NS was a terrible time for me, not simply because of the brain dead and physically arduous trainings, but also because of the time it allowed me to philosophise about life. If you were not training and you did not have a PSP to squander your time away, chances were that you laid on the bed in your bunk thinking What next? Why am I doing this? Is this what life is about? What is life? What am I meant to do with my life? Is life about being happy? What is happiness?
One question eventually lead to more questions and as expected, it was possible to come to answers for some and come to dead ends for the rest. This kind of thinking did to some extend build some maturity, not just in me but in most of my friends (which is why I have been having a change of mind that girls should serve NS).
Then after NS came NUS. NUS threw even more questions at me about life as I found little meaning in solving the grotesque equations that lay in front of me. But NUS was smart. Unlike NS, NUS knew how to keep me occupied, how to keep me busy so that I did not have enough time to answer these questions (which would most likely have discredited the school). And in that way and in a 'Just let me get through this shit asap' attitude, one and a half years flew by.
Then just few days ago, in an unusually lull moment in my NUS life, I suddenly had this thought in my head. What the hell was I working so hard for? A good job? Yea maybe. A good quality life? Makes sense too. Get married, have a family? Hmm perhaps.
All that for what? So that I can go to heaven when I die?
Seriously, thats all?
The last part did not make sense to me. What was the eventual purpose of following such a strict religious cum societal dogma, following a plan of life and a set of rules unquestioningly, following something that we at closer inspection was driven more by fear than by motivation? Yes I do admit that we cannot afford to waste our lives away partying and drinking. But for a moment, I was thinking and am still thinking, I only have one life? Why am I mugging it away?
And the reply inside my head is automatic 'Don't study, you will be poor. Then you will have no roof, no food, no pride.' This followed by a surge of fear in the heart.
The day I overcome these fears, that will be the day I will be truly free.
One question eventually lead to more questions and as expected, it was possible to come to answers for some and come to dead ends for the rest. This kind of thinking did to some extend build some maturity, not just in me but in most of my friends (which is why I have been having a change of mind that girls should serve NS).
Then after NS came NUS. NUS threw even more questions at me about life as I found little meaning in solving the grotesque equations that lay in front of me. But NUS was smart. Unlike NS, NUS knew how to keep me occupied, how to keep me busy so that I did not have enough time to answer these questions (which would most likely have discredited the school). And in that way and in a 'Just let me get through this shit asap' attitude, one and a half years flew by.
Then just few days ago, in an unusually lull moment in my NUS life, I suddenly had this thought in my head. What the hell was I working so hard for? A good job? Yea maybe. A good quality life? Makes sense too. Get married, have a family? Hmm perhaps.
All that for what? So that I can go to heaven when I die?
Seriously, thats all?
The last part did not make sense to me. What was the eventual purpose of following such a strict religious cum societal dogma, following a plan of life and a set of rules unquestioningly, following something that we at closer inspection was driven more by fear than by motivation? Yes I do admit that we cannot afford to waste our lives away partying and drinking. But for a moment, I was thinking and am still thinking, I only have one life? Why am I mugging it away?
And the reply inside my head is automatic 'Don't study, you will be poor. Then you will have no roof, no food, no pride.' This followed by a surge of fear in the heart.
The day I overcome these fears, that will be the day I will be truly free.
i always knew you were emo in kilo bro. oh, hi ludakris
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