Study hard. Get a good job (whatever that means). Work hard to make money. So you can work harder to make more money. Buy expensive shit so you can impress people at work. Retire when you’re too old to physically go to work or enjoy the money you’ve made. Die. Ah, the Singaporean dream. Isn’t it a doozy?

You snooze you lose

An <a href=" recently published by The Straits Times revealed that, according to a study by SingHealth Polyclinics, more than 40% of Singaporeans are not clocking enough sleep on weekdays. I’m sorry, is anyone actually surprised by these findings? No shit, Sherlock. It’s hard to get enough sleep when so many of us are raging workaholics. We spend over 9 hours at work, not including overtime, spend an hour squeezing through train stations, then try to stretch our leisure time at home in a futile attempt at maintaining our sanity before finally collapsing into bed, only to slam the alarm clock the next morning and repeat the whole process again. Not too far off the mark, am I? You’re not the only one. “I’m not a workaholic! I like to take a break now and then.” Bullshit. You can be an alcoholic without drinking 24/7. We are constantly conditioned by corporations to work hard and play hard, to make more money and spend more money. We have been inducted by advertising into the belief that the more we consume, the happier we’ll be, so we sacrifice everything at the altar of greed and ‘career’. Our sleep, our health, our relationships, our ideals. We convince ourselves that we need to work and work and work some more to reach that fleeting feeling of satisfaction when we fill our lives momentarily with the next smartphone or pre-scheduled holiday or expensive bag. Our neoliberal greed-is-good economy has driven our society collectively insane, to the point where, as a certain famous movie character once said, “We buy shit we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t know.” We believe that economic growth is a necessity, that hyper-consumerism is the path to progress. We think that the only way to fulfil any sort of purpose in life is to work, buy stuff, and work some more. What if we’re wrong? What if the Singaporean Dream is bullshit? Maybe we should all just take a step back, and chill the f*ck out.

Embrace Boredom

“My father used to say that only boring people get bored. I used to think it’s only boring people who don’t feel boredom, so cannot conceive of it in others.” Aside from money, much of our motivation to pursue a life of relentless workaholism comes from our aversion to being bored. I’ve heard people say that if they stay at home and don’t work, they’d go crazy from the boredom, as if just being alive is such a chore that they need constant work to distract from the emptiness of existence. I’d submit that maybe the way to combat our rampant overworking and sleep deprivation is to simply open our minds to the idea of being bored. Boredom, ironically, is the mark of an interesting person, because he/she has the presence of mind and depth of thought to constantly seek more stimulating things. A boring person is never bored, because he/she absorbs himself in work and play, obsessing over unimportant things, never seeking anything new. Companies love boring people. They work intently all day, never allowing distractions from anything or anyone. They work longer hours than is required of them, and even continue working at home. They are so afraid of having nothing to do that they cling obsessively to their jobs like a sort of lifeboat saving them from the ocean of purposelessness. But when your job becomes your life, you leave little space for anything else, including your health. How can you go to sleep when you constantly think and talk about work and co-workers and KPIs, even when out of work? You try to distract yourself with video games and shows and social media, but all these only engage your mind further and drive your melatonin levels lower and lower, keeping you awake until you fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion, and wake up 4 hours later to your phone alarm blaring on repeat. Then you go to work with a hot cup of drugs a.k.a. caffeine in your hand and complain about how you didn’t get enough sleep and you’re sooo tired. Of course, some people genuinely have sleep disorders that prevent them from getting enough sleep, but not every sleepless workaholic is also a diagnosed insomniac. Many of us are just terrible at controlling our obsession with work and taking care of ourselves.

Work-life balance

We hear the term “work-life balance” thrown around a lot, but how many of us actually do enough to achieve it? According to Singhealth Polyclinics, less than 60% of us. If you’re one of the 40%, stressed, overworked, and sleep-deprived as all hell, perhaps try easing your grip a little. Start to understand that we may have more control over the stresses in our lives than we think, and just learn to switch off. Ignore work messages on your off days. Leave the office on time and go home early for dinner with your loved ones. Have unfinished work? Leave it for tomorrow. Deadlines can be postponed; assignments can wait; taking care of your health cannot. You can get a second job. You can’t get a second life.

In a recent <a href=" interview, President Obama was asked about his views on political correctness, and whether President-elect Trump was right to say that political correctness has gone too far. In typical fashion, Obama offered an insightful yet measured response about the different definitions of “political correctness”, and the dangers of subscribing too fervently to an extreme interpretation of what it means to be PC. On one hand, you have the definition of PC as simply being polite and respectful towards other people. On the other hand, there’s the definition of PC as “hypersensitivity that ends up resulting in people not being able to express their opinions at all without someone suggesting they're a victim”. We often associate the discussion about PC culture with the USA, but, as highlighted by the ongoing Amos Yee debacle, the PC problem might be a lot closer to home than we think. To many, the actions of Mr. Yee, who is currently making <a href=" news for seeking asylum in the US, are unforgivable and absolutely worthy of punishment. To others, however, the continued persecution of Mr. Yee remains an embarrassing stain on Singapore’s hypersensitive culture, hopelessly mired in the trappings of being overly PC. I have to admit, I’m torn on this. Mr. Yee, while offering some much-needed challenges to our fragile sensitivities, also took a giant dump on every aspect of being PC, including the one about being a respectful, polite human being. Herein, I believe, lies the problem with Mr. Yee’s narrative; he simply took it too far. Unfortunately, however, so did we. We, as a society too concerned about being PC, put a teenager in prison for “hurting our feelings”. A bratty, disrespectful, annoying little shit of a teenager, yes, but a criminal? It’s embarrassing, no matter how you spin it. Why are we so beholden to the tenets of the overly PC tribe? I believe the answer lies in a socioeconomic ideology called neoliberalism. We’ve talked about neoliberalism before, but the big N word (not that one!) is back to haunt us once again. In a nutshell, neoliberalism is the laissez faire approach of allowing the free market to sort everything out. In the neoliberal economy, everything is angled towards making money, everything, including political correctness. This particularly clever line from South Park perfectly sums up PC culture: “What is PC but a verbal form of gentrification? Spruce everything up, get rid of all the ugliness, in order to create a false sense of paradise.” Like urban developers sprucing everything up in run-down areas with overpriced cafés and organic farmers’ markets without addressing the underlying poverty of said areas, PC culture provides a paint job of pleasantness over the undercurrents of society’s problems. The spectacle of inclusion and tolerance is good for business. Economically, it’s beneficial for a society to offer the appearance of harmony, even if such surface-level PC does nothing to address underlying problems of intolerance. Do investors and tourists care about the deep-seated segregation between cultures in Singapore? No. They only see the tourist brochure version of a cultural melting pot with an apparently stable and harmonious populace. Are we really helping to further understanding between Christianity and Islam in Singapore by persecuting someone mocking religion, crass and disrespectful as he may be, or are we simply deepening rifts between groups and stifling meaningful communication by putting band-aids over fractures and making everyone afraid to discuss religion outside of their own? In an <a href=" with BigThink about PC, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek describes PC culture as an implicit form of totalitarianism. He of course doesn’t believe that we should be going around verbally abusing people, but he argues that we shouldn’t employ “coercion and scare tactics to instil a state of forced behaviour.” Žižek believes that the kinds of obscenities and irreverence that PC tries to censor – the same kinds that we persecuted Amos Yee for – are actually important to “breeding a sense of shared solidarity”. By taking our sensibilities less seriously, Žižek says, we allow ourselves to more easily find common ground with those whose beliefs diverge wildly from our own. Perhaps, in order to grow together as a community, we should reject the tendency to get offended by anything we disagree with, and have the maturity to engage in contentious but fruitful conversation with people we’d much rather silence. To end this conversation on PC culture, I’ll leave you with this quote from comedian Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so f*cking what."

https://www.facebook.com/Urbanites.co/posts/1784695275113104

<a href=" Image Credit

Growing up, you hear many things about what your 20s will be like. However, nothing anyone says can really prepare you for the real thing. This is the time in our lives when the hopes we’ve always had for the future get yanked out from the backs of our minds and are displayed right before our faces. When dreams are not dreams anymore, but decisions; reality. There’s no more time to say, “I’ll see how it goes,” or, “I’ll decide when the time comes.” The time has come, and the crossroads of your life are no longer in the future, they’re right before you. This is the age that fears we’ve never even conceived of having to deal with become very, very real. Will I spend the rest of my life alone? Will I marry someone who’s not right for me? Will I end up selling my soul for a job I hate? Will my life amount to nothing? Will the path I embark on now lead me to nowhere? And to think that you used to be afraid of getting rejected by your crush or of being unpopular in school. How silly you were. How you wish you could go back to simpler times and trade in your existential dread for your childhood fear of the monster under your bed. When we’re young, we can’t wait to grow up and be independent. But now that we’re here, we want nothing more than to go back. Because you don’t know what you have, till it’s gone and lost forever to the past. They say 25 is the age your body goes downhill. Well, they were right. Your step gets sluggish. Training for IPPT becomes so much more of a slog. Your sex drive takes a nose dive. When you used to climb mountains and surf waves and party all night, now all you want to do is curl up in bed with a bowl of chips and Netflix on your laptop. Your body begins to ache in ways you’ve never known it could, and while you used to feel immortal, you now begin to genuinely worry for your health and you see how that worry will control the rest of your life with endless check-ups and doctor’s appointments. They said to enjoy your life as a student, because working life will suck ass. And again, they were right. You worry if you’ve become one of the "boring old people” you’ve always criticized, and you freak out at the prospect of becoming too much like your parents, a future that teenage you swore to steer clear of at all costs. You wonder if the times you had partying and living it up as a student in college will be the most fun you will ever have had in your life. You fear that you’ll never enjoy your life any more than you did then. But it’s not all bad. You begin to learn that life is not simply a pursuit of fun and pleasure, but a journey laden with responsibility and a far deeper meaning than getting laid at the club. You stop looking for superficial connections, and start hoping for something real. Because while the fun years of your life might be over, the truly happy ones might just be beginning. You start to consider the legacy you'll be leaving, the mark you'll have on this world that will endure after you're gone. You hope to make an impact in a way and to a degree that teenage you could never realistically aspire to. To make the world a better place; spearhead research and development of new advancements; positively influence public opinion; help those desperately in need. And perhaps most importantly, you can begin to repay your parents for everything they've done for you. You might even begin to entertain the notion of taking on life’s ultimate challenge – having children. You realize that while as a kid you thought your parents knew everything, parents are just kids having kids. The prospect of shaping the life of another the way your parents shaped yours scares you shitless, but also fills you with hope and excitement. We all long to do something meaningful and great with our lives. Maybe this is it. 20-somethings hope for and fear a great many things, because such is the nature of life. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time, but every journey worth travelling is. 

Damn it, DC, you’re doing it again. Hot (or lukewarm) off the critical failures of Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad, Warner Brothers recently announced the DC Extended Universe’s (DCEU) next ensemble film: Gotham City Sirens. Based off the comic book series of the same name, GCS will feature Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn along with Poison Ivy and Catwoman. Because when DC releases a bad movie like Suicide Squad, they have to find the only good thing about the film and milk the hell out of it. Damn it, DC. God.... Damn it. My own reservations about the quality of the movie aside (David Ayer again? Really??), the announcement of GCS reeks heavily of studio desperation and, more importantly, a misguided form of feminism.

Struggling to keep up

Film is a reactionary medium. It responds to existing social issues, whilst seldom raising issues of its own, with the exception of avant-garde cinema. One of the issues that Hollywood has grappled with reacting to for many years is, of course, feminism. From Erin Brokovich to Nikita, the head honchos at Tinseltown have had a… should I say… varied history with the discussion of feminism. GCS, unfortunately, seems like it’s about to fall squarely on the not-so-favourable side of the feminist equation. Am I being unfair by judging a movie that’s not even out yet? Probably. But based on what we do know about the film, and Hollywood’s tendency towards handling female characters in a less than measured manner, I’d say my concerns are more than warranted.

Girl Power?

GCS tells the story of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman – the three most prominent female characters in Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery – teaming up to take the world of crime by storm and carve out for themselves a big piece of the male-dominated pie that is Gotham’s criminal underworld. Sounds interesting, right? Well, Suicide Squad sounded interesting too, and look how that turned out. While many will draw the parallel between GCS’s premise and the real-world struggles of women trying to break the glass ceiling in the workplace and earn respect in male-dominated fields, one can’t help but ask, should we really be portraying these women as criminals? Sure, you could view it as a loose representation, but expecting audiences to look beneath the surface of a campy, colourful blockbuster and consider it on a deeper level might be a tall order. Will we see a trio of hardworking girls legitimately working hard to succeed in the workplace, or will we see three psychotic criminals cracking heads with baseball bats, because, you know, that’s what they are? Hollywood has often had a problem portraying female characters in a nuanced manner. Want to show that she’s a badass? Make her a femme fatale. Want to show that she’s independent? Make her either androgynous or overtly sexual. Want to make a film about female empowerment? Let’s have not one, but three female leads! It’s certainly not difficult to see how a film centred on the crazy girl with short shorts in Suicide Squad and the two most sexualized characters in DC’s roster would devolve into more of the same hyper-sexualized schtick. Where female characters aren’t uncharacteristically fixated on romance (Peeta?? Where’s Peeta??), they’re annoying misandrists hitting us over the head with their overt anti-establishment “I don’t need no man” rhetoric. We get it, you’re independent and you think all men are pigs. We heard you the first one hundred times. Furthermore, as popular as Harley Quinn is, she is probably the last character anyone should consider as a symbol for feminism. Many of those who find her relationship with the Joker “cute” are forgetting the fact that she is basically his slave, and that he tortured her to the point of insanity, turning her into a walking case study for Stockholm Syndrome. The whole Harley-Joker relationship is actually really messed up, and definitely not a positive model of how to deal with an abusive relationship.

Doing it right

For all the problems Hollywood has had with female characters, they occasionally get it just right, and I’d be remiss to not give them credit. One example of an amazingly portrayed female character in recent memory is Charlize Theron’s Furiosa from the excellent Mad Max: Fury Road, who shows us all exactly how to do the strong female protagonist right. Furiosa is a woman who doesn’t have to say anything about how badass she is, because her actions speak for themselves. She doesn’t tell anyone what a great shot she is, she just grabs a rifle and shoots out a headlight from half a kilometre away. She doesn’t whine about injustice, she fights for what’s right and gets sh*t done. She doesn’t try to overshadow Tom Hardy’s Max, she rides alongside him as an equal and ends up stealing the show anyway. Furiosa exudes a quiet confidence that is humble and understated, but so much more impactful as a result.

Benefit of doubt?

Is Hollywood going about gender discourse completely wrong? While a large number of female movie characters fall under the sexist caricatures that studio executives think will pander to the feminist crowd, a select few actually walk the line perfectly to give us true role models that inspire and command respect for the feminist movement. Will Gotham City Sirens give us the rare nuance and respect female characters in Hollywood so desperately need, or will it give us more of the same vapid uninspired nonsense as its predecessor? I have my doubts, but only time will tell. <a href=" Image Credit

Shortly after entering the working world, I began to notice something rather surprising; a large number of Singaporean adults – larger, really than I expected – actually believe in astrology. I considered: Why? Why do these people, otherwise completely rational and intelligent human beings, subscribe to something so ludicrous? Could they be seeing something I’m not? Before you continue reading, know that you have the right to believe whatever you want. Read on with an open mind, or not at all. You’ve been warned.

LACK OF EVIDENCE, LAPSE OF LOGIC

Try to explain logically how astrology works; you can’t. It is a mass cultural delusion that manifests in a belief that the positions of celestial bodies in the galaxy from the frame of reference of Earth at the time of one’s birth somehow impact the events of one’s life and development of one’s character. It is, in the truest definition of the word, nonsense. Could the stars be emitting some sort of radiation detectable from Earth that affects the activity of neurons in our brains? Well, no. Aside from our sun, we don't receive any significant amount of radiation from the stars or planets that could affect our biochemistry. Even if we did, the radiation would just give us skin cancer, not make us “curious and energetic” or “possess a great sense of humour”. Could there be some hidden explanation for astrology that science has yet to quantify and uncover? Sure. Could there be tiny leprechaun-mermaids living at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean? Possibly. But just because we can’t disprove it definitively, doesn’t mean we should believe it. As it stands right now, like leprechaun-Ariel, astrology has no place whatsoever in the realm of logic. Chances are, however, that logic doesn’t usually factor into a belief in astrology. Most horoscope-believers would gladly submit that their beliefs make no rational sense, and that they believe in astrology only because of what they’ve experienced personally. “I know it makes no sense, and I can’t explain it, but I’ve experienced it first-hand; I’ve seen it work with my own eyes.” Fret not. I’ll address that too.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BIAS AND BELIEF MANIPULATION

With so many believers, surely astrology must work, right? Well, it does, in a manner of speaking. Unsurprisingly, astrology works in very much the same way as psychic readings, tarot cards, séances, and other such rackets. It works on a very simple psychological phenomenon known as confirmation bias. In essence, confirmation bias is the natural tendency people have to focus on evidence that confirms their beliefs, and ignore all evidence to the contrary. It affects everyone, you and me included. Horoscope writers rely on this innate cognitive bias to provide readings that people will more likely confirm than refute. They use vague, broad statements with very slim chances of being wrong, and allow the reader to draw connections on his/her own. For example, your horoscope for this month might say something like, “You should be open to new experiences.” A week later, your friend invites you to try out flow-riding at Sentosa’s Wavehouse for the first time in your life, and you think, “Oh my god, my horoscope was right!” But really, is it that unbelievable for you to be having at least one new experience in an entire month? Last month, you tried out that restaurant for the first time. Next month, you might have your first ever colonoscopy. Had that particular horoscope been shown to you on any other month, it would probably have been accurate too! In scientific research, confirmation bias is a huge problem too. Researchers often accord greater attention and credence to results that confirm their hypotheses, while trying to ignore contradictory evidence. Thankfully, this bias is addressed in the scientific method through a practice known as the “blinded experiment”. What this does, put very simply, is prevent the people collecting data from knowing the purpose of said data, and the people creating the hypotheses from handling the data collection and analysis, thereby rendering confirmation bias impossible.

YOU CONTROL YOUR LIFE, NOT THE STARS

For many, a belief in astrology is harmless fun, and maybe they’re right. Unfortunately, advocating the false idea that some uncontrollable celestial force influences your life leads to a dissociation of cause and effect, and a destructive “not my fault” attitude that permeates the present cultural landscape and erodes the rigour of rational inquiry. “Sure, I’m insecure, but my horoscope says I’m supposed to be. Why should I change who I am?” If you only use your horoscope as motivation to get out and do fun, meaningful things, then awesome, more power to you. But if you use horoscope readings to excuse certain character traits and judge people you don’t even know, you should go ahead and book that one-way trip to Mars. I hear you can see the stars very clearly from there. <a href=" Image Credit

“Mankind does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.” - Friedrich Nietzsche Someone recently asked me, “What do you really want from your life?” I said, “To be happy.” But even as the words came out of my mouth, I felt like I was copping out. What kind of a bullshit non-answer is that? Of course, everyone wants to be happy, but do we know how? Or why? No matter which angle you look at it from, modern 21^st Century society seems possessed by an underlying obsession with happiness. We see it in every facet of our lives, from work, to healthcare, to literature, to art. An array of doctors, psychiatrists, HR managers, and self-help “gurus” constantly stand at the ready to ensure our continued happiness, and prescribe all manner of drugs, counselling, vacations, and motivational texts to correct any deviation from the set path of bliss. The happiness mandate permeates our culture in ways we simply cannot escape. But, why? Why are we so obsessed with being happy, and could our obsession actually be harmful?

NEITHER NEW NOR LIBERAL

The root of compulsory happiness lies in a socioeconomic ideology known as neoliberalism. Put simply, neoliberalism is the idea that the economy should be free from government restrictions, and that people should have the individual freedom to purchase or sell whatever they desire on the free market by way of demand and supply. Put very simply – imagine the younger, rebellious cousin of capitalism, who hates rules and just wants to be free. In a neoliberal economy, anything can be monetized. Regardless of whether consumers are paying for booze, clothes, food, or even sex (which is legal in Singapore), the neoliberal economy runs on one common commodity: happiness, or, each individual’s personal idea of happiness. “If it makes you happy, you can buy it,” says the neoliberal. Don’t know what makes you happy? Don’t worry, let advertising tell you. Of course, there isn’t any country in the world whose government subscribes fully to the neoliberal model, but its principles of individual freedom and free market consumerism apply to every capitalistic economy in the world, including those that pretend to still be communist *cough* China *cough*. As neoliberalism peddles happiness to the people that consist the economy, it also relies on happiness to survive. It is a known fact in economics that happy people spend more money. They go to restaurants, clubs, theme parks, and shopping malls more often, and spend proportionately more. The “work hard, play hard” adage is the mantra of the neoliberal economy, which espouses making more money and spending more money to feed into the wheel of peddled happiness that drives our society. Is this all wrong? I don’t know. Maybe this is how society is supposed to work. Or maybe we’re all just overconsuming on an endless happiness treadmill until we get numb from our blessings and constantly stay unsatisfied until we fall off. I can tell you how it is, but I can’t tell you how it should be.

EQUALITY OF EMOTIONS

If human emotions were J.K. Rowling characters, happiness would be Harry Potter. Everything revolves around that kid; it’s annoying. We constantly glorify happiness, while vilifying the other emotions of the spectrum, classifying them as “disorders” that need to be dealt with. Jimmy’s always sad? He suffers from depression. Jane gets angry at the slightest thing? She has anger management issues. Johnny’s deathly afraid of that one thing? He’s got a phobia. How about Phoebe, who’s constantly smiling and cheerful all the time? Oh, she just has a really fun, bubbly personality. Isn’t she lovable? There is a popular misconception that emotions somehow conflict with logical reasoning; the battle between the heart and mind, as some would conceptualize it. This could not be further from the truth. Modern scientists believe that emotions are tools that our brains use to organize and expedite rational thinking. Every emotion has a crucial function, not just happiness. If they didn’t, our brains wouldn’t have evolved them in the first place! Happiness acts as a sort of positive feedback mechanism, as in, “This is good for you, keep doing that.” Anger allows us to perceive injustice and wrongdoing more acutely, and respond in kind, as in, “That guy just tried to steal my goat and burn down my farm. I probably shouldn’t let him get away scot-free.” Sadness, as an inverse of happiness, acts as a negative feedback mechanism, saying, “This is bad, don’t let it happen again.” Fear helps to keep us alive, as in, “Don’t poke that venomous snake with your fat sausage fingers, you dumb buffoon.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not glorifying or trivializing conditions like depression and anxiety. These are problems that must be addressed, but demonizing and rejecting their underlying emotions while exalting happiness above all is equally dangerous. What advice do we normally give to people who are depressed or angry? We say, “cheer up, buddy”, “take it easy”, “stay positive”. Simply telling someone to ignore their other emotions and just “be happy” is terrible advice. It promotes the notion that happiness is only in someone’s head, that it’s a personal responsibility that others can wash their hands off. Our collective obsession with personal inner happiness can cause us to ignore valid grievances, enable exploitation, and tolerate external injustice that shouldn’t be tolerated at all.

EVERY EMOTION HAS ITS DAY

While all-pervasive in our neoliberal-capitalist society, our compulsive desire for happiness might paradoxically be pushing us away from really being happy. We pursue economically-serving surrogates for happiness like overpriced bags and cars that let us pretend we’re happy, while setting us on a downward spiral towards depression as we chase mandatory happiness in the face of ignored hardship, and repeatedly find ourselves falling short. We ask ourselves, “Why am I not good enough to get that raise?” or, “How can Suzanne afford that Louis Vuitton bag when I cannot?” Perhaps, a healthy mental state requires embracing all our emotions to build a more robust sense of harmony and inner peace, where we can be truly happy with who we are, because the pursuit of happiness can only be healthy when balanced and grounded with its accompanying emotions. Or maybe, the neoliberals had it right all along, and running endlessly on the happiness treadmill is truly the meaning of life. What do you think?

You’ve all heard the same tired arguments before; the declarations of doom; the luddites sounding their clarion call. “The Internet is making us stupid!” “We don’t remember anything anymore! Google ruins your memory!” “We don’t read anymore! The Internet has stunted our attention spans!” “There’s too much information on the Internet! I’m scared!” Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit... and yeah, bullshit.

The recent network outage from Singtel reminded many of us of the importance of the Internet in our everyday lives. It also brought to mind many myths floating around about our reliance on the Internet and its negative effects on our minds. I’m here to tell you why they’re all bullshit.

A MENTAL PROSTHESIS

Author George Dyson famously posed a question that sums up the fears of many an Internet-naysayer. “What if the cost of machines that think,” Dyson asks, “is people who don’t?” A fair concern, I would say, but one that is not yet relevant to the Internet in its current state. Yes, many websites use algorithms and data-mining to mimic actual intelligence, but the Internet is still far from actual “thinking”. All the Internet really does is provide us with almost all the information we could ever need. What we do with this information is still entirely up to us. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger very accurately described the role of the Internet as a “mental prosthesis”. Prostheses, by their very definition, are tools used to enhance and assist the performance of certain functions. Like a pair of spectacles to eyes or a walking stick to legs, the Internet helps our brains to make up for their natural limitations, and access information that would otherwise be completely inaccessible. We might not be forced to memorize as much information now as we were before, but that doesn’t mean our ability to remember is ruined. We are simply given the option to offload and compartmentalize information that can be later accessed and recalled more easily and reliably, giving us more time to connect and think about said information on a deeper level. Interesting to note, too, is that while all this pessimism about our ability to remember seems exclusive to the Internet age, it has actually existed for millennia. Socrates – yeah, that Socrates – once said, “[The written word] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls,” lampooning the very act of reading and writing. For all his fame, Socrates could be quite a myopic idiot sometimes.

BREADTH ABSENT DEPTH

A popular argument against Internet usage is that the Internet provides too much information, making it impossible for us to focus and really delve deep into a particular subject. Sigh. Come on, Karl, we have to say it again:

Internet-based information is certainly no more distraction-laden that any old-fashioned method of gathering knowledge. Ask yourself, during which process to obtain information would one be more susceptible to distractions: 1. A 30-minute walk to the nearest library through cafés and shops and bubble tea stores and video game arcades OR 2. Typing a few words into Google’s search bar Imagine if a friend of yours lived inside a massive library in which she could avail herself of any information she so desired at any point in time. Would you tell her, “Oh, there is no way you will ever learn anything in that place! There’s just too many books!” Of course not! That’s ridiculous! Yet people apply the same flawed criticism to the Internet, which is basically the digital equivalent of a humongous library. There used to be an aura of romance and exclusivity surrounding knowledge, when obtaining it required months or years of digging through books and files and other sources. Today, the progress from wanting to know something to actually knowing something is almost instantaneous, separated by no more than the touch of a button. Is that a bad thing? No! It’s a wonderful thing. The breadth of information on the net takes nothing away from its depth. Where deep learning used to be akin to diving into a well, we now dive into the Pacific Ocean. Isn’t that so much better?

READ A BOOK!

Yet another bullshit-worthy claim is that people read less books now because of the Internet. In actuality, the inverse might be true. According to a 2012 study published in The Atlantic, the percentage of book readers in the American population has steadily and drastically increased over the past few decades. Weren’t expecting that, were you? Plus, who are you to say that all those people staring at their smartphones on the train aren’t readers? Perhaps that guy is reading an e-book. Maybe that lady is browsing for book recommendations. Maybe that fellow prefers reading in the peace and quiet of his room, so he allots his time on noisy, crowded trains to less attention-demanding activities like playing Plants vs Zombies. *raises hand sheepishly*

NOT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM

Sure, there are people who use the Internet only for banal, vacuous activities like stalking social media, posting narcissistic compliment-fishing selfies, reading celebrity gossip, and sharing satirical articles without reading them, thinking they’re real. But are those people stupid because of the Internet? If the Internet didn’t exist, would those same people miraculously become geniuses? I’d have my money on NO. Stupid people use the Internet for stupid things. Smart people use the Internet for building knowledge and gaining perspectives. Most of us with an IQ above that of a potato use it for both. Our activities on the Internet are not a cause of our intellect or lack thereof, they are merely a symptom. The Internet doesn’t make us stupid. It simply gives us a powerful tool to pursue whatever information we desire, intellectual in nature or otherwise. So, the next time someone tells you that the Internet makes people stupid, you can respond by breaking out the classic (you guessed it!)…

“Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV.” If you know where that line comes from, good on you! Season 3 is taking way too long, amirite? If you don’t, that’s okay, you’re still cool. And hi, welcome to my article on why it’s good to not give a damn - well, sometimes anyway. I’ll try to get to the end before you stop giving a damn too.

Filling The Void

What is the meaning of life? Has there ever been a question at once so universally pondered and ubiquitously unanswerable? As members of one of the few species on Earth blessed (or cursed) with the ability of metacognition, our quest for meaning in life is an almost-exclusive and inescapable part of the human experience. We fumble for something, anything, to fill the existential void in our hearts. Some fill it with work, love, lust, family, or religion. Others distract themselves with video games, movies, and reading articles online. We live our lives like an endless race to outrun the relentless existential dread that invariably plagues us all, knowing that should we ever slow down in our pursuit of happiness, we might one day fail to answer our own question about why we even bother staying alive. I submit that maybe - just maybe - we should do the unthinkable. We should look back at the darkness that threatens to envelop us and crush our will to live, and instead of running, we should turn around. And we should laugh. 19^th Century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer perhaps said it best: “The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.” Perhaps true, lasting happiness can only be found when we strip the existential void of its darkness and turn it into one big joke; when we look at our own cosmic insignificance, and instead of shrinking from it, laugh heartily at the ridiculousness of it all.

A For Absurdism

French philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus famously popularized absurdism, a philosophical school of thought based on the central tenet that life consists of two irreconcilable facets – the human desire to find meaning in life, and the universe’s absolute indifference to our existence. In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus compares the absurdity of human life to the mythical Greek figure Sisyphus, who was sentenced to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back down, again and again, for all eternity. Camus (who is surprisingly optimistic for a philosopher) argues that dwelling on the pointlessness of existence is in itself pointless; that, “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” He argues against the idea that suicide is the only logical reaction to the Absurd, and that we should instead “revolt” against our insistence on finding meaning.

What's The Point?

Life is ultimately meaningless, but that’s okay. We should continue to chase happiness, and futile as it may be, seek whatever gives us some sense of meaning or measure of peace, whether that be friendship, family, or career. Because to dwell on the futility of existence is to allow that same futility to consume us. However, we must be careful not to take things too far. Much of the ugliness that oftentimes characterizes human behaviour can be attributed to people getting so desperate to fill the sickening, terrifying vacuum of existentialism, that they ascribe far too much meaning to certain things in an effort to compensate. Extremism, selfishness, ego – all these behaviours bear the marks of an oversubscription to some perceived source of meaning in response to meaninglessness. Imagine if we could just take away the horror of our insignificance, and replace it with comedy – a joke shared by all of humanity. Instead of falling to despair when considering the non-existent meaning of life, we should stare at the void in our souls, and while endeavouring to fill it, laugh at the tragic comedy of it all. In the words of Bugs Bunny and Van Wilder: Don’t take life too seriously. No one makes it out alive anyway.

Disney has done it again. Continuing its winning streak of beloved animated feature films, Walt Disney Animation Studios hits yet another home run with Moana, an uplifting and heartfelt tale destined to adorn the awards-spangled annals of Disney’s decorated filmography. While the film wouldn’t be a Disney story without recycling some old tropes, Moana does offer some new ideas that might surprise you on a second viewing. So, without further dawdling, let’s take a deeper dive back into the sparkling aquamarine waters of Disney’s Moana.

Feminism and the Disney Heroine

Let’s be honest, Disney isn’t exactly known for its strong female characters, with their classic roster full of “princesses” defined almost entirely by their good looks, impossibly slim waists, and relationships to Prince Charming. Fortunately, Disney has been getting better at portraying female characters, with women that are strong, capable badasses in their own right (Mulan, Pocahontas), and a woman who don’t need no man (Elsa). Here’s the thing, though – they’ve never been both. Mulan and Pocahontas are both defined in part by their romantic relationships to male lovers, while Elsa, though powerful, is kind of a whiny cry-baby when you really think about it. That makes Moana the first female Walt Disney Animation Studios character who, on top of having no romantic inclinations, is also a bona-fide badass. You could say Merida also qualifies, but she’s from a Disney-Pixar production, not WDAS, and I’m a stickler for details. “How about Officer Judy Hopps from Zootopia?” Well… She’s a rabbit. But okay, fair enough. In Moana, Disney drives the feminist message farther home than in any of their prior films. Moana’s gender-blind tribe has no qualms whatsoever about a woman becoming their chief, and has both men and women contributing equally to roles like farming and exploring. Maui, on the other hand, represents the stereotypical male chauvinist, with his incredulity towards a woman like Moana being “chosen” by her tribe, and by The Ocean. He relentlessly mocks and doubts Moana’s abilities as a mortal woman, and even goes as far as to trap her in a cave and throw her into the ocean… repeatedly. It is only when Moana survives the Realm of Monsters and saves Maui’s life, that he changes his tune and becomes convinced of her worth. In the Moana-Maui dynamic of the film, the writers espouse a form of gender equality achieved through mutual respect – men and women are different, but both are equally important. Maui’s strength and raw power are essential in their quest, but so are Moana’s skills, intuition, and gentle touch. Equality between men and women, the film argues, is embracing the value of every individual, different as they may be from each other.

Religion

Aside from the story’s obvious roots in Polynesian culture and religion, Moana is rife with modern religious symbolism and references, some more subtle than others. These include references to reincarnation, aversion to eating pork, and splitting the sea à la Moses, to name a few. Not convinced? You might be when you realise that The Ocean in Moana is an analogue of the most prominent figure in Abrahamic religion – God. At the film’s opening, the narrator (Moana’s grandmother) reveals that, “in the beginning, there was only ocean”. Sound familiar? She also reveals that Tafiti, the “mother island”, emerged from The Ocean and created all life, much like the relationship between God and Darwinian evolution that some theistic evolutionists subscribe to. Unlike the sleeping Tafiti, The Ocean is an omniscient, omnipresent entity that shapes the course of the world and guides the heroes’ actions throughout the film. As helpful as The Ocean is in the story, an ever-present undercurrent in Moana is the question of why The Ocean doesn’t help more, evocative of the Problem of Evil argument against God in real-world philosophy. Put simply, if God (The Ocean) is so powerful and benevolent, why doesn’t He (It) eliminate evil (the darkness) altogether? At one point in the narrative, our heroes get surrounded by “pirates”, and Moana cries out to The Ocean for help, to which Maui responds, “The ocean doesn’t help you. You help yourself.” A weird sentiment for someone who has seen The Ocean as a living, moving entity with his own eyes, but one that brings to mind the classic “God only helps those who help themselves” argument. Help the heroes while they’re being attacked by savage pirates? Nope. Splash some water on the lava monster trying to kill our heroes? Nope. Stupid chicken falls into the water for the umpteenth time? Better save it. In one scene, The Ocean straight up sends a massive storm at Moana, marooning her on a desolate island much to Moana’s chagrin, until she realises that Maui is on that same island. The Ocean sure does work in mysterious ways, doesn’t It? And I haven’t even mentioned the similarities between Maui and other religious figures like Jesus and Prometheus, as well as Moana’s prophetic “chosen by The Ocean” story arc. This is probably a bold claim, but Moana just might be Disney’s most religiously-charged film to date, for better or worse.

In conclusion...

Throughout the length of its runtime, Moana delights, entertains, and moves viewers with Disney’s signature magic and flair, all while delivering a narrative rich in subtext and ripe for discussion. Moana is a film that proves, like the ocean it’s set upon, to be far deeper than it seems. Top Image Credit

Superheroes are modern day mythology. They transcend age, language, and culture, and while primarily designed for entertainment, our favourite superhero stories hold many lessons to be learned. Here are a few of them.

1. The Hulk

There is a monster inside all of us, but it doesn’t always have to be evil Marvel’s take on the classic story of Jekyll and Hyde brought us Doctor Bruce Banner, a mild-mannered scientist who transforms into an unstoppable beast of rage and destruction. However, beneath the surface of the big green simpleton lies a surprisingly deep exploration of the human condition. The Hulk represents duality, and the inner struggle within all of us. We all have a Hulk that we wish to hide from the world, but Bruce Banner shows us that instead of letting it destroy us from the inside, our inner rage can be channelled into an indomitable force for good.

2. Wonder Woman

Don’t be afraid to be different, even if the world hates you for it Ever since their conception in 1963, the X-Men have served as Marvel’s allegory for victims of prejudice and the disenfranchised in general; a mirror of sorts to the social ills that plague the marginalized and discriminated. Not only do Xavier’s mutants teach us to be kind and tolerant towards others, they also teach us to celebrate our uniqueness, and never let society hold us down. The opinions others have of you are none of your business. Let the haters hate, as long as you know you’re walking a righteous path.

5. Batman

Defeat your enemies at all costs, but never sink to their level Driven by an all-consuming thirst for justice following the murder of his parents, Bruce Wayne put himself through hell to hone his mind and body into the weapon that is Batman. As the Caped Crusader, Bruce stops at nothing in his vendetta against the criminal world; nothing, that is, except killing. To maintain his morality and prevent himself from becoming one of the killers he hunts, Batman keeps his gauntlets free of dead men’s blood, and his conscience clear. While we may not be billionaire-ninja-vigilante-crime-fighters, we can apply the same morality that Batman lives on to our own lives. We do this by staying true to our moral code, and never letting the wrongdoing of others be used as an excuse to do the same. <a href=" Image Credit