Free

Wow didn't blog yesterday. Not that I was complacent, but it was a good off-day for me.

Tommorrow is a beginning of a new semester. You must be thinking, isn't ben on a 2 months break now? The answer is no. I'm a workaholic and no work equals suffocation of limp arms, limbs and brain cells. Hence, my work day consist more of designing some brochures out of interest and planning the schedule and type of shots for a school video. As taxing as it might be, i'm in a more relaxed atmosphere now that there is less school project pressure. Only 4 priorities for these 2 months, seems easy enough.

Lets go straight on to the moral of my story: Free

Nothing in this world is free. You have heard this statement on various occassions. Mostly when you were young, when your mother pulled your ear till it was scarlet red and dragging you away from the toys department. Kids have a very uncivilised view of money. It is so narrow that they think that the world is their own, everything and anything belongs to them. As they grew up from their innocent lifestyle, they learn the value of printed paper and metal round chips that could be traded in for worthwhile value like ice-cream, diabetic sweets and barbie dolls. Slowly, they start saving these printed paper and chips and declare themselves millionaires in their deluded minds. I was one of those kids. But we all grew to be materialistic.

Your mother doesn't print paper and it certainly does not grow on trees. It is however, earned in 2 ways. Through blood, sweat and determination(mostly from blood) or through undeceitful ways, either way, money ends up in your hands, which eventually flows through your fingers and you start off once again when you were. Penniless. It is a vicious cycle i tell you.

If the world is free, we wouldn't need to work so hard, slog like slaves to get our miserable remuneration. Think about this. In Singapore, an average dewelling that is a 5-room flat would costs $450,000. And, a car, would cost $90,000. That is $550,000 just for a basic transportation and shelter. Of course you can tell me you can live in cardboard boxes and use your two pair of legs for travel. Then, i'll tell you that you just shorten your lifespan as the amount of sickness and weary travel you placed on your knees will send you to you grave sooner than the next edition of Harry Potter comes about. Not to digress, is it ever possible to earn that obscene amount of money for 40 years ? (assuming that we don't fall sick, air is used as petrol, our COE has no expiry date, the house furnishings can withstand 40 years, our children can survive all by themselves the moment they come out from the womb .... yadda yadda). If we include cost of healthcare expenses, children upbringing, expenditure on house and cars and food, it would amount to a grand total of $1 million dollars. That amount also does not include PUB bills, Handphone bills & most important of all, extra expenses of goods that we don't need. For example, a OSIM toenail massager, a Burberry handkerchief and children that spit, scream and hiss at you. We need branded goods to keep up our self-image and we need children to justify our prescene in life to see them suffer the same fate as you did.

Therefore, the grand total is S$2 million. Now, by time you get married, you would most probably be 30 years old. Retiring at 60, that leaves you 30 years with your spouse to earn that amount for your upkeep. If you do your maths right, 667,000 a year must be earned as a couple. That means you as an individual have to earn $333,500 anually or $27,700 a month. Now, can you find an employer that will hire you for $27,700 a month ? Unless, you are the Sultan of Brunei, druglord or a kway teow hawker, that amount is simply out of reach.

Therefore, we collect debts. And we pass it onto our children. Another justification for their prescene. Back to my point, won't it be easier if the world was free ? We would have less worries, less wrinkles and less whining. But then again, if everything is free and nobody works, nobody will be at the water filtration plant, nobody will be cleaning the feathers from the chicken and nobody is using the broom to sweep the streets. Then, Singaporeans will be dead becaise of the lack of Chicken rice, abundance of untreated NEWater and dirty streets. Therefore, there will be more worries, more wrinkles and more whining, and people will start going back to work to bring back Singapore into the peaceful state it once was.

Free. A notion that would create chaos. Imagine Japanese women yelling in the Louis Vuitton store for handbags and panties , Americans yelling for hot dogs, Starbucks coffee and burgers and Singaporeans yelling for lucky LuoHan fishes, winning 4-D tickets and laptops. Can you imagine a world where everything is free ? I'm too afraid to go there.

So, next time before you want to cheat the bus driver by not beeping your EZLink card, think again. Because if everyone did that, there would be no jobs for bus drivers and you will end up walking from your house to Dover station just to attend lessons. Nothing is free in life. Except for lousy advertisements.

- Benjamin