Bio of the Philosopher
My taste buds were bland and unstimulated. I could only taste what was fed to me– “knowledge” from textbooks and “recommended readings” to prepare myself for exams. I followed teachers’ and tuition teachers’ instructions religiously.
I was taught that studying hard and regurgitating what was taught is a virtue that every good student should have and the opposite is a vice that should be avoided.
However, I began to question this dichotomy of good and bad, praised and accepted blindly by almost everyone, when I tasted the flavour of emptiness lingering at the back of my tongue when I received my results for the Malaysian Certificate of Education. I got straight As, but I felt empty. I realized that my 5 years of hard work were translated into only a few letters burned onto a piece of embossed paper, which many others also have. And I also realized that I have spent my 5 years of high school life operating like a machine; I never knew or wondered who I am, what I want, how I want to live, and why I do everything I do. My consciousness has way departed from the piece of cert I was holding, and I felt my emptiness grow to the extent that it can fill up the entire space of the auditorium. I didn’t know if my peers felt it too, but it seemed like most of them were either busy sharing the good news with their parents over their phones, or for those who didn’t do so well, they had droopy eyebrows drawn over their faces.
While most of my peers made the choice to immediately continue their higher education, I decided to take a more unconventional path. I didn’t have a plan in mind; I was hoping to figure out my path by letting go of any forms of structures or rigidity. I took a gap year; the decision was doubted and questioned by many, as expected, but I didn’t let others’ opinions take me down.
The Taste of Life
For the first time in my entire life, I tasted the tang of life – it is a little nerve-wrecking, but it is mostly exciting and enriching.
I believe everyone’s quale of life is different (in Philosophy, “quale” is a subjective or phenomenal quality of an object as perceived by a person). But for my case, life feels most lived when I experience breaking my own bubble of knowledge through questioning, inquiring and challenging the status quo.
During my gap year, I partook in a kaleidoscope of activities and ventures I never thought possible when I was trapped in “bad faith” in my high school years. In Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism, “bad faith” is a phenomenon where one refuses to confront choices or alternative possibilities in his or her life by yielding to the values or norms in society, and end up disowning his or her freedom. One of the best discoveries I made during my gap year was discovering the beauty of philosophy. It was through an online course I took called the “Introduction to Philosophy” by the University of Edinburgh. I could still vividly recall the module on Epistemology (the study of knowledge) which got me rethinking the “knowledge” I have learnt throughout my high school years. I never knew that knowledge is “justified” through beliefs and is not regurgitated, I never knew the foundation of knowledge can be shattered through scepticism, and I certainly never knew we could question almost everything in this reality, including the seemingly infallible facts of science.
The Taste of Passion
Embarking on a philosophy degree journey, I tasted passion for the first time.
It wasn’t easy at first, but philosophy opened up worlds that weren’t available to me. I learned to suspend my judgments rather than blindly accept what is presented to me, embrace opposing viewpoints and consider alternative perspectives, and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of arguments. The skills that philosophy taught me are not easily discardable, like the information I learned and regurgitated back in high school.
It taught me better critical thinking, decision making and problem solving. For instance, when I am faced with obstacles at work, my years of training in philosophy allowed me to work through the problems in a logical framework, by analysing the logical consequences of each possible solution and figure out the most viable outcome that minimizes the utility lost.
Many people, including you and I, have practiced or are currently practicing philosophy in our everyday life, from the way we think, the questions we ask, to the way we behave; you are probably just not aware of it. For example, you are upset about not performing well on a task at work or school, so you decided to take a break from your work, practice meditation, listen to some music, and distance yourself from the situation at hand. You tell yourself, you have already done your best, and whatever your boss thinks or how the results turn out to be is not up to your control. Without you realizing, you are actually practicing Stoicism’s Dichotomy of Control – you practice focusing on things that are within your control and accept that certain things are not worth frustrating over with. In short, philosophy brought me out of my bubble of knowledge, and most importantly, it ensured my journey of learning and living is one that is full-bodied.
It didn’t stop there. I wanted to share this joy I found in my encounter with philosophy with more people in Malaysia. I believe the Malaysian education system can do better in terms of instilling creativity and critical thinking amongst the students.
The Malaysian education system, for those of you who have experienced it, can be characterized as a linear model where teaching and learning form a one-way current – that is, the educators disseminate the information to the students and the students absorb them like a sponge.
This is because we follow the British education system established in Malaysia since the British colonisation era. Things have progressed since then, but the pace of progress of education is significantly slower than the progress of science and technology in our country.
We are educated in ways that cannot sufficiently prepare us for the challenges of the modern world.
The skills required in today‘s working environment are vastly different from those of a few decades ago. With the rapid progression of science and technological advancement, it is not open to the workforce to rest on their laurels. It is the eagerness to learn new information and the critical thinking ability to assimilate and apply the new knowledge we learned that allow us to keep up with the constant change in contemporary society. Here is where Philosophy comes in.
I co-founded the Malaysian Philosophy Society with Dr. Tee Chen Giap, for this very reason – to introduce and integrate philosophy and critical thinking into the education system and everyday life of Malaysians.
Taste of Hope
It was during that time that I tasted hope – the hope that there is room for change in the education climate in Malaysia. We have been working towards the goal of building an ecosystem of philosophy and critical thinking here in Malaysia by holding onto that piece of hope since the end of 2016. Our modus operandi is making philosophy practical, that is, using philosophy to solve everyday life and real-world problems, through the content, events and projects we do.
It is worth noting that we are not dumbing down philosophy, rather, we make the already practical aspects of philosophy more explicit by:
- Actively analysing local problems through the lens of philosophy,
- Translating general questions that philosophers ask into specific ones targeted on local issues, and
- Collaborating with multidisciplinary thinkers and policy makers to plant philosophy’s position in the hearts and minds of everyday Malaysians.
I hope, in the near future, we can all taste the local flavour of kemajuan (progress) in our country through philosophy. To end, I would like to cordially invite you to hold the hands of courage to open the terrain of your taste buds to new stimuli and spices out there, for you will be surprised by the new possibilities that are opened up to you.
I would of course encourage you to give the dish of philosophy a try as well. Whether you like it or not, at least you have given it a go.