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Imagine that you could have every single thing your heart desires. No restrictions.
Do you think you could envisage it all at once? I mean, do you believe that on any given day you know precisely what it would take to make you absolutely content?
Unlikely, I’d say at first, then I’d let it sink in and amend it to downright impossible. Every day makes its own new wish list, doesn’t it?
I was thinking about what it would take for me to have it all. At this point, top of the list would be good health. At different times there’d be others, and I’m only talking about the number one spot.
Nothing remains the same. It would be quite dreary if it did. And if we expect it to, that is cause for alarm.
Circumstances change, people change, priorities change… does it sum it up adequately to say times change? We often hear that lifeforms survive because of the capacity to adapt—survival of the fittest according to Darwin. We’ve got to keep up!
With the planet itself lurching about in a complicated, contradictory, fragmented manner, can we naturally select what goes into our wish list? Given that each one of us is a muddle of our own arbitrarily assembled ingredients, is it possible to have a cohesive recipe that serves up everything to everyone?
I’m all over the place with this one, because even if it lurks only in our back brains, we already know this stuff. You can’t please everyone. You probably can’t even please yourself.
My big-picture friend wanted me to look at some videos about some of the marvellous investments made in the development of Singapore—it’s his model society.
There was one on the Changi Airport, a massive, dazzling construction that boggles the mind.
The concept was planked on several platforms: creating a structure that was in itself a tourist attraction; a design that incorporated several eco-friendly features, using thousands of trees and shrubs, and the tallest indoor waterfall—everything on an unimaginable scale.
It was designed by Moshe Safdie, who was also responsible for the famous Marina Bay Sands resort, another pioneering structure. It came from their Prime Minister’s 1960s vision of transforming the island into the garden city of the world, and it has cost billions.
Likewise, my friend wanted me to look at the way they have deployed solar farms, rows and rows of panels floating atop their water reservoirs.
It is an efficient and scientifically-driven way of sustainable development: the water keeps the panels cool and the panels act as a barrier against the sun’s rays, slowing down the process of evaporation.
Singapore has often been touted as a worthy model for us here in Trinidad and Tobago, with our similar climate and size. But the truth is, the Singaporean culture has been reshaped over at least six decades and therein lies a substantial difference.
Known for its highly regimented system where public and private behaviour is heavily monitored and many acts are mandatory, it would feel that citizens are asked to conform to rules in ways that our society could not even comprehend.
On a visit there, the late Anthony Bourdain had hooked up with a couple different groups of young people and asked them if they did not feel too restricted. They unanimously (and maybe it was for the camera) declared that the privileges and opportunities they had far outweighed anything that might seem like a downside to the Western world.
I could see how that could be an attractive reality. If you are born into a place where chewing gum and spitting on the street is forbidden, is that a deprivation?
That’s simplifying it, of course, but my point is that it was a cultural shift, artificially introduced, but one that has taken root as solidly as anything from natural selection.
Photo: The Abroad Blog
And here we are, gnashing our gums at the local politics and working ourselves into hot lathers over the prospects ahead.
If we had to imagine what would constitute the fulfilled life we want—every single thing your heart desires—what would it contain? Look back at the past six decades or so (you didn’t have to be alive to undertake this research exercise), what do you think has truly evolved?
If you are inclined to plunk all responsibility onto the shoulders of politicians, what were the decisions that were made that took the society onto a journey of sustainable development? Was there ever a concept of an ideal Trinidad and Tobago?
Did we have a version of a garden city? Did we imagine something of a whole, with a recognisable identity?
Did we caress the texture of our spirits and say, well, let us be a carnival city—and if we are going to be a carnival city, let us encourage the vibrancy and creativity that shimmers among us and work deliberately towards crafting that image sustainably?
Did we get side-tracked by the oil? Perhaps it was a tragic gift, but I would say that fundamentally, we launched ourselves without ever considering the big picture, without a care for the future—the future that is upon us today.
Photo: Lost Tribe
As we superficially evaluate the politicians and the political parties, let’s ask ourselves what changes they can be reasonably expected to bring. Where should the vision of our future come from?
From within us, I submit.
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Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
