“I look okay right?” she said, seeking a reassurance that she was acceptable to the larger part of society. Which is the very reason that sparked me to share my thoughts about some of the things I see on the ground that people like to snub it off as statistical or insignificant.

At the moment when Mdm X mentioned that, there was a sudden impulse as a human to hug her to give the assurance that she needed to have when she came and visited us. It was a case whereby her child was calling the police over her mum’s condition with mental wellness. And I guess like all humans, we sometimes just need a listening ear for our difficulties in life. But what spurred me from writing (or typing and I usually dread doing this) is that to bring awareness to the more uncomfortable topics that we take for granted or simply having the privilege so much so that we do not even see it as consequential.

As our society gets polarised on thing that are political in nature, we often seem to forget the intrinsic value of humanity void of any religious overtones. It is the ability to accept each individual and realising that there are certain challenges they face that we might not absolutely comprehend because we might have been much luckier or fortunate. So if you are reading this, my plea is that to deal with fellow human beings with love and not pass casual judgements immediately because we are often stuck with the narrative the Singapore society is shitty af. The change comes from us and we will only move forward if we have more empathy to our own fellow human beings. (:

Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963) 35th President of the United States