Whose life is it anyway?

I read on ST today about a 100, 000 people-march in Jakarta supporting an anti-porn Bill.

Firstly, this post is nothing against their religion. So ISD dearies, don't start associating me with any Act... especially the seditious kind.

In the article, it was reported that "it would also make organising erotic dancing punishable by up to 10 years in prison and public kissing on the mouth punishable by five years or a fine".

This set me thinking. If I lived in a country that banned me from kissing on the mouth in public, what else can't I be banned from doing?

I learnt about cultural norms in school. It was really engaging because what was perfectly acceptable in one country would be tremendously wrong in another. Something in my readings three or four years ago had a similar illustration - A law states that taking someone else's belongings without his/her permission is wrong and this act is punishable. But if that chunk of law were never written, it is still ok to punish the doer? Then, will it be almost unlikely that anyone can say it is wrong?

Can we say the moon is pink when no one has ever seen one like that?

Sometimes, we do get very influenced by our environment. Government, society, people, education, technology and what not. In fact, our mind is shaped by and, how coincidentally, mimics what it sees in the environment. It's a vicious cycle.

Almost losing any genes of individuality in the process.

I remember my formative years. My choices were always to ensure I was in the system. Whichever kind, as long as it belonged to the main stream. I expected my parents to expect me to choose this. I expected my friends to think that would be a good choice. I expected.. wait... who really was i expecting to expect any thing I decided on? Me?

I expected myself to expect me to prefer one choice over the other.

Ok this is getting too convoluted.

One big decision I remember making was choosing to go to CS over NUS's BisAd. Remember it to be an extremely difficult choice. Entering top schools previously was seemingly paving my way to better jobs. Naturally, BisAd was a convenient choice. Business = Show me the money. Plus BisAd had already admitted me, why bother going through turmoil to change what has been fixed? Only, it wasn't that fixed in my mind. I knew from what I've always enjoyed that CS seemed to be somewhere that I could actually enjoy education. And the result of making the switch back then is immensely rewarding.

Whose life was I leading? By making that switcharoo, mine.