Updates, Disclaimers And More Reflections

When I look back on some of my older blogs, I realised they are in need of updates, add-ons , contain mistakes, wrong conclusions or skewed thinking since I reflected upon the issues further or that they had some words used not too discriminately. What the heck! So I am no Saint George! No regular blog readers would flip back to time to read carbon-dated blogs anyway unless perhaps if that blog reader happens to be a neophyte?

If I must, then I shall mention some in passing lest someone out in the world wide blogosphere thinks any lesser of moi.

My father works at the Ford Motor Factory, that monumental and historical site where the British surrendered to the Japanese at the beginning of World War II, and not General Motors, two completely different entities. God, I just keep wondering why my life is so striven with history and culture. I am beginning to think I am a walking, talking repository of history and culture. So what does that make me? A relic?

Even my potential invention had to be a historically significant one. The Stone Man used the hides of animals to make shelters, to keep warm and as rain clothes . They later learned the technique of tanning and before long leather became the fashion product it is today. From Sadist/Masochist fetishes to cowboy boots to portable carriers.

Parasols date back to the Egyptian civilisation. It was a waxed paper invention meant to shelter one and all from the blazing heat of the Sahara and beyond. To think this was once an oasis of civilisation, far removed from its present-day barren sands and sand dunes. Just as much time passed before parasols became de riguer in rain and heat prone climates.

Speaking of which, I remember this old darkish-green waxed parasol we owned in the hey days of Singapore's history-a-making. It had a strong distinctive wax smell with heavy sturdy wood and paper. It also harboured many a live cockroach. My mouth gape in fear and surprise whenever I open it up.

I played this game I read about once. It was a game where I wrote one sentence on a piece of paper and had the first person read it and then relay this to a chain of listeners, each whispering into the ears of one to the other. By the end of the line, the last person said out what he thought he had heard and the message had become so distorted, it sounded like some insidious message of hate and murder. What does this tell you? I leave you with the obvious conclusion.

The New World Order has to teach Man to relate more to one another on a man-to-man basis. This can only come about if teachings imparted better reasoning, thinking and evaluation skills. Sigh. If only we had started off as we were. We have made ourselves so different now that only genetic mapping can save us once we prove we are made of the same stuff. That our African genes are a part of us as sure as our Chinese or Euro-American ones are.

Ah and oh yes. Man! I have seen enough of some of them who have to exert their "manhood" so much, they really over-compensate and over-extend themselves in their masculine show-offs. I do wish they just be natural and be themselves. Whoever they are! Just as long as they don't use any of us as a whipping boy!

If only we in Singapore can have an electro-magnetic repulsive dome shield covering our entire island for our national defence, we would happily be in a bubble of ultra-super protection. Any takers for this development?

I could then fulfill my one other aspiration of having my screen-script made into a blockbuster movie about war and internationalism.

Professor Samuel Hungtington mentioned in a paragraph about how Minister Mentor Lee insisted on a meeting being conducted in the English language with his Chinese counterparts some time ago. Whether it was hubris then remains to be seen as I would naturally want to be on home ground with a language I am comfortable with rather than risk miscommunication in a foreign language.

The laws of the land can be such a funny thing sometimes, don't you agree? Someone suggested that the teaching and practice of law should incorporate some elements of the scientific thinking and training scientists undergo. I will go one step further to add that one's experience in fields other than law can and will increase mileage in terms of depth and application of the law. Then perhaps the law would be kinder in considering the wider picture of every action causing an equal but opposite reaction, what comes around-goes-around, things-coming-full-circle and first-principles-first thinking.

It can't be a one-fit, strait-jacket, outright application now, can it? Without considering the full range of possible human intentions, emotions and motivations.

What I think we should all do is to reflect upon all that we did and experience in the course of a day at the end of the day. This will help us see the light in most cases.

Geez. You know what? I think I have just blogged away all these months on how our world order and system have been the one and one source of friction-causing disharmony and strife amongst mankind. It has to be all those externalities we have created that eventually turned on us internally.

Incidentally, this is one of the few things I thought I should do in life, other than doing some outstanding anthropological research in South-east Asia which I imagine that even beneath our very own concrete, asphalt-tarred roads lie many a treasure-trove of our past history and culture. Anyone for standing in the middle of the highway, digging up a piece of our past?