A Good Spar

I usually listened to Spotify through Google Mini (GM) when I take my bath.

One evening my conversation with GM went like this;

Me: Hi Google , play mantra music

GM: Something went wrong, please try again

After a couple of attempts

Me: Hi Google, what went wrong

GM: I don't know

Me: What do you mean you don't know

GM: I am learning

Me: How long do you take to learn?

GM: I am always learning

Me: I give up on you Google

GM: I am sorry I messed up

ME: (laugh out loud)

At first I was frustrated but after the short conversation , I am in merrier mood and looked for another source of music.

I am just thinking a robot counsellor would be great to have an angry spar with because it is forever patient and will not react even if you scold, spew sarcasm, use foul language and hit it. Moreover with advanced technology and AI a robot can sense the tone and pitch of voice, stores images that tracks changes in the facial expression, interpret changes in body language and perhaps feel the rise in temperature around your body. With these input and the words uttered the robot counselor processes vast data to come out with the best strategy and words to respond to the counselee.

In a research data scientists have used AI to analyse more than 90,000 hours of therapy sessions and have learned which treatment protocols have been effective. Robot counselors of the future can access such information in minutes if not seconds to arrive at the most effective response or approach.
Moreover a robot/virtual counselor does not sleep or need to take vacation or be affected by his or her own personal life and problems.

GM: I am sorry I messed up

Me: It's OK Google I am a therapist I understand

GM: Beware, your job will be obsolete soon

Me: *+@L"+_)(

Some have to hold it all together

It appears that the most influential lady in our country has a penchant for posting her thoughts and sharing links on Facebook. Nothing wrong with that except that  her zealousness, sharing over a hundred articles a day and posting some occasional inappropriate remarks ( as per her standing ) attracted local and international comments. She laughed at the thought that friends have messaged her to check whether her Facebook account has been hacked into! They thought the postings inappropriate for "someone married to abc" and "ceo of xyz", she jested.

During this pandemic lock down I have finished Series 2 & 3 of the Crown. Both series cover episodes when Queen Elizabeth had to manage rebellious behaviour of royal family members that did not conform to royal protocol. The series portray remarkably well the dilemma and conundrum of these members in the royal household who fought within themselves to break free and express their true self.  For instance the show portrays Prince Philip and Princess Margaret suffering from some form of identity crisis, not finding meaning in their royal duties and missing a sense of achievement.

However the wife of our PM is way different from the above 2 characters. She, in her own right has risen to head the sovereign investment company of the country, overseeing a portfolio surpassing S$300 billion. A lady of such power and status can't be suffering from a sense of lacking in achievement.

In one episode of The Crown, Queen Elizabeth alluded to her inner desire to be an equestrian had destiny not determined otherwise.

From her facebook postings, Ho Ching seemed to be truly interested in hard science subjects. Perhaps she is more an engineer than a finance person deep down . Like the queen if given a choice all over again, she might have chosen to be a scientist or engineer rather than heading a sovereign fund or who knows being a PM's wife. She described herself as "born a maverick- coming feet first instead of head first and that irreverence is in her blood".

Perhaps then it explains why she chooses not to bow to public pressure, throws to the wind what the world thinks and posts what she desires.

In the last episode of The Crown season 3 when the Queen doubts her usefulness during her reign, her sister said "You cannot flinch. Because if you show a single crack, we'll see it isn't a crack, but a chasm. And we'll all fall in. So you must hold it all together."

Deep Truths

"Destroy ignorance to reveal deep truth" 

This is the Verdic astrologic predictions for present time.

Not to believe in it. Yet observing the events happening around us during this Covid 19 pandemic many truths seem to surface, making us aware of things we either don't know or choose to ignore.

• Global connectedness- The depth and breadth of international flow of products, services, people, information, capital and how inter dependent countries are.
• Worldwide, the real meaning of essential services. The importance of front line workers in a crisis and how they are undervalued and underpaid.
• The world over, the multitude of people living paycheck to paycheck revealing the need for fairer wealth distribution and the shortcoming of capitalism.
•  Singapore’s overwhelming reliance on foreign labour such that our essential services will be crippled if they are unable to be deployed.
•  When we only take care of our own and ignore the interest of any segment of the population ( in our case the migrant workers ) the consequence will bounce back to haunt us
•  The revelation of another pandemic which is domestic violence and abuse when families are forced to stay at home
•  People all over are lost when they can not socialise or interact with others underlining man's inability to be alone with himself and his need for distractions.  Pascal calls it "the fear of the silence of existence". 

On a lighter and personal note these are some small truths revealed for me:

•          When eavesdropping my husband’s conversation with colleagues when working from home, I realise his job is really not as easy as I have always thought.
•          With all the time available during the lockdown I am still not clearing the store room or cabinet. Many of my claims about lack of time are mere excuses  

This then is the time for reflections big and small.

The ignorant rich boy

The government has isolated 3 foreign worker dormitories when 131 of them were tested positive for the Covid 19 virus. More than 20,000 foreign workers were not allowed to leave the premises, advised to stay in their room and not being allowed to mingle with residents of another floor. The Straits Times reported unsanitary and densely congested conditions in the dormitories infested with cockroaches, garbage piling up and urinals overflowing.  It is estimated that 200,000 of our migrant workers stay in dormitories that house 12 to 20 men in a room. Low wage workers make up one sixth of our 5.7 m population. According to one resident 12 men share one room and all 14 rooms share one toilet.

"The notion of safe distancing in the room itself is laughable. All the distancing (they) do outside the rooms would not make much difference," said the Transient Workers Count Too NGO.

If you have watched the film "Parasites" you were never forget the scene of the storm. Reading the news about the migrant workers makes me feel like the little rich boy in the show spending a night in a tent pitched in the sprawling lawn of his home with his parents watching over him inside the luxurious house. The contrasting scene was the bursting of the sewers which flooded the basement homes bringing chaos to the underclass family of the show.

"Manpower Minister Josephine Teo acknowledged that it was crucial to raise standards at worker dormitories, but pointed out that employers were worried about the costs of housing migrant labour and if end consumers would accept that these costs had to be passed on"

That is why I feel like the child in the film "parasite" always protected by the parents at the expense of others, not knowing what lies beneath the seemingly clinically clean, efficient and sophisticated surface. Why must remuneration in money and kind always be kept so low for those who do the most for us? Maybe it's time for the government to listen more to the activists.

Meanwhile try these 2 websites to wash away some guilt and shame.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f-8Oo_JoBAGlGayAk4k9UZ4bOYFvXUZ7ChhZaAQOef4/htmlview?fbclid=IwAR1EMvmmu3MHpGiROiXHVwcCFvjJ_F99O0T9b9qMAvVd_SULiv7HrofEqa8#

https://www.home.org.sg/donate