Thinking out of the box
My mum is a very simple woman. She enjoys the small things in life from meeting her friends for lunch to us joining her to buy the groceries. As advantageous it is to having this perspective to make one happy with life, I do feel that there's a drawback to it all.
Me and my mum are different. Unlike her, I question the concept of life itself, the limitations of thinking from a certain viewpoint, the idea of a God... in other words I like to reflect, and in some cases I'm a little introspective. My mum doesn't think about this, but what ticks me off the most is that when I ask her about a few issues regarding some philosophical question I come up with she refuses to spend time thinking about it. The question itself asks one to reflect on one's sense of morals or one's interpretation of 'what it is to be kind' and so on, and to me the lack of an answer to me shows a lack of character; that one may do something for the sake of doing it with no reason whatsoever.
My favourite example would be one of Singaporean politics. Honestly, politics in Singapore bores me, but it never fails to put a smile on my face when I watch Singaporeans avoid questions about their opinion of the government. There are two reasons for this: 1) they lack the proper knowledge of the functions and doings of the government to generate an opinion. 2) they have never been asked to voice their opinion before, and to me this also shows how powerful, or weak, a government election may seem.
To me, having a simple mind is fine, but there should be reasons as to why one wants to think in such a way. For every simple mind, there should be a complex reason. For every complex mind, there should be a simple reason. The lack of the former to me doesn't show how committed you are in leading a simple life, it shows how one is told how to be obedient without questioning anything at all. To me, that's no less than a robot, and that saddens me, because the society and environment that you grew up with leaves with you with the inability to think for yourself.
As I learn a little more about the world every day, I find people like these who scare me a lot. I do not consider myself superior to them, nor do I consider them above me. But I really wonder what it would be like to not ask questions, to not want to make mistakes in order to learn and lastly not wonder about any implications of the world.
Fruit for thought.
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
Me and my mum are different. Unlike her, I question the concept of life itself, the limitations of thinking from a certain viewpoint, the idea of a God... in other words I like to reflect, and in some cases I'm a little introspective. My mum doesn't think about this, but what ticks me off the most is that when I ask her about a few issues regarding some philosophical question I come up with she refuses to spend time thinking about it. The question itself asks one to reflect on one's sense of morals or one's interpretation of 'what it is to be kind' and so on, and to me the lack of an answer to me shows a lack of character; that one may do something for the sake of doing it with no reason whatsoever.
My favourite example would be one of Singaporean politics. Honestly, politics in Singapore bores me, but it never fails to put a smile on my face when I watch Singaporeans avoid questions about their opinion of the government. There are two reasons for this: 1) they lack the proper knowledge of the functions and doings of the government to generate an opinion. 2) they have never been asked to voice their opinion before, and to me this also shows how powerful, or weak, a government election may seem.
To me, having a simple mind is fine, but there should be reasons as to why one wants to think in such a way. For every simple mind, there should be a complex reason. For every complex mind, there should be a simple reason. The lack of the former to me doesn't show how committed you are in leading a simple life, it shows how one is told how to be obedient without questioning anything at all. To me, that's no less than a robot, and that saddens me, because the society and environment that you grew up with leaves with you with the inability to think for yourself.
As I learn a little more about the world every day, I find people like these who scare me a lot. I do not consider myself superior to them, nor do I consider them above me. But I really wonder what it would be like to not ask questions, to not want to make mistakes in order to learn and lastly not wonder about any implications of the world.
Fruit for thought.
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
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