I am irrationally ideological but not critical
I believe in goodness in humanity but believe I am disillusioned. I believe in mind over body, believe in contentment for happiness. But I allow my body to fool my mind, and allow worldly desire to dissatisfy my contentment.
A dichotomy of belief clouds my aura.
I am the most manipulative person I know.
But I use my powers for good. Most times.
I used to be a nobody; working 9-6 on a regular job in a MNC company. Trying to save up the miserable pay to go on a holiday once a year. Life is just between home and office.
Now I am an entrepreneur; a gallerist set on a mission to help the low income and underprivileged artists, to help those in need of a platform to showcase their art.... and hopefully sell their works and make a living. It is no longer about MONEY, but the social cause and how you give back to the society. This makes me HAPPY.
A friend once said: you can earn loads of MONEY in this life... but at the edge of your life lying on the sick bed, is it MONEY you are still thinking of?? Or the moments you wished you had done in your life? Have you lead a HAPPY life?
Being quite a complex character and having suffered mental illness in the past I am very sensitive and aware of other people's feelings. I'm blessed with a wonderfully supportive family to whom I'm very grateful.
You know me, Nicola. You know me because I discovered that I love art. Not all art. Art at school was traditional - I am twice your age. 20th century art started to fire my imagination. It was familiar subjects seen with imagination - impressionist....then post impressionist. I started to collect pop-art which symbolised the icons of my life, and then I discovered your work: your use of words in art fascinated me. It resonated with me; it spoke back to me; I felt that it understood my feelings and echoed them, questioned them. I interacted with your art, I questioned myself, and understood myself better. I am now a better, happier, more contented and compassionate person.
Thank you! Thank you very much!
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I am more brave and yet more timid than I show myself to be. I am more afraid of being successful than I am of 'failing'. I love supporting people and this is my vocation; yet I also really embrace the times when I can be alone and go into retreat whenever I can. It is my selfishness that makes me more generous. I have always felt an outsider within my own family, yet so bound by their ideas of how to live life. I am a dichotomy.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I am me. Coasting along at a constant. A barometer of normality to the outside world. Uninspiring, uneventful and under valued. I am me.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
Being an artist and an author can be fun.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
Many people see me as this huge bubbly happy giant, that is flamboyant, loud, confident and approachable but not many knows that because of my past relationship, scarred me and I've became this timid, melancholic man who doesn't know what love is, afraid of building anything new, constantly feeling worthless and doubtful that I will ever meet anyone who will genuinely like me.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
Since I was a child, I have been living in a big family tension of being a girl. My parents would have different lives if I was born as a boy. I chose to run away from that shadow when I was 19 and lived outside of that traditional box. Art has taken me back to the root. I hope to wake more people up through my work to have less girls being hurt in China.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I started working in Singapore 2012. I worked as a caregiver to an elderly lady 92 years old who was bedridden. At first my employer was very good to me and I thought I am so blessed because I will be working with Christian Family. He is a Pastor in one of the churches here in Singapore and I think the wife has a big role in the Christian community. I loved my work even though it was very tiring and I did not have my own room. I slept with the old lady and needed to watch her 24 hours a day. I was disappointed that they treated us as a slave. We cannot eat their food even grapes it seems like they are counting it. They would give us rotten fruit and one day the son arrived from overseas where he studied, and the brother saw him using our utensils. In front of us he told the brother that must not use that cup that’s the maid's cup its DIRTY! Because I can't control my emotions that time I answered him back and told him if we are dirty remember we are the ones who will prepare your meals.
I lost a lot of weight that time because I didn't have enough rest and food. The husband was Itchy. One time I was going to transfer the old lady from wheelchair to bed but the boss went at my back and hug me tight because I was very scared that time I dropped the old lady, luckily on her bed, and ran out from the room. From then on I was very observant with him. After that if the old lady and I were the only ones in the house and the doorbell rang, when I saw who's outside I opened the door and went straight to our toilet and locked myself there for an hour until I am sure that my co helper is back from the supermarket. After that I decided to look for another family. Thanks God I found an expat family when they confirmed that they will hire me I told my Chinese family that I can't finish my contract anymore, I begged in front of them not to send me back home because I really need to work overseas to provide the needs for my family way back home in the Philippines. And she told me I have to wait because they will find for my replacement so I am confident enough that they will sign my release papers, but unfortunately it was 1:30 in the afternoon when she told me that I need to packed because I needed to be at the airport by 3pm for my flight at 5pm. I cried a lot until I reached my country.
And now I am thankful to God that I came back to a new opportunity, with a good family who treat me well.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I love children and I think they are such a joy in life. I have seen our country become more and more child friendly and turn into a great place for bright young people. But in the past, I have thought a lot about the souls that we bring into the world. I came through the time in the 1970s when in Singapore you were penalised for having too many children, which was stated as more than two. You would be fined after two children and your third child would not necessarily have a school placement and they got lower priorities in education. There were a lot of extra fees charged for children after two.
For example, you had to pay additional delivery fees in a hospital to give birth to a third child. Its three months wages you were fined, I think. I had two children that I was fined and penalised for but it’s worth it - all the people who made choices for abortion and sterilisation when I did not, those who said oh just keep the money don't have the children, they are not happy people now. It caused me a lot of financial harm, you cannot get a good education for the child. In the end, I had to sell my family home, to get money to send my daughter to university. But now she has become very successful, and has bought back to the family home her own earnings. A gift to us. Nowadays life is very different in Singapore and young people are encouraged to marry young, and have larger families. This is the way of life, nature is a great force, souls who are meant to be born will be born.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I work in a local Hawker centre. I am a family-centred, proud, breadwinner who loves his family. Recently I was travelling on the mrt when I collapsed with a stroke. I was hospitalised for three days before I could inform my local employer and my family in China. My family was distressed. My employer was quite supportive, they made arrangements for my family to come over. However, the insurance could not cover what happened to me because I had a stroke. A stroke is seen as a stress related condition rather than a work related injury or condition, therefore it cannot be covered by the employers insurance. The employer chose not to support my physio therapy here. However this therapy is so important to help me regain use of my right side which is currently paralysed. The only way for the right side of my body to be able to move even though the left side of my brain is damaged, is to do physio exercises which train my right brain to take control of my right side as well as the left.
I know that the stress is work related, because all I do is work. My monthly wage including as much overtime as is physically possible is $700. Every day I lied to my daughter, son and wife in China that life was good, so as not to worry them. Eventually the physical and emotional stress led to this stroke.
I have no way to pay the bills. I will not be able to come back to work in Singapore again because I have passed the age limit. My daughter is married and cannot work. My son is studying. In China I will have to pay my own health expenses too, and somehow my family will have to find a way to live as well as help me recover, moving forward together finding a new way to survive. This is so sad for me as I have always been their supporter and protector. I like to be the pillar of my family. How will I face my family and myself?
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
When I have an emotional response I eat. I was morbidly obese. I would just eat my feelings. When young, we were not fed, so now I am an adult, I do not ever feel full. If I did eat I would eat until I was sick. It was an addiction issue. I tried very hard to conquer it and was just not able to.
I feel like I am carrying the damaged me around with me too - a whole other person in body weight. It was the way I had carried the troubles. But I realised it was OK to ask for help, and I got my stomach cut out. Addiction lives in the survival centres of your brain. You make decisions in the executive centres, but your survival centres say override with their own decisions. I lost and gained 200 kg over time. As the Bible says, if your eye is causing you to sin, just pluck it out, if your arm is causing you to sin cut it off. I dont want to be just someone who gets through it. I want to be someone who lives my life.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
A lot of the time in this industry you just have to adjust your expectation for being on the road. You go out in your taxi with the mindset of wearing a bulletproof vest.
Sometimes my passengers or other drivers have anger. People are just stressed, they are just going to their office. So, they will just throw their garbage at everyone that comes along.
You just have to take no extra notice of their behavior. They forget that I am a person, not just a taxi. A lot of the time it’s just because of their unhappiness in the workplace, or here and there. They’re just so upset and they don’t know how to release their stress. But it’s still alright, it’s alright.
Every day I get to meet all sorts of people. But most of the characters I see in the wee hours - they get to see these kind of people. I got a transvestite who got his clothing changed in the taxi along the way! What are you going to do? It’s like, oh gosh, you know? You see all sorts of people, especially in the red light district. Drinking. I see the human side of life.
So sad that we have evolved into that kind of stature. You see a lot of this in the UK but I think in the UK it’s not like here, we are still a lot safer.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I‘ve lived in this home for two years, it’s a fairly new HDB block. We’ve been waiting for this place for five years so when it came we were very happy because our kids needed space. We were living with my mother in law so it was kind of squeezy and sometimes there was a bit of tension. But once I got here we didn’t have money to do up the space.
We are Christian so we prayed and we believe in Providence, so there were things that happened that made this possible. We had a friend who just came to my house and dropped off a whole bunch of tools. At that time I didn’t know carpentry so I just went online to learn. That saved a lot of money because then we could just buy the bare essentials and I started doing all this. Most of the stuff I drilled in myself so that we could have a nice space. Another thing was furniture - people would just give us a voucher, so we had furniture. Some people would ask what we needed, and then said...We’ll bless you...and so we had a washer and a fridge.
This house is a house of Providence, this house is a house of answered prayers. This house is also a dream come true. For Singaporeans, space is very tight.
When I got this HDB I was very excited. My inspiration is Ban Shigeru, a Japanese architect. He works with very natural materials like bamboo and paper to make houses and I find it so brilliant, so beautiful. I went to look for materials inspired by him. Everything is light, and clear, wooden, natural. It is something that I find lacking in a lot of HDB spaces, it’s a huge concrete space and people don’t know how to rest in their homes. Our materials enable us to rest.
Since we didn’t have much, and we also don’t need much, we live our lives very simply. So in case of a fire, I will run out, and have nothing left. But it’s all right, because we like a simple life. I think Singapore is very busy. I think if you don’t stop and smell the roses, you know it’s gonna pass you by. So when we homeschool, it’s with that in mind. It’s why we are just really going to enjoy life as a family: for richer for poorer, ‘till death do us part. We really want to be together.
So this house is precious to us that way, it symbolizes so many things.
I’m obsessed with the notions of time and eternity and family. It crops up in a lot of my things. It’s there, it’s inevitable… it’s us, you know? Time really starts for us when we are born. So it’s a powerful currency.
I am so in love with the two people in my life - my husband and my son. I love them so much it feels like pieces of my heart are walking around outside my body, vulnerable to hurt and pain.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
One day, I learnt to enjoy the taste of defeat again without dampening my spirit.
This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I am a bit of everything, in more ways than one. The molecules that make up my body are part of the universe. I am curious about dying, but not ready to go yet.