Commentary on Loss

Commentary on Loss

I do agree with Grayling’s point about how loss is inevitable and we must be prepared to lose in order to gain- that is, to embrace life and not limit yourself to perennial paranoia. Also, I agree with how one should not resort to apathy as a means to solve conflict.

In Grayling’s article, he offers a perspective of how loss is inevitable and it is precisely because of this that we must be prepared to lose. However, we cannot be afraid and remain in paranoia all our life; instead, we should let go of all our reservations about fearing loss and take daring step in all endeavours. Indeed, loss happens to all of us and it is inevasible, hence, we must life preparing to lose. It is only when we lose and experience failure of the modern world that we can gain invaluable lessons in life. For example, modern day Singapore is facing an array of losses, namely loss of local brains, loss of culture, loss of political will, loss of compassion, loss of values and loss of freedom. Of course, these are but a few of the losses we have faced. Despite the government’s best efforts in attempting to retain native intelligence, scholarship bonds for example, local talents still stray away from the Singaporean route and instead go to other countries to live and work. Thus, because of such a loss, the Singaporean government has more than willingly been accepting the influx of other countries. This is to the extent that the social image of Singapore is depicted by a Caucasian family as shown in “Time”.

However, this attempt to tackle the loss of native intelligence has taken yet another toll in Singapore- loss of culture. With the massive onslaught of citizens from around the globe coming to live in Singapore, it does not take a genius or even a truckload of them to understand why Singapore has one of the most unfiltered social influxes. As such, these global citizens manage to bring their own cultures from around the globe to Singapore.

And again, to deal with this problem, the Singapore government introduces a common ideal in Singaporeans, National Education. With this implementation, National Education educates Singaporeans about living in harmony and that we are all equal despite race and religion(perhaps skin colour) by the means of National Education messages, of which I can only remember one: No one owes Singapore a living. I regard this as an extremely interesting ideal to tell every Singaporean to be individualistic which unifies a common sentiment in Singapore and this is in the hope of resolving cultural conflicts.

However, does this not let us lose our political will and identity? This is where and when Singaporeans become so individualistic and apathetic such that we do not act upon our political ideals. Modern day Singapore is where it is now because it has our government pushing it forward. Should these people who make up the parliament not exist, there would not be the Integrated Resort springing up on our skyline.

As such, we can see such a loss-solution-loss-solution method of reacting to loss is inappropriate because other losses will spring up as a result from the solution to the initial loss.

Returning to the apathetic Singaporean, this is what we see as a result of fear to experience conflict. National Education only serves the superficial exterior of living in harmony. It highlights only skin colour and race as differences but if we delve deeper, we will realise things are not as simple as the government puts forward to us. To neglect the depth of racial conflict and understanding is to equip Singaporeans with the bare minimum of harmonious survival. However, I do acknowledge that with more understanding, there is the probability of more conflict. And this is what the Singapore government is afraid of. The perceived (perhaps too commonly) paradigm that conflict will only result in war, riots, strikes, or protest movements has to be reconsidered. We cannot trade our political and social ideals for economic growth, which is what Singapore is doing now. Instead, we must understand that conflict is good if we intend to have a resolution. We have to realise that apathy is but a short term mean to deal with this. However, if we have conflict, we can, through conflict, reach a resolution about a particular loss. And this is long-term. The Singaporean government is unwilling to educate Singaporeans about a deeper understanding of racial differences because of their fear of losing economic stability. However, as established previously, we cannot be afraid to lose. We must accept it as part of life and from the loss, move and reach a resolution. To be afraid of losing economic stability is to be cowardly. Instead, we should educate the people about such differences to advocate a better change in society in the long-run. Although this might hold true, we must first accept and understand that allowing conflict comes with faith; Faith that could turn out for the better or take the less desirable path. Simply put, a risk factor is present. But, and this is a big but, we must accept loss if the undesirable happens and learn from it. We cannot be seeing that such a risk is too big to handle and avoid it. We must dare to take chances.

In conclusion, I feel that a loss is inevitable in life and we must definitely be able to understand the risk and the price of allowing loss to occur and learn from it. The current political and social situation in Singapore cannot remain apathetic for long if Singapore wants to prosper and grow in the long-term. Singapore must experience loss and experience conflict, and from there, emerge a stronger and deeper Singapore, with a brighter future of modern day survival.

Loss by A.C Grayling

Loss

A.C. Grayling writes dd

1 It is a grateful fact of human psychology that we forget our suffering. We do not forget that we suffered, but we do expunge the felt quality of the experience as it actually occurred. Life would be unbearable otherwise, beset by too-readily rekindled pain as sharp as its first appearance. Perhaps the agony of Borges’ character Funes the Memorious, the man who could not forget nothing, lay as much in his capacity to relive the raw quality of suffering as in the burden of his inability to erase millions of trivial memories.

2 But we do not forget our losses, because loss- especially of those we love, or of crucial places or things- reshapes our world, and obliges us to learn again the task of navigating it. Absence is a large presence; a gap in the familiar array of people who matter to us, or in the usual events which make the pattern of our lives, is a far bigger space than one imagined possible until it appears. For that reason bereavement, divorce, loss of a job, loss of a home- the major losses- are the most stressful and distressing of all experiences. And they can happen with such a cruel suddenness that they make us lose other things besides: faith in the world, confidence in ourselves.

3 Common wisdom sees that a preparedness to lose is a necessary condition of gain. Naturally enough, most hope they can escape the condition, which makes loss more bitter when it occurs. It is hard to accept that to live is to lose- and that the only way to gain what matters is to accept these facts with courage.

4 It was against the devastating effects of loss that the Stoic philosophers of antiquity tried to arm people by their teachings, given the uncertainty of everything in life except the inevitability that we will lose some of what we most cherish. When we fall in love, for example, we do not think that we will one day lose the beloved; but so we will, as surely as the sun rises every day- through death at last, if our loves are deep; or through the mischances of growing apart, changing, finding new loves, losing old hope, and accumulating too many misunderstandings. Such is life, and even the brightest optimist has to accept the fact.

5 Accordingly, the Stoic thinkers advised their fellows to possess only what they would not mind losing. Montaigne learned from them to think as he did, he wrote, ‘I love not to know an account of what I have, that I may less exactly feel mu losses.’ The point was an instance of the more general one that since we have little control over external events, we must learn to govern ourselves instead; the less we desire, the less we base our serenity or satisfaction on what happens outside us, and therefore the less our loss will be when the inevitabilities occur.

6 But although this teaching was designed to help people bear vicissitudes bravely, and in its inspiration is one of the tenderest and most thoughtful of philosophies, it misses a very important point. This is that if one is frugal with one’s emotions- limiting love in order to avoid its pains, stifling appetites and desires in order to escape the price of their fulfilment- one lives a stunted, muffles, bland life only. It is practically tantamount to a partial death in order to minimise the electric character of existence- its pleasures, its ecstasies, its richness and colour matched by its agonies, its disasters and grief. To take life in armfuls, to embrace and accept it, to leap into it with energy and relish, is of course to invite trouble of all the familiar kinds. But the cost of avoiding trouble is a terrible one: it is the cost of having trodden the planet for humanity’s brief allotment of less than a thousand months, without having really lived.

7 Alas, the teachings of Stoic philosophers have been almost prophetic as the modern man embraces apathy as a means to cope with their emotion discontent or dull the outrage they feel as others trespass upon each man’s moral territory. In a near apocalyptic demise of expectations and standards modern man manages his loss by simply not being man. And like the leper who does not know he has lost yet another finger, the modern world remains oblivious to how it will lose yet another heart.

(p.s i could not find the online version as i only had the hardcopy, so i typed it out)