Inspirational Speeches - I : Life & How To Survive It ?

Adrian Tan is a litigation lawyer at one of Singapore's leading law firms. Outside the courtroom, he is known for a variety of funny things, including The Teenage Textbook, which he wrote in the late 1980s. The book became a cult classic among students of that generation and was adapted into a film 10 years later. This is Adrian's speech to the graduating class of 2008:

Life and How to Survive It

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honor and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practicing at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have a n argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.

You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong process" and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they're wrong.

The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old; Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.

I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It’s far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart. You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone. You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.

$1456 Billion & Not Out !!!

This is so shocking. India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined. Recently, due to international pressure, Swiss govt. agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective govts formally asked for it. Indian govt. is not asking for the details - No marks for guessing why ... Please read on! Is India poor, who says? Ask Swiss banks ... With personal account deposit bank of $1500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is poor indeed?

Some 80,000 people travel to switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently. Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason, opines S Narayan

Dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians and corrupt officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts the huge sum of about US$ 1500 Billion which have been misappropriated by them creating scandals and by corruption. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. This amount is such a big amount that from it 45 crores of poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been collected really from the people of India by exploiting the people of India and by betraying people of India.

Once this huge amount of black illegal money and property comes back to India, the entire foreign debt can be repaid immediately in 24 hours only. After paying entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount almost 12 times larger than the foreign debts.

If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central Government. So even if all the taxes are totally abolished, then also Central Government will be able to maintain the country, very comfortably.Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently. 'Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be traveling there for some other reason,' believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organization negotiations went into a tailspin !

Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors and personalities, administrators, illegal sex trade and trading in protected wildlife, to name just a few, sucked this country's wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks? Black Money In Swiss Banks ~ Swiss Banking Association report 2006 By Naman Sood, April 15, 2008. Deposits in Banks located in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

Top 5

India >>> $1456 billion

Russia >>> $470 billion

UK >>> $390 billion

Ukraine >>> $100 billion

China >>> $ 96 billion

Now do the maths - India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world COMBINED. Public loot since 1947: Can WE bring back our money?It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the aam aadmi (common man) since 1947 by his brethren occupying public office.

It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens. However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.

In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further,augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker — in his widely celebrated book titled ‘Capitalism’s Achilles Heel : Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System’ — estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.

It is further estimated by experts that 1 % of the world’s population holds more than 57 % of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody’s guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means.

Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term ‘tax havens’ suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts? God save us all ... Amen !

Source:

http://www.topix.com

Nehru Dynasty ...

I found it stunning and in fact i really don't know as to how true this thing is. I found this piece written by Dr.V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS Retd. in what seems to be his blog. I found this unpleasent and actually shocking. Nonetheless I love Nehru and i truly respect his patriotism. Here it goes ...

I dislike Nehru-baiting, if not Nehru-baiters. The baiting could be in respect of his socialistic policies and massive State sponsored projects, or in respect of his personal character. Do you remember what Buddha said to a grieving woman: “Bring me a fistful of mustard from a house where no one has died”? Similarly, no human being could be perfect. We should assess a person in an over-all context. Considering how colossal were his stature, sacrifices, leadership qualities, scholarship etc his minor peccadilloes deserve to be simply brushed off. Secondly, as regards the Nehruvian policies, the criticisms arise usually from ignorance or misunderstanding. When India attained Independence , the private sector was too emaciated to undertake big infrastructure projects.

Let me say that Jawaharlal Nehru was a person that I always adored and still adore. I was surprised to receive an email forward a few days back that carried excerpts from a book called “Nehru Dynasty” allegedly written by K.N.Rao. Many unflattering “facts” have been given therein about Motilal down to Sanjay. I was amazed at these “facts” of which I was ignorant. So I went into a frenzy of internet browsing for hours and hours. It looks like we should find impartial historians to sift pure truths including “inconvenient” truths for the benefit of posterity. Hiding “inconvenient” truths or facts will be an anti-historical action.

What does K.N.Rao have to say and who is he? Well, he is known as a great Vedic astrologer. Why should he slander the Nehru family which is not an astrologer’s business? Well, the real title of his book is, “The Nehru Dynasty – Astropolitical portraits of Nehru, Indira, Sanjay and Rajiv” (published in 1993 by Windows Publication; 276 pages). I should like to get a copy and read it, if available. I may not understand the jyotish part of it. (I have read the works of Nehru and not the books on Nehru (by Stanley Wolpert, M.J.Akbar, M.O.Mathai and others).

What are the rarely known “facts” that K.N.Rao brings out? I shall briefly render them as follows.

Indira Gandhi’s husband was actually a Muslim called Feroze Khan. Feroze Khan’s father named Nawab Khan was a grocer in Allahabad and supplied wines etc to the Motilal household. Nawab Khan’s wife was a Parsi with the surname Gandhy and she converted to Islam before marriage. Indira was lonely and Feroze Khan came close to her in England . Indira became a Muslim and married Feroze in a London mosque. Jawahar and wife Kamala did not approve of this. At Mahatma Gandhi’s suggestion, Feroze Khan changed his name to Feroze Gandhi (Gandhy was mother’s first surname). [Some other authors say that Gandhi adopted Feroze as a son and gave him his own surname, but this is generally not accepted]. The married couple came to India and had an arranged “Vedic” marriage (1942).

Rajiv was born in 1944 and Sanjay in 1946. As per K.N.Rao, Sanjay was really the son of Mohammad Yunus and not Feroze Gandhi. (Wikipedia also mentions this.) My extensive browsing revealed that there could be truth in this. Sanjay’s name was really Sanjiv. It seems that he was caught stealing a car and the British police took away his passport. The kindly Krishna Menon, India ’s High Commissioner, got a new passport issued in the name of “Sanjay”! Sanjay’s marriage to Maneka Anand took place in Mohammad Yunus’s house! When Sanjay died in an aircrash, it seems that Yunus was the person to weep the most.

It is alleged that Rajiv became a Catholic before marriage to Sonia Maino. Rajiv became Roberto. The children Rahul and Priyanka are really Raul and Bianca! Well, our K.N.Rao's revelations are ended here.

A google search throws more interesting lights on the Nehrus. It seems that Jawaharlal’s father’s father “Ganga Dhar” was a kotwal in Bahadur Shah’s court when the British took over Delhi in 1857. Even the Delhi Police website (www.delhipolice.nic.in) says it. It appears from the Moghul records that there was no Hindu Kotwal then but a Muslim Kotwal called Ghiyasuddin Ghasi who had to flee to Agra to save himself from the British who were after the lives of the Delhi Muslims. This Muslim Kotwal, while fleeing, changed his name/identity to the Hindu name Ganga Dhar, the father of Motilal. (The word/surname Nehru was invented by Motilal later). Another interesting “fact” is that Motilal allowed his wife to stay with his employer called Mobarak Ali, who owned the bungalow “Irshad Manzil” which was renamed “Anand Bhavan” later on when Motilal bought it from him. Jawahar was born not in Anand Bhavan but at 77, Mirganj, where Motilal lived in a small rented house initially in the middle of a red-light area. Now you know why there is no touristic visit to the house where Jawahar, the first PM of India , was born. J.Nehru in his book recalls seeing “a picture of his grand father Ganga Dhar which portrayed him as a Moghul Nobleman”. Is this corroborative of something? Again, in that picture it appears that Ganga Dhar was having a long and very thick beard and was wearing a muslim topee and was having two swords in his hands!

Well, I stop here. My admiration for Nehru has not diminished one bit. I agree with many of my friends who say "how does it matter if ancestry was intermingled with Christianity, the Zoroastrian religion, Islam or Sikhism?" Indeed, I say, any of us may have, in different degrees and permutations and combinations, a part of the blood and genes of the original Aryans, Greeks, Sakas, Parthians, Hunas, and many other categories of foreigners who made India their home and intermixed freely in the Indian society.Let the text books on Nehru stay as such. Nehru is a nation builder, and a great motivator for all. But history is history and for posterity the “full and real facts” could be properly established by impartial historians. I believe like many others believe, that it would be much more fascinating if Nehru really had had the widest religious ancestry !

Taken as such from :
http://v-s-gopal.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/10/rarely-known-and-unpleasant-truths-about-nehru-dynasty.htm