maybe

The new Cabinet line-up is out. And, ridiculously, over-optimistically (so says the skeptic in me ... ), i am feeling, not hopeful, for that would be taking it too far, but definitely forward-looking about our future. It's a visionary Cabinet line-up -- bold and, if not imaginative, then most definitely creative in a good way, responsive to the challenges that we're facing as a nation.

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It's kinda weird how -- despite the constant tension headache-&-neckache and the eyes dried out from the haze, and whatever vocational anxieties i may be having personally as i try to find a way for my writing -- i'm feeling more forward-looking (assiduously avoiding the word 'hopeful' ... ) about this country's future than i've ever felt before. i like the fact that our leaders are daring to change things, make adjustments, and i think the changes are good and needful changes, responsive to the times. i like the fact that Singaporeans are starting to think and speak up. i even like the 70/30 election results -- i think they show, not a fearful conservatism as some have argued, but a sensible acknowledgement of the wider global context within which Singapore has to operate, and an awareness of the need for a fundamental stability in times when transition and change are forced on us from outside.

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Maybe it's cos i've been forced -- partly by circumstances, and partly by my own personality and personal preferences -- to stay here in Singapore for the foreseeable future. But i've been ... adjusting ... to this place. i don't think 'putting down roots' is quite the right way to put it, not yet, anyway. But learning to look for opportunity where in the past i only saw deficiency, learning to think of ways to compensate (for myself, at least) for the things this place lacks and never will provide. i don't think i will ever love this country unequivocally -- firstly, i'm just not a very unequivocal person, and secondly, the place is too small and i think i will always see that smallness as more of a liability than an asset. But i guess i'm starting to feel, and not just think, that we've actually done pretty well as a country so far, and given the way the future is looking for the world at large, we are pretty well-positioned to find our way in the next couple of decades. 

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Let's hope these do not turn out to be Famous Last Words ......

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