mobile and learned Singaporeans (including many of my closest SG friends), what is left for SG? This isn’t the same old story of a brain drain that right now even East European countries are suffering from. This is a fear that the drain cannot be reversed or even repaired. I doubt we can be less Westernised. The expression ‘de-Westernising Singapore’ sounds almost oxymoronic. If Westernisation is a tide in SG that cannot be turned, and if the trumpeting of liberalism as I defined it above cannot be avoided, the brain drain that SG is going to face seems permanent. We hear of India issuing citizenship certifications for overseas Indian professionals, and the demand is rising. We hear of Chinese professionals who desire to return to China. We even hear of Polish academics who desire to return to Poland for drastically reduced pay, all for the love of their country, for the certainty that they are serving their motherland. Is that kind of mentality prevalent, let alone ubiquitous, in Singapore? Even if it’s not, can we make it so?

It's a new blog again, now that my life starts a new chapter. Coincidentally, it's 2006 as well, which started - as usual - without much of a bang. I spent yesterday (and part of this morning) watching LOTR at Wilson's, with of course the same and indispensable gang of N and company. LOTR never fails to surprise me and provoke deeper thoughts in me, even when - as I was last night - I am drugged enough to wrestle with my eyelids to keep them up.

But enough of 2005. 2006 sees me in new form, when I learn through both soft ways and hard difficult life lessons. I'm not much more mature than I was in 2005 I suspect, although I also think I've come more to terms with where I'm headed for and the quasi-true importance of gaining placidity in one's mind before one loses one's moral compass and sense of direction in life. I've been preaching this so much so often to so many people, always with me believing with utmost conviction that even if I don't know what this means, I almost certainly can guess more accurately than most people what it means. But no, I learnt that despite the long debates I've had with various people say against buying cars, splurging mindlessly on silly creature comforts that Singaporeans are so fond of, I'm coming slowly to the edge and succumbing so to speak to temptations of vacuous riches.

I haven't had time to - as it were - look back on 2005 and learn my lessons in a systematic way. Some people do that, I know, and often these are the people who seriously pen down 'New Year Resolutions' and actually believe that they will stick to these new demands they lay on themselves for the whole of the new year. I don't think many people ever succeed in changing themselves allegedly for the better. The resolve will come with the arrival of the new year, and before the third sunrise after the year starts, it will crumble to dust. The first day of every calendar year is just to me like any other day in any year. Festivals, holidays and anniversaries - these are just excuses people (consumers and sellers alike) conjure for them to indulge more and splurge. I've grown jaded long ago of the boring stories people like to tell each other about the importance of Christmas (the ubiquitous and proverbial 'season of giving and sharing'), the New Year (to usher in great success and seek to be a better person), Valentine's (to show your love and concern to that special someone) etc etc. But why on earth do we ever need some silly group of men and women who sat down years ago to decide that this would be the day in which we do X and remember Y? That's pathetically subservient if you ask me. Well of course we aren't really obeying the orders of these men and women. We just happen to think their suggestions are useful to enrich our lives. But gees, let's face it. We're probably going to be more inclined to show less concern and give less and share less just because we think oh we've loved, given and shared in Valentine's and Christmas. It's just like how we act to be nice to Mummy and DAddy during their respective Days, but right after and right before (and oftentimes even on the days themselves) we treat them like dirt and hate their nagging and bite back at them when we can. Which is why, if you ask me, I look with disdain at these silly dates and the ostensible 'feel-good' meanings behind them. Sure, Christmas, New Year etc are great times to share meals and moments with friends and loved ones, but to me, that's only because they are made public holidays in most countries and most of my friends and loved ones also think that these days are days for friends and loved ones, so they'll be willing to make time for me to meet them. i.e. I certainly feed on this man-made meanings behind these dates, but I abhor the self-imposed imprisonment of our actions and priorities on these dates just because that's what people tell us they mean or ought to mean.

But enough of that. I've recently walked out of a rather dark tunnel in my life, and I'm happy that I am starting my own musings on a fresh page, just as I hope my life begins on a new page now. It's not that my plans, priorities or actions take on a different form now that 2006 arrives. My course is still on-going, my family remains, my character is pretty much going to remain static, and my means of achieving and acquiring remain quite the same. My fears remain unexorcised, and the people and friends I gravitate towards aren't going to change very much too.

But I must say that suddenly, especially after last night's LOTR session, I experience a catharsis of sorts, as if I've expunged some filth that I've picked up somehow in my life as I rolled around in the mud of this world. I remember telling N before my course started that my very being felt emptied out, as if my innards were dug out, and my life and self were collapsing into themselves. It was as if I carried a gargantuan vaccum in myself that weighed the world. I knew I needed company then which I couldn't find. I knew I was desperate for a community, for friendship, for a group that I could lean on to and catch my breath before I hurl another punch at my demons. I am beginning to find some sort of solidarity amongst my coursemates, albeit quite clearly an emphemeral one and also possibly a rather shallow one. At the end of the day, despite all my proclamations that I am independent and can survive wherever I go to, I realise - just as I did when I first went to the US - that I still need friends around me and to get that, I need time and a suitable environment. It's not easy, as many of my friends who went overseas to study or work and have returned will readily testify, to find Singaporeans who can talk in depth about things that I think matter deeply to me. Prima facie 'big' issues like religion, politics, culture, history, philosophy and 'elitist' issues like art and literature all mean much to me and I believe ought to mean much to any mature adult. But no, you get big fans of the more tactile issues like food, shopping, film and TV. I remain appalled at how readily satisfiable Singaporeans are generally, and when I just indulge in some honesty, telling potential new friends from Singapore some things I really enjoy doing in my free time, topics that kept my friends and I in the UK or in the US up at night, they are agape and look at me in bewilderment. I am losing patience, to be honest, in tearing my hair out scouring for new friendships here. Perhaps therefore, if I decide to throw in the towel, I ought to learn (or would more probably already have learnt) how to live a lot less depending on companionship. I'm increasingly of the view now that a happy and fulfilling life needs actually less of friendship and love than confidence of one's worth and being. Amongst my coursemates is an army sign-on who is already 29 but is only a corporal. I haven't dared (and probably will never dare) to ask him what he felt and still feels now he knows I'm much younger but achieved more academically speaking than he has. But he's an amazingly jovial person regardless of whatever that comes his way. His jokes while incredibly crass also evince an unmistakable element of optimism which makes me absolutely forget the possible fear he has for me (or me for him) so much so that I honestly enjoy his jokes and will almost always listen to whatever he has to say. Nonetheless, he finds it unintelligible for me to love to talk about 'big' issues when I was overseas, while I find it still beyond me that so many Singaporeans like himself only live for and talk about the smaller issues that to me ought to be only occasional chatting topics. We still have lots to learn from each other though. Probably no one in my course will believe me when I say this, but I cannot be more convinced of the veracity of this: my mind is 'capacious' so to speak, only when it comes to learning conceptual issues, gaining knowledge in conceptual forms. When it comes to practical work like manning machines, understanding instruction manuals etc, I fumble painfully. Even in subjects that supposedly marry theory with practice, like physics, I've only done well in the theory section, but never manage to get grades anywhere close to that of my theory for my practical. Hence I grow increasingly convinced of this dictum, that there is always something to learn from anyone.