Singapore

Watch this and you'll see the Singapore that most tourists see. It is beautiful and clean, and every bit as dynamic and crowded and colourful as this video makes it out to be.

But there are also other Singapores. The Singapore that the typical NUS student sees consists primarily of the NUS campus, followed by a depressing number of study rooms and computer labs and student lounges and (occasional) rooftop barbecues.

The Singapore that the typical Singaporean sees is very different from the rich places you see in the video above - their Singapore consists of HDB flats and void deck events like the occasional marriage, and old men playing chinese chess on stone benches. (Void decks are the empty spaces underneath HDP flats, designed to be community gathering points by the Government). This Singapore, is, I think, more realistic.

And there's also a dark Singapore, consisting of night clubs and KTV pubs and Thai bars, which my friends tell me range a spectrum of raciness. The old fashioned Chinese KTV pubs have older women singing and sitting with men, the younger Thai bars are covered in mist to hide vice (and other, erm, activities).

Singapore is beautiful, but only if you can afford it.

Perspective

Here's an interesting thought experiment:

If you're human, like I am, you will work to improve your lot in life. Mostly this means that you will toil for success, some recognition, and for the ability to look yourself in the mirror every day and say that you're doing something of meaning. (This is sometimes — but not always — tied to your net worth - the society around you will unconsciously judge you based on how rich you are, even if it's not explicitly stated).

So say that you've spent the first few years of your working life going at it. You leverage your university education, hunt down opportunities, fight for promotions and then — after 10 years of hard work, get to a cushy middle management position.

You're not rich or successful, mind, but you're not that far off from it. Give yourself another 10 years and it's almost certain that you'll be at the top of your firm.

We know how a young, single, working professional looks like. Say you live a comfortable life: you have a nicely furnished apartment, a fiancé, and nice things to show off to your friends. At family gatherings your aunts ask how you're doing and you tell them and they chalk you up as one of the family's successes. Your parents are proud of you.

All is well. You keep working hard because you want to 'succeed in life'.

One afternoon, right after a very ordinary lunch break, a shadow passes over your desk. You look out of your office windows, and then you look up — you see the underbelly of a vast spaceship.

As you watch, the ship moves to the industrial area of your city, and then a beam of light lances down towards the ground.

You fly off your feet and hit the office wall in the resulting concussive roar.

In the next few years the human economy collapses as Earth goes to war; your firm cannot find any business as it makes no sense to do so. You are fired.

So here's the question: in such a scenario, does ambition matter? You have spent a good 30 years of your life getting a good education to get a good job to be able to show your aunts that you've Gotten Somewhere In Life.

And one alien attack takes it all away from you.

***

This is a rather contrived example, of course, but it's also a reminder that what we consider a normal life (i.e.: good school -> good university -> good job -> kids -> success) is not in any way ordinary.

After all, while an alien attack is unlikely, a global depression is not. Yuppies in the 1930s never saw it coming. Nor did they expect a World War. (Incidentally, it strikes me that growing up in the 1920s must have been a bloody interesting time.)

So what point am I making here? That's simple: don't take things for granted, even as you work your ass off. Life is too random and too weird to assume you have a God-given right to chase success.

(Oh, and, erm: keep an eye on the skies - you never know when a mothership will land and destroy everything you've worked for.)