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OPEN Thought
Riding the middle footpath in Singapore
DON SAMBANDARAKSA
It took a bike ride in one of the world's most orderly cities to make me realise the power of freedom and that it is only by giving freedom and guidance that a society can truly become strong and resilient to change.
It was on a recent trip to Singapore that I decided to take my bicycle with me and the way people reacted to someone on a bike in the central business district was quite surprising. Before I went, all my native Singaporean friends said it was a crazy idea, it was far too dangerous and that there's nothing to see. All my Aussie friends said it was a great idea and rolled off a list of places to go and explore. That should have given me a hint as to the lesson in philosophy and anthropology that awaited me.
In a nutshell, the usually boring, law-abiding, orderly Singaporean that is famous the world over turned into an aggressive, horn honking, engine revving crazy driver that is more fit for rush-hour Bangkok or Bangalore than Singapore. Moreover, it was an aggression that was totally uncalled for. I biked a lot in the UK, in Manchester, and have never seen this level of road rage before. Odd.
"They don't like others on their space," one of my local friends later told me over dinner. The drivers do not like anything different. They like the predictability, the order of being told exactly where they can go and what they can do.
Introduce something different, something without any rules and regulations, and the usually strict, orderly driver breaks down and reverts to his native, aggressive state, honking, revving and just displaying road rage at the poor biker because they do not know what else to do.
It was fun to infuriate these people, and to slowly cycle past them later as they got stuck in traffic. Strangely enough, there were almost no cyclists on the road apart from a few poor Indian cyclists on rickety old bicycles.
But it was after nightfall when the local bikers did come out and I began to realise how chaotic Singapore's biking scene can be. Almost nobody had lights on their bikes. Nobody was on the roads and nearly everyone was cycling on the footpaths. Some were cycling against the flow of traffic. Few were watching the cars around them. It was almost total chaos. Something was obviously not right.
There are two frameworks of law and order. One tells people what to do, the other tells us what not to do. Sounds simple. One tells us the centre path where we should walk and expects us not to stray far from it. The other shows us the limits of acceptable behaviour and we are free to do anything we please as long as we do not cross those limits.
Both sound reasonable, but in practice there is a lot of difference between a society that functions because it is programmed to, and another that functions freely within set boundaries. The difference lies in what we usually refer to as self-immunity.
My little escapade in Singapore taught me that programmed societies break down; that is, the social order ceases and people turn to anarchy when faced with something that does not fit in with their programming, in this case, a bike on a road. I was a biker well versed in riding on roads, but among cars that did not know how to deal with me. Without self-immunity, society reverts to its raw, carnal self.
A society that has self-immunity can, on the other hand, react to change and unforeseen circumstances, be it a cyclist on the road or an emergency in town where a bomber awaiting trial goes missing after a toilet visit.
It is diversity that brings inner strength and self-immunity, and the ability to cope with change. Too many organisations get bogged down after time, after red tape and processes get in the way of innovation.
The same is true for censorship.
One of my best friends (who just got married, so congratulations) in the ICT ministry has often voiced his concern at the high level thinking within the Ministry of Truth when it comes to protecting people from the Internet. It is simply delaying the inevitable, he tells me, and when the dams do break, instead of a trickle of undesirable content, we will get a torrent, a tsunami.
A much better idea would be to let people see the good, the bad and the ugly, and let them learn for themselves what to do, where to surf, what to trust, how much personally identifiable information to disclose. By protecting our next generation with a good intentioned, but ham-fisted censorship regime, we are only weakening them and destroying any chance of building up their self-immunity.
This friend of mine is rapidly becoming an iTunes mogul, having written an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and is raking in the money through sales. One dollar a shot may not sound much, but when thousands and thousands of people start buying your parking game, it suddenly adds up. He believes in innovation and that given the opportunity to innovate, great things can happen. Lots of people earning 7,780 baht a month (a while ago) might just go to work, sign in, push piles of paper from one table to another and in a programmed society, that is probably the only thing they can do. But in a society with freedom in all senses of the word, that 7,780 baht a month salaryman can use his free time to dream of bigger projects and actually put that into motion, as long as it is not illegal.
Having a hit iTunes Store application is definitely much more fun than pushing papers.
In the end, it boils down to diversity. Societies with a strong level of self immunity can embrace change and grow with it. Those with a strong programmed career path will be much more efficient in the short term but will find it a challenge to evolve when things change. It should be up to our leaders, both those in power in Don Muang (I was about to write those in government house, but obviously that is not the case) and those leading our thoughts to teach everyone to embrace change and freedom. The two come together.
The Abbot at my favourite monastery near Newcastle, once told me that while other religions tell us what we should do, Buddhism is much harder as it tells us what we cannot do, yet urges us to walk the middle path; it maps the two extremes and allows each and every one of us to find the middle path for ourselves, offering only vague guidance. The reward for finding the middle path is great, leading to Nirvana, yet it is a path that is unique to each of us and only one we can find for ourselves.
Riding the middle footpath in Singapore
DON SAMBANDARAKSA
It took a bike ride in one of the world's most orderly cities to make me realise the power of freedom and that it is only by giving freedom and guidance that a society can truly become strong and resilient to change.
It was on a recent trip to Singapore that I decided to take my bicycle with me and the way people reacted to someone on a bike in the central business district was quite surprising. Before I went, all my native Singaporean friends said it was a crazy idea, it was far too dangerous and that there's nothing to see. All my Aussie friends said it was a great idea and rolled off a list of places to go and explore. That should have given me a hint as to the lesson in philosophy and anthropology that awaited me.
In a nutshell, the usually boring, law-abiding, orderly Singaporean that is famous the world over turned into an aggressive, horn honking, engine revving crazy driver that is more fit for rush-hour Bangkok or Bangalore than Singapore. Moreover, it was an aggression that was totally uncalled for. I biked a lot in the UK, in Manchester, and have never seen this level of road rage before. Odd.
"They don't like others on their space," one of my local friends later told me over dinner. The drivers do not like anything different. They like the predictability, the order of being told exactly where they can go and what they can do.
Introduce something different, something without any rules and regulations, and the usually strict, orderly driver breaks down and reverts to his native, aggressive state, honking, revving and just displaying road rage at the poor biker because they do not know what else to do.
It was fun to infuriate these people, and to slowly cycle past them later as they got stuck in traffic. Strangely enough, there were almost no cyclists on the road apart from a few poor Indian cyclists on rickety old bicycles.
But it was after nightfall when the local bikers did come out and I began to realise how chaotic Singapore's biking scene can be. Almost nobody had lights on their bikes. Nobody was on the roads and nearly everyone was cycling on the footpaths. Some were cycling against the flow of traffic. Few were watching the cars around them. It was almost total chaos. Something was obviously not right.
There are two frameworks of law and order. One tells people what to do, the other tells us what not to do. Sounds simple. One tells us the centre path where we should walk and expects us not to stray far from it. The other shows us the limits of acceptable behaviour and we are free to do anything we please as long as we do not cross those limits.
Both sound reasonable, but in practice there is a lot of difference between a society that functions because it is programmed to, and another that functions freely within set boundaries. The difference lies in what we usually refer to as self-immunity.
My little escapade in Singapore taught me that programmed societies break down; that is, the social order ceases and people turn to anarchy when faced with something that does not fit in with their programming, in this case, a bike on a road. I was a biker well versed in riding on roads, but among cars that did not know how to deal with me. Without self-immunity, society reverts to its raw, carnal self.
A society that has self-immunity can, on the other hand, react to change and unforeseen circumstances, be it a cyclist on the road or an emergency in town where a bomber awaiting trial goes missing after a toilet visit.
It is diversity that brings inner strength and self-immunity, and the ability to cope with change. Too many organisations get bogged down after time, after red tape and processes get in the way of innovation.
The same is true for censorship.
One of my best friends (who just got married, so congratulations) in the ICT ministry has often voiced his concern at the high level thinking within the Ministry of Truth when it comes to protecting people from the Internet. It is simply delaying the inevitable, he tells me, and when the dams do break, instead of a trickle of undesirable content, we will get a torrent, a tsunami.
A much better idea would be to let people see the good, the bad and the ugly, and let them learn for themselves what to do, where to surf, what to trust, how much personally identifiable information to disclose. By protecting our next generation with a good intentioned, but ham-fisted censorship regime, we are only weakening them and destroying any chance of building up their self-immunity.
This friend of mine is rapidly becoming an iTunes mogul, having written an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and is raking in the money through sales. One dollar a shot may not sound much, but when thousands and thousands of people start buying your parking game, it suddenly adds up. He believes in innovation and that given the opportunity to innovate, great things can happen. Lots of people earning 7,780 baht a month (a while ago) might just go to work, sign in, push piles of paper from one table to another and in a programmed society, that is probably the only thing they can do. But in a society with freedom in all senses of the word, that 7,780 baht a month salaryman can use his free time to dream of bigger projects and actually put that into motion, as long as it is not illegal.
Having a hit iTunes Store application is definitely much more fun than pushing papers.
In the end, it boils down to diversity. Societies with a strong level of self immunity can embrace change and grow with it. Those with a strong programmed career path will be much more efficient in the short term but will find it a challenge to evolve when things change. It should be up to our leaders, both those in power in Don Muang (I was about to write those in government house, but obviously that is not the case) and those leading our thoughts to teach everyone to embrace change and freedom. The two come together.
The Abbot at my favourite monastery near Newcastle, once told me that while other religions tell us what we should do, Buddhism is much harder as it tells us what we cannot do, yet urges us to walk the middle path; it maps the two extremes and allows each and every one of us to find the middle path for ourselves, offering only vague guidance. The reward for finding the middle path is great, leading to Nirvana, yet it is a path that is unique to each of us and only one we can find for ourselves.
