Everything seems to be the same, and at the same time, nothing is. Coming back to the relative normalcy of Singapore – well, at least, relative to the rest of the world – has been odd. Duxton Hill and Whampoa Market are still alive with chatter, tinkle of teaspoons or wine glasses, loud banter or kopi orders, and just a lot of damn good food – but there are now crosses on tables and a greater awareness of even greater personal space. The latter is new to Singapore. I’m not complaining; it is a good thing. People still paint the town red, except everyone starts going home, jacking up ride-share prices at 10.30pm, and taking the party home – in small groups. Families gather, lovers do their thing, friends hang out. It’s a curious mix of civic-mindedness and compulsion by law – especially since the penalties for the latter are serious. This says something about the Singaporean psyche, for sure, but I’m reticent to put my finger on it.
But one thing is clear. Singapore is relatively normal compared to other places. I won’t deny a huge part of me has mixed feelings about this. It comes from the same place that misses big parties, but feels more contentment at the space, time and intimacy of friends in small groups. The same place that misses seeing all my relatives in one place, but that doesn’t want to endanger the older ones. And the same place that wants to be engulfed by music and like-minded people at a fantastic gig, and that is also now terrified of crowds. And I miss flying, but not the lifestyles that attend the globetrotting jobs that attract prestige. No, I do not have mixed feelings about our population being spared the death and anguish that has wracked other countries. But I have very mixed feelings about how things seem to chug along like they always have. There’s both a sense of complacency, not-quite-there-normalcy – and more morbidly, that maybe we haven’t learnt key lessons. Still reading? Please humour me more.
I stayed on in New York when the pandemic hit, and even after graduation for many reasons. I didn’t want to put those at home at risk; I was worried that it would only take a single case to slip quarantine measures, amidst the chaos that was gripping the world, for all hell to break loose at home. I wanted to do my Columbia classes on New York time, instead of at some godforsaken time, in a state of constant time limbo. I wanted a bit of a break before returning to work. I wanted to read. I wanted to program. I wanted to try new things. And most importantly, I found the love of my life – future hiyachai and friends: if he’s screwed up, please scold him and throw him into an ice bath and lock him in for a good while to come to his senses. And then do this a few more times to ensure he’s learnt his lesson physiologically as well as emotionally and rationally (I’m kidding, or am I?).
Spending some 4, even 5 months, with her in lockdown, were some of the best days of my life, even if the world was a lot smaller, things were more routine, and some measure of isolation and loneliness set in. I could only see and hear friends and family using data (thank God for Zoom, and Zoom pub quizzes). Most of my international friends in New York had gone home. And it wasn’t just the pandemic. Black Lives Matter happened, and a Singaporean doesn’t really know fear until you have to stay indoors for your own safety, while helicopters whirr around at all hours, into the small hours of the night, while other random and loud sounds and lights go off around the city. You only realise that light can be loud when you’ve seen and heard it it glaring from a helicopter for the umpteenth time, amidst the previously docile and beautiful New York skyline. But as with all things dire, there’s always a silver lining. My partner’s friends and family asked after me, and made sure I was okay. Those of us that remained behind checked in with each other in solidarity. Days blurred into each other, but the small acts that filled up those days made my life feel a lot larger within the 4 walls of the apartment. And then some when we were able to get out a little more. One of my favourite quotes from Thomas Merton is this one, when he writes in The Seven Storey Mountain of his arrival at the Trappist Gethsemani Abbey:
So Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom.
This is overtly Christian, and a very particular sort of Christian: a sort of Catholic monasticism that finds God (and freedom) in absolute silence, and the obedience within the enclosed monastery. Merton was a man who was in love with the world, and all that it had to offer, but who also wanted to find God everywhere, in everything and everyone. And I think he found God in love, and I think it took discipline amidst the seemingly mundane to get there – I think I empathised more with this in lockdown. Love begins, and starts anew, and never ends, with kindness. And I don’t think this message is found in Christianity only.
And yet, while I found my life enlarged amidst such grayness, life here chugs on in some odd way, while New York and America continue to be in the doldrums. There is a lot of talk of the ‘new normal’, but complacency can be a thing my friends.
At this point, if you’re still reading, you’re probably asking: what does any of this have to do with hedonism in a pandemic? Well, this: you make do. And in making do, in being forced to push the reset button, you discover again priorities that were always there but buried. I found that I don’t need as much to be happy, or more specifically, to enjoy myself. Here are some examples:
- I don’t need to be constantly plugged into the information (over)flow to discern signal from noise, make my own sense of things, to know that I am a thinking person or possessed of some capability.
- I now prefer home-cooked food to going out or checking out new places and bars – well, most of the time.
- I now prefer a balance of working with my hands and on the keyboard/screen. I now detest being on the keyboard and screen for too long, even as I do more programming. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but the keyboard? It’s a different beast. We mark the power of the keyboard by its successful products, not the large amounts of data that are produced that will never be accessed again.
- You don’t need gyms to get fit or feel the camaraderie.
- You don’t need to buy so many clothes. I relish putting on a suit, but have had to ascribe far less importance to the part of my identity that derives no small amount of enjoyment from being in one.
- Eating less meat is actually… pretty damn good. I went vegetarian for two weeks and it was great. I now eat far less meat.
- I prefer sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor: my back has improved tremendously.
And no, I’m neither a monk nor ascetic.
There’s more (hello woodworking and homebrewing), but that would detract from the point of this post.
The upshot of all this is more time to be, and be with people you love and want to spend time with. This is not trendy, strawberry generation stuff: this is about your life and mine, and how we choose to fill those days. It’s a sliding scale between love, capital and prestige, and very rarely is one able to get all three. Even then, the choice is clear. At least for me.
And there is one more upshot. After seeing death grip a city (and even then being nowhere as close to death as other people in the pandemic), I now have the biggest reminder that life is a constant test in being prepared for black swans. I now have a lot of impatience with any sort of bureaucratic idiosyncrasy that is self-serving, and which performance abides by its own logic. The sort of bureaucratic wrangling that occurs for the sake of its own logic, or disincentives that do not correspond with the wider world out there. The lodestar must and always should be some sort of public interest of impact. Any less, and we would not have learnt from this pandemic.