Cruelty

I decided to reflect today.

I reflect most days, but not write it down. Today I met a stranger who was crying, and asked her if she was alright, but soon realized I was quite unequipped to be of consolation as her friend had passed just then, a long time family friend. Absent of religious platitudes, and having not thought about what I would've liked to hear myself when my father passed, I was not sure what to say, though on reflecting on the bus, I think it would have been wise to offer to keep the passed in my thoughts and remember good things about them. Instead I quite awkwardly talked about how my father had also passed from cancer years ago in a bad situation (covid). Cancer is cruel, and ugly, and meaningless, and I wonder if that honesty would have helped or not too. It is objectively terrible, and that is why people are applauded for fighting against it. There is no consolation despite it.

I want to be able to talk better. My emotional spectrum seems to be comedy or anger, maybe because of the nurture from being a guy.

STEM

 I had a conversation with Craig, Josh and Glenn, Xun Yi and Yan Zhou on separate occasions. Different ways of getting to a similar discussion about how SF puts on free, cool stuff for young adults and Singapore does not seem to. There are good reasons that explain why, but veering off, I also wondered about Singaporean expression of passion. Using STEM fields as an example, the most commonly cited reason why Singaporeans don't seem to express the same level of passion in it is purportedly that the "rat race" killed this passion at a young age. I can certainly agree with that, but wanted to go deeper than that too.

My brother used an example during one of his tech meetups - he said the most enthusiastic, question asking audience members tended to be foreign, while Singaporeans largely kept silent. They are, there though, right? The Singaporeans still turn up. I honestly believe, and most people would agree, Singaporeans are actually passionate for many things, but some of these are expressed (more often) and some are not (less often). On the surface, cynicism is king. We suck thumb, then complain, and anybody who doesn't is lucky, rich, old, or wayang.