what’s your price?
Everyone has a price. That means everyone can be bought? That’s disturbing.
Is there anything noble to a price tag? Admittedly, we have to make a buck and work for a living. So that’s a price tag on us, right? That helps us put food on the table to feed the family, pay for medical bills, send children to school, pay for little luxuries. Hopefully, it also helps us open up our fists to extend help to others in need as well.
So getting paid for a good, hard day’s work, is good.
On the other side of the fence, the people who put the price tag on us, also make a noble contribution, eh? They tag us to to help us make an honest living. So that’s noble too, right?
When does it stop being noble? I guess this is not new. But it didn’t hit me as much until the last few years. My environment ensured that. Money and job status and security is associated not merely with loyalty but blind loyalty. Absolute blind trust (strange … these are the very same people who say they don’t believe in anything or anyone but themselves and their self-ability), here they are blindly trusting. The more blind you are, the better. And it’s not the blind justice with balanced scales. It’s being blind to bad decisions of the power that be and attendant eunuchs. Blind to unfair treatment of professional (albeit deemed “disloyal” by virtue of the fact that they are not “yes” man) and loyal employees who want the best for the organisation. Blind to breaking people’s rice bowls. Blind to injustice. Blind to everything and everyone, except those who sign your pay cheque.
Everything becomes a pure transaction. A mere contract. Take the pay. Zip up and throw away the key to everything else except what your paymasters say and ask you to say and do. You get your money. You get your status. You get your security.
But the company “owns” you.
The question is at what point do you walk away and say no amount of money is worth the moral dilemma? And when you do get to walk away, will you come back for even more money and higher status? Is it worth it? What’s your price? What will you sell? Who will you sell out? Why will you do it?
I believe we have lines we do not cross. Well, at least for those whose choices are black or white. Right or wrong. Yes or no. I am not certain for those whose line shifts within shades of grey. I guess shifting lines imply there are no absolutes. Everything is relative for them. And for those who have totally crossed the line, they have gone to the dark side. Where wrong becomes their right.
What conditions some to be happily blindsided by money and status? Perhaps those who do not have blood on their hands. They just take orders and pass it on to others to execute. Literally. 
They just write papers and surprise, surprise, leave others to implement their “projects” within their stipulated, unrealistic expectations and timelines. Perhaps, they believe only in themselves and the present. Therefore, they are amoral with no conscience? It is just what’s good for you for the here and now. So others be damned. For the now at least. Or perhaps, they are just above the law. They work with and for the law or they are the law. Or those who see the system for what it is and milk it for whatever it’s worth.
What’s their price? I’m afraid in that situation, the price will never be right. I’m sure someone’s price could be another’s poison. Is there a limit? I’m just bummed that people I think I know keeps raising the ante on their price, while continuing to criticise others pretty much like them and the organisation that they continue to fleece.
Being blindsided is more common than I thought. Even with people you think you know.
run… boat girl…run!
Have you ever had a conversation forced upon you? Even if you didn’t want to eavesdrop, the decibels ensure the conversation flow is unceasing?! Worse if the conversation starts with a pompous-sounding ”Now”…. and ends with a condescending ”you understand what I mean” or “I tell you”.
I think it must have been punishment for a very chill, relaxing, spa weekend. With everything smooth-sailing from the start, the end had to be the bummer. So yes, the entire 45-minute ferry ride was peppered with someone clearing the throat from phlegm and not throwing it out… I guess the reverse of that is swallowing it back?! Eeeeeewwww…. a teen and pre-teen drumming a tabla (but that lasted only till my friend told them to sock it! hahaha….) and the nightmare conversation!
The conversation, pardon me, the soliloquy was carried out by a youngish 20-something boy (ok, ok technically, a man) trying desperately to prove his worth to a young, impressionable girl (whose origins shall remain a mystery, except to those familiar with a term of reference “boat people”, no disrespect meant).
His selling points were many… but since it was a soliloquy, at best a Q & A, we don’t know if it was bought. I hope not.
- He was there when she broke up
The conversation thread to that went something like this, “Now…who was there for you when you broke up?.. Who? Tell me? Tell me who.” And when there was no response, his emphatic rejoinder came quick and furious, “Me riiiiight?! I tell you ah… I tell you, I didn’t know where you were ok, what to do… so I took a taxi and told the taxi man to go straight to XXX and waited for you…”
- They are the right age for each other
“Now tell me why X and his relationship didn’t work. You know? You don’t know, right…ok let me tell you. How old is X? How old is the girlfriend?” And when the answers came, “How many years apart are they? Ten. How old am I? How old are you?” Again the corresponding ages came, “How many years apart are we? Three! That’s right. Now you know why. Because they are different generation what. Not same level. We both are the same. So can lah.” Right…very convincing.
- He has good fashion sense? Don’t ask me what that has to do with anything… oh! wait a minute, he is fashion guru….from Seng & Beng Fasen
“Eh see that guy on the TV…. did you see, did you see? Aiyah… you missed it.” More inane one-sided droning, “There, there, quick see! He’s wearing the same t-shirt as me. Ahhh…. see I know about fashion oso, right? There are stripes like this (one presumes he is showing horizontal and vertical motions) and like that. [Enlightening!] Then there are stripes on one side… I like the stripes on one side. Very nice, right?” As usual, her response or attempt at trying for some airtime, is not successful and immaterial to the person who is trying to win her heart!!
I can go on with the soliloquy but even I’m getting bored. His goodness is forever. :p He will bring her on holidays once a month after this very “successful” one. For now she will stay with him and his mother for one month. Not to worry about immigration, just tell the person ”that you are with me…don’t worry” he says with an air of bravado. Then at immigration, (after the trek from the ferry, where he insisted on walking immediately behind her, to shield her from prying eyes as her dress was billowing in the wind), he was at the fast track lane for citizens, waving to her at the foreigner queue! I guess that was the only reassurance she was getting. Also, she was not to worry about his mother, “both of you are very alike onnnnee. Simple only, when she cooking right, you just tell her, “Aunty, your food very nice”… can oredi.” In the same breath, “have you told your mother to call off the matchmaker?”
“Run… boat girl, run!” And that’s what my live-and-let-live friend – normally non eavesdropper and non judgemental – said.
with great power comes responsibility?
Spiderman’s Uncle Ben said,”With great power comes great responsibility” or rather Stan Lee, the scriptor and editor of the Spiderman comic books wrote it for Uncle Ben’s character. Here is a person who understands that while it could be an inconvenience, an encumbrance or even a curse to some, responsibility is sometimes not a choice. Particularly, if coupled with possession of some sort of great power or privilege.
This similar thought is echoed in another fictional work as well, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Wielding great power and influence by his pen, he probably similarly understood its obligation as Stan Lee later did. He wrote: “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”.
So what categories of people do we have? There are the monarchs who are born into “greatness”. There are those who achieve “greatness” - in many different fields. Writers, journalists, leaders in every form from grade school to those who run households, companies (who now appear to be more machiavellian than heros), churches, countries; or scientists, teachers, etc…. anyone capable of being cast as a role model. Then there are those who get thrust into it, by default, your reluctant leaders.
However you come to be in possession of this element of “greatness”, it comes with great responsibility.
Why then do some run with it, stay the course and use it for good and some run counter to it and abuse it? These are the two extremes. In between, there are, I dare say, those who are just there along for the ride. I guess if they even bothered about their defence, they could say, it is their right.
Well, it’s their history book of life. My concern in this entry, are the abusers. People who have everything that it takes more and more to get a high in life. Bad enough if the abuse is on themselves to the detriment of themselves, their families and friends. Worse when the abuse becomes a do-unto-others.
We hear stories of those in power eg: policemen, film directors, agents (real or pretend) exchanging “protection” or opportunity, for sexual favours.
Or the story in the Straits Times of royalty not far from home, who subject his wife to emotional, physical and physiological abuse and against whom was also levied kidnapping charges.
A friend recently pointed out a horror story that had been making its rounds on you tube. It is of royalty who took his privilege one step too far, by physically abusing a defenceless, trader whom he taught had cheated him of $5,000. It was inhuman. Horrifying footage of the torture was smuggled out and aired by ABC News. (Just google ABC news and torture videos).
What is it that makes them feel invincible? Is it absolute power that corrupts? The position backed by money? Privilege backed by politics? Power backed by a uniform?
Do you see a recurring theme? They hide behind everything. They are small people – whiners in gilded cages, who want to enjoy lives in their warped little worlds, at the expense of others.
One thing definitely, ”greatness” is not a definition befitting them. They abuse privilege and mock responsibility and the law. In some countries, governments pay lip service and repeal laws that prevent the prosecution of royalty but side steps any involvement stating the personal nature of misdemeanours. In others, government is related to the perpetrators, what do you do? It is an open and shut case literally.
I am flabbergasted at such abusive power that is cowardly as it is fearless and inhuman.
