| Friday, November 13, 2009 |
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Speech by Adrian Tan (writer of the Teenage Textbook & lawyer from Drew & Napier) to the NTU graduating class of 2008 Life and How to Survive It I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband. My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me. On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable. Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife. And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument. Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you. The next big milestone in your life is today: Your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning. You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers. The good news is that they’re wrong. The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy. I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life. You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap. Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom. So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper. Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy. I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy. After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average. Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much. That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste. If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average. What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate. Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows. What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over. Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free. The most important is this: do not work. Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable. Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust. There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not.They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful. People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense. Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway. Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing.Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself. I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist. So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher. Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working. Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence. In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror. I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross. One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average.That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong. The other side of the coin is this: fall in love. I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone. Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false.Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It is far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable. Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul. Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm. You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart. You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back.Its value is to inspire you. Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it. Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone. You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy. |
| Tuesday, November 10, 2009 |
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说真的，我现在的人生真的几乎完美，我所想要、可以要的、甚至是人们可遇不可求的完整家庭、可以共患难的好朋友和跟自己喜欢的人在一起，我都拥有了... 我常常自问何来如此的福分，可以拥有那么多的幸福？我的结论总是告诉我，是因为我知足。听过傻人有傻福吧？什么样的人会被称为傻人？我想不是指愚蠢的人，而是指知足的人。给我山珍海味我不要，我宁可喝白粥配肉松。傻？也许对别人是，但我想白粥够我吃饱，肉松够美味了。或许就是因为有这知足的心，上天才会愿意给我那么多... 它知道我会欣赏、会珍惜、会把握... 若我因为拥有得越多而日渐害怕，每天担惊受怕，也许到最后，“失去”的恐惧会迷惑了我，让我无法再全心全意地去爱，去为我所拥有的而快乐地活... 这，应该比真正的失去还可悲吧。 |
| Friday, November 06, 2009 |
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“难得糊涂，吃亏是福”  “糊涂”和“吃亏”对很多人而言是件坏事... 但我有时多希望自己糊涂些，别如此清醒，别想得那么多、知道少点事，也许会更加快乐呢？而我也好盼望有本事吃亏呢！要拥有才有资格给呀... 如果我比较聪明，成绩一级棒的话，我想应该会有很多人想要叫我帮忙，或是跟我拿笔记吧？表面上是我付出的时间比别人多，一个人努力写的笔记别人不费吹毛之力就有得分，似乎很吃亏，但深入点想，其实只有能干的人才会面对这种情况。所以若觉得自己糊涂的话，欢呼吧！有些人整天都处在紧绷的精神状态，想糊涂些都不行！若觉得自己吃亏了，恭喜你！让你吃亏的那个人看出了你的才干！你已找到了在这世上懂得欣赏你的人... 难得哦！ 叶子有缺口，我却觉得它好特别，会透光！不论是外貌还是性格，纵然不完美，我更加欣赏缺陷美... |
| Wednesday, November 04, 2009 |
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上天的指示？  How literal. |
| Saturday, October 31, 2009 |
 Do u think there'd be any dental clinic that'd pay me for this photo as their advertisement? Hahaha... Just something done for fun, a random idea as relaxation from the hectic schedule! =P |
| Thursday, October 29, 2009 |
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I miss JC days! This pic isn't from 2006/2007, it's from 2009! But I think we look the same as then eh? Haha...  噢买尬 噢买尬歌词 噢买尬 噢买尬 真的太久不见啦 我随时OK就等你电话 哭啊哭啊哭啊哭到眼泪都干了 哭到海滩只剩下沙 整个世界只剩下你听我说话 一直到天黑也不回家 混阿混阿混阿混到天空就老了 情话依然没有变化 剩下我们说的生话梦话废话 就这样陪着我到长大 噢买尬 噢买尬 这是一定要的阿 喝到挂 唱到哑 笑到流泪 哭到趴 噢买尬 噢买尬 真的太久不见了 我随时OK就等你电话 |
