Today was largely a t-shirt day. I woke up late because I slept way too late yesterday. I collected t-shirts and went to the Esplanade to sell them. Didn’t sell as many as I was hoping to, but still sold enough to stay afloat of things. Learned quite a few things, listed them out separately.

Saw a few reminders of things that I enjoyed reading.

http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/05/17/some-more-thoughts-on-grad-school/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/hard-work-on-the-right-things.html

http://www.quora.com/Life-Lessons/What-life-lessons-are-counter-intuitive-or-go-against-common-sense-or-wisdom

I need to figure out what REALLY matters. (Right now, the thing that matters the most- RIGHT NOW- is good sleep.) So goodnight.

Today I did take a few steps towards my dreams. Could have done better, but this will always be the case.

I did not, however, take steps towards my A level goal.

Today I wrote an article and a half. I made some progress on learning to play Exit Music (For A Film). I met the guys who I will be playing music with, for money. I had maggi goreng pattaya at simpang bedok, and it felt like a nice treat for myself. I spent 2-3 hours up later than I should’ve, reading Mass Effect stuff, but it feels like a good investment. I feel like I can’t adequately describe how much this game means to me. Head over to my Tumblr if you want to see some of what I’ve been looking through.

Didn’t exactly do much grinding today, but I feel like I did take steps towards my dreams. That’s the benchmark for now.

Minor epiphanies never come on schedule. They hit you when you least expect it, when you’re usually unprepared for them. That’s part of their beauty. What’s important is that you exploit them, that you make the most of them. I feel like I’m having one now, so I’d better follow my own advice and make the most of it.

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a slump. I’ve been slacking off. I fell ill a couple of days ago, and I’ve been using it to justify my shitty behaviour. I’ve committed to writing articles for someone, and I’ve been terribly, embarrassingly behind schedule. I justify it by telling myself that if I’m going to be paid for doing something, it needs to be done to the best of my capability, and my best doesn’t come on tap. That might be true, but it doesn’t justify the fact that I haven’t been putting in 10% as much effort as I ought to be. It’s embarrassing, shameful, and it’s completely antithetical to who I want to be.

Launching Statement was a big deal for me. But launching was the easy part. The hard part has been focusing on making sure that the sales have been flowing smoothly. And they haven’t. I’ve been neglecting them, procrastinating again. I’m not sure how I’m justifying that, but I’m sure I have a lame excuse for it somewhere.

I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but disappointing myself and the people whom I trust, respect and admire. This is no good. This ends here.

I was reading something earlier- a random article from a random link about “smart pain”. It suggested that we might snack less if there was a magnet on our fridge that sent messages or alerts- perhaps on Twitter- to our friends to let us know that we were snacking late at night. The embarrassment would drive us to behave ‘better’, or at least, the way we wish we’d behave.

It occurred to me that it was a useful idea to think about. I wouldn’t want to annoy my friends on Facebook or Twitter, but as I let the idea bounce about my head, I realized that my blog was a perfect way to do something like this.

A part of me resisted. “What, no! What if you turn off some of your readers, who simply aren’t interested in the mundane drudgery of your day-to-day life?” And then another truth smacked me in the face- so what? So what if you don’t care? I realized then that I have become something that I don’t approve of- I’ve begun to obsess about the approval of others. I write to please others. Somewhere along the line I stopped focusing on doing what I thought was right, on writing what i felt needed to be written, and I focused instead on trying to come up with blog posts that would get the most hits.

But what do hits even mean? It’s meaningless! I could have tens of thousands of hits. I know how to do it. Insult the government. Talk about sex, and hot girls. Court controversy. If I wanted to make this blog famous in terms of raw internet hits, I probably could. But it would be short-lived, and worthless.

Another intuitive truth comes to greet me- the best art is created when we stop worrying about pleasing others and we focus about telling the truth. And I have been avoiding the truth for some time. This is the source of my frustration, of the ‘rut’ that I’ve been complaining to some of my friends about. It’s pathetic. I’ve been in this state for a couple of weeks now. It needs to end.

I’m retaking my A Levels. I intend to be thoroughly prepared in 28 weeks. It’s now week 4. I have done nothing worth mentioning in the first 4 weeks. This needs to change.

I also happened to stumble upon Adam Khoo’s website. Now, I have an irrational dislike of Adam Khoo. I intuitively think of him as a bit smarmy, a con-artist of sorts. And that’s not very fair. The guy’s successful at what he does. I think I’m just being resentful of that fact, and trying to justify that I’m not even 1% as successful because I don’t buy into his ‘bullshit’.

But as I read his material, I have to acknowledge- there is truth behind it. There is. A while ago I posted about how I wanted to be “pro-Singapore”, not “anti-PAP”. Similarly, I want to be “pro-humanity”, not “anti-religion”. And if there’s anything about Adam Khoo that makes me uncomfortable- well, it’s up to me to provide a superior alternative. And I intend to. Until then, well-played, Adam, and you deserve what you get.

Going back to my A Levels and shitty work ethic.

Here’s what I’m going to do. I have 24 weeks left. 7 days a week, that’s 168 days to go. I’m going to make one blog post a day entailing what I did. And on days where I don’t do anything, I will publish the following post:

Today I decided that I wasn’t going to put in effort to make my dreams become reality. Today I decided that my dreams aren’t important after all. Today I was a quitter. Today I walked away from my passion with my tail between my legs. Today,  my noble gestures and intentions counted for shit. Today I decided that petty distraction was more important than building something of real value. Today I decided that I don’t want to do justice to myself. Today I decided to cave in to the cheap pressures and bullshit excuses that I personally despise. Today I chose not to act. Today I took the low road, because I was too afraid to do something that truly matters. Today I decided that I’m okay with being inconsequential. Today I decided to disappoint myself. Today I decided to secure mediocrity for myself and my ideas. Today I decided to use my precious, precious time in this Life to stand right where I am, instead of running after my dreams. Today I decided to betray my vision. Today I decided to betray the people who believe in me. Today I decided to betray the men and women before me who have shared with me their thoughts, passions, ideas and beliefs with the hope for a better future. Today I decided to lay down and go quietly. Today I decided to give up without a fight. Today I decided to betray myself. 

I will completely understand if you decide that it’s not worth following my blog if I’m going to be writing such petty, trivial everyday stuff. It’s not particularly inspiring, dramatic or fantastic. If you’ve got me on your Google Reader Feed, or you subscribe to my posts via email- I will completely understand if you want to be rid of such meaningless drivel.

I am making a firm, clear choice now. I cannot settle for “good enough”, or “okay lah”.

TL:DR:

It’s okay. Thank you for coming anyway.

In 2010 I enlisted into the Singapore Armed Forces as part of my National Service. 102 weeks of service, to be precise.

About 10 weeks into it, I realized that I hadn’t done anything worth mentioning. I hadn’t learnt anything worth mentioning. I hadn’t contributed anything, and amounted to precisely nothing. I was determined to do better for the remaining 90 odd weeks of my National Service.

I liked the idea of “What gets measured, gets managed,” which I believe is a Peter Drucker quote, which I heard of through Tim Ferriss.

Well, I completed my National Service 3 weeks ago, and I’m proud to share that the 90 Week Project was a wonderful… failure.

The reason it failed was remarkably specific.

The project had been going great for about 30 weeks, during which I collected a remarkable amount of data about myself. The mere act of collecting this data transformed the way I acted and carried myself. I made better decisions. I ate better, spent less, worked out more, read more. It wasn’t even a particularly conscious decision.

We behave differently when we think people are watching- and keeping a journal sort of has that effect. You observe yourself- and you behave differently when you’re being observed.

Around week 40, I was to “repeat” my Basic Military Training. (I hadn’t actually done it- I wasn’t allowed to the first time around, because I was suspected of having a medical condition that I didn’t have.) BMT shook my life up completely, in both good ways and bad. I brought along my notebook- THE notebook, with all my statistics, metrics, goals, plans, and most precious of all, a series of passages I had written for myself, stream-of-consciousness style.

This was a bit of a bad idea- on hindsight, I should have prepared a separate journal for BMT, or perhaps simply used the raw materials I was given there, and then transfered the data to my main journal on the weekends, when I got to go home.

My journal would have been safe in my locker in my bunk, and on hindsight I should have left it there. But I brought it along with me in my load-bearing vest when we were headed to another part of camp which was far away, and rarely visited.

Physically and psychologically drained from training, I didn’t notice that I had left it behind. The realization hit me when I returned to my bunk later in the day, and it absolutely shattered me. I was emotionally distraught. I made every attempt I could to recover it- I even approached my superiors, who surprised me with their willingness to take the trouble to pursue the matter- but it was gone, lost for ever.

Prior to BMT, I had made it a point to constantly transfer data from my notebook to digital formats- text files and blog posts. However, the weeks leading up to my BMT were rather rushed, and I didn’t take the time to keep up to date with my backups.

I was devestated.

On hindsight, I should have picked myself up, dusted myself off and started over. It’s okay, I should have told myself. I could have dealt with a few blank weeks in the middle of the larger project. Sometimes a little silence speaks the loudest. But I was unable to recreate that sort of positive mental state. BMT simply wasn’t a conducive environment to start something all over again, or to manage any kind of emotional stress- just ask anybody who broke up with their significant other during those few months. The project lost its flow- I broke its back, and it would never recover until its timely end.

So let’s break it down.

My project died prematurely because I was not sufficiently prepared for failure. I did not expect to cope with unexpected loss. I went on tilt and sabotaged the mision by refusing to try again. I did not know how to fold and start over. I was like a sportsman whose career ended after an injury- because it broke not just his leg, but his spirit as well. I didn’t know how to roll with the punches.

I’m reminded of Rocky’s words: It’s not about how hard you hit- it’s about how hard you get hit, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! If you know what you’re worth, go out and get what you’re worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits! And not say you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that, and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!

Sorry. Anyway, as you may have guessed, the 90 week project wasn’t a complete and total failure. Nothing ever really is. I still have a bunch of data that I can interpret and learn from. It was still a hell of a ride.

Here are some consistent trends I noticed.

My 3 biggest complaints were:

1: Not enough sleep/sleep deprived
2: Dehydrated
3: Wasted time online

These 3 were highly recurring problems- things that I complain about on a very regular basis. They’re also things that I have the power to change.

Hard Reset: Every so often I fall into a pattern of late nights that seems difficult to break. The only way to fix this, I find, is to set aside a day where I go to bed at about 8pm or earlier. This has been effective so far.

Water Parades: The military got this figured out. Drink 500ml when you wake up, again at lunch, and again after dinner. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than dehydration. A dehydrated body is terrible to work with. A dehydrated mind even more so. Water is the magic juice.

Strict Pomodoro: I waste time online when I’m not paying attention to the time. I find that Google Chrome’s Strict Pomodoro application saves me from this. Now if only I could remember to use it more often. I need to develop a habit of deciding what I’m going to do with my time online before I even turn on the internet. (I’m writing this entire article while I’m completely disconnected from the internet.)

—

I notice that I’m much more productive in general when I’ve been working out. I kept track of my workouts, and I’d been working out consistently for 2-3 weeks or longer, I notice that I’d write more, sleep better, spend less and generally seem to have livelier, happier statistics.

—

Inertia, or Chaining: You might expect a fairly even distribution of effectiveness and lethargy, but it wasn’t. I was either furiously productive, “baseline productive”, or completely vacant and unproductive. If I had to translate that onto a scale of 1-100, we’re looking at either high 80s, low 60s, or low 10s.

Even that, I feel, doesn’t capture the dramatic difference. Some days would have so much done that I wouldn’t have enough space in the pages to write what I did- and sometimes there’d be days or even weeks of vacant emptiness. Sometimes I’d write 3 to 5 blog posts in a day, when I’m on fire and completely oblivious to reality.

Otherwise I’d spend a few hours writing a single post, distracting myself with frivolous nonsense along the way. When I finally complete it, my productivity for the rest of the day is shot- I feel like I’ve “hit my quota”, and subsequently accomplish nothing. But even that’s better than my absolute listlessness, where I get nothing done.

If I am to be more productive, which I’d like to be, I see 3 things I need to do.

First, I need to increase the number of “beserker” days, where I write like a beast. This is done, I find, by stimulating myself in advance- I write like a crazy beast after having great conversation, whether with people, or with myself when I’m reading good books. I need to incorporate this into my operating system, making it a habit.

Second, I need to learn to swap tasks. If I’m not in beserker mode, I should be content with publishing a single post- and move on to another pursuit, such as reading, practicing music, building my business, whatever. By changing the game, I exploit the 80/20 rule and minimise the effect of diminishing marginal returns.

Third, I need to avoid listless days by keeping track of what I’m doing, and setting periodic alarms. A brief period of listlessness is understandable, but an entire week is not. I need to institute daily routines, and even maybe half-daily routines, to constantly remind myself of my goals, what I want to accomplish, what I want to do.

—

Splitting Up The Writing: During my Signals course (which was right after my BMT), I discovered a powerful and disturbing fact- I write far, far more when I’m disconnected from the internet, or even a word processor. I can fill up pages and pages with just ink and paper. I could write literally thousands of words, about 4-5 blog posts worth of material in a single evening.

The slight “catch” is that they’d be unedited, so the language might not be as perfect as I’d like it to be. But the sheer volume was overwhelming. It made me feel a bit pathetic, because it made me realize that I might not be using even 10% of my potential- that I could be writing at a level far beyond anything I had imagined before.

—

I’m sure I have more lessons to learn. But reflection must be coupled with action. I’d get more out of this if I act upon what I’ve learnt so far.

I’m restarting the 90 week project in the form of the 28 week project (which is the time between my ORD and my A level examinations.) It’s currently week 3, day 5. We’ll see how this one works out.

TL;DR:

My project failed because I lost my notebook, which broke my spirit. I learnt that I should prepare for setbacks, and get back on my feet ASAP.

My main problems were sleep deprivation, dehydration and online distractions. I am taking steps to remedy this.

I’m more productive when I’ve been working out.

I have 3 levels of productivity- beserker, satisficing and snorlax. I need to encourage more of the first, hack the second by switching tasks once I’ve accomplished something, and systematically eradicate the third through a series of checks and balances.

I stepped outside of Changi City Point Mall earlier today and I noticed a bunch of smokers around the fringes- near the carpark, near the perimeter, near the outer limits.

This strikes me as socially undesirable. It’s sub-optimal for the smokers, who don’t have a place to smoke. It’s sub-optimal for the non-smokers too, who have to deal with secondhand smoke from a few random smokers wherever they turn.

Most commonly, I believe smokers tend to smoke in the common areas a short distance away from wherever they came from- be it a club or a shopping center. I imagine this frustrates non-smokers, who also want to loiter in the same premises but don’t want to deal with the smoke.

How do we resolve this? It’s quite simple, really- designated smoking areas. We don’t have enough of them.

Ideally, we should have one- or a few- within accessible reach of every major area. Particularly- MRT stations, bus interchanges and shopping centers. (If you’ve ever been into any stairwell in any shopping center, you’d realize that smokers have been there. I’m guessing half the time it’s people who work in the mall, and half the time it’s patrons. Either way, the cigarette butts speak for themselves- smokers gonna smoke. They know they can get away with it.)

(I’ve noticed that the smokers at Tampines bus interchange have, over the years, developed an unofficial smoking area at the far corner. Concentration naturally happens even without top-down directives.)

What are the benefits?

1: Reduced second-hand smoke. There would be a lot more smoke in one specific area, which could then easily be avoided. There would be less random smoke to bother non-smoking passers-by.

2: Reduced cigarette butt litter. Again, it’s possible there might be just as much litter, or even more, but it would be concentrated in a specific area, which makes cleanup easier, and the mess less unsightly. (I personally believe that if there’s a very clearly accessible trash receptacle of some sort that draws attention to itself, there will be less random littering. It’s a psychological thing. But I have no evidence for this.)

—

Some people might argue against having designated smoking areas on ‘moral’ grounds. Giving smokers a designated area makes it “easier” for them, and we “validate” them by giving them a place. It’s kinda like how some people believe we shouldn’t tell children about sex, because then they’ll want to have it, or that we shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists, because we validate them just by talking to them.  (The foreign minister of Norway compellingly argues otherwise.)

Consider this- why do we have Designated Red Light Areas (DRAs) in Singapore? Why is prostitution legal? Aren’t we “validating” the sex workers by giving them a “place” to ply their trade?

I believe the answer can be found by exploring the fundamental pragmatism that guides Singapore’s policies. I don’t remember where I heard or read this, but apparently we ban (or banned) pornographic movies and magazines because they “encourage” people’s libido. You make people hornier than they already are. This isn’t good. (I’m not disputing this).

On the other hand, prostitution, escorts, call girls and “massage palours” deal with existing sexual tension. We know that there are horny old men out there, and somehow it’s better that they have an outlet. Perhaps the logic is that without some form of release they might resort to rape, molest, public masturbation and/or who knows what else. (Again, I’m not disputing this.)

The prostitutes carry “yellow cards” issued by the government, and have to go for health checkups every two weeks. This allows the government to monitor what’s going on, and keep things like disease and crime under control. It’s far less likely that something crazy might happen. The police do hang around, mostly just to make sure that everything is okay, that nobody’s stabbing each other while having sex. (I’ve heard some people are into that sort of thing.)

A quick digression that’s both interesting and relevant: Alcohol was once illegal in the USA. What do you think happened? A black market emerged, and with it, so did organized crime. Many thinkers and philosophers who are personally against prostitution, alcohol and recreational drug use still argue that it should be legalized, because making these things illegal has all sorts of unintended consequences.

Tens of thousands of people in Mexico are suffering because recreational drugs are illegal in the USA- drug barons and cartels emerge, and there’s a lot of crime and smuggling. (At the same time, expensive prescription drugs dominate the ‘legal’ market, pouring tonnes of cash into Big Pharma’s pockets… it’s a sorry state of affairs.)

What’s the point of all that?

Smokers gonna smoke. At least, in the short run. People are going to drink alcohol, take drugs, visit prostitutes. Kids are going to have sex whether we tell them about it or not. We might not like it, but that’s the way it is. There are all sorts of terrible consequences when we criminalize things, or demonize them, or deliberately shroud it in mystery. Ideally, in the long run, we should have a world where nobody really wants to smoke, or drink, or have underaged sex. But we do not live in that world yet.

Let’s have more designated smoking areas. It’s good for the non-smokers. And hey, if we put all the smokers in one area, we could bombard them with fliers  and posters and statistics telling them why they ought to quit. (Which, of course, wouldn’t work. But you know, whatever makes you happy.)

My goal as a social commentator used to be to try and criticize the government in a witty and intelligent way that was accessible to the common person.

I felt that there was a gap to be filled- intelligent criticism is often complicated and hard to read, which alienates casual readers. This was a shame, I thought, because it restricted the accessibility of good thinking to a select few.

On the other end of the spectrum, entertaining, viral content is often overly simplistic mudslinging. “Complaining for the sake of complaining”, some of us might call it.

The problem with this, I felt, was that neither “side” ever really cares about the other. If we are to move forward as a nation, we need to be more inclusive- we have to hear everybody out. Even the crazy conspiracy theorists have some value about them- their views might be unsubstantiated, but the fact that they do have such views tells us something. People don’t get frustrated and angry for nothing. They might be being unreasonable, but there’s always something to learn from their emotional responses, and we shouldn’t dismiss them lightly.

I will admit, a large part of my online strategy was to use attention-grabbing stunts in the form of grand assertions and misleading headlines. It worked- my hits spiked, and my regular readership rose. I got some Likes on my Facebook page.

I thought I was functioning as a sort of “double-agent”- I’d get people in the door by pretending to be one thing, and hopefully get them thinking about things that they might not have considered before. Looking back, I feel like I made some valid points- but I no longer find it quite as fulfilling.

As I grow and mature as a writer, and as a person, I’ve become increasingly aware of a higher road- that I simply wasn’t aware of before.

I thought I was helping the system by adding some firepower to the side of the underdog. The super-dominant incumbents already have all the brains and money, so I played devil’s advocate and threw my weight behind the underdog.

I remain steadfast when I say that this is, or was, non-partisan in nature. I was choosing sides, yes, but not because I thought one side was inherently better than the other. I am against the super-dominance of any individual party, any hegemony or monopoly of ideas. If somehow the PAP became opposition again- as they once were- then I’d be arguing on their behalf. Probably.

But I realize now that I don’t have to choose sides. I feel the same way about religion, too. I no longer feel a need to identify as atheist, or agnostic, or anti-religion. When it comes to religion, I’m pro-humanity, and I’m completely comfortable with using both humanistic and religious arguments to persuade people to be more compassionate, to treat one another with love and respect.

So in terms of politics, I’ve decided I’m going to modify my rhetoric from anti-PAP to pro-Singapore. What’s the difference? It’ll be a very subtle change, but I believe it’ll make a big impact. It’ll focus on our common motives and agendas rather than on our differences. It’ll promote cohesion rather than divisiveness. The enemies are ignorance, attachment and aversion.

I remain thoroughly unconvinced that any single individual, world view or political party has all the answers. I don’t, and neither do you. If we are to survive, if we are to move forward as a society, and as a species, we will have to carry each other. We will have to listen to one another. We will have to stop demonizing each other, and realize that we want the same things, even if we see things differently.

Let’s focus on building, on learning, on growing. And let’s be the better men (and women), be the change we want to see, and lead by example.

I doubt that I will be able to do this perfectly. In fact, I know I won’t. But it’s something to live into, to work towards. This is where you come in. I plead that you hold me accountable, that you remind me whenever I’m being divisive, whenever I’m attacking people rather than acts.

Let’s shape the discourse that we want to see, and build the nation that we want to be. We have a choice.

There are 28 weeks between the end of my National Service and my GCE ‘A’ Levels, which I am taking as a private candidate.

I have many thoughts about this. It’s hard to express everything all at once. (This is something I really need to get better at doing.)

I’m finding it useful to use BMT as an generative analogy to approach this phase of my life.

I’m done with army, so now I’m a civilian with no fixed job (I make money from writing articles and selling t-shirts). It’s easy to fall into the trap of aimless lethargy. I refuse to do this. I spent my entire academic life in aimless lethargy. I want to surge forward where others falter.

So. 28 weeks A level BMT. 2 weeks are gone. This is week 3.

I’ve been watching several Mathematics and Economics lectures on YouTube. I’m fairly confident of about 60-70% of my Economics knowledge.

I have not yet started on Literature or Linguistics whatsoever. (I am in the process of seeking out help for the latter.)

I am confident of getting an A in GP. No sweat.

As it stands, if I were to take the A levels right now, I expect that I’d get a

U for Mathematics,
C for Economics,
D for Literature,
C for Linguistics and
A for GP.

My goal is to get straight A’s.

I studied well today. I think I can do much better over the next few weeks, but today was a milestone. I have to keep up this level of intensity, and then up it.

I ran for the 3rd time.  It was therapeutic, relaxing. I felt free.

Tomorrow the cycle continues. I will dominate this.

It’s really interesting to study Mathematics through YouTube. The lecturers are compelled to make their lectures good, because the best lectures win the most views- and we click the videos with the most views, so there’s an element of natural selection at play. The good videos get all the hits, the rest don’t.

A good lecture for beginners focuses on accessibility over accuracy. The lecturer has to present his ideas in a way that makes it stick, that makes it easy for the novice to understand what’s going on.

What happens, I’m noticing, is that they simplify. They use scaffolding. (My girlfriend hates that word.) They take the trouble to make sure you understand, instead of presenting you with the information and assuming that you do.

Every teacher- or anybody explaining any idea- has to make a trade-off between accuracy and accessibility. We choose accessibility when we tell children that electrons of an atom orbit the nucleus like the planets orbit the sun. It’s not accurate. The truth is a little more complex. (Or at least, what we think it is.) But the original model stays, at the foundation level. Because it’s accessible.

Experts tend to underestimate the complexity of their own expertise. Teachers who’ve been teaching the same subject for years tend to forget that bombarding students with detail and information from the get go tends to alienate them from the topic.

When you choose accuracy over accessibility, you aren’t really making a trade-off- because there is no value in inaccessible accuracy. The students will struggle to grasp what you’re saying. The accuracy is wasted on them- even counter-productive, because it throws them off the trail.

YouTube was still in its infancy when I was in Junior College; but I swear that the lectures available on the internet now are vastly superior to what you’re going to be getting in school.

I plan to support this hypothesis (I cannot prove it by myself, because there are all sorts of other factors that come into play, like my new-found motivation to study) by using the internet to study for my A-Levels.

You can follow my academic YouTube journey here.

Have you ever observed an ant colony, and noticed that there appears to be a greater intelligence guiding the ants’ collective behaviour?

Each individual ant is relatively clueless about what it’s doing, but it serves a role in something greater than itself. (“They’re stupid alone, but smart together!”)

This “intelligence” doesn’t exist in any centralized location, just as the internet doesn’t belong to anybody . It’s an emergent intelligence. It’s a swarm intelligence.

There is no centralized “Hive Mind”- each additional ant adds to the collective intelligence of the colony. The ants don’t have a collective brain- they are the collective brain.)

This applies to us, too. Human society doesn’t have a centralized collective brain- we are a collective brain. And emergent from the larger system of nature is a perceptible wisdom that is greater than we can fathom.

This wisdom doesn’t ask to be worshiped. I’m not sure if it is conscious- I think it most probably is, but we won’t be able to be aware of it. So it doesn’t really matter to us, just as our skin cells don’t really care about our feelings. (But should it? Will contemplating the broader consciousness of humanity compel us to make better decisions?)

(Can the vast beast of humanity feel pain, or sorrow, or regret? I think it can, but it’s still in its developmental stages. If all of humanity were a single great person, she’s still a child.)

We are the individual neurons in this great brain. Together we form synapses, and transmit signals. New neurons keep forming, old neurons keep dying, the relationships between them account for more than we understand. Revolutions happen when society literally changes its mind.

(How important are individual neurons in these paradigm shifts? Very, and not at all. How important is an individual computer in a network on the internet? How important is a word in a language? The broader complex system, or swarm, must always be able to adapt to the loss or mutation of any individual element. Yet it is ultimately made up entirely of a collective of disparate individual elements.)

I believe that there is a greater wisdom than we can comprehend. But this wisdom isn’t “out there”, it doesn’t belong to a deity or any great supernatural power. This wisdom is systemic- it emerges from all of us. It’s within us. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that it’s between us, because it’s neither within me nor within you- it emerges from our mutual co-existence.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” - Matthew 18:20

Now- if we think of God as something between us, then it is clear that divisive, bigoted behaviour quite literally hurts God. I don’t mean to say that God has feelings, or any sort of nervous system. (An interesting thought to pursue.) I mean to say that God is diminished whenever you behave without compassion or grace. Every human being who is cut off from another, by chance or by choice, is a wasted opportunity to cultivate God.

If you believe in God, honour and serve him by treating others with dignity, respect and compassion. If you don’t like the idea of God (I personally find her to be quite tedious and elegant as a concept sometimes- it really depends on the context, doesn’t it?) then disregard her, and honour and serve humanity.

A middle way might be to replace the term with Love. Love is diminished when you behave without compassion or grace. (God is Love. Works for me.)

C’mon, I’m sure that’s something we can agree on! What does the swarm think of this?

TL;DR:

Ant colonies are intelligent. This intelligence is emergent.

Human societies are intelligent. This intelligence is emergent.

If we extend this inductively, it makes sense to believe that there is an emergent wisdom from the Universe at large. You might call it God.

This wisdom isn’t “out there”, it’s within us.

This idea has some interesting philosophical implications.

Have you ever read Animal Farm? It’s a book by George Orwell, reflecting events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II.

The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders but also how wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and myopia corrupt the revolution. While this novel portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution (and not the act of revolution itself), it also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people’s government is not achieved.

If you haven’t read it, you really should. It describes how the few who rise to power with good intentions, to free their people from oppression, can end up becoming the oppressors themselves.

Now consider the following National Education messages:

1. No one owes Singapore a living.
   We find our own way to survive and prosper, turning challenge into opportunity.
2. We must ourselves defend Singapore.
   We are proud to defend Singapore ourselves, no one else is responsible for our security and well-being.

These were originally written in response to colonial rule and to the Japanese Occupation. Those were the oppressors that we were fighting off- that was the rhetoric that the PAP government used to motivate and encourage us to work hard, to accept that sacrifices had to be made. (National Service, for instance.)

In this frame of reference, the PAP-dominated government is elected by the Singaporean people. The PAP, in a way, represents Singapore. (We must ourselves defend the PAP.)

But consider the more ‘universal’ case presented by George Orwell. Eventually, the oppressed become the oppressors. A nation is more than its government.

Our National Education messages are principles. And the principles here, as I see them, are independence and personal responsibility.

As such, I argue that these principles are violated when we become overly dependent on the PAP, and when we relinquish personal responsibility for the state of our Nation to the Government.

If we’re violating the principles of nation-building, then we are diminishing the health of our Nation. Being unthinkingly supportive (or critical!) of the PAP is bad for Singapore. 

We should not be depending on any single agent for Singapore’s survival. It should be a collective effort. Nobody should be bigger than the collective. The PAP’s rhetoric used to be somewhat dominated by threats and fear-mongering. If not for the PAP, Singapore would fall into chaos- there would be riots, our women would be maids in other countries, so on and so forth.

If you use a parenting analogy again, the incumbent Government is like an overbearing parent who refuses to let his children out of his sight- because the kids don’t know how to make decisions, don’t know how to handle their lives. If the parent were not around, the kids would surely fall to ruin.

Again, what does that say about the quality of parenting? What kind of parent are you, if you strive to keep your children so dependent on you that they cannot fend for themselves? What kind of government are you, if you strive to keep your people dependent on your political party for survival?

From what I understand, the Singapore Government is full of hardworking Singaporeans who keep the country running, regardless of the people at the top. The people who really run the show are the people who show up to work everyday, doing all the mundane nitty-gritty work. I salute you all.

I don’t mean to portray the PAP as a villain, or to black out all the good things that they have done for us. Similarly, I’m not asking you to rush out and vote for the Opposition at the next General Election. The “villain” here is not a person, entity or an institution. If we have to frame this as some sort of war, we are fighting ignorance, intolerance, fear and the like.

TL;DR:

Our leaders told us that no one owes a living, and that we must ourselves defend Singapore.

This is true. No one owes us a living, not even our leaders. We find our own way to survive and prosper, turning challenge into opportunity.

No one owes us a living. We must ourselves defend Singapore.