A Contingency Plan
Thursday, June 28, 2007
A Contingency Plan
You bring an umbrella when the clouds gather overhead, you bring a plastic bag just in case you get motion sickness on the bus. You backup your pictures in different drives in the computer in case the computer crashes, and you wear a condom when having sex with your girlfriend. You have an extra EZ-link card in your wallet just in case the one you normally uses runs out of credits, and you keep quiet in an argument with your boyfriend just in case you say the wrong thing that may cause the two of you to wage a cold war. No matter what kind of precautions we have in life, we almost always have a contingency plan one way or another. Even when we are talking about studies, there's ought to be a Plan B in almost anything you do, especially when schools are capable of shutting down without prior notice like UNSW. You never know when you are going to need that contingency plan of yours.
Jonathan - the SIM one - and I were talking about contingency plans of life just last night. I know, I know too many Jonathans for my own good, and they are all confusing the living daylight out of me. They really should make it a crime for babies after 2007 to be named Jonathan, because I feel so rude calling them by their full names. Let's see, I know the following Jonathans: Jonathan Lim, Jonathan Yap, Jonathan Teo, Jonathan Chia, Jonathan Yang, Jonathan Leong, Jonathan the Sergeant to name a few out of the top of my head. Yeah, you get my point. I'm not even going to start on my list of Benjamins.
Anyway, the two of us were just messing around with the ideas when he was telling me about his plans with Kevin. In the case of a school shutdown, or if their grades are going to be flushed down the toilet, their plan is to hike to a random mountainous area with a lot of caves, then scale the walls inside to find bird nest and guanos - or bat shit - to make into rare herbs for sale. In Singapore, it is not so much about how you can achieve, but what you can achieve. The proverb of "I think, therefore I am" doesn't exist here, but replaced by "I score As, therefore I am". It is a rough world out there, and going out there with straight Fs on your certificate is not going to land you in any job with a pay more than three digits. That is how cruel our society is, but then that is also the nature of a competitive market. If you are not good enough, there are a bunch of other better, more hardworking people than you waiting to be hired. And if you are going to land yourself in that kind of situation without a contingency plan, you are going to find yourself standing at the front entrance of your previous office building with a paper box of items from your desk fifty-floors up - lost.
My contingency plan is as follows. By the end of my three years in University, if I don't land myself in a proper job of some kind, or a job that satisfy me completely, I am going to activate my Plan B immediately. It involves myself going to a random mountain range in China with enough food and water to sustain me for about three to four weeks in the mountains. Then, bang on the doors of the first monastery I find and ask to become a monk there. Of course, they are going to have more than enough apprentices there, more than enough monks running around sweeping the same piece of ground all day long, and the main hall with the altar just isn't big enough to contain every random man who wants to be a monk. So I am going to offer him a place in the kitchen and make vegetables and tofu all day long.
In the morning, I will wake up at five to prepare food for the whole temple. That is followed by my morning trainings, which is ensued by my private moments in the piece of land in the woods. A little greenhouse to plant mushrooms, operated and managed all by myself and on my own fundings. Then in the afternoons, prepare more tofu for my bald-comrades and at night, go to sleep with a good book in my hands, skipping the midnight prayers. It is probably the best way to live if you are going to have the life you know now crumble into ruins. To have a bunch of monks surround you everyday with nothing but happiness and content in their eyes is probably second to the most beautiful woman in the world as your wife. I like the Zen way of life, and I'm sure there is no harm in cooking tofu all day - if I can cook tofu at all.
However, this contingency plan is not going to work with my everlasting craving for meat. I expect myself to be kicked out of the front doors of the monastery after being spotted in the corner of the kitchen, munching on smuggled Subway sandwiches and beef lasagnas. If you are going to eat beef in a monastery, you might as well bring a pig to a Muslim country and slaughter it in front of them. They are going to have me removed from the compounds of the monastery in no time, that's for sure.
So the monk plan is out, now comes Plan C. I plan to head upwards to the lands of Mongolia. I am going to be part of the nomads, wandering the fields of Mongolia with my pack of sheep and horses, and watch them graze upon the seamless fields until dusk. At night, the stars above our heads are going to look like pepper strayed upon the surface of a clear soup, and we are going to count the stars over and over again until our eyes feel tired and we are sick and tired of mathematics. We are going to ride on horses all day long until our crotches feel like rocks, and take pictures of wild horses on the way back to our huts at night. Not to mention the bonfire we are going to light up every night and the songs sung around the fire.
However, like the monastery plan, the Mongolia plan is not going to work out as well. It's not that they are going to mind if I eat Subway sandwiches, or the fact that they are distant relatives of the Muslims in the West as well. It's just that I am probably going to grow lethargic and then miss the times when I get to blog about contingency plans on my computer whenever I want. Besides, though most nomads there have their own television sets, I am not a fan of Chinese television. I am probably going to hang myself from a pole two weeks into this lifestyle, and then regret ever having such a wild and ridiculous dream in mind. As my life go flashing by before my eyes, I will see those bad grades repeated over and over like the song on a broken gramophone, over and over until I am dead twice over.
No, they are not going to work. I better come up with better plans for my bad grades - though it's not like I am doing all that badly in school at all. The new set of plans are going to be more realistic, and probably involves something along the lines of cow-riding in New Zealand - if they ride cows at all. Or even if they don't ride cows, I don't mind milking cows at all. So who knows, you may see me in a random advertisement in the future, milking cows in New Zealand and getting a kick out of it.
Whatever it is, I guess what I am trying to say is that however smooth the road beneath my feet may be at this very moment, I am sure the novelty is going to wear off like the tracks on a car tire. Like the life as a monk or the life as a nomad, even those kind of life can get tiresome and boring. Which is why I am not counting on my current optimism to last me through the months and years ahead. To say that I have a contingency plan for myself would be a flat out lie, because I don't have any right now. THIS, is my contingency plan, and if this fails I am going to be falling off the edge of a cliff with nothing to hold on to. Just waiting for the jagged rocks below and the crashing waves to break my head and wash my blood away.
It'd be nice to say that in the days to come, I am not going to need an emergency plan to fall back on. It's like the dark clouds that gather above your head as you head out of your house, dressed up and smelling like roses. It'd be good if you can say for certain that you are not going to need the umbrella for the day at all. But who knows? How long is this novelty of mine going to last? This drive to make myself better, to score better grades even when I am already scoring straight As. How long is this perfectionist going to work before he gives up? What if he gives up too late, and he ends up in front of his office building with a box as well? It'd be too late by then, but it's not like the monastery plan is going to work out anytime soon.
Maybe I should join Jonathan and Kevin in their bird nest and guano quest. It may just turn out to be a successful business enterprise of sorts. Go, entrepreneurship!
You bring an umbrella when the clouds gather overhead, you bring a plastic bag just in case you get motion sickness on the bus. You backup your pictures in different drives in the computer in case the computer crashes, and you wear a condom when having sex with your girlfriend. You have an extra EZ-link card in your wallet just in case the one you normally uses runs out of credits, and you keep quiet in an argument with your boyfriend just in case you say the wrong thing that may cause the two of you to wage a cold war. No matter what kind of precautions we have in life, we almost always have a contingency plan one way or another. Even when we are talking about studies, there's ought to be a Plan B in almost anything you do, especially when schools are capable of shutting down without prior notice like UNSW. You never know when you are going to need that contingency plan of yours.
Jonathan - the SIM one - and I were talking about contingency plans of life just last night. I know, I know too many Jonathans for my own good, and they are all confusing the living daylight out of me. They really should make it a crime for babies after 2007 to be named Jonathan, because I feel so rude calling them by their full names. Let's see, I know the following Jonathans: Jonathan Lim, Jonathan Yap, Jonathan Teo, Jonathan Chia, Jonathan Yang, Jonathan Leong, Jonathan the Sergeant to name a few out of the top of my head. Yeah, you get my point. I'm not even going to start on my list of Benjamins.
Anyway, the two of us were just messing around with the ideas when he was telling me about his plans with Kevin. In the case of a school shutdown, or if their grades are going to be flushed down the toilet, their plan is to hike to a random mountainous area with a lot of caves, then scale the walls inside to find bird nest and guanos - or bat shit - to make into rare herbs for sale. In Singapore, it is not so much about how you can achieve, but what you can achieve. The proverb of "I think, therefore I am" doesn't exist here, but replaced by "I score As, therefore I am". It is a rough world out there, and going out there with straight Fs on your certificate is not going to land you in any job with a pay more than three digits. That is how cruel our society is, but then that is also the nature of a competitive market. If you are not good enough, there are a bunch of other better, more hardworking people than you waiting to be hired. And if you are going to land yourself in that kind of situation without a contingency plan, you are going to find yourself standing at the front entrance of your previous office building with a paper box of items from your desk fifty-floors up - lost.
My contingency plan is as follows. By the end of my three years in University, if I don't land myself in a proper job of some kind, or a job that satisfy me completely, I am going to activate my Plan B immediately. It involves myself going to a random mountain range in China with enough food and water to sustain me for about three to four weeks in the mountains. Then, bang on the doors of the first monastery I find and ask to become a monk there. Of course, they are going to have more than enough apprentices there, more than enough monks running around sweeping the same piece of ground all day long, and the main hall with the altar just isn't big enough to contain every random man who wants to be a monk. So I am going to offer him a place in the kitchen and make vegetables and tofu all day long.
In the morning, I will wake up at five to prepare food for the whole temple. That is followed by my morning trainings, which is ensued by my private moments in the piece of land in the woods. A little greenhouse to plant mushrooms, operated and managed all by myself and on my own fundings. Then in the afternoons, prepare more tofu for my bald-comrades and at night, go to sleep with a good book in my hands, skipping the midnight prayers. It is probably the best way to live if you are going to have the life you know now crumble into ruins. To have a bunch of monks surround you everyday with nothing but happiness and content in their eyes is probably second to the most beautiful woman in the world as your wife. I like the Zen way of life, and I'm sure there is no harm in cooking tofu all day - if I can cook tofu at all.
However, this contingency plan is not going to work with my everlasting craving for meat. I expect myself to be kicked out of the front doors of the monastery after being spotted in the corner of the kitchen, munching on smuggled Subway sandwiches and beef lasagnas. If you are going to eat beef in a monastery, you might as well bring a pig to a Muslim country and slaughter it in front of them. They are going to have me removed from the compounds of the monastery in no time, that's for sure.
So the monk plan is out, now comes Plan C. I plan to head upwards to the lands of Mongolia. I am going to be part of the nomads, wandering the fields of Mongolia with my pack of sheep and horses, and watch them graze upon the seamless fields until dusk. At night, the stars above our heads are going to look like pepper strayed upon the surface of a clear soup, and we are going to count the stars over and over again until our eyes feel tired and we are sick and tired of mathematics. We are going to ride on horses all day long until our crotches feel like rocks, and take pictures of wild horses on the way back to our huts at night. Not to mention the bonfire we are going to light up every night and the songs sung around the fire.
However, like the monastery plan, the Mongolia plan is not going to work out as well. It's not that they are going to mind if I eat Subway sandwiches, or the fact that they are distant relatives of the Muslims in the West as well. It's just that I am probably going to grow lethargic and then miss the times when I get to blog about contingency plans on my computer whenever I want. Besides, though most nomads there have their own television sets, I am not a fan of Chinese television. I am probably going to hang myself from a pole two weeks into this lifestyle, and then regret ever having such a wild and ridiculous dream in mind. As my life go flashing by before my eyes, I will see those bad grades repeated over and over like the song on a broken gramophone, over and over until I am dead twice over.
No, they are not going to work. I better come up with better plans for my bad grades - though it's not like I am doing all that badly in school at all. The new set of plans are going to be more realistic, and probably involves something along the lines of cow-riding in New Zealand - if they ride cows at all. Or even if they don't ride cows, I don't mind milking cows at all. So who knows, you may see me in a random advertisement in the future, milking cows in New Zealand and getting a kick out of it.
Whatever it is, I guess what I am trying to say is that however smooth the road beneath my feet may be at this very moment, I am sure the novelty is going to wear off like the tracks on a car tire. Like the life as a monk or the life as a nomad, even those kind of life can get tiresome and boring. Which is why I am not counting on my current optimism to last me through the months and years ahead. To say that I have a contingency plan for myself would be a flat out lie, because I don't have any right now. THIS, is my contingency plan, and if this fails I am going to be falling off the edge of a cliff with nothing to hold on to. Just waiting for the jagged rocks below and the crashing waves to break my head and wash my blood away.
It'd be nice to say that in the days to come, I am not going to need an emergency plan to fall back on. It's like the dark clouds that gather above your head as you head out of your house, dressed up and smelling like roses. It'd be good if you can say for certain that you are not going to need the umbrella for the day at all. But who knows? How long is this novelty of mine going to last? This drive to make myself better, to score better grades even when I am already scoring straight As. How long is this perfectionist going to work before he gives up? What if he gives up too late, and he ends up in front of his office building with a box as well? It'd be too late by then, but it's not like the monastery plan is going to work out anytime soon.
Maybe I should join Jonathan and Kevin in their bird nest and guano quest. It may just turn out to be a successful business enterprise of sorts. Go, entrepreneurship!
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