imagine.

Singaporeans are miserable and sad people. Therefore, we need to cheer up!

Take a walk down East Coast Park, a place where everyone is supposed to relax and exercise, one of these weekends when you can. And while you walk try smiling a little more. The response you get, or at least the one I got, can only be described by this word: disappointing. I tried smiling while I was skating, and sigh. Only the ang mohs smiled back at me sometimes, some didn't really smile back too. Fine, I wasn't smiling for nothing. There was once my wheels caught onto a twig while I was moving up a slope and I stumbled a little, and there were people around. I smiled it off and yeah the caucasians smiled too! Laughed a little in fact. The Singaporeans? They were just... expressionless. People just walk past you pretending they didn't notice a thing.

What's with Singaporeans? What's with us? On the bus, on the MRT, every single spot in Singapore, Singaporeans pretend not to notice anything happening around them. When I say 'anything', I mean virtually everything. I was going home from the artgym concert from RGS quite a few months back and I saw this thing that still pretty much sticks in my head till today.

I was on the North-East Line and the train was still crowded, although it was already 10.30pm or so. I boarded the train with my mp3 on, and when I got on, I noticed this woman squatting on the floor, next to the door. She was probably in her 30s, and she was dressed neatly in a business suit. Her face was quite pale and she obviously wasn't feeling very well. I looked at her and looked at another person who was standing next to her. He was on his mp3 too, eyes closed. I looked at the people on the seats. Their eyes were closed, either sleeping after a long day, or on their mp3s too, some reading the gossip newspapers and magazines. Then I looked at this woman again. Damn. I have to do something! She looked so bad I think she was writhing in pain inside.

So what happened? A lot of things were going through my head. Is she having a stomachache? Did she get some bad news or something? Or is she having that uh girl thing? I don't know. But what the heck there are like so many bloody people around and not a SINGLE person has noticed her? I tapped the guy next to her on his shoulder and pointed at her. He shrugged his shoulders, and went back to his own world again. Then yeah the people around finally turned their heads slightly and looked a tad more curious. And still, no one bothered to do anything, like give up a seat for her although it was pretty crowded and all. So in the end, I left the train, with that poor woman still squatting there in agony. Sheesh. I should have screamed at the people around her.

Well back to my point, Singaporeans really need to be more responsive to the things around us. We cannot keep deluding ourselves, that we can continue to live in our own small, selfish worlds and pretend that the rest of the world will continue spinning past our eyes, totally not of our concern. That. is. bullshit. Yes. In your face. That is bullshit.

We need to act more like normal homo sapiens, guys. It disgusts me how Singaporeans are so stone cold and emotionless. Stress, perhaps? Even primary school students have to worry about piles and piles of assessment books for PSLE, secondary school students worrying about weekly tests and O levels, junior college students trying to catch a breath in their first year and rushing off for the second in preparation of A levels. And then after you get your results, you stress up trying to find a good scholarship bond, and also for the guys, you worry about your life in NS and also whether you will lose your girlfriends during that 2 years. After NS, you study again, facing all the uni term papers and tests and exams. Life after graduation isn't any much better off. You work your ass off looking for a job. And after you get a job, you work and work and work and work.

So in summary, like what I told mr c, life in Singapore is pretty much like this: study study study work work work plop and you die. End of story. Yes, the people at the top tell us that life in other places isn't very much different from this too. But I am telling you this, I am going to do what I like to do in my life. Bulk of the Singaporeans aren't doing what they like to do. They are doing what they have to do, and they become unhappy for the rest of their lives. Someone told me before that we should just accept that the whole system in life goes like that and we should just follow, drift along. My friend, I'm telling you, there's no such thing as the real world. (cofacil i think you will recognize this song :D)

So I have a friend who wants to do what he thinks he has to do. And I'm going to do what I like to do. Let's see who will become the happier man at the end of our lives ^^

My message in this post, however, is still this: please, for goodness sake, Singaporeans, my dear dear Singaporeans, can we all just cheer up and smile a little more??? :)

10:10 PM