going onto SG's online forums and reddit communities, it's always how to maximise your financial gains, maximise your child's gains, maximisethis and that. Finding the most efficient way to live the 'best' life so to speak, where 'best' is measured in assets

one could argue that "everything expensive liao / no money how to live in SG" and I'll agree especially if you have a family to raise

a lot of people live life on the rails laid down by society, which isn't all bad but also it leaves little room for alternative lifestyles which is deeply depressing to think about. Like, the SG life is just 1. get into good school 2. get a good job 3. get a good spouse and have kids and then 4. climb that never-ending ladder

5. there that's the happiness that someone else has decided for you and you just follow along, no questions ok

I'll recognise that my relative freedom from heavy financial obligations is a privilege, but there's just something about how EVERYONE is expected to climb ladder and the unspoken "if you don't climb, how you survive??". It's as if trying to find other non-career-focused ways to live is somehow the wrong answer to that exam paper, you know?

was trying to look up local tarot communities only to be slapped with a whole bunch of "VERY ACCURATE readings WOW!" reviews. To be fair, people unfamiliar with tarot is going to associate it with a whole bunch of things, but it just made me remember SGeans' obsession with getting A+ results by following a very narrow rulebook

Oooof - Yeah, when you have a work culture that is all about the minmaxing it's just stressful and like, IDK feels souless sometimes

yeah precisely, I guess a lot of it has to do with our lack of physical and creative space, and also the whole resource-scarcity/winner-takes-all mindset that's built into the whole population from the moment they enter school. There's that fear of not following the "correct" path and being left behind

at one point I hung out a lot on a SG reddit and often came across posts like "I'm depressed because my salary is lower than the median" and when I look at their below-median salary, it's still way higher than the decent amount that I'm earning lol

on the whole, many SGeans online and offline are so dull. When they're not talking about money and jobs and their next holiday destination, they're cracking jokes about how there's not enough money to do anything and thinking they're being so witty. Maybe I need to work harder on finding the right crowd...

thanks for reading btw and I'll catch up with you in your morning - hoping to get some fic writing done first