the 10th one

off to phuket for the laguna tri - last, last one of the season and this year!

skool

the acs speech day brought back so many memories of those many many years of in an educational institution. The institutional pride of being part of school and a bigger community, the much savored camaraderie and friendship amongst people in the same uniform singing the same school song (I fondly remember a debate comp once about whether or not school uniforms should be abolished!), and I think ultimately just some kind of a philosophical and psychological comfort and familiarity that for this phase of your life - you can afford to be sheltered and groomed under the umbrella of one particular community.

I watched all these 12-16 year old kids with envy (i am but only halfway in between their age and their parents right?), and through just observing and sensing the eager beaver faces sitting around the school hall, the sense of ceremony when the principal and teachers walked in, and of course the very happy celebratory cheers on the count of "happy holidays"!: brought back such good and fond memories of time passed.

a bridge

if there is truly such a big divide between ideas and action - between the ivory towers of academic research and commercial execution; between the more humanistic, intellectual realms of knowledge and practical, pragmatic fields of commerce; between paths to seek out more altruistic, 'higher' pursuits of self-fulfillment and career-climbing sources of material and wealth - then the noble goal to bridge this divide has to undoubtedly be a somewhat self-serving but very conscious one, day in day out.

If not, time passes by too fast too soon, just as this decade has done so in such a whim.

why a book, should be a book

I can understand why the traditional newspaper industry may be on a terminal decline: the rise and prevalence of online sources of sharing information, declines in corporate advertising revenue, newer and more innovative means of getting daily news through social media, weblogs, free websites - the list goes on. That been said, I am still largely a fan of holding a couple of pages in my hand over a cup of coffee rather than scrolling down a webpage.

What I can't understand on the other hand - is the (potential) demise of the book.

I was playing around with my dad's new kindle reader yesterday, and after barely 2 minutes fiddling around with it, I dropped it totally and reinforced my conviction that despite all this media and information convergence we talk about, there is really something absolutely irreplaceable about a book.

the first and foremost is that a book, any proper book for that matter - hardcover or softcover, non-fiction or fiction, english or in 50 other global languages - is ultimately a physical manifestation of cultural identity. There is something inherently quite magical about holding a literary work of art, whatever its form or substance may be, and holding it true to the tens or hundreds of pages of knowledge and content. Thus the reason why libraries and bookstores still have this somewhat perennial relevance about them - they are probably one of the few places that will always have its place and significance in the public domain. When walking into a bookstore - you can pretty much capture what they 'way of the world is', at least on a commercial level, by looking at the bestseller list, what is hot and what is not, what the classics are, and how books are shelved according their various subjects and categories.

In this sense, bookstores and libraries are but curators of the written word and language.

the second aspect is just purely about the act of reading. I tried playing around with the kindle, but there just isn't this purist joy of turning the page, stopping a bookmark, or just very geekily embracing the touch and feel of a hard/soft cover book that makes it special. Scrolling down an electronic device somehow do not make the words come to life - on the contrary, it mechanizes knowledge and ideas - if that makes sense at all. Turning back a couple of pages, jumping ahead a couple of pages or just leafing through the 250 pages of a novel or work of literature is already a joyous experience. After all, books in their multiple forms have been the primary and only till the last century only form of knowledge transmission through the years.

I really cannot imagine maybe a hundred years from now, walking into a new age AD 2100 library, and selecting digitally from a shelf the title of a book with a download into my IPOD version 21.0. That has already taken off now, however nascent in its beginnings, with the rise of the e-book and demise of the traditional book.

I am all against it, and unlike the digitalization of the rest of mass media - music, movies, entertainment - that must be some sanctity in pages of the written word worth preserving.

the quiet space

the one defining thing I found out this time back, to my pleasant surprise, is the increase of many quiet, idyllic F&B spaces in Singapore. The formula seems to be extremely repeatable - find a good piece of land central in location and very accessible to traffic, yet still somewhat shielded away from the ongoing chaos of increasing urbanization by being nestled away in a little open quiet space, make sure there are many good trees to keep the atmosphere shady and breezy, serve some decent (albeit often overpriced!) food and drink!

it is interesting that this trend runs opposed to that of growing urban density - the more high-end condos, integrated shopping malls and expansive casinos we try to build - it seems to be paralleled by that of many new F&B spots which are attractively (slightly) far away from the maddening crowd. The net result is that it makes Singapore a much move livable city, with these quiet open spaces serving in themselves a little oasis to chill out and relax.

how i relax

"i read a lot and like arguing with people" - Amartya Sen

Voice of the observer

The writer is perhaps, the penultimate observer. Through his version and usage of the written word does he bring to life and closely observes the ways the world and the people living in it. Increasingly, with the increased time I have, I have subtly been able to drawn in and start to appreciate and think more about the angle of the writer/artist's consciousness, and the method and manner to which he drives his sense of purpose. I guess all writer's have a sense of purpose - however coherent, melancholic, dark or abstract it may seem - there is an underlying mission and self-consciousness that drives his/her narrative tone and substance.

I think what made me stir up this thought was that some of the most brilliant novelists I have been paying attention to and learning about - well somehow in this case specifically VS Naipaul and Salman Rushdie - are not just masters of the written word and the story but also extremely astute intellectuals and commentators in their own right. Naipaul himself once commented (or was it someone who commented on his behalf?) that the method and manner a writer conveys his observations and judgement on the world may be subtly yet fundamentally from that of a practitioner from another discipline - an economist, a political scientist, or journalist may harbor similar intentions and logic but somehow illustrate it in different form, and thus, outcomes.

There is a certain totality about the way about the writers develop their narratives - not purely based on theory nor fact but rather simply presenting a world-view illustrated more colorfully than anything else - that makes me now much greatly appreciate this delicate intersection between fiction and non-fiction writing. Appreciate and discovering the writer's voice, and an insight into the workings of his consciousness is at the heart of it. Unfortunately you don't get much of that even by paying close attention daily to the WSJ or Economist.

The increased freedom these couple of weeks is also a much relished intellectual one - to freedom to read and write so much more without burden of the next upcoming work assignment. It is a precious time - 4 years of school and 2 years of consulting have made me realized the value of competency, of achievement, of climbing this ladder so to speak - but maybe it is really when you are not climbing the ladder can you better appreciate where you are standing from. It is this newfound freedom that has allowed me to be more of an observer than ever before - prior in the past it was though a singular angle. That of a student taking on 5 subjects a semester, or of a consultant trying to dissect and solve business problems in a corporate setting. But now when indulging in conversations with friends - more than ever before - I am a lot of able to closer attention to their voice, their consciousness. It must be that the dispelling of my own biases and mental burdens have maybe unlocked a greater freedom to roam, and floate. And it is exhilirating.

Okay, back to sleep. All this occurred only due to a spark of imagination from reading some non-fiction narrative by Rushdie at 5am this Thurs morning.

as time goes by

age seems to mean more and become more apparent these days as time goes by. Be it conversation with friends about their lives and future, career and life planning, musings about love and relationships or just boiling down to how we manage our bodies and health - the thing about growing slightly older is that you just become more aware of it. In the past, between 13 and 15, 21 and 24 - they but just seemed numbers.

Also because this weekend with zhiwei and yan and pian in town, it was wonderful and very much cherished to hang out with friends that I have been very close to the last 20 years so. yet again, i was a bit more painfully aware of age when we partied til 4am and the next morning I woke up pretty much a wash out and exhausted. It is a funny thing - I somehow find it much easier to recover from full triathlons and 3 hour sunday workouts then just a few drinks of alchohol and shots lasting till the wee hours of the morning.

growing old, but so far pretty happy and proud of it. Nothing much one can do to resist the advance of time than to cherish and embrace it. look forward, and not back.

back to SIN tom!