A lecturer once told me that to be modern is to look to the future and to be constantly pursuing something new. I must then be a conservative heretic as I'm struggling to hold on to my senses with the ruins of the past that have been bulldozed by the winds of change that has started long before my birth.
While some may say there's no looking back; I turn away from it and it is not easy in this city that embraces modernity in every aspect of life from our economy, lifestyle, the arts and if I may say etc,etc,etc...
One can always argue that we do have heritage sites, Asian values or ethnic traditions that are still very much alive but I think the most pertinent issue for me is one's lifestyle.We are so caught up with creating something new, a better life, more of everything that we can lose sight of living life.
However, the most dangerous thing about modernity is like that REM song- "Losing My Religion" ; in its conflict between faith and government. If political science is about the pursuit of happiness then a modern version of it follows that happiness can be attained without spirituality.
Maybe I'm going to find the answer or the beginning of the journey to my questions of life and my ongoing struggle against reason and faith that has encompassed half my life in this ivory tower; or maybe I will feel life as doomed as it seemed twenty years ago. Sometimes, I just hope that the questions will stop but they never do, so I might as well face my demons...now back to studying the father of modernity, right after I get my daughter to wash her greasy hands...
