Lee Wei Ling : Why compare? Work together instead

March 11, 2009

THINK-TANK

Why compare? Work together instead

By Lee Wei Ling

RECENTLY, when I looked out of the window of my room at the Singapore General Hospital onto the junction where Chin Swee Road and the Central Expressway cross Outram Road to join the Ayer Rajah Expressway, I saw bumper to bumper traffic between 7.30am and 8.30am.

Isn't Singapore supposed to be in a recession - indeed, the worst recession we have experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s? Yes it is, and Singaporeans are groaning.

Comment We compare our present to our past, often forgetting the bad times and remembering only the good. We also compare ourselves with our peers. If we see others suffer as we do, we resent our situation less. If a particular sub-group of the population suffers more than other sub-groups, the comparison is invariably noticed by the unfortunate sub-group. RELATED LINKS Why compare? Work together instead

Yet the wealth and income of most Singaporeans today are more rather than less than they were 10 years ago, even after accounting for inflation. So why the rather gloomy mood? The answer is that everything is relative. Singaporeans are comparing their wealth and income today to what they had in the boom years preceding 2008.

Consider a scientific experiment conducted on capuchin monkeys and reported in the journal Nature in 2003. The monkeys were trained to hand a token to a human experimenter in exchange for a cucumber. When two monkeys were able to see that each received one cucumber in exchange for one token, both felt satisfied and happily ate their cucumbers.

But when the experiment was changed so that one monkey received a grape and the other a cucumber, in full view of each other, the second monkey became upset, a grape being more desirable than a cucumber. When both were asked to hand over a token after that, the second monkey became uncooperative.

If one monkey was given a grape without giving the experimenter a token, the other monkey would become even more uncooperative and would toss either the token or the cucumber out of the test chamber. But if the first monkey was removed and a grape placed where it had been, after a while, the other monkey would gradually settle for the cucumber, seeing that no other monkey was getting a grape.

If capuchin monkeys can become dissatisfied comparing themselves to their peers, more so humans. We compare our present to our past, often forgetting the bad times and remembering only the good. We also compare ourselves with our peers.

If we see others suffer as we do, we resent our situation less. If a particular sub-group of the population suffers more than other sub-groups, the comparison is invariably noticed by the unfortunate sub-group. The perceived iniquity would rub salt into their wounds, aggravating the resentment they feel and causing jealousy towards those they perceive to be luckier than they.

A study last year reported in the journal Industrial Relations revealed that employee well-being is dependent upon how their wages compare with those of others in the comparison group, as opposed to the individual's absolute pay. Researchers Gordon Brown, Jonathan Gardner, Andrew Oswald and Jing Qian asked undergraduates to rate how satisfied they would be with the wages they might be offered for their first job after college. Subjects expressed feelings about each potential wage in the context of a set of other wages. The researchers also analysed data from 16,000 employees who reported on workplace satisfaction.

Employees did not care solely about their absolute level of pay. They were more concerned about how their incomes compared to those of the people around them in the workplace. And individuals were not influenced solely by their relative income but rather by the rank-ordered position of their wages within a comparison set.

'Our study shows how ordinal rank has a statistically significant effect upon well-being,' the authors concluded. 'Human well-being depends in a particular way upon comparisons with others.'

The lesson to be learnt by organisations like the one I lead, the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), is that every employee must know how he has been appraised so he will know his salary, bonus, annual increments and promotions are fair. It is not enough for the system to be fair; the staff must be able to see clearly that the system is fair.

NNI has implemented peer appraisal to supplement the reporting officer's appraisal. When the two diverge, the countersigning officer must try to figure out the reason for the discrepancy and come to a fair decision about the person being appraised. I usually ask both the reporting officer and the peer the reasons for their appraisals.

But I hope everyone at NNI does not judge his or her worth by the remuneration he or she receives. We each contribute to NNI in different ways; yet we all succeed or fail as a team. In addition to the doctors, the administrators, nurses and medical technicians at NNI all play a role in enabling the institute to deliver the best neuro-medical care we can to our patients.

At the national level, it is important that sub-groups in the population that are suffering more than others in the current recession receive more help. At the same time, the entire population must feel that the Government has tried its best to look after everyone fairly. The richer members of our community should not flaunt their wealth. It would be even better if those who can afford it, donate their time and resources to help the less fortunate.

We are all in this economic downturn together, and we should strive as a nation to pull through together. That way, we will emerge from this crisis more resilient and more united than we are now. That is my hope for Singapore.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute. Think-Tank is a weekly column rotated among eight leading figures in Singapore's research and tertiary institutions.

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Lee Wei Ling on global economic crisis

Lee Wei Ling on global economic crisis

In 2007, in an end-of-year message to the staff of the National Neuroscience
Institute, I wrote: 'Whilst boom time in the public sector is never as
booming as in the private sector, let us not forget that boom time is
eventually followed by slump time. Slump time in the public sector is always
less painful compared to the private sector.'

Slump time has arrived with a bang.

While I worry about the poorer Singaporeans who will be hit hard, perhaps
this recession has come at an opportune time for many of us. It will give us
an incentive to reconsider our priorities in life.

Decades of the good life have made us soft. The wealthy especially, but also
the middle class in Singapore, have had it so good for so long, what they
once considered luxuries, they now think of as necessities.

A mobile phone, for instance, is now a statement about who you are, not just
a piece of equipment for communication. Hence many people buy the latest
model though their existing mobile phones are still in perfect working
order.

A Mercedes-Benz is no longer adequate as a status symbol. For millionaires
who wish to show the world they have taste, a Ferrari or a Porsche is deemed
more appropriate. The same attitude influences the choice of attire and accessories. I still
find it hard to believe that there are people carrying handbags that cost
more than thrice the monthly income of a bus driver, and many more times
that of the foreign worker labouring in the hot sun, risking his life to
construct luxury condominiums he will never have a chance to live in.
The media encourages and amplifies this ostentatious consumption. Perhaps it
is good to encourage people to spend more because this will prevent the
recession from getting worse. I am not an economist, but wasn't that the
root cause of the current crisis - Americans spending more than they could
afford to?

I am not a particularly spiritual person. I don't believe in the
supernatural and I don't think I have a soul that will survive my death. But
as I view the crass materialism around me, I am reminded of what my mother
once told me: 'Suffering and deprivation is good for the soul.'

My family is not poor, but we have been brought up to be frugal. My parents
and I live in the same house that my paternal grandparents and their
children moved into after World War II in 1945. It is a big house by today's
standards, but it is simple - in fact, almost to the point of being shabby.
Those who see it for the first time are astonished that Minister Mentor Lee
Kuan Yew's home is so humble. But it is a comfortable house, a home we have
got used to. Though it does look shabby compared to the new mansions on our
street, we are not bothered by the comparison.

Most of the world and much of Singapore will lament the economic downturn.
We have been told to tighten our belts. There will undoubtedly be suffering,
which we must try our best to ameliorate.

But I personally think the hard times will hold a timely lesson for many
Singaporeans, especially those born after 1970 who have never lived through
difficult times.
No matter how poor you are in Singapore , the authorities and social groups
do try to ensure you have shelter and food. Nobody starves in Singapore .
Many of those who are currently living in mansions and enjoying a luxurious
lifestyle will probably still be able to do so, even if they might have to
downgrade from wines costing $20,000 a bottle to $10,000 a bottle. They
would hardly notice the difference.
Being wealthy is not a sin. It cannot be in a capitalist market economy.
Enjoying the fruits of one's own labour is one's prerogative and I have no
right to chastise those who choose to live luxuriously.
But if one is blinded by materialism, there would be no end to wanting and
hankering. After the Ferrari, what next? An Aston Martin? After the Hermes
Birkin handbag, what can one upgrade to?

Neither an Aston Martin nor an Hermes Birkin can make us truly happy or
contented. They are like dust, a fog obscuring the true meaning of life, and
can be blown away in the twinkling of an eye.
When the end approaches and we look back on our lives, will we regret the
latest mobile phone or luxury car that we did not acquire? Or would we
prefer to die at peace with ourselves, knowing that we have lived lives
filled with love, friendship and goodwill, that we have helped some of our
fellow voyagers along the way and that we have tried our best to leave this
world a slightly better place than how we found it?
We know which is the correct choice - and it is within our power to make
that choice.

In this new year, burdened as it is with the problems of the year that has
just ended, let us again try to choose wisely.
To a considerable degree, our happiness is within our own control, and we
should not follow the herd blindly.

Lee Wei Ling

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Rumoured 8-month Bonus for CDC Staff is 'In Line with NWC Guidelines'

Updated: 6th March 2009, 1800 hrs

Rumoured 8-month Bonus for CDC Staff is 'In Line with NWC Guidelines': People's Association

Rumours have been circulating online that two employees of Northwest Community Development Council received bonuses of 8 months last year, including the 13th month bonus. This first surfaced when a writer by the name of johnlaw2012 brought it up on the Channelnewsasia forum on the first of this month. This prompted Eugene Yeo, Chief Editor of the blog - Wayang Party Club, to write a letter to Northwest District Mayor Dr Teo Ho Pin. Mr Yeo wanted to confirm the rumour with Dr Teo. 938LIVE wasn't able to reach Dr Teo, who's overseas. Northwest CDC also declined comment, re-directing all queries instead to the People's Association or PA which manages the staff at all 5 CDCs here. In its email reply to 938 LIVE, the PA neither confirmed nor denied the rumour. It would only say that 'salaries are in line with the National Wages Council Guidelines'. This means they're performance-based and come with variable components based on economic and individual performance. This is to reward and incentivise staff fairly and responsibly. The PA adds that it is only staff at the lower-end of the salary range who will receive a higher performance bonus range. This allows such officers to move closer to the norm of other staff performing the same kind of job, but who have a higher basic monthly pay. It also helps the PA to retain outstanding performers. Overall, 'only a small proportion among top performers receive a higher bonus range'. The PA says performance bonus ranges and other salary components are reviewed regularly and go up or down in tandem with economic and market conditions. Given the current economic climate, it has cut its performance bonus pool, but the PA did not clarify by how much when asked. They say they're working within a 'smaller budget'. 938 LIVE however, understands from two previous CDC staff that the performance bonus payouts are part of what's known as the 'Loyalty Bonus Scheme'. This is paid out only to staff of a certain rank and above and payment is in two instalments. Bonus for work done in 2008 for instance, would be given out partially in 2008 and the other half in 2009. This scheme has been in place since 2005. Eligiblity criteria and salary details and bonus of staff are decided by the People's Association. As a statutory board, the PA is also free to implement a pay structure that best suits their staff, unlike ministries which come under the purview of the Public Service Division. http://938live.sg/portal/site/938Live/menuitem.43735da1634c4377d21b2910618000a0/?vgnextoid=bc14d2c8b1bdf110VgnVCM1000001f0aa8c0RCRD&mcParam=18d2638896593110VgnVCM100000e101000aRCRD

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Online Civil Disobedience in Singapore

Online Civil Disobedience in Singapore

That there has been online civil disobedience is a fact. Vivid evidence of it has been present with the blog positing of articles and rally pictures in particular during GE 2006.

Yet during the Institute of Policy Studies forum “Getting Their Hands Dirty: Recent Developments in Singapore’s Political Blogosphere” on 4 March 2006, its researchers, in particular Ms Tan Simin, went out of the way to persuade the audience present that what we have now in Singapore is “online civic participation”. Weighing in, IPS director Ong Keng Yong intervened and spoke at length during the Q&A when discussion heated up surrounding the term online civil disobedience. He said “online civil disobedience” should be countered least it is picked up by bloggers and the media and its use by them becomes widespread.

However, choosing not to acknowledge that in the context of Singapore’s internet regulation that online civil disobedience has taken place and is perhaps even ongoing is to ignore that there is a problem with the current state of regulation governing the breath of online political expression.

The term online civil disobedience is important because to some extent because the regulation surrounding online political expression is still unclear, many sites and bloggers maybe still operating illegally.

For instance, during the initial period of Think Centre in 1999, several of its online activities were investigated and its members administered police warnings for their online political expression. The fact that there has been no wide spread current governmental persecution of new online actors does not make such acts legal or illegal.

Thus it was not surprising that among the registered attendees included representatives from the Strategic Planning and Development and Policy and Operations divisions of the Ministry of Home Affairs as well as from the Public Communications Division of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

The crux of the review by IPS was to understand the political blogosphere landscape and to speculate its potential to make an impact on Singapore’s politics. Hence, the emphasis was equally on anonymous sites and bloggers in particular with high hit sites such as Wayang Party Club.

But the sub text that emerged from the presentation was that there is some ambiguity over the legality of these expressions in Singapore’s political blogosphere.

What is also important is that IPS researcher Mr. Tan Tarn How clearly acknowledged that anonymous bloggers are in reality only blogging in pseudonymous because governmental agencies in Singapore have the technical capacity to find out the identity of such bloggers or already know their identity.

There were several themes in the IPS seminar that came up that are worth highlighting here which give an indication on how the researchers view Singapore’s political blogosphere:

There was an attempt to suggest that anonymously run sites’ content may not be authentic or reliable.
Even sites that were not run anonymously were admonished for not being fully “professional”.
In the IPS sample, there is a clear attempt to avoid analysing or including political sites or sites of activists.
The term “online civic participation” is actively promoted while trying to simultaneously negate terms like “activism” and “online civil disobedience’.

The IPS forum apart from providing an insight into research on the political blogosphere in Singapore also provided an insight into the research culture and choice of analytical terms promoted within such institutions and among some of its researchers.

Online civil disobedience is an important concept to mull over because in Singapore’s short internet history, it possible to make the claim that online civil disobedience is a precursor to the current offline civil disobedience which is organised with the help of online mobilization tools.

Trying to water down such terms does not help sharpen our analysis of the emerging political blogosphere and its political impact in Singapore.

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Vaccines as Biological Weapons?

Originally published March 3 2009

Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) There's a popular medical thriller novel in which a global pandemic is intentionally set off by an evil plot designed to reduce the human population. In the book, a nefarious drug company inserts live avian flu viruses into vaccine materials that are distributed to countries around the world to be injected into patients as "flu shots." Those patients then become carriers for these highly-virulent strains of avian flu which go on to infect the world population and cause widespread death.

There's only one problem with this story: It's not fiction. Or, at least, the part about live avian flu viruses being inserted into vaccine materials isn't fiction. It's happening right now.

Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The "mistake" (if you can call it that, see below...) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened?

As published on LifeGen.de (http://www.lifegen.de/newsip/showne...), serious questions like this are being raised:

"Baxter International Inc. in Austria 'unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in laboratories in 3 neighbouring countries, raising concern about the potential spread of the deadly disease'. Austria, Germany, Slowenia and the Czech Republic - these are the countries in which labs were hit with dangerous viruses. Not by bioterrorist commandos, but by Baxter. In other words: One of the major global pharmaceutical players seems to have lost control over a virus which is considered by many virologists to be one of the components leading some day to a new pandemic."

Or, put another way, Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter -- which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world -- getting away with saying, essentially, "Oops?"

But there's a bigger question in all this: How could this company have accidentally mixed LIVE avian flu viruses (both H5N1 and H3N2, the human form) in this vaccine material?

Was the viral contamination intentional?

The shocking answer is that this couldn't have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.

As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf...):

"Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features."

Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.

This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:

Possibility #1: Baxter isn't following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that's the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter's materials?

Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.

It just so happens that a global bird flu pandemic would sell a LOT of bird flu vaccines. Although some naive people have a hard time believing that corporations would endanger human beings to make money, this is precisely the way corporations now behave in America's ethically-challenged free-market environment. (Remember Enron? Exxon? Merck? DuPont? Monsanto? Need I go on?)

Make no mistake: Spreading bird flu is a clever way to create demand for bird flu vaccines, and we've all seen very clearly how drug companies first market the problem and then "leap to the rescue" by selling the solution. (Disease mongering of ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc.)

Why it all suddenly makes sense

Until today, I would not have personally believed such a story. I personally thought talk of bird flu vaccines being "weaponized" was just alarmist hype. But now, in light of the fact that LIVE bird flu viruses are being openly found in vaccine materials that are distributed around the world, I must admit the evidence is increasingly compelling that something extremely dangerous is afoot.

Baxter, through either its mistakes or its evil intentions, just put the safety of the entire human race at risk. Given all the laboratory protocols put in place to prevent this kind of thing, it is difficult to believe this was just a mistake.

There is some speculation, in fact, that the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people worldwide (http://images.google.com/images?hl=...), was intentionally started by injecting servicemen with "experimental" flu vaccines that actually contained live, "weaponized" flu material just like the material being distributed by Baxter today.

Examine the historical record. You'll find that the 1918 flu originated with servicemen. Even more interestingly, it began in multiple cities, simultaneously! There is no single point of origin with the 1918 flu. It appears to have "spontaneously" sprung up across multiple cities all at once, including a military base in Kansas. (Kansas? Yep. So how did it get to Kansas in an era when air traffic was virtually non-existent? Vaccines, of course!)

All those cities and servicemen have one thing in common: Flu shot vaccinations given to them by the military.

If you put the pieces together on this, it's not too difficult to suspect that influenza could potentially be used as a tool of control by governments or drug companies to catalyze outrageous profit-taking or power grabbing agendas. A desperate, infected population will gladly give up anything or pay anything for the promise of being cured.

Or was it just an innocent mistake? Oops!

But for the skeptics who dismiss any such talk of conspiracy theories, let's examine the other possibility: That a global avian flu pandemic was nearly unleashed unintentionally due to the outrageous incompetence of the companies handling these viral strains.

As we just saw, this is a very real possibility. Had this live bird flu virus not been detected, it could have very easily found its way into vaccines that were injected into human beings. And this, in turn, could have unleashed a global avian flu pandemic.

If the drug companies making and handling these materials are so careless, then it seems like it's only a matter of time before something slips through the safety precautions again and gets unleashed into the wild. And that leads to essentially the same scenario: A global pandemic, widespread death, health care failures and a desperate population begging for vaccines.

So either way -- whether it's intentional or not -- you essentially get the same result.

Why a global pandemic is only a matter of time

I am on the record stating that a global pandemic is only a matter of time. The living conditions under which humans have placed themselves (crowded cities, suppressed immune systems, etc.) are ideal for the spread of infectious disease. But I never dreamed drug companies could actually be accelerating the pandemic timeline by contaminating vaccine materials with live avian flu viruses known to be highly infectious to humans. This, it seems, is a whole new cause for concern.

You can believe what you will. Maybe you agree with the nefarious plot theory and you agree that corporations are capable of great evils in their quest for profits. Or perhaps you can't accept that, so you go with the "accidental contamination" theory, in which your beliefs describe a very dangerous world where biohazard safety protocols are insufficient to protect us from all the crazy viral strains being toyed with at drug companies and government labs all across the world.

In either case, the world is not a very safe place when deadly viral strains are placed in the hands of the inept.

We are like children playing God with Mother Nature, rolling the dice in a global game of Viral Roulette where the odds are not in our favor. With companies like Baxter engaged in behaviors that are just begging to see the human race devastated by a global pandemic wipeout, it might be a good time to question the sanity of using viral strains in vaccines in the first place.

Vaccine-pushing scientists are so proud of their vaccines. They think they've conquered Mother Nature. Imagine their surprise when one day they learn they have actually killed 100 million human beings by unleashing a global pandemic.

We came close to it this week. A global pandemic may have just been averted by the thinnest of margins. Yet people go on with their lives, oblivious to what nearly happened.

What's inescapable at this point is the fact that the threat of a pandemic that looms for all of human civilization, and that drug companies may, themselves, be the source of that threat.

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Lee Wei Ling: Nobody knows tomorrow

Lee Wei Ling: Nobody knows tomorrow

By Lee Wei Ling, for the Sunday Times, 01 Mar 2009

The Straits Times carried last week a story about a group of Singaporeans whose rented minibus had careened off the highway and plunged down an embankment near Milford Sound in New Zealand.

Two passengers had to be airlifted to hospital. The most seriously injured was a 59-year-old woman who fractured her spine, arm and collarbone and required surgery.

Police believe that the driver was driving too fast and may also ‘have been distracted by the spectacular view’. Those injured had not worn their seat belts.

The report brought back memories of my own close brush with death on Dec 23, 1995. I was on a hiking holiday in New Zealand, having arrived in Christchurch the preceding day.

A car rental company had delivered a brand new Holden direct from the factory to my hotel on the morning of Dec 23. I drove across Arthur’s Pass to Punakaiki (Pancake Rocks) on the west coast of South Island. After walking around a scenic lookout, I drove south along the coastal road to Greymouth, where I had reserved a motel room.

On my right, a sheer drop thousands of metres below, was the azure Tasman Sea. On my left was the mountain, into the sides of which the road with hairpin bends was carved. I kept one eye on the road and the other on the sea with its pounding surf. The scenery was magnificent.

Suddenly, I noticed a road sign - ‘30km/hr’ - just before a very sharp bend in the road. I stepped on the brakes. The next moment, the car was spinning out of control.

‘Damn it, what an inconvenient place to have an accident,’ I thought as I pictured in my mind’s eye the car on the ocean bed, divers trying to cut open the car door, people leafing through my wet passport, and the Singapore High Commission in Wellington telephoning my parents in Singapore.

The car crashed into the mountainside with such tremendous force it turned 180 degrees. The front of the car faced the road, while the rear end was ramped up the mountainside as it slid into the ditch beside the road. If I had not had my seat belt on, I would have been flung against the windscreen. Instead, to my astonishment, I was totally unharmed.

My next problem was to get the car out of the ditch. I walked down to a village a few kilometres from the site of the accident and went into a house that had its door wide open. A man appeared in response to my loud ‘Hello, hello’.

After hearing my story, he fetched a thick rope, drove his car to the site of the bashed-up Holden, tied his car to it and managed to tow it out of the ditch. He then test-drove the Holden. He told me that I could drive the short distance to my motel but to be careful because the bonnet was no longer secure and might at any moment spring up and obscure my vision. I thanked him profusely and thought to myself: ‘New Zealanders are kinder than Singaporeans. I am not sure I would have done the same if our situations had been reversed!’

I got to my motel safely but found that there was no vacancy for Dec 24. By hook or by crook, I had to get the rental car replaced and drive on to my next motel near the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers the next day.

Next morning, the rental car company replaced my car and I continued on the rest of my holiday as planned. I was pleased with myself for having been calm and cool throughout the episode and had no intention of letting my parents know what had happened.

On Dec 31, I returned to Singapore as planned. When I arrived at Changi Airport, I phoned my mother and said: ‘Hi Ma, I am home safe.’ A few weeks later, my cousin told me that my mother had subsequently said to her: ‘Something happened to Ling on that trip. I’d rather not know what.’

My mother knew me better than I knew myself. She sensed that the phone call from Changi Airport indicated that I must have encountered danger during the trip.

I have been hiking since my youth, usually alone. By hiking alone, I break the first rule in any hiking book. I know the risk I am taking. I always calculate my risks. Where hikes are concerned, I balance the pleasure of solitude, the beauty of nature and the physical challenge of the hike against the risks of each particular route, as determined by the terrain and the weather. I have had many close calls but the incident in New Zealand was the closest.

My hiking and my occupation as a doctor bring home to me the saying that no one knows tomorrow; in fact, we don’t even know our next moment. I go hiking alone, courting danger, yet fate has spared me many times. On the other hand, while safely in Singapore, medical mishaps have on several occasions put me in very precarious situations.

The two lessons of this story that I hope to share with readers are:

To not wear a seat belt in a moving vehicle is foolhardy. Why risk life and limb unnecessarily? I go hiking alone because I like the thrill of taking on nature single-handedly and to prove to myself that I am not a coward. An analogy would be why people risk their lives climbing Mount Everest. But one proves nothing by omitting to wear a seat belt other than that one is foolish.

Never put off till tomorrow something that one can and should do today. There may be no tomorrow.

Lee Wei Ling

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute

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