A recent study conducted by a British psychology professor, in many major cities, yielded surprising results(well not all that surprising). Over a distance of about 60 feet, the pace at which people walk was measured. And of the whole lot, Singaporean’s were the fastest walkers clocking at 10.55 seconds. This was something which took Madridians 10.89 seconds and New Yorkers 12 seconds. In the other extreme, Malawians took 30 seconds.

Singaporeans – we hurry to school, work, play, everything; and sooner rather than later, to our deathbeds. Everything else, besides ourselves becomes a mere imperceptible blur. Why this is so? Maybe for the same reason (kiasu-ness?) why we stand in long lines for that Hello Kitty freebie that is going to end up in the bottom of your sock drawer or something. But I feel the reason is something even deeper. I guess it has something to do with greed. “Money is the root of all evil”, someone wise beyond his years once said. Ok not evil, that’s too strong a word. But well, our lives have become a rat-race with money becoming the proverbial cheese in the trap. We’ve become trapped by our own perceived needs that money becomes prized over many things. Family and friends? Mere social constructions. Everything (literally everything) becomes unimportant. This is probably evidenced by our laissez-faire attitude towards our socio-political environment. Somehow this strikes me as odd in that even going by the ‘monetary gain’ argument, Americans whose per capita income is higher than that of Singaporeans are in less of a hurry than us? Why this is so eludes me. But the point remains that money is the new ‘hip’ religion, and we its devotees.

With that in mind, consider the problem of global warming. Granted, there is a flurry of pro-environment activities (with all the celebrities jumping into the green bandwagon). But there is still a prevalence of an attitude of indifference towards the problem. Especially so amongst us Singaporeans. It is not that they AREN’T being educated about the issue. It’s more of HOW they are being educated. It is lost on many that with the predicted rise in oceanic water levels, it would not be long before we meet an Atlantean fate. The point I made earlier about our strong profit-motive comes into play here. We seem to have gotten our priorities wrong. We earn to survive. But when our survival is in question, then to what end are we earning for? Even puting it in this way may not stir many into action. But one could try putting it in the sense of monetary gains and losses to make it all the more explicit. For example, by emphasizing the hundreds of dollars in savings that can be made by adopting practices that are inadvertently environmentally-friendly, we could get them off their butts. Surely, we can’t resist the lure of money, can we? But I’m still skeptical about whether even this will be of any use, in our self-centered society. Probably, it will dawn on us when we are starving and thirsty with our supply lines being cut off. Or maybe when we are six feet deep in our watery graves.