Wednesday, October 13, 2004

It's 2.30am, I might have a quiz tomorrow, and I definitely have a project presentation tomorrow. But I don't want to go to sleep just yet. Had a rather thought-provoking and stimulating talk with my classmate Yanli before lecture, about the viability of art and the nature of dreams, and consequently spent the rest of the lecture lost in contemplation.

People from my faculty find it so natural to come up with jibes about the engineers � I know I�m one of them. But what makes us so different from the rest of you? Perhaps we do not deal with the universal language of mathematical formulas, but in our own way we learn our own formulas of the English language. Letters and words, to us, are like the little mechanical parts or chemicals you learn about and learn how to manipulate. And like the things you built, our creations are soulless, practical mechanisms, designed to make life easier for those who can afford it, or for the betterment of mankind, or for the simple usefulness that is held so highly in regard in this strange cultureless multiracial society we find our self in. We are the engineers of words, and meaning. Sure, there may be many ways to fit our machines together, some better than others, but it does not change the fact that they are merely that � cold pieces of usefulness and pragmatism.

Being Singaporean is perhaps one of the most intriguing and unique experiences one can be born into. We are a people misplaced, living in an absence of culture � if you define culture in the traditional way. In fact, we have created a culture that is solely of Practicality. Yes, it is true � we are not Singaporean Chinese/Malay/Indian/Others, we are Singaporean Practical. Our dominant language, English, is the language of convenience and "globalization"; our Singaporean Dream is not the "everybody can be someone if they try" hope of the American Dream, but the single-minded pursuit of materialism and tangible comfort. Isn�t it strange how pragmatism and idealism have become such opposing forces in our society, when they are not mutually exclusive? Idealism, in Singaporean terminology, is the stuff dreams and young aspirations are made of � something that, in our society, is viewed as a "phase", a thing we�re supposed to grow out of and in our maturity and adulthood look back at, with the wisdom of a deadened mind and heart.

We are engineers of words, but when you create your machines, you don�t kill your tools, or the metal bits and pieces that make up your creation the way we suck the words of their meanings, life and soul. When you built your machines or write a computer programme, do you feel your own soul lost in the agony of that prostitution, that desecration of language for practicality?

It is 3 am in the morning, and maybe I am just caught in a narcolepsy of meritocracy and pragmatism that I�ll wake up from, come the sane light of morning. And perhaps you think me strange for thinking of these things, but I guess at heart I�ve always been a bit out of this world, a bit removed. If idealism and dreams are a sin, let me never see the cold white light of heaven�s gates.

the dead woman murmured 10/13/2004 11:21:00 AM
|

mood

Translation:
Nemo nisi mors.


the subject

utopist. dreamer. cynic. poet. a contradiction. eccentric. cartesian. a starlight in the gloom.

The patient, born in 1984, suffers from a history of idealism of unknown onset and duration.

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