No Off Day

So retirees (especially premature ones) are often asked "SO how do you spend your time?" and equally often they have to pause and truly wonder how each day passes them by.

If you are a retiree and being harassed again with this question, tell them to get the answer from the  Sunday Times. You see, in addition to the usual World, Home, Sports the Sunday Papers has the following sections :

Invest, Think, Live, Connect, Go, Reflect, Read, Relax, Taste


Some titles need no further explanation like Invest, Read, Relax, Taste which refer to discussion and news on investing money, best sellers, movies & entertainment and of course where to get good food. 'Go' is about travel. 'Live' and 'Connect' feature activities and way of life in families and communities and about social media. 'Reflect' and 'Think' carry editorial, opinion and reflections on social and political issues.

Now aren't these a summary of what retirees do, a bit of everything that is. So some days by the time you lay down your papers you cringe in horror that its almost the morning gone. Another day you decide that you have been a complete fool not to make your money work harder and spend the whole day reading commentaries and stock analysis in the mail. Yet some days you feel you should give more of your time to volunteer work. Then again planning a holiday, reading tripadvisor reviews  and surfing the net to make the most of your trip, though fun is most time consuming.
And since you have the time you read the Opinion pages more often and think you should give some issues more thought. Needless to say you are also more obsessed with your health and spend more on body massages, foot reflex and even taking in tips from TCMs in the Mind and Body pages. Also the urge to reconnect with long lost cousins and old school mates sometimes find you people-googling. All of these of course are on top of time which is expected of you to serve your family, running errands inclusive and accompanying your work-stressed spouse on a long drive to Johor to Eat. As such it is not exaggeration when retirees tell you they are more busy than when they were working. In fact we really need to do some prioritizing!

A cautious note however is to be wary of the occasional existential angst. People of all ages experience this "Is that all there is to life?" kind of feeling but retirees in the midst of a professional/career loss may have a heightened sensitivity to this. This may be reinforced when there is a sense of not being valued. When such mood takes over nothing in the above long list of activities may seem worth doing. At times like this, spiritual reflections will help.

"The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off."
-- Abe Lemons

Will away a Singer machine

2 articles in today's Sunday Times reminded me to stop procrastinating on a  task yet  unfinished. The first article is entitled "Why you should make a Will" and the other is the editorial "Memories Matter". The former jolted my intention to update my will and also helped me convince my husband to write one. The last will I made was some 20 years ago after the birth of my son. I was then in mortal fear that my young children will be deprived should my husband fall into the trance/spell of his wife when he remarries after my passing. So I made a will witnessed by my lawyer and his clerk. I put it in an envelope and left it in the custody of my mother. Years later when my mother was feeling ill she returned the will to me for safe keeping. On the envelop she had written 4 Chinese characters   长命百岁(longevity). That's her ingenuous way to void the superstitiously inauspicious act of writing a will. The law firm is no longer in operation now and I am not sure whether the witnesses (the lawyer and his clerk) are still around or surviving. Anyway changed circumstances do warrant the writing of a new will.

The second article, the editorial is more interesting. Apparently NLB is embarking on a Memory Project to collect and showcase memories of Singapore. The public is invited to submit personal memories like posters, toys, published materials etc. The editor quoted the words of a Czech writer, Milan Kundera: 'The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory" to stress the importance of memories to a nation. I thought hard for a moment whether I have such items. Well the oldest item at home is the manual Singer sewing machine with foot pedal which was passed down by my mum. The image of my mother pedaling the machine is amongst my earliest childhood memories. The machine also bore witness to my endless frustrations having to unpick and resew pieces of clothings to hand in at needlework class. Though it may be a piece of antique, it is not peculiar to Singapore and won't be what NLB is looking for. However it reminds me that it should deserve special mention in my will. I toyed the idea with my daughter, to bequeath it to the museum. She asked me to reconsider carefully because she would be in a fix if no museums want it. She does have a point because even though the grand old dame is more than 50 years old, there are many of such dames floating around. If memories around this machine is to be preserved, it should be within this family. However leaving behind an object without a written history is meaningless. It struck me that I have to write a short memoir about this machine, something like a description of its life since joining our family. If I make it into a nice little booklet to be found when one opens the drawer of the machine, it may motivate my daughter to keep it. The idea excites me and spins to bigger ambition like writing a personal memoir.

 Yea, a Will and a Memoir will be good!

Yin and Yang

Stumbled across an interesting discussion about Yin and Yang. Whilst Yang is described as a "force", Yin is like "persuasion".
Now pause a while and make a guess. If the letter "A" is Yang, what is Yin?

No clue? Here's a tip- Yang is open whilst Yin is hidden.

Well, if "A" is Yang, all the other 25 alphabets are Yin. Standing alone "A" has no meaning whatsoever. It has to be stringed with other alphabets to help form words, sentences, paragraphs and meaning. On its own it is powerless but together with Yin all possibilities are there, almost infinite.


When I read about the demise of Literature as a school subject in Singapore and all the comments and lamentations in the Forum pages, I can't help connecting it to the Yin and Yang concept. To me Maths, Sciences and Geography are Yang in essence whilst humanitarian subjects like Literature and History are more Yin like. Without an appreciation of literature, one is somewhat deficient, not being able to unfold the essence behind how people live, how people feel and why they behave the way they do. As per ST's editorial: "Literature may not train students for a specific job, but it rounds out their education.... It reflects, interprets and presents life artistically in quest of fundamental and universal truths".

Incidentally if you don't already know the reasons behind why only 3000 'O' Level students took literature last year (17,000 in 1992), it is because of the difficulty to score for this subject. This pathetic pragmatism is also evident during my discussion with the charitable organisation I have been vying to offer my service. Yes, it responded finally. Whilst recognising the critical need for emotional healing amongst its residents, the supervisor is striving to find  suitable time slots because the children are burdened with heavy school work, tuition and other programs.

Clearly more need to be done to make us see in perspective that "everything exists together in a delicate balance"

Bali- Gates of Eden

Now I have not quite finished with my mulling experienced in Bali. In an earlier blog I talked about the air in Ubud which almost puts one in a trance like state of inner reflections.

 From Ubud I moved on to Seminyak. One afternoon after a day of shopping we went for a body massage at a place near our hotel, a mid range outfit in a new low rise building. We were ushered upstairs to a couple room. The decor was spartan but clinically clean, not an ambiance that stirs dreams or imaginations. After undressing and lying flat on the bed looking downward through the face hole, I could not see the face of the 2 masseuse that entered the room. I directed my masseuse in my limited Malay to focus on the aching parts on the back. She was surprised I knew a bit of Malay and thought I was from Malaysia. I then fell into a half slumber trance as my body relaxed into deeper and deeper relief. Slowly thoughts and images faded. Half way through a peculiar thought abruptly crept into my mind. Suddenly I formed an opinion that a perfect woman is one who provides solace to her husband and children. The best wife and mother in the world, I thought to myself, is one who is able to constantly comfort and soothe the pain of her husband and children.
Without judgement (as I was in a state of stupor) I reckoned I was far from one and lazily wonderred whether my mother in law is at least closer to being one.

Finally the massage was over and I climbed out of the bed as the masseuses prepared to leave. Without my spectacless on I could only catch a vague glimpse of my masseuse.It was only when I was dressed and about to tip her that I realised she was advancedly pregnant. I immediately felt a bit guilty that she had to exert strength to soothe my aches.

Only when I was back in the hotel that I began to wonder whether there was some form of psychic connection and transmission of feelings going on. I have a feeling she will make a very good mother.

On the flight home from Bali I chanced upon these words when reading Pico Iyer's "Sun after Dark".

"Bali is a magical world for those who can see its invisible forces and read all the unseen currents in the air.... Yet for everyone else, it is simple enchantment. We stand at the gates of Eden, looking in, and choose to forget that one central inhabitant of the Garden is a snake".

Hmm.. ..