#what is this entire chunk of text even about? 😭

[spookylightwhispers]

Today I had a class on career in which we talk about career planning and the like. The topic for today was about our work view, and life view. Every group had to come up with a tagline to represent our work and life views. And unsurprisingly, it was all about money, money, money.

Every group was just talking about how we work to earn money, and with money we'll be happy in life. And everyone was just laughing and joking about it but I just sat there thinking, "what a depressing bunch of people you all are."

And while we were supposed to discuss as a group, one, and then two people, said "work to earn money" because "why work if there's no money" and suddenly I felt weird because what I had wrote on my copy was "contributing meaningfully to society while doing something that I enjoy or am passionate about." Believe it or not, the thought of money hadn't even occurred to me and suddenly I was just like "oh. right, money." (I felt a little more sane after another guy in my group steered our tagline towards something more humanistic and not money-based. And we turned out to be the only group in the class whose tagline didn't have the word "money".)

And, just, is this what society has come to? Is life really just all about working, and working, and earning money till you drop dead? Is there no meaning to anything anymore? And it's not just about working. Even studying. In the previous lesson, people were just like "get a degree so I can get a job". But I'm not here to get a degree so I can get a job. I'm not here to "get an education". I'm here to gain knowledge. To take part in the inter-generational transfer of knowledge. I'm not here so that at the end of the day, I get to earn money. I'm here because I want to learn things. I want to marvel at the world. I want to be more appreciative of human society. I want to contribute. I want to make the world a better place. I'm not here to get a certificate so I can get a job and work until I die.

I know I can't, and I won't deny that money is a very important factor in living life. And for some people, money can buy happiness. And I acknowledge that I come from a very privileged background. I've never had to worry about money and I've always lived a comfortable life. Even when my parents were supposedly "broke", we didn't have all the extras but we never lacked anything either. My life has been very smooth-sailing.

But is there nothing more to life than just earning money? I mean, I'll be honest, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I'm immune to the whole money predicament either. Lately I've been really interested in research and I've really been considering the idea of furthering my studies and becoming a researcher. But at the back of my head, I have this nagging thought of how am I going to get money to survive? Is that going to give me a stable income? Who's going to be funding this research? Especially if I were to do it for a PhD thesis? Who's going to pay for all that? How am I going to live? Should I just follow the conventional pathway and get a proper job that's going to bring in a stable income?

Money is important to live, and this may be true for pretty much every place on earth but in this part of the world especially, the culture just feels extra crazy. Especially with the mindset that is very prevalent among the majority race. In fact just earlier in the day, I had another class and in trying to come up with a topic for research I shared with my professor a possible topic my group was considering doing. And it revolved around education. About how our universities have very limited choices in terms of courses and how it seems like the only kinds of courses you get here are the ones that "bring in money" and other kinds of courses which would get you not-very-profitable jobs are practically non-existent in this country. (Even if those particular set of skills are very much needed in this country! To meet the government's own goals! (and they might probably then use this as an excuse to import in more foreign workers because we don't have enough 'skilled local talents'?)). And the only way to get qualifications in those specific fields is to go overseas...which obviously costs even more money, something not everyone can afford.

I did not mention it to my group and my professor earlier, but even for me, personally, while I did apply to three different universities, when I applied to my current university now, I only applied for one course, which is the course I am in now. And this is despite the fact that my university is one of the two biggest ones, and thus one of the two which offers the most courses. I felt kinda badass, not gonna lie, about "confidently" (I wasn't really confident about getting in to be honest) applying to only one course in this university but honestly, it's not really something to gloat about. It's a sad predicament, that none of the courses the university offered interested me...except one. Everything else I could possibly be interested in is not even offered at a university level in this country. Sad, sad, sad.

People are unable to pursue their interests, and do what they are good at, simply because the government thinks these things are not worth investing in, because they're "not profitable". It is true, the government runs this country like a business, not a country. At the end of the day, it's all about money. And this mentality seeps through to the people. (Or, I guess, you could argue that the very people with this mentality are the ones who control the government, and have thus forced everyone else to live that way). It's no wonder people here have no life. All we ever think about is ace-ing the academics to get a good job to earn good money.

What is your purpose in life?