Tag Archives: Musing

How Would You Spend Your Last Week on Earth?

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I can’t remember where I saw this writing prompt, but this sounded interesting, so I saved it and today was inspired to write a post based on this prompt.

 

I do think this prompt makes for a good interview or ice breaker question. Also, the answer you get from this question should reveal the priorities in the person’s life. Should be interesting and I should try it on S someday!

I am assuming that this end is for everyone because of some catastrophe (like a giant meteor or some climate change terror etc) and not someone personal, though, even something personal (like if I had an incurable disease which gave me a week to live), would probably follow the same lines. If it was only me dying, then I’d probably not spend all my money and keep as much as I could for my family, so that would probably be the only thing I’d do differently. Oh, one more thing – in addition to spending time with my family, I’d also write notes for them for the different times in their lives that I would not be there with them and also record videos for them.

 

Of course, nobody would answer things like “I want to spend more time at work to advance myself” or “I want to buy <that thing you can’t do without today>” or even “I want to get toned up” etc. because these are all things that are a means to an end – the end being wanting to provide for your family or even material things that provide you with satisfaction or even happiness for a short period of time. When the push comes to the shove, everyone is going to go back to the basics as it may be, with different people having different priorities in their lives. But I’d like to think, most people would love to have more time with their loved ones, be it family or friends or even someone they are not related to, but love being together with.

 

On to my answer, it will obviously be my family – they come first for me in everything I do and if I had just one week before a doomsday, I would gather them all together with me, my children, S, my parents, my sister, S’ mum etc, money not being an object since the world will end in a week’s time and there’s no need to save anymore, right? I would want to spend as much time as I can with them and soak up all the memories I can with my loved ones.

 

I would also like to take this time to ask for forgiveness to those whom I had wronged, intentionally or unintentionally and also forgive those who had wronged me and mine. I am someone who carries a grudge for a long time, so this would be the best time to forget all grudges I’ve been carrying in my heart for don’t know how long and let sleeping tigers lie.

 

Religion plays a large part in my life and I turn to my favourite God almost everytime I am troubled or even when I am happy. I’d like to think, I have a ‘friend-like’ relationship with Him, so this will definitely be a time when I turn to the higher power to find solace in such trying times. I do not really believe in going to temples or in organised religious functions, but have a more personal relationship. I believe that 10 minutes spent talking to him in a quiet place or even at at the altar at home is better than going to a temple. So this is what I will do – spend time talking to him at a personal level and try to calm my mind so that I can face the end.

So there you have it, how I would spend my last week in Earth. What about you? How would you like to spend the last days on this planet?

Time Turners aka If you could turn time back….

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Please do not read this post if you are a major Harry Potter fan and have not yet read the Cursed Child book. This post is heavily influenced by the book and contains spoilers in the book.

img_0671A couple of weeks back, I finished Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the major premise of the book is time travel and what happens when you try to change reality if you go back in time.

In the book, the protagonists of this story, Albus Servus Potter, and Scorpius Malfoy, who are best friends, try to turn time back from an important event in one of the books – the death of Cedric Diggory. They try to do this three times and each time when they turn time back, they arrive back in the present time in an alternative universe, one that has no bearing on their actual present.

 

 

So I started thinking ‘What if I managed to get hold of a Time Turner’, what would I do? Initially, I was very excited and started thinking of all the times in my life that, in retrospect, I wished I had done or acted differently. I also wondered how my life would turn out had I changed even one aspect of my life.

 

Then I read about the Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.

 

What it means is that small changes in one dimension (or a change in time) multiply and can have a dramatically different effect in the current state in time. This effect is part of the chaos theory.

When I read about this, I started thinking about this – if I did change any part of my life before today, then perhaps, today will not exist. I may be living a completely different world than what I am living today. I probably would not have S, GG or BB in my life!

At every point in our life, we make certain decisions based on our current knowledge. Our today is the sum total of all that knowledge and the cumulative effect of all those decisions. Who we are today, is, therefore the sum of all that we have done – right or wrong – till the now.

This is a similar lesson that Albus and Scorpius learnt. When they tried to stop Cedric from being killed, the reality they came to was completely different from the reality they left.

 

Let us embrace our current reality and learn to love life as it happens. Everything happens for a reason and this is so true here. When we try to change fate (or reality as it is), reality then throws a curve ball at us….

 

Random Thoughts – Gender Equality

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2000px-igualtat_de_sexes-svgThis week, I’ve had many thoughts swirling in my head, which I thought needed a post all by itself, rather than put it down in my weekly update, where it may not be really relevant.

One of the big news in the papers last week was about the risqué and sometimes obscene games played at the freshmen orientation at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Apparently, this is common in other Singapore universities too – Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU). Reports said that the games were very sexualised in nature with some even invoking feelings of incest.

16d42f1Orientation camps are a chance for the incoming freshmen to meet other new students and make friends. As parents of young teens who will soon get into one of these universities (hopefully), this is cause for concern to me. Since all Singaporean and Singapore Permanent Resident males have to complete their national service before they enter university, this means that there is a two-year gap in age between the men and women who enter the freshman year. This becomes as much as six years or more when you compare a female freshman versus a male final year student.

Some students (both male and female) who were at the orientation didn’t feel that the games were wrong, which lead me to think how they thought of female emancipation. Games like this, which are often under the leadership of the student council and perhaps the university management tacitly condone sexism and misogyny at a very impressionable age. It becomes worse because, in these games, it’s often the men who play the aggressor and the women, the victims. I am a feminist and I strongly believe that when young men look at women in such a sexual way, in what is essentially a very non-sexual environment, then it leads them to be conditioned to think of women in such ways in other such non-sexual environments such as at work. This leads to a life-long tendency to believe that women are very inferior to them and always act in ways which do not demonstrate true gender equality. I guess when men who do not want to take part in such games, protest, they are then ridiculed and called names for being wimps!

The university has stopped all these games for this year at least and hopefully this will lead to a serious review on what can and cannot be acceptable.

stock-vector-colourful-hands-with-male-and-female-symbol-love-marriage-gender-equality-human-rights-and-120122377This actually leads to the other thing I have been thinking about for a week now. I usually steer clear of politics and since I am not a political commentator, I like to leave that to the experts. But I am sure everyone, including me, is watching the US Presidential elections run-up. I was very happy when the democrats finally (really finally!) elected a woman to become their nominee, in what was a historical moment in the history of the country. I along with millions of women worldwide cheered at this, but I was also a bit perturbed that it took them almost 240 years after independence to have a woman at spitting distance of the highest office in the country. For a country which calls itself the ‘greatest country in the world’, this is a bit disturbing as it does not really show that this greatness also lies in the equality of its daughters and sons.

However, the most disturbing part of the election campaign has been the republican nominee. I cringe each time I read about his comments on women, minorities, the disabled, (basically everyone except the traditional white male). At times I think nobody can be like this – misogynistic, rash and irresponsible, and wonder if this is the persona he has adopted to win the elections, then I read another article about him, going back to before he was the nominee and decide I was wrong, maybe he is like that in real life too. Then I really shudder and think of the country and its future.

As a woman, as someone who passionately believes in the equality of the sexes and as someone who believes in equal rights for everyone, I really hope this person does not win. If he does, women’s lib and emancipation will probably retrograde back to 1776 when America became free of the British and the words “Freedom”, “Liberty” and “Equality” are just words in the constitution

The Paradox of our Time

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I came across this beautiful speech/poem by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama and it resonated with me.

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Here’s another, similar speech by Dr. Bob Moorehead, which is worth a read!

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more but learn less. We plan more but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.

These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you and a time when you can choose either to share this insight or to just hit delete…

Remember, to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person might not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.”

Today, most people live in bigger homes (per person per square feet), but who is there at home? Most families are nuclear in nature and even with just three or four people at home, the house is just that – rarely a home as with people’s schedules, there are just a handful of times when everyone is at home together. We don’t make time for the extended family, even during festivities and occasions.

With more disposable incomes, especially in countries like Singapore, the tendency to buy for the sake of buying something is very common. Hashtags like #buybuy are very common on social media platforms and the flaunting of new possessions seems to be a case of ‘keeping up with the Joneses and doing it one step more’! This in contrast, to some people who seem to adopt a minimalist attitude. I would like to go this route and so for the time being, I am stopping all non-essential purchases, preferring to buy from my closet and stash. I will only buy when I am completely out of the product.

We’re more connected than ever in the history of the world, but ironically we’re more alone than ever. As of June 2016, there are more than 1 billion Whatsapp groups in the world and more than 64 billion messages were sent using Whatsapp in one day at its peak! The normal Whatsapp traffic is approximately 42 billion messages per day, though I am not sure if this includes the voice and video messages. But how many of us actually take the time to speak to a loved one on a regular basis? It’s so much easier being in touch through a keyboard, though how much time does it take to take the same phone and dial a number. Even if you do not or cannot use international dialing, all you need to do is install one of the free apps like Skype or Viber and speak to your loved ones!

 

I am going to make a call to speak to my loved ones just as soon as I finish this post, will you?

 

For the love of reading

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loveofreading2I have always been a reader, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a book in my hand, reading anything and everything I came across – even newspapers wrapped around purchases! Growing up in India in the eighties, there were not many opportunities to read books, unless you had access to well equipped libraries or had relatives who were willing to buy and bring back books from the west. So most people depended on school libraries with public libraries being more of a joke than anything else…I used to haunt my school and college libraries, so much that I used to use up my quota of books and then ask/beg friends to lend me theirs too.

for-the-love-of-books-logo-smallComing to Singapore and then finding out about the library system here was akin to water to a thirsty man in a desert! Initially I used a family member’s card and then quickly got mine done as well. When BB & GG were born, I only waited two weeks before I went and got their own library cards. We’ve been borrowing books since then. GG loved reading right from the begining, but BB took a bit of time to start reading fiction. His choice of books were restricted to non-fiction, especially those relating to cars, trains and planes! His reading choices have improved a lot these days though!

The last few weeks, I’ve been reading a lot about how reading habits have been declining in Singapore over the years, especially among the younger generation. The 2015 National Literary Reading & Writing Survey showed that only 44 percent of Singaporeans read one or more literary books in the past year and this is when ‘literary’ has been given a very broad and generous definition!

3fa12852da5900ddc02651b3bd4d0df2I guess smartphones and other digital distractions have been a big contributors to this decline. I can see this even in GG & BB. Even though we regularly go to the library and borrow books, their phones still seem to have a stronger pull than books. Sometimes I have to take away their phones and get them to read instead. I don’t emphasise physical books, even an e-book is better than not reading at all!

The benefits of reading are well documented and widely established. Research has shown that not only does reading improve grades in school, but also opens their minds to a world beyond their own, one which allows them to go places and meet people they would never have met otherwise.

Schools, especially primary schools do make reading compulsory in schools. Every school has time set for reading before school starts (about 15 minutes before the bell rings) and some secondary schools also continue this, where children can read before school starts. However, this, according to me is already late. The love for reading should start earlier, maybe in pre-school! Preschools should read to and get the children, especially the older ones in K1 and K2 (5-6 years old) to start reading on their own with teachers helping them, in both English and their Mother Tongues. This will help the children develop language fluency at an early age and get them to love reading as well.

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Hopefully this will change and people start reading more….As for me, I am glad I live where I can indulge my love for reading anytime and anywhere I please. My only hope for BB & GG is that they continue to love books and reading and read more and widely and experiment with different genres and authors.

What about you, do you live to read or read to live?