What’s so significant about having a place to stand?

Sun, 9 Jan 2011
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This is a question from Formspring that deserves a blog post to itself, much like the one about the point of learning literature.

For context, I often use the line “All I need is a place to stand” in the About Me portions of my social networking pages.

The question of “What’s so significant about having a place to stand?” comes from a student who wants to know why I place so much importance on the above-mentioned phrase.

Before I explain, though, I’d like all of you to read the following pages before coming back here:

Now, Archimedes was a mathematician who is believed to have said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth”.

This is with reference to the law of the lever, where one can use a small effort to move a great load, so long as the distance between the effort and the fulcrum is sufficiently longer than that between the load and the fulcrum.

However, we can also interpret “move” as a metaphor to mean ‘affect in an inspirational manner’ – something which Archimedes’s findings have done for the world.

Therefore, I am leveraging on (pun intended) Archimedes’s metaphor to explain my own ambitions in life; ideally, I’d like to do what Archimedes has done and change the world with a small idea one day.

Before I can do that, however, I need to find a niche or an area in which I can make a difference. Once I find this niche/area, I know I’ll be good to go.

Hence, “[a]ll I need is a place to stand”.

TL;DR: Don’t be a lazy shit – just read the damn post.

Sweet.

Sun, 2 Jan 2011
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SQ21: Singapore Queers in the Twenty-First Century.

At the National Library now. Decided to take a break from writing by reading something and ventured over to the shelves behind me.

Picked up SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century by Ng Yi-Sheng and could not stop reading the book because the stories are so compelling.

Here’s a nugget that made me chuckle:

The word [that the interviewee was gay] spread higher and higher up the command chain until it reached my course commander, who was this Senior Warrant Office. He was this big Indian man, a really old-fashioned conservative fella, very regimental. Everything had to be in tiptop shape, our boots had to be shiny, our bunks had to be clean all the time, and he was always telling us, “Fucking hell. You all better run faster! You all so slow!”

I realised this could turn into something big, and I was really afraid for a while. But then once, during a lecture, he was saying, “The weekend’s coming. You all are booking out. Why don’t you all go get yourself a fuck? So how many of you got girlfriends?” Various hands went up. “Boyfriends?” Then everyone turned and looked at me, and I was thinking, “Shit you!”

Then the course commander said, “Why? What’s wrong? Why? Who’s anti-gay here?” A few people put up their hands. He pointed his finger and said, “Okay you. Get out of your seat. You also, get out. You go sit over there one corner. You all can form the anti-gay corner over there. (p. 133; emphasis mine)

Go read it if you haven’t already done so!

Stuff you must read today (Sat, 11 Dec 2010)

Sun, 12 Dec 2010
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  • What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases? | AskReddit

    • I’m extremely fascinated by the imagery used in the Spanish phrases e.g. “A vos te chifla el moño.” – Your bow tie is whistling. (You’re crazy).

  • Gene Smoke | This Rocketship Will Crash

    • “In fact, there hangs the crux of the truth about human desire.”

    “We want what we can’t have.”

    “No, not at all. We want exactly what is right for us, though we are often shocked at what this means.

  • Can we please have another anti-joke thread? | AskReddit

    • This had me LOL-ing for quite a while.

  • Looking again at Streaming | The Secret Political Blog

    • “…what was most important of that was that teachers never gave up on their students, believing that if the students made any mistakes, the teachers were the ones that failed the students, rather than the other way round… .

    Such was their devotion that I benefited heavily from the continual guidance and attention of my teachers despite me failing numerous examinations. If I were in a neighbourhood school, I think I might have been considered as the one that failed the system, and not its victim.”

  • What Makes a Great Teacher? | The Atlantic

    • The blurb: “For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.”