Books.

i haven't read a decent book in ages - one or two years, in fact.

long gone is the luxury of sitting in a quiet corner of the bus and settling down with a book to entertain me.
buses are now smellier, dirtier and far, far noisier.
life was much nicer before TvMobile.

I picked up one of my favourite books today and tried to read the first chapter - it wasn't only after a very long while had i realised more than an hour had passed and i was well through half the book.

books can be amazing things - with sufficient imagination, books are FAR better than any movie or tv show. they bring you around the world in the comfort of your own little seat, and best of all you get to be right there with the characters, and not in some cinema smelling of popcorn and coke.

sadly in times like these, children are sorely lacking in the very thing that made life so interesting when we were children - IMAGINATION.
the power of imagination could turn a ruler into the most awesome sword, a shadow into a dinosaur, and bring toys to life.

however, in present times, imagination is discouraged. individuality is no longer an asset but a curse.

how many have heard mothers ask their children:

"WHY CAN'T YOU BE LIKE (insert name here) ?! HE STUDIES FOR 5 HOURS EVERY DAY! YOU WATCH TV AND PLAY COMPUTER FOR SO LONG EVERYDAY?! YOU'RE LAZY AND USELESS!"

or something along those lines.

children are encouraged (it being a nice way of saying "Forced") to stuff their heads in schoolbooks from day to night, memorizing page after page of facts, figures and formulas.

here in our little sunny island, children do NOT learn things.
they simply memorize them.
KNOWING and UNDERSTANDING are two different things - but sadly, most don't know the difference.

it's kinda sad how children at the age of 5 are being asked: what do you want to be in the future?
that very question, though seemingly harmless, is the destroyer of childhoods and annihilator of dreams.

how many children want to be chucked in a cubicle working for the rest of their lives?
how many children actually end up doing that?
sure, a child may say: "hey mum, i want to be an astronaut/paleontologist/artist/superhero/photographer!"

then their dreams and hopes will be crushed under the hard, unforgiving boot of reality as their parents reply: "don't be stupid lah you! you'll never earn money working like that! why don't you be a banker or a doctor?"

most jobs nowadays are chosen simply because of the size of the paycheck - how many people actually work in their area of passion?

IMO, people should just leave the child alone to dream their dreams as long as possible - innocence only lasts so long.
pushing children to study may be seemingly "for their own good", but what actually happens is that the child becomes an empty shell, a mindless drone shaped by the queen bee to serve her and only her.

stuffing a child into a room full of assesment papers and schoolbooks will ultimately destroy his SOUL while building up his mind - no longer is he an individual - he will be assimilated.

books were -and still are- mediums through which a child can build up his imagination and go on to inspire and rekindle passions, but books can also destroy a child's individuality. it largely depends on the type of book the child reads.

i'm not discouraging children to study - what i'm saying is that children should not be pushed to their limits - stretch a rubber band too far, and it will inevitably break.
standards SHOULD be lowered - here in our beloved country, anything short of perfect is seen as failure - adults pass this RIDICULOUS mentality on to their offspring, who then break down and cry when they don't get a perfect score.

nobody reads proper books anymore - the only books that are encouraged are schoolbooks, which children already see too much of.
NOBODY enjoys staring into a book full of facts, figures and formulas for hours. they'll go mad - which i suspect is the case of singaporean children today.

why do you think so many of them are so SO screwed up in the head?











similarly, knowledge is a powerful thing - but can also be destructive in the wrong hands.


when's the last time you enjoyed a book?

i just found a very interesting article:
source.

(Semi-Edited Excerpt):

The party that cannot be named

Monday, 30 June 2008

Singapore Democrats Can Singapore thrive when Mr LKY is "absent"? This was what one delegate from Bangladesh wanted to know during the World Cities Summit held in Singapore last week. This delegate probably didn't have a very high regard for the other 2,999,999 Singaporeans. In any event, it was one of those sweet questions lobbed at just the right height for Mr L to, to use a baseball analogy, hit it out of the park. Appropriately cued, the Minister Mentor let rip: In the unfortunate event that if a bunch of itchy-fingered loonies who didn't know how to put the cross in the right box even if their lives depended on it voted the opposition – and not just the opposition but a "vociferous" one – into power, Singapore would go to the dogs. No prizes for guessing who the Vociferous One is. These days Mr L just cannot bring himself to utter the three letters S, D, and P. That's just as well. What would really worry us is when the MM starts praising us for being "constructive." The L system, according to L, will only survive if we are led by able leaders who are willing to make tough decisions when called upon, leaders who, by the way, have not gotten rich over the years. He was, of course, referring to his Ministers. Yes, the same ones who jacked up their salaries by only 85 percent last year, who were tough enough to fire junior officers following the security meltdown that allowed a terrorist suspect to do a David Copperfield and able enough to pin the blame on citizens for their complacency. Yep, the same ones who also blamed the people of being negligent over a screw-up at Changi Airport's immigration that allowed a traveler to travel under someone else's passport. Undoubtedly a tough act to follow. The very ones who tell Singaporeans that their retirement savings are going to be withheld because retirees can't be trusted with their own money. The self-same Ministers who came up with the fantastic idea to set up ERPs to extract yet more money from motorists rushing home to be with their families after a long day at work. The same ones who stumbled upon the brilliant scheme to increase the GST to help the poor and then, to their utter amazement, find homelessness increasing and long queues for free food at temples getting longer. So tough are these talented ones that they turn the installing of lifts that will stop on every floor so that the elderly will not have to climb stairs into an election issue. So able are they that they have nurtured a generation of citizens who can't wait to emigrate and then replace these "quitters" with new citizens from other countries who are waiting to do the same. A party of the future The worst part is that these Ministers belong to a political party that continues to depend on an 84-year-old to be their standard bearer. They profess no (much-needed) fresh ideas of their own to take Singapore into the future, a future where creative and bold responses are needed to meet complex challenges. They have not the wherewithal to tell Mr L that he needs to take a backseat because the more he pokes his nose in, the more he is going to prevent the country from moving forward. They have to stop being head-nodders and resist being enthralled by a leader who doesn't want to retire. At the end of the day, the PAP is still LKY and LKY is still the PAP. His/its modus operandi is to continue to instill fear in the populace and then extract wealth from it. Does all this sound like a party of the future?