An Open Letter To The Class of 2010

[Here something I wrote for a school assignment. You can tell that I have been reading Kurt Vonnegut. In my opinion Vonnegut's style of writing is about as idiosyncratic as the brush strokes of Vincent Van Gogh. This can only hope to be a pale imitation at best.]

Hello,

So we come yet again to the end of another academic year. This is conventionally a time for reflection. I am counting down the days to the end of my sojourn in poly (another day another $5.75, for non-citizens it’s $8.63) and have been asked to do a reflection for my WISP module.
In this module, which is compulsory for year three students we learn about World Issues, somehow this ended up being a study of the ways in which human beings mistreat other human beings.

I have decided to write my reflection in the form of an open letter to all the students studying in Ngee Ann. (Why not?) I hope you will spare me a little of your time.

This is why I think so many human beings treat other human beings like they are less than human beings.
From the time that we were born to about age 5, give or take a couple of years, most of us as babies were showered with so much care and attention, everything was new and we had more or less unconditional love from our parents.
Then as we grew older and less cute, we begin to learn that the world was sometimes a less than wonderful place to live in. Daddy was grumpy after work, Mummy was less amazed at everything we did and sometimes we didn’t get what we wanted even though we cried really hard.

Teenage years are marked with confusion. Our bodies were growing and changing in alarming ways and we did not feel comfortable talking to our parents about it. And all the time we are coming up with more elaborate and complicated ways of saying “Look at me!” and “Love me!” which were often ineffective.

On reaching adulthood, it suddenly became polite behaviour not to do things that say “Look at me!” and ‘Love me!”

I think this - often sudden - change from having unconditional love to having to live without it has left much of the world’s population with irreparable mental and emotional damage.

Many of people’s actions are basically different ways of saying “Look at me!” and “Love me!”
Some people try to gather more shiny things than others. Some people work to get authority over others. Some people write letters to people they don’t know. Some people strap explosives to themselves and put on a one man fireworks performance.
When Hitler wanted people to pay attention to him and to love him, he tried painting pretty pictures. When that didn’t work he became a dictator and tried to wipe out what he perceived were unsavoury groups of people. He failed at that too. Some people are more damaged than others.

Sometimes I think people spend too much time trying to be who they think they should be and too little time dreaming about who they want to be. (I used to dream about being an Astronaut or a Rock Star – “Look at me!” – now all I do is wonder why all the girls I have a crush on turn out to already have boyfriends)

Perhaps it would be a good idea to assign a psychiatrist to every child or to have psychology included in the curriculum in schools so people can recognize when someone had gone batshit insane and warn the rest of us not to listen to that person.

Yes, and if an extra-terrestrial being that was knowledgeable in human psychology were to make a general diagnosis of the inhabitants of Earth, it may look something like this:

Chronic Schizophrenia probably stemming from a traumatic childhood experience, sexuality issues, dangerous self-destructive tendencies, possibly suicidal.

Did you know that only until recently has there been talk about giving homosexuals the same rights as other human beings here in Singapore? This is something that many people have no control over, like the colour of their skin.

But at least we are making progress, in the United States of America, slavery was legal for almost a hundred years before they decided it was probably not such a good idea.

So I had to check my calendar to make sure we weren’t going backwards in time when I read that our own Health Minister Mr Khaw Boon Wan said: “it is only right for citizens to enjoy more subsidies than non-citizens”

In the midst of all this talk about citizens and non-citizens lately, I feel it is important to reiterate that nobody should feel entitled to anything in life except to be treated decently as a human being.
I feel the government is on a slippery slope with this issue, too much appeasing the masses and we might just end up a one dimensional caricature of privileged entitlement, spouting asinine catch phrases and starring in bad reality shows.

Perhaps the most significant step we have taken to ensure that people everywhere are treated like decent human beings in recent times is the growing use of the phrase “It’s Okay”.

These are some of the things that we have recently said “It’s Okay” to.

To be born with a skin colour other than white
To have imaginary friends
To be female
To not know how to whistle
To be guilty about being more fortunate than others
To be homosexual
To not be good in bed
To be different

The last significant step towards the decent treatment of other human beings was made approximately 1980 years ago when a man stood on a hill and said something along these lines to the people around him.

‘If you want people to be nice to you, it would be helpful if you were nice to them too’

Just yesterday I heard the writer J.D. Salinger passed away, Salinger of course was known for writing ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. I remember reading that book, although I don’t recall much of the story – nothing much happens anyway – because I identified with the main character Holden. There I was just coming out of puberty, still full of angst and frustration and there in the pages of this book was reflected the thoughts and emotions I felt but could never really put into words.
I felt, as I have felt from reading other books, that I was not alone. It was a great comfort at a time when I was vulnerable emotionally and it was all the more special because it was so private.

So my advice to you is to read. It is an easy way to feel better about living in a place where so many problems are caused by other people. it is cheap too.

I will end this letter with two quotes, one is the best introduction to life I have ever come across and the other is from the most popular book in the world. (Surprise, it’s not Harry Potter)

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

- Kurt Vonnegut from “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater”


“Be Fruitful and Multiply”

- The most famous Imaginary Friend in the world



Thank You for your attention.

Yours Fraternally
Aaron Tang