Logicless Logic

a difference in thinking.(delayed)

sometimes, i find myself having drastically different opinions with adults and wonder why. my friend ozy has found the perfect word for it. generation gap. i wouldn't say i am a very radical thinking guy. in fact, i'm very unradical. however, in being unradical, i also believe in being flexible. because i think that rules are mere guidelines for behaviour and not something that should be followed like the 10 commandments. in fact, the 10 commandments are probably just guidelines for human behaviour, albeit (some believe) somewhat more holy(?).

why am i so long-winded to bring up this topic again? because of our dear discipline master mr michael tan, who decided to instill discipline in indisciplined students. in doing so, he has made 2 assumptions. firstly, the students are actually indisciplined. secondly, that what he is doing will instill discipline in the students. the offence, being late for assembly. to be fair it wasn't just him. there were other teachers as well. in the teachers opinion, being late for assembly = being late for school. which in my opinion is really quite funny. because i simply cannot comprehend how they came up with the stupid concept. (if someone came to school at 6 and was late for assembly, he is considered late? where is the logic in that? HAHAHA) until it happened to me this morning. they applied the stupid concept on me. what happened was:

i was walking for assembly when i was suddenly told to stop. i wondered what was happening until the teacheress(female teacher) told me to hand over my ezlink card. being a naturally inquisitive person, i said "for what?". though that is not the nicest way to present a question, it was all i could come up with at the time. the teacheress told me i was late for assembly, along with my huge group of classmates. i looked at my watch. i was late for ONE BLOODY MINUTE!
i was appalled at the rigidity of the teacheress. she asked for my ezlink card again. since they wouldn't take no for an answer, the next thing to come out of my mouth was naturally a lie. a half truth anyway. i said my ezlink card was with mr michael tan when it was tucked away safely in my wallet. my LIBRARY CARD was with mr michael tan. oh well. i had to save my own skin somehow.

but i still had to see mr michael tan. within the 2 minutes from the back of the quadrangle to the time i saw him, my mind came up with a brilliant excuse. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! i told him i was in the toilet. so when the bell rang, i couldn't just stop and go. i had to finish my business. i thought it was brilliant in how simple it was. there was just no way of rebutting such a simple excuse. other than to say "NONSENSE! THAT'S JUST AN EXCUSE." which was exactly what he did. i had to get into the act of being really in the toilet, in which case my argument would be invincible. i told him that he couldn't possibly expect me to stop my pee halfway just to go to assembly. he told me to pee at home. what a logicless argument. in that case, what he means to say was pee before i come to school. what if i already did that and still needed to pee when i was already in school, RIGHT BEFORE ASSEMBLY? he wouldn't accept my argument. old teachers are too rigid to accept any new ideas into their brains. older brain got smaller capacity you see. just like computers.

anyway, i was telling him about how someone right in front of me got past and i was the one stopped. he came up with this crap analogy of how in a bali bomb blast, i could be killed while the guy sitting right next to me could emerge unscathed. i was seriously pissed off by that time and refused to listen to anymore of his rubbish after that. bad start to a school week i must say.

this little incident led me to think how people in authority usually win their arguments. with authority. this is because their age-old arguments are usually met with some retort emerging from someone with a quick brain and an even quicker mouth. to counter this, they firstly come up with something they call logic and analogy but makes no sense at all. the purpose is to confuse people so that they cannot argue back. if that fails, then the threat of detention and what not punishment comes to rise. its not just michael tan. in fact, kee yong in cat high was much worse. so i guess i have to be thankful to a certain extent.

HOWEVER, despite all this shit about stupid rules, i believe rules are definitely needed. this is to prevent everything from being cast into a state of anarchy. also, rules should be there. if anything just for the students to have a boundary to push against. because i feel that everyone, to a certain extent, needs to know how far the boundaries can be pushed. so i feel that the stupid rules[e.g. hair, the late for assembly rule] can be set as some form of deterrence. however, the boundaries should be flexible so that the rules will not be so stupid. sorry if it seems incoherent. didn't sort out my thoughts.

justin.

posted by justin @ 5:15 PM