Padd Solutions

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A happy misery?

Posted by moses @ 14:07 • , , , • 0 comments


 

Notorious tiger mom and law professor Amy Chua wrote recently on the drivers of success. Particularly interesting is the seemingly paradoxical interplay between a superiority complex and a perpetual sense of insecurity. The former underlies and induces the latter, creating a constant need to prove oneself and live up to the belief in one's greatness.

As is the case whenever psychology is transposed onto socio-cultural phenomena, Chua's account is problematically simplistic and may not actually be accurate at all. But at least on the level of the individual, there's some truth in the magic of that interplay. Nevertheless, there's a caveat—it's a double-edged sword that can cut you as much as it can help you cut a path to success.

The motivation that the interplay between a superiority complex and the sense of insecurity evokes is indeed quite strong. But it can also induce despair and a subsequent retreat from a challenge in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance that might occur in the event of failure. In other words, rather than be proven not as superior as you believe yourself to be, you might prefer to avoid difficult things.

And that's not yet accounting for its effects on happiness. Last year, a study showed that social media use is correlated with lower levels of happiness, as users compare the positive images of other people's lives that they see with their own invariably imperfect lives. I imagine a similar problem also applies here: While success and hard work do induce happiness, the constant feeling of inadequacy that often results from comparing oneself to others in trying to maintain the belief in one's superiority would undoubtedly have a negative impact on one's happiness.

So, ultimately, the question is, is it worth it? Would you trade happiness for success? Or is it the case that, recalling J.S. Mill's distinction between happiness and contentment, success brings the ultimate happiness that can overcome the perpetual pain felt during the journey?

These are not questions that neat, simplistic recipes for success can answer.

No happy new year for the wicked

Posted by moses @ 15:55 • , , • 0 comments


Why do people celebrate the new year? It only marks the end of the holiday season; it means jumping back into the rat race that had so occupied you for most of the past year. Yes, the days can be full of excitement at times, but it's like the rush of battle—you don't want to get back to it so soon.

So will there be any new opportunities that you could not have seized this past year? Are you hoping, vainly, for something new to happen to you?

It occurs to me that it's much better to live for the day knowing that the year after next year after next, you would have lost your youth or vitality. That great year you're looking forward to? It's the year you've been looking forward to again and again, never to actually arrive. And one fine day, your life would have passed with barely a whimper.

It's funny that the brash can spout "happy new year" and "carpe diem" in the same breath, should their lonely neurons just fire accordingly. "Happy new year" is the symptom of a malaise afflicting our forward-looking society, which overlooks everything that happens in between now and that shiny imaginary future.

No, it probably won't be a happy new year unless you've had a happy year. And no, it won't be the new year that brings you happiness—if you play your cards right, it's you who will.

Privilege and want: Unpacking the terms

Posted by moses @ 14:30 • , , • 0 comments


What is a legitimate want in our society?

Living in a materialistic society at once obsessed with survival and with accumulating wealth like Singapore, legitimate wants seem to stop at the fulfillment of one's basic material needs–one has no right to demand anything else beyond that, and what is excluded ranges from things like political freedom to self-fulfillment. Those who have the basic needs fulfilled are by definition speaking from a position of privilege and can therefore never claim to be wronged by the system.

But the fact of the matter is people want different things. Some may indeed be happy with a safe and mundane life where they just work and spend their money; others may not be. Labeling those who are not as "ungrateful" or asking them to leave is simply a demonstration of the inability to see outside of the box that you have placed your mind in.

Yes, in a society with a developed economy, all of us can be said to speak from a somewhat privileged position. Most of us are privileged in that we don't actually need to be overly concerned with our survival (despite the political scaremongering). Our issues can be described as, quite literally, 'First World problems'.

Be that as it may, the problem of having a narrow range of legitimate wants has to do the goals of national development. As long as the state ideology is predicated on the notion of development as a single-track route to economic prosperity, our state and our society would be unable to comprehend the multiplicity of human goals. And because of that, our society would continue to be keen on imposing the same goals for everyone. And this is precisely why, on one hand, people are feeling stifled and, on the other, there are retorts that label such people as "ungrateful".

So, in this light, perhaps we need to be careful in referring to issues beyond basic material needs as 'First World problems'. While it may conventionally be correct, the term is misleading at the same time, as it assumes that 'First World' is a kind of privileged position that everyone in the world aspires or must aspire to. That is manifestly untrue. Yes, it's nice to have good nutrition and an adequate wardrobe as a matter of course. But some people are willing to trade some luxury off for more fulfilling human experiences. I think this is a reasonable desire, and it cannot be dismissed by simply invoking privilege.


A universal rhapsody

Posted by moses @ 11:37 • • 0 comments


They say that variety is the spice of life. If so, it might ultimately be a bitter one.

It is because everyone has different preferences and wants that a common mediator is needed. And that is currency.

Common wisdom and at least one sacred text say that money is merely a tool, a means to an end. However, so powerful and so absolute it has become in its role that men whose occupations are simply to accumulate it have become dominant in our well-ordered and modern societies—so much so that we have to play by their rules or be deprived of much of what we want. The means becomes an end in itself. Thus, from the obsession of the few, money has become the obsession of many.

The universe is a large place with infinite possibilities; and we live but on one speck within it. And on that speck, we all chase after something that we made ourselves—some bits of paper or abstract numbers that are meaningless in the vast unknowable space surrounding us.

Such is the tragedy of choices.

No mass morality without empathy

Posted by moses @ 09:37 • , , • 0 comments



Reason may the highest human faculty, but it is not always perfectly grasped.

The intellect can be a selfish thing—and that's the consequence of an epistemological problem; perhaps the epistemological problem. We are the centre of our universe (or lifeworld) and it is a position that we can never escape. Everything that we interact with we interact with in relation to ourselves, whether through our physical selves or through our Ego or the equivalent. As a result, the tendency to view others in relation only to ourselves is prevalent.

This epistemological problem is present in metaphysics as well, potentially leading to solipsism, or the idea that minds apart from one's own do not exist.

Much as empathy, the ability to see or feel other minds as equivalents of one's own, offers a solution to the problem of solipsism, it also offers a solution to the problem of selfishness in ethics. Being able to approximate the experiences of others in one's mind allows one to appreciate their experiences and thereby establish a kindred connection between Self and Other.

This is a powerful connection that can succeed where reason has failed. While it is certainly possible for one to hold fast to ethical precepts, the abstraction of these precepts cannot match the tangibility of the simulated experiences generated in an emphatic connection.

And the beautiful thing about empathy is this—it allows us to see others in terms of our own selves, thus short-circuiting the solipsistic tendency by transferring our selfness onto others so we could act (or react) as though prompted by our own experience.

This may be a simplistic way of looking at this matter, but it's a start.

The plank in the eye

Posted by moses @ 14:42 • , , • 0 comments


Many Singaporeans are accused of being armchair critics who criticise their government and their country without grasping the finer points of governance. That is often true enough, but sometimes the armchair critics are on the other side. One such example is a blog post by a travel writer who lambasts Singaporeans for their "hypercriticality". Below, I have reproduced my reply to the post.

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Wow... where do I begin? A wealthy tourist likes a place and goes on to proclaim that the people who live there just don't appreciate what they have. Can you see where this is going?

Yes, sometimes one needs to take a step back to get some perspective. But, to put it bluntly, why do you presume to be able to tell those people 'the truth' either? Do you not realise that you too have a particular perspective that is lacking in its own way; i.e. lacking in the everyday experience of living in that place you're talking about.

If couched as a simple reminder to take a step back or a deep breath, then, sure, you may be doing those people a service by writing this. But, as it is, the piece literally compares the people you're discussing to children. If that is not extremely patronising coming from an outsider, then I don't know what is. It's reminiscent of colonial writers from the empire writing about the colonies and their denizens without a serious attempt at understanding the subject matter. It's presumptuous and sickening.

I'm not trying to make this personal. Perhaps I'm being, in a typical way, "hypercritical". But I'm truly astounded by the lack of perspective this piece itself exhibits. And, if it makes sense, that deficiency takes the form of being ostensibly unaware of its own perspective.

Positively poisonous

Posted by moses @ 10:37 • , • 0 comments


The ineffectual complainer is a hateful figure. But much more insidious is the ever-accepting positive person who is a force of inertia in society.

Chances are you know a few: The people who are always trying to get others to look on the bright side; who cannot accept any negativity; who may regard any criticism as unproductive by definition, professing to prefer 'action' (regardless of whether action by itself would actually change anything).

These types are insidious and even downright dangerous because they are disarmingly benign. They are also eminently lovable—certainly to the recipients of criticism, but also because they engender positive emotions in others who are taken in by their attitudes. They negate critique and actively try to get society to ignore ugly truths.

Suppose a man-made disaster happens in a society. These are the people who would advocate not pointing fingers—as was the case in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. They ignore the fact that not laying any blame would likely result in similar disasters happening again in the future, due to the failure to enforce any form of accountability.

Even if these positive people are simply genuinely positive by nature, they must always be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. It may be difficult—their positive emotions are infectious. But if they are allowed to be dominant, society's progress towards a more positive future would, ironically, be slowed.