Just a couple of days back I got the chance to stroll down Orchard Road and realised how much have changed. I’ve been to ION Orchard a couple of times already so it’s really nothing but I haven’t got to walk down to look at what comes after Ngee Ann City that was newly completed. I walked through the Mandarin Gallery, 313@Somerset, and Orchard Central.
Most of these malls are very standard. An Apple retail outlet seem like a must-have in these malls and they’ll have a big jewelery boutique and high-fashion (usually Forever 21 or Zara) sort of shop in the ground floor. They’d have fast food, maybe more of Burger King and Long John Silvers, both of which are more high class sort of fast food rather than the standard KFC and McDonald’s. They’d have a cafe too, Coffee Bean or Starbucks in addition to a whole spate of other small eating places in the basement areas. Most would have a CD/Music shop somewhere on the higher levels too.
As we shop around places we complain that every mall offers somewhat the same things but then it is seeing familiar stuff that comforts us when we are overseas. More often than not in Singapore different places are just different configurations of the same old stuff. There’s this tension between the search for novelty and the fear of the unknown and the mall designers and developers will all have to work to balance these forces in the minds of their patrons. Tapping on popular brands help draw the usual crowd that makes the malls less cold to those genuine customers even if the rest of the crowd spends little money. While it is the big names that establishes the mall in the minds of the people, it is actually the small unique shops that defines them.
Seriously, when you’re the Full-Time National Servicemen you think about going ‘out there’ to work and complain about the lack of freedom, the alienation, the pile of self-created workload and stuff like that. A word for you NSFs from someone who ORDed, the outside world is the same. Or to say the very least, it isn’t any better. Sure enough you get to go home after work but the traveling makes you tired; you get to choose what you want to eat during lunch but more often than not you just eat the few lousy food choices you have (some of them made lousy by the frequency by which you eat them); you get to go out and do all sorts of stuff like eat supper, buy whatever you want, go shopping but all that is going to happen only on weekends because you’re going to be tired from work.
Civilian life subjects you to more forces of circumstances, that’s all. Those in camp, rejoice!
When packing, I try my best to rid myself of nostalgia attached to the items I uncover from my room. I make use of the leanest guidelines you’ve ever seen for treatment of the items:
First I ask myself if I’m going to use it or need it any time in the future at all. Yes for stuff like my books and notes and No for stuff like under-sized or over-sized clothing and kiddish toys. Next I ask myself if there’s anyone I’ve in mind who would need or want the stuff I don’t. If yes, I’ll set it aside to be given away or else I’d dispose them.
Utilitarianism is good for packing stuff.
After the 100-day self-imposed Coffee Ban, I’m back to drinking coffee. I’m not entirely very keen on getting back into drinking coffee and after tasting it once again, I’m not particularly impressed. I’m not sure if it’s because of expectations. Nevertheless, I’d still enjoy sipping on 3-in-1 coffee that’s made from boiling hot water (which can really make a huge difference to the taste of the coffee) and munching on Wife Cakes (老婆饼) from good bakeries (Hang Heung from Hong Kong is good; so are the ones from Crystal Jade).
Having all these while reading a good book back at home would be heavenly.
I made a trip to Shenton Way area early in the morning to help deliver something for my Mum. It was quite early in the morning so when I reached there, the streets were still pretty empty and there was little hint of the rush of people who will be arriving at that place within the next half an hour or so.
Not there...
When I was leaving the business district however, people started pouring in, and as I walked within the complex maze of underpasses that leads to Tanjong Pagar, there were an endless stream of people in corporate attire charging towards me in brisk strides. They were holding their documents, carrying a laptop holder sort of bag, some on their cell phones, many others sipping coffee or reading the myPaper that was distributed at the entrance of the underpass. I soon realised I was the only one walking in the opposite direction; everyone else were walking towards me and then past me. I saw no one walking in the same direction as me, towards the MRT station. It actually feels a little lonely even when the entire underpass was crowded.
There were many times when I was going to this district for (scholarship) interviews and I was in the same sort of corporate attire many others were in. I was walking alongside these strangers during lunch rush hour and wondering if I’d meet these same people if I do work there a couple of years later.
But perhaps I won’t and there’s a chance I would once again find myself walking against the direction of where these corporate workers are heading towards, at least metaphorically. The purpose of my walk is the journey, not their destination…
After so long, Propagator finally has a new layout! It’s minimahl by Ahlera. It’s pretty nice barring the awkward looking search-bar. I’ll soon be amending the random taglines on under my blog name. Simplicity itself will be getting new sections featuring my other (writing, arts, design) works and such.
It’s barely 5 days from the Big Day but then as you draw closer to ORD, it becomes increasingly overrated; but it’s not. Too often we have unrealistic expectations of things in the future and when they come closer, we become somewhat disappointed, unaware that we’ve dreamt too much. Dreaming has helped to sustain hopes but when reality floods in, one needs to be objective.
ORD is a great thing; as far as I remember, National Service is somewhat dreaded for the freedom it rein from young boys/men and to be liberated is a wonderful thing. No doubt you could have continued booking in and out of camp and working as usual but it makes a great difference when you know that you’ve the power to decide when to stop doing that.
In Daniel Pink’s recent book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, he talks about the stuff that motivates us. We often thought of them as money but he figures out that it’s about “autonomy, mastery, and purpose”, which makes a lot of intuitive sense. The incentive systems in the military is pretty screwed; it gives you money and arbitrary respect without the satisfaction and purpose that would drive ordinary souls to excellence. There’s a need for the organization to examine what truly motivates us.
The ideas in the book relates closely to Richard Sennett’s documentation of the philosophy of craftsmanship, The Craftsman (reviews here and here). His definition of craftsmanship, “an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake” sounds like a logical consequence for a well-motivated individual.
Another implication for Daniel Pink’s work is probably an increased complexity for the idea of utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham. It seems that the idea of utility, which he derives from the two sovereign masters of every individual – pain and pleasure, would require some reviewing to include more complex emotions/feelings. Of course, the idea of autonomy, mastery and purpose can go towards pleasure but linkages will have to be made carefully.
Moral of the Story: ORD is great, don’t let it lose its flavour just because yours have come and gone; savour the liberation for the rest of your life and allow yourself to be motivated by the virtues of work and life and not deterred by the fear of punishment.
