False idols

Good morning school leaders and fellow human beings. When I was a teen, my idol was Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the grunge band Nirvana and symbol of rebellion against the establishment. But now looking back, I realised that my idolatry was ill-founded. Sure, he was a talented musician but what did he do with his talent? Nothing. Write many popular songs, abuse drugs and blow his brains out with a gun..in that order and people still mourn for his passing in ill-founded confusion.

Many of us are confused. We confuse many “big” things such as prestigious education, talent, personal success, recognition and admiration of others and money as the markers of who we should look up to as an idol. Many of you may wrongfully point to the various gyrating and cosmetically-enhanced K pop stars as idols. So who should we look to as role models?

Ignore the glitz and glamor and do some research and you will find many deserving individuals among us. We all have heard of Mother Teresa. But did you know that Singapore had our very own mother Teresa? And unlike the former who was morally dubious in various ways (read Christopher Hitchens. The missionary position, Mother Theresa: In theory and practice), our own Teresa Hsu Chih walked the walk without excessively talking the talk or allow herself to be poached for publicity purposes by celebrities. She came from an underprivileged family and worked as a cleaner for many years and self-studied to pass her senior cambridge education. She later quit her work while in HK to volunteer as a caregiver for the injured during WW2. She later was in Paraguay, Malaysia and then SG where she helped to set up and run many centres to care for the aged and sickly. Indeed, she selfishly gave of herself in too many ways for me to squeeze into this short speech. Lastly, she passed away on December of last year, peacefully at home and was cremated on the same day without any rites, honoration event or announcement to the public, as by her last instructions. Now that’s what I call a role model. Thank you.