I don't really know what to say today. I was out yesterday on a mission to get birthday presents as usual. Went to try a new place for haircuts due to recommendations from friends but all i can say is, i think medicine has made me more humane and more inhumane a person. I don't know what to say but i think that my ways of dealing with such things are usually detachment, de-emotionalisation and indifference. But in all honesty, i don't feel any empathy, only sympathy. I can't possibly imagine to be in their shoes.

As i was out yesterday, i was just looking around the vicinity. As i jaywalked across lucky plaza to takashimaya yesterday, my path was blocked by a young girl peddling t-shirts. It seems that what they say in the newspapers is really true. I remember a time when orchard road was full of shops like robinsons and metro, where people needn't need to beg on the streets or sell tissue paper. ( Maybe i wasn't paying attention then but well...) That was a time where people needn't care about much as the society in general would take care of the poor and needy.

Now as my path is blocked and i am confronted with a sad face of a little girl holding up a t-shirt, looking at me pleadingly in the middle of the evening nearing eight, i begin to wonder if she has been doing that for the past 10 hours. I begin to wonder, what is this world coming to. It was so ironic that in the backdrop was the favourite window displays of Zegna, Hermes, Chanel and Louis Vuitton. It was so ironic that i was going to Braun Buffel to check out a gift for a friend. It was so ironic that i was going to Lacoste to look at something I like. It was ironic that i was considering visiting prada to look at a tie that i am considering.

This is not the first of such things to happen to me, neither am i some ivory towered prince who does not know the real world. I guess no matter how much you try to escape, reality catches up with you, and it hits you even harder when you try to escape it. This happened on saturday too, a beggar came up to me and my friend just as we parked the car and asked for money to eat. First instinct was not to give any, as this was what my parents taught me. But my friend willingly shelled out 10 bucks from the wallet. I am definitely not as willing to give such money because i have been brought up not to give out money foolishly but considering the situation as it is now, is it really foolish to give such money?

Is it really foolish to give to those beggars who do not wish to rely on social welfare services and eek out a living on their own based on other people's pity? I remember a time there was no takashimaya. I remember a time that there was no proliferation of Prada, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci on the main streets of orchard. There was only used to be 1 shop of each brand at that time. I only knew Hermes existed as it was the nearest ot TOYS R'US @ forum. I don't know really. Maybe too much of such things have caught up with me and thus it makes me unwilling to spend money. I don't want to confront these things anymore. I really can't take it. It just makes me sad.

And the truth is, the sadness only sinks in when i am comfortably sitting at home, feeling less detached from the world. It registered initially no doubt, but the hospital trained responses have been activated, shielding me from another oh-no-this-guy-has-liver-lung-and-bone-mets case or oh-no-this-guy-has-no-more-money-to-pay-for-his-bills or oh-no-this-guy-has-got-HIV-and-has-leucoplakia-and-lymph-nodes type of scenario. I just feel so dismayed at the way things are going. I mean, where is the equality. Is the government doing anything to help this instead of just going around and keep on saying retraining retraining retraining. When people are losing their job because of their age/income, retraining doesn't matter at all does it.

Nobody really benefits from the increasing retirement age, at least not the majority Its not the older workers. People are being retrenched and then offered contract employment at lower pay with no pension/retirement benefits/medical benefits. Older workers are sacked for younger workers who demand less $ and these younger workers do not realise that they do will face this cycle of decreasing employment age when they reach their 30s? I personally think its short sighted to save money by replacing experience with youth. I know of people who are retrenched at late 30s. Cos they earned too much. And they just thought they were stable enough to start a family and have kids. Now the mortgage and daily expenses are a problem. Children's eduction?

I think even after talking this much i will still buy prada, but the joy and excitement from owning something beautiful will never be the same when this world is not equally beautiful to match. Sigh.

Sting

"Fields Of Gold"

You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold

So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in the fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in the fields of gold
We'll walk in the fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in the fields of gold
When we walked in the fields of gold
When we walked in the fields of gold


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