O Captain! My Captain! Regrets, I Have A Few…

Yes, I’m taking advantage of the university-student-committing-suicide-after-stabbing-his-professor hype to do some writing practice. It has been quite a topic for these past few days, and it has caused such a commotion in Singapore, my humble home country, probably the whole Asia. But I’m not really interested in talking about the details of the tragedy or the series of events leading to this boy’s bad decision. I’m more intrigued to speculate about the bigger picture, about how his mental state was conditioned by, maybe more than he himself knew, things far greater and older than the 200-hectare campus.

When I heard the news, the first thing that came into mind is the memories I had about that place (yes, I am an alumna). Academically, it was probably the worst four years of my life. Everything seemed wrong then. The curriculum was impossible, the pace was too fast, the lecturers had too poor of spoken English… It was a cold place. I didn’t feel any connection or even the slightest sense of belonging to the alma mater, and I didn’t see any effort from the school to fix this either. To make it worse, I studied engineering, which was not really of my interest. If those four years had taught me anything, it was to NEVER overestimate yourself by doing something you can’t have passion for. It was torturing. Really, if not because of the amazing friends I made and the activities I joined, I would probably be depressed too. And while I might not make it to the front page news like the boy did, I would most certainly do something stupid that could bring shame to either myself or my family.

The next thing that stirred my mind about this incident was how it much reminds me of the film Dead Poets Society. Why did Neil Perry kill himself? Many may think it was insanity. But if we try to follow his way of thinking, it’s actually not so hard to understand. You’ll be surprised how the idea of suicide has now and then fascinated many more, including yours truly. When you are young and full of ideals, Thoreau’s quote “To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.” might be very easily misinterpreted as to might just as well die when you discover you can’t really live anymore. Or even worse: let’s end life when it is truly life, for what come afterwards are no more than death. Does it make sense? If it doesn’t, does it at least kinda make you wonder why the twisted thinking?

In fact, the idea of sacrificing one’s life for “greater good” (bear in mind that this term is very very subjective) is not new at all. People have long been obsessed with martyrdom. Remember how Greek heroes always chose glory over wealth and long life? (Only that dumb Paris chose a woman instead ) That’s the start. Who knows what thousands of years can do for an idea to get internalized, in both good and bad ways. But seeing how human race, with all its exponentially increasing materialistic standards and expectations, had made the world become more and more difficult to live in, it’s practically easy to twist any good ideas into something uglier. After all, people always prefer an easy way out.

Eric Idle said we always have to look on the bright side of life. Well, if you apply the same mentality to view the tragic episode of the university killing, it is indeed not so bad after all. It was like a wake up call. Now more than ever, the public was made realized that what had been practiced all this while behind the gates of educational institutions is far from perfect. Structured support systems were then created, discussions were engaged, and most importantly, everybody is trying to reflect on what happened and efforts to prevent such thing from happening again have become priority. Isn’t it as if the poor young man died as a… martyr?

I’m not at all saying what happened is, although not shocking, tolerable. Whatever the excuses, life is too precious to be thrown away. No matter how I sometimes regret to spend four years of my youth studying things that I couldn’t care less, I’m still grateful I could go through it alive. Because the powerful play goes on and I may contribute a verse. It’s true that the world is becoming more and more hostile. It’s true that living a worthful life seems like a foolish dream. But only in their dreams can men be truly free. It’s not yet time for us to give up hope. My advice is, as worthless as it is, try to be a little masochistic. Then you’ll find that life is sweet