Paradox and Inspiration 162: What's So Contemptible?

I have been scratching my head over a guy's contribution of his 4-sentence long comment to my blog post about honey labels. In that brief paragraph he basically stated that he studied law and what he understood about E.C law for honey standards. That was perfectly fine. It was what he said in his second post that really baffled me. "How embarrassing..." he said, "I didn't realise the comment was linked to my Facebook...I do not spend odious amounts of spare time commenting on honey blogs."

Well, according to Oxford dictionary, odious is defined as "extremely unpleasant; repulsive".

His perspective posed an incredible challenge to my intellect. Is such a strong reaction and defense really called for?

Paradox and Inspiration 161: Better to be Busy Than Not?

I smile as I read "The Busy Trap" article dated 30 June 2012 in nytimes.com. Surely, not only the Americans have fallen into the trap. It is a phenomenon of the modern society where the keen pursuit of wealth to create a better life marks the very focus of everyday living. “Very busy!” as a response to “How are you?” is a way of telling others that everything is well and fine, that one is no loafer, is gainfully employed and much valued in the job and have no time for any form of idleness. I laugh at how the author describes busyness as an hedge against emptiness and how people are always sounding so insanely busy and dead tired, because I was no different in the past and now have been trying to do the opposite. Somehow, now I like to sound as free and relaxed as I could no matter how occupied I am. Why feign indolence? I’m not sure exactly why. Perhaps I have become a bit irritable from constantly hearing how busy people are, that time is against them and they have absolutely no time for this and that, how they are going bonkers and how stressed they are at work. I just want to appear to be out of line and atypical. I don’t remember meeting anyone who is not frantic with work or their kids, so maybe I could just be that breath of fresh air. What difference would it make if I add myself to the perpetually busy crowd? So what if I go around announcing to my friends that I am hysterically busy? Idelness doesn't equate with slothfulness, does it? Maybe someone who appears as more free than them or a freak who is busy keeping up with some trivial sounding hobby like drawing or reading would confound them and inspire them to drop their pace a bit?

Paradox and Inspiration 160: Little Chloe, Giant Spirit

My P1 niece, Chloe did her parents extremely proud recently. She was paired with the naughtiest boy in class for a class assignment. Knowing that she would have a hard time getting the boy to work on the assignment, she made a chart with many boxes after school and asked her father for some nice stickers. The next day, she showed her partner the chart and the stickers and promised that she would give tick a box whenever he behaved well and the more ticks he collected, the more stickers he would get. The boy was so thrilled and motivated to fill up the boxes with ticks to get the stickers that he did his best to cooperate with her in the assignment. Their work was assessed by the teacher and Chloe and the boy were named the best-performing team!

What great problem-solving ability and exemplary attitude toward life from a seven year-old girl! Chloe could have just gone to look for the teacher and beg if she could partner with someone else, complain to the teacher that the boy wouldn't cooperate with her, cry and whine to her parents or even threaten the boy that she would inform the teacher if he didn't behave. How often do we adults throw in the towels so easily when we are run into difficulties, even before we could take a step back and think how we could rise to the occasion, how ready are we to grouse and protest that life isn't fair, and how quickly can we brace ourselves during challenging moments and create a win-win situation for everyone?

Paradox and Inspiration 159: A Glimpse of My Child's World

My daughter Jerrie, 10, gave me a fright of my life. Never had I expected a reaction such as that from her. Her sense of emphathy and interpretation of adults behaviour were quite out of sync with my expectations.

During our holiday in Taiwan last December, the whole tour group happened to be enthusiastically bargaining with a young tea salesman over the price of his premium green tea leaves (about S$100 for a small pack of 150g tea). I must say our tour mates were quite skilled in bringing the discount from 20% to 50% in an extremely hilarious way (at least that was how I saw it), haggling over the price as if we had known the sales man for ages). But Jerrie unexpectedly broke out in tears upon seeing this and after some probing, I found out that she felt that the tour group people (including me) were really very mean and nasty to the salesman. She felt very sorry for the salesman and said so many people should not have cornered and attacked just one man and if he had given so much discount, how was he going to profit in his sales.

It was an incident that got me wondering much about my child and her perspectives.

Paradox and Inspiration 158: The Enigma of Tolerance

Tolerance is fervently preached in a multiracial, multireligious country like Singapore so that everyone can embrace this thing called diversity. But can anyone understand how this can actually be achieved in the process?

But how possible is it for someone to appreciate a belief or practice that you have to tolerate because there are conflicts in the different value and belief systems. If appreciation of others' cultures is not a relevant outcome here, what is? Long suffereing, grudges, or pretence? And, in striving towards being a tolerant individual in the society, should one try to be tolerant or intolerant of intolerance?

Paradox and Inspiration 157: The Power of Camera

If you have young kids or hang around with them often enough, you must have noticed this already - that kids are almost too ready and happy to pose and smile when you asked for them for photo shots. The camera seems to be able to trigger some very instantaneous reaction in them, but yet interestingly they don't seem to be very concerned about the result of those shots. Most of them would never asked to look at the pictures you have snapped for them and even if you do show them the pictures, they don't seem to be that interested either.

On pondering further, does this phenomenon apply also to adults?

Paradox and Inspiration 156: Forgiving and Forgetting, Which Comes First?

Critics of "Forgive and Forget" believe that forgiving doesn't mean forgetting - one can forgive without forgetting. As much as it sounds logical, I find that when I have forgiven, it is actually when I find it hard to remember how I have been wronged. Could "forget and forgive" hold more truth then? How much can you really forgive if you can't forget anything?

Paradox and Inspiration 155: US Health Stats

A disturbing fact, the United States

...spends the MOST money on health care (as a % of GDP)...

...yet, is ranked 73rd in the world for overall health system performance.

Source: World Health Organization

Paradox and Inspiration 154: When Adults are Also Children

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.
~Jim Fiebig

Paradox and Inspiration 153: When Being Right is Wrong

Sorry, that was mean. I could have just nodded my head to acknowledge that I had heard her.

Somehow, I just marched into the shop and brushed past the sales lady, without even looking at her face or bothering to respond to her "What are you looking for" in Mandarin. I'm not sure why I did it, perhaps all I could think of at that point in time was to rush to grab a bag of dried wolfberries and go, or maybe then I had ignored her because I was turned off by the repeated encounters of sales people asking that same old standard question when in your mind there's absolutely nothing that I am looking for, or could it be that I was still processing her question for an answer and by the time I could decide if I was actually looking for something, I had already whizzed past her? I'm only human, entitled to occasional glitches.

Full of excuses.

Paradox and Inspiration 152: Religion to Unite or Divide?

Man institutes religion to unite divided hearts, but sanctions it to tear families apart.

Paradox and Inspiration 151: Which is More Offensive?

A banner at the Boon Lay MTRT tells you that littering, spitting and urinating are punishable by law. This is nothing bizzare for the locals, but hold on, look at the fines. Why are they different?

I got you, didn't I?

Paradox and Inspiration 150: Hard Truths Hit Home

Before facing The Hard Truths, I did not have the same measure of appreciation for the leader’s vision, and less did I know the man's commitment to this country.

Lee Kuan Yew epitomises the figure of austerity and paternalistic authority. His unvarnished opinions could easily come across to others as callousness at its worst. And his brutal candour in responding to the journalists questions was startling, to say the least. Even if he hadn't quipped that he was not at all interested in impressing people, I think even his biggest opposition would not dispute that.

It's probably hard to ascribe the attributes of a benevolent and gracious leader unto him. However, he shall not be forgotten for being the architect behind Singapore's remarkable transformation from third-world country to first and his dogmatic push of ideas including a clean and green island, a corruption-free government, and a society based on meritocracy. And perhaps what stands out the most for me is his unequivocal passion for Singapore that exudes through and through. In his words - “Singapore is my concern till the end of my life.”

His firm belief in Singapore’s vulnerability had led him to making decisions that earned him high praises on international level as well as invited the most bitter criticisms at the same time. Some of his views were not easy to accept – the power of hierarchy that influences the prejudices of each race, the misgiving that the Malays in Singapore would not compromise on their religious practice and beliefs for the sake of social integration, the implication that currently all oppositions are "duds" deemed as not capable enough to rule Singapore, the belief that females should produce more children and contribute substantially to the work force at the same time (and let foreign maids hired at low cost to take over the care-giver role?), and the argument that Singapore is not yet a nation when a not-so narrow definition of “a nation” could have been anchored on instead.

While reading the book, you feel like you're bending over under the overbearing weight of his extreme empahsis of economy prowess. But I must say at some point, it did set me thinking, how often in life are we given a middle path to perform the balancing act? Sometimes it's just not a matter of striking a balance but about making a hard choice of sacrifices, is it?

Paradox and Inspiration 149: What Is....

A riddle from my impressive girl,

What is more powerful than God,
The poor has it,
The rich doesn't have it,
And you will die if you eat it?

Answer?
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
NOTHING

Paradox and Inspiration 148: Grace versus Law

Truths that I never knew before:
1) Righteousness is not earned. It is an unmerited gift. Romans 5:17
2) Faith is superior to the law. Galatians 3:23-25
3) Either all of grace or all of law, no part grace and part law. Colossians 2:13-15
4) Obedience is the fruit of blessings, and not the root of blessings. Romans 1:1-5
5) Obedience to faith and not the law. 2 Corinthians 10:5

Paradox and Inspiration 147: Dignity Doesn't Come with Age

While looking for an unoccupied table at the IMM food court, I caught my nine-year-old reasoning with an old granny in Mandarin. On enquiring, my girl complained that she was the first to get to the table but the old lady argued that she was more deserving because she had gone round the food court three times hunting for a table. I pulled my reluctant, red-faced daughter away and explained to her that it was not worth fighting over it. As we retreated, the old lady also hastened off to alert the rest of her family members of her find. This time, another young boy bolted over to take the same table, but was again shooed away by the returning old lady. Looking disgusted, the boy stormed off, muttering "I really feel like giving her the finger!"

Paradox and Inspiration 146: Choice to Smile

A perspective that I'm been trying to point to my girl who tends to feel blue after having a ball of a good time with her cousins...

“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.”
~Dr. Seuss

Paradox and Inspiration 145: "Disneyland with a Death Penalty"

Singapore, "an antiseptic island peopled by a passive citizenry and governed by paranoia"?
Hard Truths, Lee Kuan Yew

Is this why so many western foreigners have labelled us as a people as dull and uninspired as dirt?

Paradox and Inspiration 144: ERP IU Cashcard Cover - to use or not to use?

Jason got a piece of ERP IU Cashcard Cover free from a purchase of a new Thinkpad. Useless, he griped. Obviously he wasn't thrilled in the slightest by the gift. The cover, an invention by a Singaporean, was meant to hide the cash card from window-smashing thieves and help one avoid the consequence of forgetting to insert the cashcard before driving through an ERP gantry. O come on, if there's no cash card, why put the cover, he groused again.

Paradox and Inspiration 143: Riches Without Money

"Some people are rich before they have money."
~www.financialjesus.com