My Dream and where it would take me

Peace, unity, if this is true in the world, wouldn't it be great? If people could just cease being selfish, cruel, and prejudiced, if we could just step back, cease the constant bickering between nations, like the current situation in North Korea and Iraq, or to a smaller, local scale, the water issue between Singapore and Malaysia,and work and proceed together as a united human race, not as, for example, the United States, China, Russia, and so on, would’nt that be better?

If we just think about it, if the human race could work together, proceed as one, with the progress of all in mind, we could cease wasting precious resources otherwise spent on competing with one another, or for short-term personal gain. In this way, the world’s rapidly depleting reserves of crude oil, coal, natural gas and tin would not be unnecessarily wasted on building a military and maintaining it. If the income gap between the rich and the poor is narrowed, less people would be discontent. Productivity and efficiency would increase, corruption eliminated.

This would not even require an overtly radical change like communism worldwide, a global democratic government would suffice very well. Everyone could choose their own jobs, political party they support and religion and beliefs freely. Without an overtly selfish desire for personal gain, there would be no crime, corruption. With a fair government, without prejudice and incorrupt, there would be no discontentment based on religious or racial issues. Now, wouldn't that be an utopian situation? One worth dreaming for?

There is just one little problem. It just isn’t like people to stop being selfish and cruel, even to benefit society, is it? Maybe, just maybe, the truth in this statement could be tested. After all, there are kind and selfless people around, right?

“Boy ah, are you doing your homework or not?” Mum’s sharp voice snapped me out of my dream, “If not, can you help me go to the market and get some eggs and veggies for dinner tonight? There’s no more left in the fridge.”

Since I was not concentrating on my homework anyway, I agreed.

As I got out of the lift on the ground floor and started my stroll to the wet market, my thoughts wandered to the earlier subject.

Is there anything I can do to make my dream of an uthopian society a reality? Perhaps I could start with something simple, like helping my classmates with some work, picking up litter, helping an old lady cross the road, or giving way to others on a MRT train. Perhaps others would follow my example…… Just a second, now I’m sounding like a way obsolete, broken tape recorder, even to myself.

Suddenly, my attention was drawn to a pair of Chinese men who looked to be in their twenties or thirties and looked quite well to do. Both wore long-sleved business shirts, pants and leather shoes. One carried a briefcase and he was conversing with an elderly woman in her sixties, who, judging from her plastic bags full of foodstuffs, had just come from the market. An odd sight this late in the day. The second man was standing about five metres away from her.

Just as I decided that it was no big deal and turned back to continue, just as if time had suddenly slowed, I noticed, out of my peripheral vision, the first man raise his hand almost imperceptably in some sort of signal. The second man then sprang silently into action, closing the gap between the two. I saw him carefully and stealthily slip his hand into the woman’s handbag while the first man distracted her, pointing at something in the sky.

Before I realised what happened, someone had shouted, “Thief! Thief!”, I realised that it was me. The second man pulled out his hand, grabbing a purse, pushed the old lady aside, and together with the first man, bolted off. I stood shell-shocked, not ten metres from the fallen woman, just like an idiot.

Now Charles, come on, do something! Here’s your chance to be a good citizen. Go chase those two thieves, or at least go help the old lady.

However, like a common Singaporean, even though I knew it was wrong, my first instinct was to have nothing to do with the incident. Of the scant pedestrain volume in a HDB heartland early afternoon on a Sunday, I could already see a few trying to get as far away from the old woman as possible.

I finally gathered up the courage to help the old woman, who had sat up on the ground, sobbing, oblivious to her groceries which were slowly roling away. I gathered up the groceries and tried, without much success, to comfort her. All of a sudden, I did not feel like being there. I muttered an indiscernible excuse and started towards the wet market before anyone could stop me. My mind was in a blank.

As I continued, I noticed things that I had never noticed before, the ‘ugly’ side of clean, efficient Singapore. I saw a tramp kicking a stray dog, people littering, graffiti, sometimes indecent, on walls, people argueing, old men leaning on pillars and older teenage boys, probably drop-outs, victims of society, spouting vulagrities.

This is starting to seem very strange. Just a short while ago, I was thinking about being a good citizen, to fascilitate in my dream of creating a world without cruelty and selfishness. I had just let myself down. I could easily have caught up with the two thieves earlier; their attire was not appropriate for running. Furthermore, why am I walking here now instead of comforting the old woman and providing an eyewitness account to the police? Why?

When I arrived at the market, I went to the only stall selling vegetables that was still open. As I expected, the vegetables were not very fresh and slightly wilted at the edges, the choice picks having been snapped up earlier in the morning. I bought them anyway.

I then proceeded to the egg stalls, of which two were open but only one still had eggs left. The chinese stallkeeper was perched on a stool. She was about fifty years old, generously plump, had beady, shifty eyes and wore a disarming smile that belied her underlying cunning and intelligence. When I stated that I wanted to buy the last tray of eggs, she roughly snapped that it was reserved and that she would only sell the eggs to me if I bettered the price of $10 for a small tray of ten eggs. Obviously, it was a lie. As I politely argued about her rationale in charging $10, playing along with the ‘reserved eggs’ story, her smile slowly receeded. She stood up and became, (or as I thought, acted) aggressive, demanding that I ‘take it or leave it’. I fely my temper slowly rising and wanted to argue and prove my point, but decided it was not worth the effort. I did the next best thing, I ‘left it’. As I was walking away from the stall, the stallkeeper was still shouting at me. I decided to proceed a little further to a shop of a minimart chain and bought the eggs there, after which I strolled back home.

Wasn't this odd? I had thought of having a better, more caring society and, within the time span of less than half an hour, so many things had happened that reinforce the fact that people only seek their own benefit, caring about themselves, not bothering about others. Things that I had never noticed before. I continued walking, thinking. Am I so sure about that? Maybe these events are common occurrences. Perhaps it is just because I have never seriously thought about this subject before that I have never noticed them.

I sighed, if even in Singapore, these embarrassments of society exist, unknown to most foreigners, what more would larger, more difficult and problematic to control countries like, for example, Indonesia or the Phillipines? The more I thought about it, the more I realised how impossible and far-fetched my dream of eliminating selfishness and cruelty from the world to create an uthopian society really was.

Arriving back home, I passed the eggs and vegetables to my Mum, thinking. Perhaps I should just study more and become a successful doctor someday, a doctor that feverently hopes for a flu epidemic and smiles gleefully when one strikes. I sat down at my desk and continued doing my homework.





Disclaimer:
I would like to add that this essay was written with no offence intended to any (persons or countries) mentioned within whatsoever. This incident did NOT happen to me or any whom I know and is a work of fiction.

I just hope the world can be a better place.

I'm just a 14 year old kid, dont sue me.

Please R & R. I'll really appreciate it.

-I wrote this as an entry to the commonwealth essay competition in january 2003, catagory B, topic 3, just before the SARS flu outbreak. however my teacher somehow mixed the pile of essays up and did not send any from my class in. marked 27/30-