04 September, 2007

Mental Agility - the Working Class divide.

i have to admit. i've been living in a relatively utopian environment. despite all my "bragging" that i try to step into others shoes, to see things from others perspective, to not assume others are as priviledged as me..
it's only now that i see the difference. the social divide.

Being a student, we're constantly honing our mental skills, our thought processes. Actively exploring the world, probing ideas, dissing fallacies.. we fail to understand what it means to be an adult. a Working adult.
Working dulls your mental agility. If mental agility can be described as a sword, then a working adult's would be like a blunt, worn sword, or worse yet, a sword with no edge. Working in the world beyond school introduces to you monotony. It introduces routines, schedules, protocols, systems, of which you cannot escape. It robs you of the thing(s) that's most valued in higher education circles: creativity, or more so, the ability to think.
unable to express individuality, restricted of an identity, you become a corporate clone, an industrial drone. Such is the fate of those who're stuck in the lower recesses of the working society; unseen, unheard, we know not of their plight, for neither do they. where self-awareness is a myth, and flexibility of the mind is but a dream, an idealistic one at that.

why do i go to such lengths to describe and "exaggerate" (supposingly) our society, and our lower educated working class? we've all got relatives or acquaintances who're lesser educated than university students, and yet we're blind to such details. Is it really because we're too naive? or too caught up in our own world to notice?
i do know this. that our lesser educated brethens are grinding through life. that they're constantly looking for upgrades and improvement. that they're looking for an escape route. for a freedom they cannot yet comprehend. they struggle with the nature of our life, just as we will struggle to adjust to theirs in the coming decades.
i do not know whether to feel priviledged, to aid them, or to condemn our society structures failings, to blame singapore's favourite pin-up hate-boys (the government). is there an alternative, in our modern industrailized (and digitalized) globalising society? is this even a problem to contemplate?

the government introduces initiatives to aid and push along our labor force's drive for improvements, drive for upgrades. but are these "upgrades" hyped up? they are but a means to an end, and that end being a better life. i do not condemn the quest of knowledge. i question, instead, my being; who I am, relative to the great big world. One day, I'll find the answer.. I'll find my place. For now, i'm just another lonely traveller, on the journey through Life.

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i agree tat working makes a person dull. just look at me, i becum grumpy, liveless, sianz.(this word is always ard(Sian) in my emails to my frends)Hey! the only good thing abt working is there are no exams...ok lah, i got audits every nw and then. haiz, i dun understand y humans have to work for money? cant we work for pleasure? My sch has this line: blessed is the man whose job is his hobby.i agree!

5/9/07 6:12 PM  
Blogger DaDeGea said...

=D at least you got friends and family to cheer up your day :)
one day, if i find a solution to your problem (or rather, the problem of most of the working world population), i'll make sure to save you from the sian-ness of your job ^^
but then hor.. 我们都是繁(烦)人,你觉得我们的生活可能那么幸福吗?=p

btw, what're your plans for your "long weekend"? read that you got thur+fri off right? ^^
sms me lah! 98734451. i keep broadcasting my h/p number le... i feel so cheap =,='"

5/9/07 8:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sms u for wat huh? today is already the end of my leave.wahaha, tmr i m busy my family is watching ratatoee. tonite i have an alumni wich i didnt go....haiz.i miss my classmates, even those silly guys in my class.all except one went to army. i very long nv see my classmates liao...

7/9/07 8:17 PM  
Blogger DaDeGea said...

lol to see if can go watch show tog lor..
but i guess leave over too late liao hor? =p
meh.. y didn't go? miss them still dun go haha :)

7/9/07 11:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

dunno leh, i also dunno y i nv go. it is abit late lor....my class and the second batch 1st time meet for alumni. time flies....

8/9/07 1:22 PM  

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