While I was in school, there was a certain pride for those who did triple science. I was on that side of the team.
And there was also a certain sense of despair when people talk about studying the arts. I also happen to love the arts and humanities as well, so I did take those subjects. Unfortunately, there was a sense that those softer subjects are fluff because there’s no systematic way in which you can score well.
This lack of ‘scientific-ness’ to the approach of improving in arts and humanities makes it less clear what is the knowledge you are trying to grasp when you’re dealing with those subjects. It’s almost like I have no good way of telling why one of my essays happen to do better than another one. And to the system, that seem to be a problem even though the teachers were happy, the students were too.
But the joke of life is that reality is exactly that way. When we cannot pinpoint or figure an exact solution/answer, we say that such and such is more art than science. So is it really better to be good at sciences and think of the world in that manner all the time? The problem with overemphasising sciences at the expense of the arts is growing generations of people who seem to think that they can only live well in a world that is systematic, predictable and can be controlled. If most things that are really important in life, like how to manage your emotions, your relationships, even your own behaviours are complex and more like arts, why are we getting people to be less humans?
The whole snobbishness about scientific education needs to stop; and we must learn to appreciate the creatives more, both in our lives (as we learn to consume more artisanal stuff, and experience products). We may be skeptical and still prefer our mass produced, industrial stuff. But up to a certain point, we need to reconnect with craft, and the idea of it.
There’s been a huge push amongst some of the big corporates in Singapore towards sustainability. Keppel announced their decision to exit the rigs business while DBS claims they have overshot their sustainability financing business and will more than double their target for 2024. One thing clear here is that we are gradually seeing that business forces are playing a big role in forcing the hands of big corporates rather than just concern for climate change.
Climate change might be the main flag that sustainability activists fly but it is not the only driver of sustainability trends. Besides, the climate is merely a global version of the kind of damage that humans have wrought on the planet for centuries. There had destruction of natural habitats for commercial agriculture, which in turn can reduce biodiversity, and set of further chain reaction.
And of course, there’s use of plastics, resulting in excess waste in the environment that is damaging wildlife and their habitats as well (think ocean plastics). It is interesting that we found this amazing material that can last so long without degradation but then only choose to use it for such a short time over its entire potential lifespan – allowing it to stay in the environment as waste instead for most of its life.
So yes when we embrace the fact that we are all an open system rather than necessarily just trying to optimise our own imaginary closed system, we learn to see how we can make things better by making better things. Not things that pollute, encourage bad behaviours or generate more waste, but things that really can change many lives. Here is the chance for responsible corporate leaders to try and channel all of these market, social and political forces together to create a future that we want to have. Not the future we would passively receive by continuing the mistakes of those who came before us.
What are you competing with others for? People say life is about competition, and that is what survival is about. But what are you really preserving yourself for? What are you contributing to this world, what difference are you making?
Too often people are saying they are competing to be better, to move up the ranks, the leaderboard, to get higher scores, better grades. Than yourself? Or than others? What happens when you are better than others? Are you becoming a better version of yourself? In Brene Brown’s podcast episode with Simon Sinek, she said something that struck me: when you’re better than others, your ego grows; are you able to do better?
So we have to ask ourselves what is the work we are doing? Is competition really just about self-improvement? Or have we skewed it to appeal too much to our ego, fed our obsession with our status and sow the seeds to some of the destructive behaviours (eg. Toxic work cultures, lack of sustainability in corporate practices).
For our mental health, and a better future, let’s change the culture of competition wherever we find ourselves by first practising it differently.
While building up my coaching practice, and spending more time with my dog, I was half-expected to pack for the upcoming Chinese New Year. So when work started getting busy, and my work study remains somewhat messy with packaging materials (read: cardboard boxes) accumulated through online shopping in 2020, I drew some flak from within the family.
On one hand there’s always the naggy feeling that those cardboard boxes can be reused or if I can put some of those stuff back into original packaging I could potentially sell it for a higher price when I do need to resell them (which by the way, is environmentally friendly and economical). But on the other hand, my house has its limits with carrying capacity (hint: extremely limited capacity) and I don’t want the reputation of being a hoarder.
We really need to do this better – this whole packaging thing. Making them more sustainable, more reusable, more re-deployable. There is really way too much packaging being used, especially with gifts – think about the amount of ‘value’ that is extracted from mooncake packaging. We need to start telling each other the story that we appreciate rustic packaging-lite (or even non-packaged) gifts. We need to deploy technologies to reuse the packaging so that delivery guys just have to press a button, reveal the product you ordered and have you grab it off him and he can reuse all the other stuff that carried the product and keep it safe. Because it we don’t, capitalism and all of these commercialisation is on this ratchet that sucks up resources for trivial things, that squanders valuable resources, and ignores sustainability.
No I have not read the book by David Graeber though I’ve been told by friends more than once to read it. I did take a read of the essay he published in 2013, which was the precursor to the book and I think right at the point of identification of the phenomena, he already struck at the heart of some of the source of it. It is deep and it entangles a whole host of complexity.
I think getting people to accept the phenomena is a good start; tracing it to our socio-economic systems is a good next step. But we ultimately need to work on moving forward, changing this toxic culture. David Graeber of course was pushing for Universal Basic Income ultimately to deal with the problem but I think there’s a huge narrative around our lives, around the world that supports this whole culture of bullshit jobs that we need to work around. If we fail to change this narrative, then bullshit jobs are here to stay, and to perpetuate.
Given the mess our world is now in, there’s a whole lot of problem-solving, of cleaning up, of undoing the old system that our new generation have to do. And we need to construct the right narrative around creating a future that can contain the solution to these problems, or avert the disaster that awaits. If we continue adopting the narrative of the generations coming before us who fail to appreciate the oncoming disaster, then we are just going to repeat the same results.
There are so many problems we need to solve – we need to get people talking about these problems. Whether it is climate change, the massive inequality, the ills of financialisation of the economies and the world. We need to get the attention of people who might eventually commit themselves to the cause, to spend their own resources dealing with it so they can make a difference as opposed to just making money.
And when we realised how we are spending our time at jobs just targeted at helping people save ‘face’ or to free up their time so that they can do more things that stoke their own egos, we know that we ought to be going out there and creating that new future that we envision, not the one that our boss had that is blurry in our eyes but that we still conform to.
I really love how Seth Godin thinks about marketing as ‘changing a culture’ and how he defines culture as ‘people like us, do things like this’. And in light of that, every startup, every ‘disruption’ is about changing the culture. We ought to recognise that culture is temporary, and regardless of how you think they are entrenched, they are continuously being assaulted, dislodged by various forces in the world.
Every single startup trying to enter a marketplace is trying to change a culture to some extent; and those successful ones managed that change so well we are quick to forget that it happened. More importantly, sometimes the change is so gradual that it is almost imperceptible. Think about Grab and what they did to quite a few different cultural norms that are supposedly so entrenched:
Flagging taxis on the streets or queuing at taxi stands
Not wanting to call private hire cars for fear of untrustworthy drivers or companies
Having to call cab by ringing a number and then getting to the operator and trying to describe where you are, get the license plate number from the operator and looking out for the taxi
Having different numbers to call different brands of cab because they all have different call centers
Not being able to call the taxi driver you’ve booked directly to ask him where he is when he is on the way to you
How many of these ‘norms’ still exists today and how much have we taken Grab for granted? The new behaviours they introduced includes:
Calling for grab even when there is taxis waiting for passengers at the taxi stand
Going down from the building only when your grab has arrived or about to arrive
‘Grabbing’ as a verb to mean you’re using grab to call a cab to get to your next destination
And the list goes on; you get my point.
Likewise Alibaba changed the culture of the Chinese internet where online merchants were not seen as trustworthy and scams seem to abound. They convinced users to buy from listed merchants, and persuaded merchants to use them as a trusted intermediary, then introduced escrow services to hold on to payments so that both sides can trust each other, effectively mastering the two-sided market in China.
When we think about a startup in terms of the culture they are seeking to change, the norms they are looking to dislodge, we discover how difficult a challenge they have. Yet it is also a way of thinking about their marketing, the story they tell themselves and everyone else, as well as the manner they design their products. All of these will feed somehow into the forces gradually dislodging the current power structures and cultural norms.
On a separate note, if you’re a startup that is just following the culture or feeding off the norms, it is quite likely there can be a dozen of you around to do minor variations of the same things. Of course, it need not always be about making big bucks; and as Seth Godin would say, it’s about making the difference.
Wasn’t quite sure if the journalist suffered a writers’ block when penning this poorly written coverage, which provided hardly any context for which the views he was trying to bring across was spoken. Which NUS forum, what was it for, where was it, slowly trickled in through the article and different terms were used (how did the ‘Tembusu Forum’ name suddenly got into this NUS forum?) And was it held in NUS – it mentioned participants watched it online, so were the speakers also speaking over some video conference or was it live – how did the photo of the speakers in mask get on the article?
Sorry for going a little off-tangent to lament the state of writing and journalism in Singapore but I was intending to comment on this bit of the article:
Prof Koh said that the issue of rented housing versus homeownership was a “mental block” for Singapore. He recounted how he had moderated a question-and-answer session with founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew at the 50th anniversary of the Housing and Development Board in 2010, and had asked the veteran politician then to acknowledge whether there may be some young people in self-employment or in contractual jobs that face difficulties becoming a homeowner. “Mr Lee’s answer was no. (Home ownership) has become an ideology in Singapore that it is a mental block to building better rental housing for the poor, and good rental housing for the young middle class,” Prof Koh said.
Prof Koh just recounted a comment from then Minister Mentor Lee and it was 10 years ago. That was the pre-Grab era, where the gig economy was more on the fringe, where food delivery was primarily in the domain of fast food companies with their own delivery fleets or the logistics company dealing in the frozen variety. And MM Lee had good reasons to say ‘no’ – unemployment was a whooping 5.86% in 2009 and had come down to 4.12% in 2010. It would continue to fall over the next 3 years and continue to stay below 4% for the next 5 years. And I believe HDB itself would allow for financing facilities to support homeownership even for those self-employed or in contractual jobs.
The context of today is so completely different. The economy shifted and perhaps more importantly, home prices have increased perhaps by about 1.2-1.5 times (residential private property index now stands at 150% that of 2010; while that for HDB stands at 120%). Meanwhile, rental rates for both HDB (up 12% from 2010) and non-landed private property (up 3% from 2010) have not increased all that much. The culture and the economy co-evolves and influence each other.
In the past, the direction towards home-ownership was clear from the government perspective; and therefore home prices were kept low and affordable, criteria for allocation was stringent. The culture was aligned with the policy and reinforced by economic factors. In 2010, the attention of the government might be to create more stable jobs and to keep people employed so that they would eventually be able to become home owners. If you ‘deviate’ from the archetypical Singaporean that the government is seeking to serve, things might be a little harder for you.
10 years on, it would be unfair to use the words and perspective of MM Lee then to claim that the government has a mental block. The question is whether the government of the day is responsive in the right manner to the cultural context and the situation now. Is the leadership team overall working towards a general vision or having their own silo mission and stepping over the toes of one another? With the gig economy a reality and the willingness to keep ‘success stories’ like Grab in our economy, we must contend with the fact that transient sort of employment arrangements are here to stay. And if that is the case, where does the story about home-ownership really lie? Does it continue to fit into the economic realities of today? Are the prices in line with our goals and ideals (forget the nonsense about market setting the price – our market is small enough for the government to corner and control based on our policy objectives)? Is that still the story that HDB wants to continue perpetrating?
In 2010, when I emerged from National Service, I started the discipline of writing extremely frequently, to the extent of having even 2 blog posts on some days. It was a chance for me to ramp up and improve my writing especially during a period whilst I was doing a lot of freelance writing on Economics. I kept up with the discipline of writing also to keep me thinking about the materials I read, mainly from The Economist.
I’ve just loaded all of these older blog posts that used to be on ERPZ.net (it’s now defunct). The intention is to basically collect all of my blog posts, even earlier writings from more than 10 years ago into this personal website. The entries are using the old WordPress classic formatting and so I’ll progressively alter the style and bring it more up to date especially since some of the old photos that were used/linked are now broken. So please pardon me while the formatting looks a bit strange.
Now I want to warn you that most of these writings were from an age where I was commenting on somewhat controversial stuff and perhaps a bit less positive. Those writings might not reflect my current views on various topics and I just want to put this on record that the blog really is about chronicling the development of my thought and maturing process of my thinking. I would really encourage all of you to take up the habit of writing as well in this manner. Doesn’t matter that no one is reading because ultimately, you’re writing for yourself, for the craft.
I was a teaching assistant in New York University for a year with the College of Arts and Science, teaching mainly economics to undergraduates. And there is a certain annoyance I get when students raise their hands (or even ask me during office hours) to ask “Will this be on the test?” in response to something I was teaching. It was hard to place a finger on the discomfort I felt; after all, isn’t it good that the students are concerned about their grades? Won’t it be worse if students didn’t bother at all?
I think that tension I felt was one where someone seems to be trying to cheat on the game. And inviting me to be an accomplice. But what is the game? What are we trying to honour here?
For a teacher who thought that the game was to get the students to perform in the tests, to get brilliant grades so they can please their parents, impress their peers and get the certificate eventually, I think there should be no tension. But for me, I think the real game was different. It was one where students get inspired to learn, where they recognise the value of acquiring knowledge and developing the skills through their engagement and participation in class. And this is important because we are preparing for them to be self-reliant, to be able to navigate and thrive in the world after they graduate. And we know that the grades, the certificates and exams are all but signals attempting to reverberate the precious truths about your capacity, capability, of who you are. But no matter what, these signals are never accurate, and worst, they can be dishonest, they can be gamed.
When we become teachers who think that grades are the game, when we try to lift up the grades of the students rather than lifting up their capabilities, we are being dishonest to the world. And we are also being dishonest to ourselves, about the state of preparedness the student have to take on the world. It is like being lenient to the driving test candidate during the test and shirking responsibility for the accidents he/she caused subsequently by his/her bad driving.
I’m trying to undo the damage our systems and culture have created in the new generation of young adults, and young professionals. Find out how I’m working on this. And join the community I’m trying to create.
I’ve been thinking about the imposter syndrome. We all have it. We all think and even continue to think we are imposters of some kind. The question posed in our undisciplined moments of thinking is ‘am I good enough to be here?’ We want to somehow be chosen by someone else, something else beyond us that gives us the validation, who will say ‘you’re good enough’; and we prefer to think that humility is when we play the devil’s advocate to their recognition and find excuses where we are not. And we mistake imposter syndrome for some sort of extreme humility.
But really, who did we think is a imposter? What kind of person is he? And how are we really comparing to him rather than comparing to the ‘others in the group’.
You can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to show up.
George L. Bell
I think an imposter is one who pretends to care about the work; but who doesn’t show up for the work that he’s supposed to do. He’s the one who claims to be making sacrifices for the work but if he does turn up, he is unprepared and shows no commitment.
The non-imposter, or if I may call, ‘the professional’, is the one who cares about the work, shows up for the work, makes sacrifice to prepare for his/her delivery and continues to show up regardless of what the critics says or what his/her performance may be for that one moment, or the few instances. He is not an imposter because he shows up again and again for the work that he is supposed to do.
So instead of sitting around letting your mind dwell on how you might not be good enough, why don’t you discipline your thinking into considering how you can be, or how you already are, the professional. What is the next thing you’re going to do to prepare yourself, to show up for the work, to commit to the work?
