Ambition or Passion?

The commencement of a new semester bears many subtle meanings. It has struck most of us with the reality of how we fare academically in the university through the recent release of Semester 1 examination results. It also brings the message of hope as we buckle up and strengthen our resolve to prove ourselves a better stock than what we were in the preceding semester.

The transition between semester is at best, filled with a gnawing temptation, for a person like me. Scrolling through the undergraduate website about special programmes, it is difficult for me to ignore the sight of headings such as "Double Degree, Chemical Sciences Programme, Joint Degree" and other prospective grand orchestrations of how a student can distinguish himself from the cohort of plebeian peers. Truth to be said, I am not the creme de la creme of the batch since a flawless cap of 5 is evidently beyond reach of my relatively meager academic results. Nonetheless, I cannot deny these temptations the opportunity to work outworldly dreams of career success, big money and fame in my mind - all in the name of ambition.

In my personal opinion, a long stay in Singapore changes a person into a highly practical, success-oriented person. Perhaps this has taken a toll on me by veering my thoughts away from what has been my passion since i was a boy - to see how the waves pound upon the sand and carve the beach with the aid of the wind, to smell the air and reckon when rain would fall, to dig deep into the soil and see how it changes hue from brown to orange in a top-down manner, and to do all sorts of other things in adoration of the Earth. In NUS, there is an opportunity to further such passion of mine as I am able to enroll in the open-for-all Physical Geography minor programme. Attached to that is an intuition that there is little commercial value in the programme in the capitalistic, urban Singaporean context. The only value of the minor programme is learning for the sake of passion.

Perhaps, learning for the sake of passion alone is worth more than the opportunities to work in top notch companies, to earn a lion share of wealth, to zip around the world in business class jet, and to stay in exquisite suites (some of which my sister has already done, haha! i have no idea how come she is so expensive nowadays). It is like cultivating the dreams of childhood rather than extinguishing them in the face of adult hypocrisy. It is like letting a rose bloom in the middle of a sparse, lifeless desert. And it is to continue a strong tradition of intellectual endeavour, a reminder that the comfort of our world has its root in knowledge and the audacity of man to capture it in his thoughts.

Perhaps I should honour my passion rather than my ambition...