World-shaking disaster has swept us up. A black swan that wears a Crown named Virus is on the loose, ravaging nations across different continents, seeking whom it may devour. From the isolation of my home, I record the following thoughts:
1) Society is only as strong as its weakest link
Bangladeshi or Indian laborers in Singapore are people seen but never looked at. They are just there to do jobs that no one else wants to do. Terrible socio-economic factors have driven them from their homes to seek employment overseas, and it is assumed that being here is already a privilege enough for them. From a benign perspective, they add interest to the multi-cultural landscape with their presence and activities in enclaves like Little India. From a less kindly view, they are people whom we wish not to share public transport with, for fear of their odour (after being out in the elements doing hard labour).
Nobody cares about how they live. As long as no one is starving or unclothed, nobody cares if their living conditions is cramped or rather dirty.
Now, our collective attitude to this segment of society is wreaking revenge on us. Covid19 is rippling through the foreign laborer community creating the biggest disease cluster. If we die, you die, so says Covid19.
You give me poor living conditions which foster the spread of disease while you live in comfort, now it is time for payback. You exploit my cheap labour, taking disproportionate socio-economical advantage at my expense, now is time you pay the fair price.
2) Are we at the precipice of war?
Singapore went into lock-down on Tuesday, 7 April 2020. We were ahead of the game in the early phase, with people going to work and roaming the streets as if it were normal. We were praised worldwide for our elegant approach to the pandemic. Cases were isolated, closely traced and monitored, which engendered confidence of control.
Around mid-March and early April, it emerged that things were worse than it seemed. First, infected overseas returnees brought a wave of bad news. This was followed by the surfacing of foreign laborer clusters. Soon, it became apparent that the severity of the epidemic has escalated. The country shut down to enter into what it calls a Circuit Breaker phase. In effect, it is a soft lock-down, with only limited types of movement permitted. New restrictions are being introduced on daily basis since the start of the Circuit Breaker.
Commercial buildings are deserted and forlorn. Hotels close, shrouded in darkness. The MBS casino that overlooks the Singapore river is a canvas of black, which has never happened and we hope never to see again. Streets are empty, with the number of flouters even fewer than what can realistically be expected. In contrast, private homes hum with life, with the windows of residential buildings glowing in various hues of orange, yellow and white. I have never seen a scene like this in my lifetime. An ominous undercurrent stalks the awful quiet that we have descended into.
My home is well-positioned on a high floor that offers 270-degrees view of the western part of the country. I bought the place exactly because of its high perch, yet I have never ever bothered to soak in the view. Now, under house arrest like the rest of my country, for the first time ever I truly stopped to watch. I sat by the floor to ceiling window, observing the traffic on the Ayer Rajah expressway with keen interest in the traffic volume in times of shut-down. I see cars on the road at 1 am in the morning. Where, I asked myself, are these people going? Other people's lives have always fascinated me. Now, this attitude is colored by sadness. The sight of every empty public bus stirs up unease in me.
I live in a state of chronic low-level anxiety. Reading the news and following forums fill me with alternating pangs of dismay and indignation, but I continue to obsess ceaselessly about the latest developments. I feel helpless as I am buffeted by the tidal forces of global change. Will the world devolve into a Cold War over the Covid19 pandemic, or worse things that shall not be spoken? What kind of political and economic change will this pandemic unleash on me, on us?
3) Out of sight, out of mind
It is during these times when one realises that such a huge majority of things we do is in order to be seen. Being vain by nature, I enjoy fantasizing about clothes and shoes and bags, cosmetics and skincare products and facial treatments. I enjoy dressing up, being out of the house and going to town. But now that we are all under house arrest, none of these things matter.
I told my dermatologist that I would be deferring a treatment. Why, I told him, should I glam up when there is no one to look at me during this terrible season? This pithy rhetoric is so coldly cynical yet throbbing with truth. Glamour ceases to be when the audience recedes; those who chase glamour are destitute when eyes turn away.
4) My little investment portfolio
I have built up a little portfolio over the past months which has contracted in value as the global stock market took a plunge. Every single investor out there has been similarly impacted - we are all in this together. I am not extremely disturbed, but my assumptions about the definition of long term has been shaken. Life is long, the world is big, who is to say that assumptions stay? Yet, assumptions are all we have, with our only mitigation being a concurrent consciousness that assumptions can be overturned anytime.
I am trying to stay sane by giving myself as much structure as I can; I am not ready to aim for upbeat, sanity is all I ask for at this moment.
But my mind is a stray beast with an appetite for news of gloom and doom. And this stray beast thrives in an atmosphere of physical isolation.
What will become of me in the days to come, of us, of Singapore, of this world?
