of free thinkers + singaporeans
Sunday, August 14, 2005 (12:48 AM)
religion is a sensitive topic yet i feel the need to venture into the unchartered territory for purposes that may be unfathomable by religious leaders. like what jimmy said to me, we are very lucky to be in singapore where we may talk about religion openly. perhaps not too openly for (pardon my crude analogy) a penis is still as sensitive with or without the foreskin. so i'm not going to preach nor am i going to attack any religion as i am as respectful of all religions as ever.
i'm a free thinker, or what some people - including my family members and myself - call 'no religion'. yes, we are what i just mentioned, 'no religion' or 'free thinker', whichever you say it, they mean the same though i seriously doubt the term 'no religion'. but i always get people with the misconception that, 'free thinkers' is equivalent to 'atheist'. so much so that, every now and then when i answer to 'what's your religion?', there's always a need to elaborate the fact that i do have my beliefs. no doubt, i am a free thinker but doesn't a free thinker mean i am free to belief in whatever i feel connected to or what i strongly have faith in? and why would we choose to say that 'we have no religion' when obviously we have our beliefs? it's necessary for me to bring across this message because people need to stop telling me i will rot in hell. i have the same beliefs that all taoists and buddhists do, so why am i still a free thinker? it's because we do not follow the restrictions that these religions do. for example, buddhists have to abstain from meat for 2 days every month (how many of you buddhists actually know that?). despite not following such restrictions, we still have faith in what we belief in. we do follow all teachings except from the restrictions that are imposed to devotees. not that we are not devoted - trust me, we can be as devoted or even more devoted than many people - but because of this practice, we do not consider ourselves true buddhists or taoists and that is why we are called 'free thinkers'. as for 'no religion', it's the same, because as of now, there are no known terms or names to define the things that we practice. since this is a very sensitive issue, i need to stress the point that, not using caps on names does not mean i disrespect any of these people. i respect every one as much as every one deserves and you notice i did not mention any holy beings by the terms that require caps because there is totally no excuse for using small letters on the names. so now you believe that i have my beliefs and totally respect my belief.
next, what comes to your mind when i say 'singaporeans'? i'm betting on 'kiasu' and yes, it's a known fact that people are labelling us that way but mum brought something really worth considering to me. how many of you watch sports? how many times have you seen the players fight? and when they cause bodily harm, doesn't it all boil down to being afraid of losing or - in our term - kiasu? among the free-for-alls that you have seen, among the riots that you heard, how many of those are singaporeans? i'd bet one hand is more than enough to count. so now you see, we are not as kiasu as what people say and if we are, it's a healthy form of kiasu-ism. we go for free stuffs not because we are kiasu. we queue up overnight for hello kitty toys not because we are kiasu. the japanese queued up overnight during the launch of playstation2. the americans queued up overnight during the launch of xbox. star wars lovers queued up weeks, even months in advance before the release of episode 3, if i didn't remember wrongly. who said that they are kiasu? no one! why then are we labelled as kiasu for the trivial matters? we are idolizing japan and the west so much that, everything they do is 'oh-so-cool' while we are 'distasteful'. which human being doesn't go for free stuff? remember a few years ago back in germany where there was this shop that offered free tailor-made clothes to customers who go to their shop nude (and i mean head-to-toe nude). did you see how many people turned up? how many people rushed in when the door opened? not to forget every lunar new year, we see people from all over the world with chinese population, pushing and shoving to be the first to place their joss-sticks in the vat of ash powder (if that's what you call it). i'm trying to get people to understand that, we didn't monopolize kiasu-ism, it's everywhere. changing perceptions is part of growing up and we learn as we fall so accept that fact graciously. we are not kiasu.
then people say we are 'kiasi' and sadly, teenagers have been proving us wrong with a high rate of suicidal attempts. no, we do not appreciate such evidences. please stop taking your lives. cherish it because there are no resets or continues. people don't mean it that way when they say 'life is like a game'.
moving on, some of you might have noticed an entry missing from the racks. i removed it because it was a mistake. i told you, blog isn't really my kind of thing. i know nuts about the jargons used hence the misunderstanding happened. besides, it really isn't a worthy entry. not that any of my entries are but that was one of the worst ever to look at. i feel shame whenever i think about it. forgive an ignorant me and you notice i keep asking for forgiveness every time. forgiving may not equate to building a 7-storey pagoda but still, it makes you divine! come on people, i don't need to say this every time, do i?