In search of freedom.

A couple of days ago, I learnt that someone I knew was leaving Singapore, quite suddenly.

Now, I had thought him well-established here. He is an American and his wife is from South America. He is a teacher. She is a singer/musician. They both had jobs. Between them, their income was very good, surprisingly good, in fact. You see his singer wife is in demand and is very well paid for the corporate gigs that she has been doing. In addition she has been singing for "good money", 3 hours a night in clubs in Singapore. So, financially speaking, they were content here. Yet, something was not right, here. In Singapore, they did not feel free to be themselves.

My American friend's wife was the one most unhappy with it all. The problem was that, in Singapore, she felt that she was living in a kind of straitjacket. She is a creative person, but here she was not allowed to create. Every night she sang and some days, too...but whenever she did, she was never allowed to do her own material, never allowed to improvise, explore or create. All that she was ever allowed to do was "cover versions" of other people's songs. She found the musicians she worked with highly skilled in a technical sense - but none of them showed any creativity - or did not, at least, show any evidence of it, in her presence. They were consumed with the desire to replicate the work of others as faithfully as possible. She found this tiresome. Where she came from, true musicians were always experimenting, exploring and growing. Here, she was not allowed to grow or become or create - she was enforced to imitate.

Now, it is not her fellow musicians, alone, that are the problem. The other problem is that the audience actually seem to crave well-performed cover versions. They enjoy hearing replication at work. They also seem to dislike anything new or experimental. So, even if a musician is creative here, they might find their creativity unwelcome.

They felt the straitjacket in other aspects of life, here, too. There is not much creativity in Singapore...it is a place that excels in conformity. This fact made them uncomfortable. They felt that they couldn't truly be free to be themselves in a place that so expected a uniformity of behaviour from everyone. At least, that is the way it seems to them. They felt, in short, oppressed by the essence of the place. They felt that here, they would never be allowed to be themselves.

So, one day, they both decided to jack in their jobs and leave. They have already bought tickets and have a destination in mind - and even jobs lined up.

The question is: how many creative people is Singapore losing - or never gaining in the first place - because creative people might feel too restricted here? Does this loss of creative individuals not harm Singapore? Does it not reduce the likelihood that anything new or special will come out of this small city state?

I am left to wonder how pervasive the need to conform is, here, when even music is not allowed to live - when even something as inoffensive as the sound that comes to one's ears, must conform, absolutely, to expectation, with no surprises. Surely, creativity should be welcomed...and not pushed away, as they have been?

The funny thing is, this decision of theirs to leave was prompted by a holiday in Bali. To them, the place felt so much more alive and authentic and free...so that is where they are going, now. So who has it right: the self-adoring No.1 nation in the world...or its poorer, but apparently freer, neighbour? Bali may be poor - but a creative couple felt more welcome there.

I think there is a lesson in this tale for ambitious Singapore. It can still learn from its "poorer" neighbours.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Why National Service is a National Disservice

Is a pianist worth more than just another unit of cannon fodder?

The question above is blunt and, perhaps, puzzling, but I shall explain - especially to my international readers. Singapore is a country with National Service. This is a period of two years in which all male Singaporeans must serve their country in the military or the police (usually the Army). During this period, they train as soldiers (or police), have little time to themselves and are "paid" so little it wouldn't keep them in soft drinks (or alcohol, for that matter!). It is a form of national servitude in more ways than one, given the pay and conditions. Yet, the powers-that-be in Singapore insist on it for all male Singaporeans - even if it is detrimental to the nation, in some cases.

What does Singapore do if a young man has a special talent that he must pursue, but is of the age of National Service? Well, an enlightened country would let him pursue his talent, understanding that it is of value to the nation, in another way. Singapore, however is not an enlightened country (and probably never will be). In Singapore, National Service is regarded as more important than anything else, for a young man - indeed it is mandatory, with severe punishments lurking for those who seek to avoid it, somehow. So, in Singapore, if you have a special talent, that is just too bad - because Singapore won't let you pursue it - you will just have to do National Service instead.

An example is the musician Keegan Ng. Now, you have probably never heard of him. There is a reason for this - you see the Singaporean Government didn't let him be a musician: they wanted him to be a soldier instead. This was no ordinary young man petitioning for a chance to follow what he loved: this was one of Singapore's most gifted musicians. At the age of 11, Keegan Ng won The Marion S. Gray Outstanding Musician Award, demonstrating that he was probably Singapore's best musician in his year. In his late teens, he wanted to further his study of the piano at the Eastman School of Music in New York - but the Singapore Government had other ideas: they were desperately short of one unit of cannon fodder and insisted that he do his National Service first.

Now, it seems to me that no-one in the Ministry of Defence (or whomever makes these decisions), has actually given any thought to what it means to be a pianist or to have any special talent. A talent needs to be nurtured, to be looked after. The skill level needs to be maintained with constant practice and/or study. If constant attention is not given to the skill, it fades away: in mere weeks, there is a decline in facility, in months, things that were easy start to become difficult, or impossible, in TWO YEARS the great skill that once was, will be no more: a pianist will have become an ex-pianist. You see, as Keegan Ng found out, there is no time to practice when you are having fun being shouted at, ordered around and generally experiencing life as cannon fodder. Keegan Ng tried to practice as much as he could, but there simply wasn't the opportunity while serving NS. By the end of the two years, Keegan Ng would no longer be at the skill level required to pursue a career as a pianist - where once he would have been able to rise to the challenge of the Eastman School of Music, as a pianist, there is just no way his skill would have been good enough to do so, after two years of fallowness. So, Singapore gained a unit of cannon fodder - and lost a great pianist. More to the point, of course, Keegan Ng, lost the love of his life and the sense of purpose being a musician would have provided him all his life long.

There is a name for what is going on here, in Singapore, with regards to National Service. It is called Stupidity. It is stupid to deprive talented young men of the chance to pursue their talents. Singapore loses much more than it gains by opposing the progress of such gifted young men. Singapore does NOT need another unit of cannon fodder - but it does need pianists and other gifted young men (I say "men" because girls are not called to be units of cannon fodder).

It is time for the special needs of some young men to be recognized. People with something special to offer that NEEDS ATTENTION/PRACTICE/MAINTENANCE, should be exempt from National Service. I don't mean that their National Service should be postponed - I mean that their National Service should be completely cancelled. There is no need to sacrifice the talents of Singapore's young men just so Singapore can have another unnecessary unit of cannon fodder. There is no need to worry that this proposed policy would deprive Singapore of an effective defence force since the numbers involved will be small. People of gift are rare - so it is not going to inconvenience Singapore to lose these few men from the battle field. However it does a great disservice to Singapore, to lose them from the creative, inspiring careers they would otherwise have led, were it not for the rigidities and stupidities of the present National Service system.

National Service should be there to protect Singapore. Presently, however, National Service is doing great harm to Singapore by depriving it of the talents of its most gifted young men. It is no wonder that Singapore is often accused of being a dull society - for National Service ensures that none of the young men with something to offer ever get a chance to shine.

Do Singapore a true national service: cancel "National Service" for any and all Singaporean young men with a special gift that needs constant maintenance. To do otherwise is to do Singapore a National Disservice.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Fintan's sense of morality.

Fintan, five, was having a conversation today with his mother about the Romans.

"Why did they build forts, mummy?"

"Well, because when they won battles, they had to have somewhere to put everything they took. Then they could become more powerful.", she said, a little loosely.

He was unhappy with this answer. "Become more evil, you mean."

Syahidah was surprised at this moral view, coming from her five year old son. He had judged the ways of the Romans and instead, as many boys might have been, of being impressed with their military prowess and stratagems, he had just seen them as evil.

There are many ways a child can impress - doing so by showing a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong, is one of the better ones.

I am pleased to see that Fintan is able to make moral judgements like this - and that they seem so well judged, given the true nature of what the Romans were up to.

Well done, Fintan.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Tiarnan the Oriental Philosopher.

A couple of days ago, Tiarnan, two, was busily proving that light couldn't pass through him. He was trying to sit on his mother's lap while she sat at the computer, fruitlessly trying to see what she was doing.

"Get off my lap Tiarnan...I am trying to work!", she pointed out, as he shifted unhelpfully in her lap.

She tried to push him off.

He resisted, looking up at her and saying: "Your lap is my lap!"

She relented. There was a wonderful poetry in the concept, "Your lap is my lap." that she could no longer resist.

It seems that Tiarnan has all the makings of an Oriental philosopher, coming out with catchy little thoughts that one just can't forget.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Top 100 Living Geniuses 2008

The years seem shorter with every one that passes. Again, The Daily Telegraph in the UK has published a list of the top 100 living geniuses. This list was compiled by Creators Synectics, a global consulting firm. To do so, they mailed 4,000 Britons and asked them to nominate up to 10 geniuses each.

The geniuses are ranked on the basis of their aggregate scores in five characteristics: paradigm shifting; popular acclaim; intellectual power; achievement and cultural importance. They were scored out of 10 in each criteria and their scores totalled. It is interesting to note that, although the highest possible score was 50, that the number one ranking was achieved with a score of only 27. This implies that to be the best living genius, one only needs to score half marks, in this assessment. There is, therefore, a lot of room for a "super genius", at the top - though such a person has yet to be identified. It would be interesting to compare these living geniuses with their dead rivals. I rather think that the dead ones would fare better, in many cases.

As with the first such list, last year, I am surprised at what people understand a genius to be. Some of those included in this popular list do not remotely meet the criteria of genius. JK Rowling, for instance, is a popular writer, but she doesn't produce original works - her work has been frequently criticized for being highly derivative. Thus, no matter how many books she sells, she can never cross the threshold into "genius" until she starts writing works that owe something to true creativity and less to imitation. Others who are most certainly not true geniuses include Damian Hirst, who also suffers from a chronic case of plagiarism. Many of Hirst's works are direct copies of other people's ideas and this has been frequently been brought out by the public complaints of his victims. Sadly, though, less coverage has been given to his complainants, than to his own self-promotion - hence the myth persists that this man is a "creative genius".

Astonishingly, Dolly Parton is accounted a genius by the voters. I find this puzzling since it is not her big brain that she is famous for. It seems that those who vote on this list, are unable to distinguish between "talent" and genius. Parton is a talented singer...but is she truly a genius in the actual sense of the word?

Other miscategorizations are understandable. For instance, Daniel Tammet is listed as a genius...whereas, in fact, he is a savant (which though impressive in some ways, does not qualify him as a genius).

It is interesting to note that some makers of our age are included. Their claim to genius seems more certain in that their works have changed the world. These include Tim Berners-Lee, the "inventor of the internet", Larry Page and Sergey Brin, of Google fame and Steve Wozniak of Apple Computers. These people are each, essentially, noted for one major contribution, a work significant enough in itself to qualify them as "geniuses". I do note, however, that in classical times, geniuses were generally thought to be more abundantly productive than this.

In a way, what this list does is identify what is important to people, more than it identifies true genius. They label as "genius" that which has significance for them, in their lives - even if this is just a gifted boxer, Muhammad Ali, or a singer, like Dolly Parton. (These are both examples of talents, not genius, really.)

The true test of genius, of course, is the passage of time. How many of these "geniuses" on this list will be remembered, referred to and thought of in, say, five hundred years time? Unchallengeable geniuses are those like Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Mozart, Plato, Socrates and Aristotle that are still remembered centuries or even civilizations after their passing. Whom do you think, on this list, will be remembered on the same timescale as the great names I have just mentioned? Will any of them be so revered? Please comment with your views, below, if you have any. Thanks.


1= Albert Hoffman (Swiss) Chemist 27
1= Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist 27
3 George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist 25
4 Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator 24
5= Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat 23
5= Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist 23
7= Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist 22
7= Steven Hawking (British) Physicist 22
9= Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect 21
9= Philip Glass (American) Composer 21
9= Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician 21
12= Andrew Wiles (British) Mathematician 20
12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader 20
12= Ali Javan (Iranian) Engineer 20
15= Brian Eno (British) Composer 19
15= Damian Hirst (British) Artist 19
15= Daniel Tammet (British) Savant & Linguist 19
18 Nicholson Baker (American Writer) 18
19 Daniel Barenboim (N/A) Musician 17
20= Robert Crumb (American) Artist 16
20= Richard Dawkins (British) Biologist and philosopher 16
20= Larry Page & Sergey Brin (American) Publishers 16
20= Rupert Murdoch (American) Publisher 16
20= Geoffrey Hill (British) Poet 16
25 Garry Kasparov (Russian) Chess Player 15
26= The Dalai Lama (Tibetan) Spiritual Leader 14
26= Steven Spielberg (American) Film maker 14
26= Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japanese) Roboticist 14
26= Robert Edwards (British) Pioneer of IVF treatment 14
26= Seamus Heaney (Irish) Poet 14
31 Harold Pinter (British) Writer & Dramatist 13
32= Flossie Wong-Staal (Chinese) Bio-technologist 12
32= Bobby Fischer (American) Chess Player 12
32= Prince (American) Musician 12
32= Henrik Gorecki (Polish) Composer 12
32= Avram Noam Chomski (American) Philosopher & linguist 12
32= Sebastian Thrun (German) Probabilistic roboticist 12
32= Nima Arkani Hamed (Canadian) Physicist 12
32= Margaret Turnbull (American) Astrobiologist 12
40= Elaine Pagels (American) Historian 11
40= Enrique Ostrea (Philippino) Pediatrics & neonatology 11
40= Gary Becker (American) Economist 11
43= Mohammed Ali (American) Boxer 10
43= Osama Bin Laden (Saudi) Islamicist 10
43= Bill Gates (American) Businessman 10
43= Philip Roth (American) Writer 10
43= James West (American) Invented the foil electrical microphone 10
43= Tuan Vo-Dinh (Vietnamese) Bio-Medical Scientist 10
49= Brian Wilson (American) Musician 9
49= Stevie Wonder (American) Singer songwriter 9
49= Vint Cerf (American) Computer scientist 9
49= Henry Kissinger (American) Diplomat and politician 9
49= Richard Branson (British) Publicist 9
49= Pardis Sabeti (Iranian) Biological anthropologist 9
49= Jon de Mol (Dutch) Television producer 9
49= Meryl Streep (American) Actress 9
49= Margaret Attwood (Canadian) Writer 9
58= Placido Domingo (Spanish) Singer 8
58= John Lasseter (American) Digital Animator 8
58= Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese) Computer scientist & physicist 8
58= Jane Goodall (British) Ethologist & Anthropologist 8
58= Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri (Indian) Historian 8
58= John Goto (British) Photographer 8
58= Paul McCartney (British) Musician 8
58= Stephen King (American) Writer 8
58= Leonard Cohen (American) Poet & musician 8
67= Aretha Franklin (American) Musician 7
67= David Bowie (British) Musician 7
67= Emily Oster (American) Economist 7
67= Steve Wozniak (American) Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers 7
67= Martin Cooper (American) Inventor of the cell phone 7
72= George Lucas (American) Film maker 6
72= Niles Rogers (American) Musician 6
72= Hans Zimmer (German) Composer 6
72= John Williams (American) Composer 6
72= Annette Baier (New Zealander) Philosopher 6
72= Dorothy Rowe (British) Psychologist 6
72= Ivan Marchuk (Ukrainian) Artist & sculptor 6
72= Robin Escovado (American) Composer 6
72= Mark Dean (American) Inventor & computer scientist 6
72= Rick Rubin (American) Musician & producer 6
72= Stan Lee (American) Publisher 6
83= David Warren (Australian) Engineer 5
83= Jon Fosse (Norwegian) Writer & dramatist
83= Gjertrud Schnackenberg (American) Poet 5
83= Graham Linehan (Irish) Writer & dramatist 5
83= JK Rowling (British) Writer5
83= Ken Russell (British) Film maker 5
83= Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Russian) Small arms designer 5
83= Erich Jarvis (American) Neurobiologist 5
91=. Chad Varah (British) Founder of Samaritans 4
91= Nicolas Hayek (Swiss) Businessman and founder of Swatch 4
91= Alastair Hannay (British) Philosopher 4
94= Patricia Bath (American) Ophthalmologist
94= Thomas A. Jackson (American) Aerospace engineer 3
94= Dolly Parton (American) Singer 3
94= Morissey (British) Singer 3
94= Michael Eavis (British) Organiser of Glastonbury 3
94= Ranulph Fiennes (British) Adventurer 3
100=. Quentin Tarantino (American) Filmmaker 2