Logicless Logic

more mature musing/commentary concerning generation gaps as well as other stuff.

I am in Taipei right now and enjoying myself pretty much. Probably like a pre-NS holiday. So far I've been to more places in Taiwan these few days than I've ever been in the past few years.

I firstly went to visit my maternal grandfather, who had suffered a mild stroke but has already fully recovered. My mother's friend however, had her mother in law passed away on the 11th of January, which was the following day which we reached Taiwan. I had no idea how she died but according to my mum's friend, it was quite peaceful, but also very sudden. They had rushed to Taiwan from China upon hearing the news and was probably just in time to catch her last breath. My mum's friend's husband appeared visibly upset about that, but appeared rather relieved that she had gone peacefully.

This led me to think how we should always appreciate the elders in the family and not wait until it's too late to be filial to them. Old people tend to be naggier, but along with the nagging, experience is passed on, though not always absorbed by the younger generation, who tend to be more self-centred. The generation gap between people my age and those a few years younger appears to be huge.

According to myself, I am probably stuck somewhere in between people of the previous generation and that of "my" generation. Teens and semi-adults nowadays appear to be much more shallow, being more concerned about appearance than character. Of course, appearance should not be neglected, but as those people I (perhaps harshly) condemned in my previous post, overate appearance. It has become a competition of who dresses better, or as James and I like to put it, "dress to impress". Often, it is also the uglier ones who have bigger actions. As my uncle, not so many years older than me puts it, "lang bai gao zho sai". Loosely translated, it means ugly people are good at doing shit.

Western influences are often pushed to the fore when such discussions arise. However, what we discussed over a beer and a long walk was that teenagers nowadays choose to follow parts of the Western culture as they see fit, and not totally follow it. This results in a culture of displaced people who are neither here nor there. Or rather, if this continues, it will become the norm, and it is people like me who become displaced. I personally believe that if one wants to follow the Western culture, then follow it to the extreme and individualise yourself, and support yourself, without depending on your parents for anything. I doubt many are able to do that.

There is also this "rebel without a cause". This can perhaps be attributed to the rebellious age of any person. And it is rather normal to fight against school rules, thus the hoo-hah about the haircuts. I, admittedly, have been through this phase and looking back at it, I believe myself to have been behaving like a retard. While hairstyles do not make a difference to characters, willingness to follow the set haircut reflects the character of a person. While they might think that unwillingness to follow the set haircut makes them non-conformist, they need to realise that just about everyone else is unwilling to cut a "slope" haircut and want to have longer hair. This leads back to the issue on the over-emphasis on appearance, as well as perhaps the naivete of the people in thinking that keeping a "different" hairstyle really makes them different.

Perhaps, as many have said, our generation's life is "too good". I agree. Parents often let children have their own way, and if this happens large scale, I believe that humans will be doomed not too far into the future. Political apathy is widespread, as well as the non-understanding of how difficult it is to earn money, while money is often spent like water(not to say water is cheap). Youths today therefore are less able to mature mentally due to our overly comfortable lifestyle. Personally, I believe family plays a big part in moulding one's character and I owe it to mine for not making me like the subjects of my post.

Perhaps all this is just my personal belief and that I belong to some "loser" anti-culture for not caring too much about looking good for others and not wanting to break school rules for the sake of it. Maybe staying childish and apathetic forever is the "cool" thing to do now. But personally, I'd very much rather be part of the "losers" if this is the case. My opinion is that if you keep up with fashion, there will be probably hundreds or thousands of people doing that same thing as you. Thus, I find it much more important to have a personal style, regardless of what is "in" at the moment.

This trip has also enlightened me on my direction in the future. Having discussed this with Zhen Yu for many times, I don't think I need to share what I hope to do in the future. Firstly because I haven't actually thought it through. But what my dad is doing now is unlikely to be viable for the future. Perhaps the two years in army would point me further in another direction.

Will be back in Singapore on Saturday and in Pulau Tekong next Friday. More thoughts and experiences then. Cheers to whoever reads this since almost everyone who comes here is in camp.

justin.

posted by justin @ 1:05 AM