17 years of education and what do we have to show for it?

On some days, I encounter relatives or friends who will mention that I have a bright future ahead. When I mention that all I really want to do is to read and write books, sometimes their honesty can surprise me.

“You study so high, want to do work like that meh?”

Six years of primary schools, five of secondary schools, two of pre-university, and four of university. What do we have to show for it? Getting up to the stage to collect a piece of paper that is supposedly a recognition of our achievement and ticket to the working world? All of which happens within a minute, literally.

All graduates, no matter how much confidence they project outwardly, face this one big question, “What do we do now?”

Well, get a job, of course! So from one routine we jumped to another.

The school compound metamorphosed into university campus, and now, office. We commute to workplace just like how we went to school.

We have bigger things, of course. The school bus is substituted with the private vehicles and public transport. The prison compound has gotten bigger, we have more space to move around, but it is still a prison.

We are required to turn up at a specific time, stay inside for a specific number of hours, and doing specific tasks. But surely, there is more to life than this.

In this farcical rat race, the three orders of the day seem to be:

Job security

Financial stability

Career mobility

The way these three slogans are so ingrained in our mind is almost as if we are in an Orwellian or Huxleyan novel.

The struggle to carve meaning and significance for ourselves can be difficult. Nay, must necessarily be difficult in a universe which doesn’t care about us.

It can be tempting to settle for life that is just like everyone else. Like they say, there’s nothing more addictive than drugs, sex, and a monthly salary.

Every so often, we are reminded of this farcical chase for significance and recognition, masked under the various names of material wealth.

If you complain about the meaninglessness of it all, someone will tell you, “so-and-so is doing well and just bought a new car. What are you going to have in 10, 20 years? Others will get ahead and you will be left behind. What’s the purpose of you being highly educated if you don’t want to work and climb up the ladder?”

Why do I have a problem with this farcical chase? It subordinates all activities to the imperatives of an incessant drive for the accumulation of money, status, property, and material comforts (new cars, branded bags, etc).

For the sake of pleasing others and making ourselves feel important, we strive for things which, upon attaining it, may not be what we want after all.

We look forward to the next purchase and accumulate things which we think will make us happy. We pursue things which other people say we need.

We do not do what we want, let alone the way we want it to be done, but what other people want. We are helping to realise another person’s wishes, but what about our own dreams and ambitions?

On a higher level of analysis, this necessitation of job security, career mobility and financial stability is a surrender of direct control of capital over labour.

Borrowing an observation from Ernest Mandel, not only we reduce ourselves to a mere supply of labour power, we are compulsed to sell our labour power to the capitalists.

Recently, I was granted the chance to visit a printing press factory. What an education that was! The production process, from digital fine-tuning to printing to copying to gluing, binding, packaging, is an exemplar of mass production at its finest.

Each machine, and each part of a machine, plays a specific and yet important role. If one screw is not functioning, the whole production process is delayed. Even if it seems to be doing a minor task, minor in my opinion. There was a part in the huge machine whose sole job, or function, is to suck up the book, and then another part will push the book to the next platform. Other parts will take care of the next stage.

As I was observing the machines and the whole production, it occurred to me that most of us are living like that, too. Society is the factory, we want to achieve a specific output, say high-income nation.

Every individual is a machine, or a part of a machine, and we all play specific job or function to achieve the desired output.

Though I can understand the logic, and perhaps necessity, of mass production and an organised society, it is hard for me to submit to it. We are not machines. There is a certain satisfaction when we consciously and deliberately make a decision, even if we know it may lead to negative consequences, as if we are reminding ourselves that we still have a freedom which we can exercise.

For example, while 2+2 = 4 is obviously right, sometimes 2+2 = 5 can be interesting, too. The ability to exercise our freedom, even if we knew we are choosing the lesser path, can be satisfying, and some may say is what separates us from a machine.

A machine cannot choose its function or job. A deliberate error can be more satisfying than a correct decision.

I admire musicians and poets. When I was in the US, I was a frequent patron of Kerouac Kafe. Every Wednesday night is Poetry Open Mic, and almost every other day you have a group of unknown bands of musicians.

Sometimes it requires great patience to listen to them, but some are really good. What I admire about these poets and musicians is that they know they are not going to make it. They know they are not going to make big bucks and stable career.

But this is what they like to do and will continue to do so, with or without a job. They deliberately choose the path which will give them less money, security, and stability, but enables them to pursue their primary interest: to play music and write poetry.

To return, it’s not that we underwent 17 years of education and have nothing to show. It’s just that we shouldn’t have to show or prove anything. The merit of an education is the quality of mind that it produces.

Not the type of job we get, not how much money we are making, not how much we are ahead or behind. My education makes me who I am, and that is the most important thing. It is precisely because of my education, not in spite of, that I deliberately refuse to join the farcical chase for material gains and approval from others.

If I can decide what would be carved on my gravestone, I would like it to be “Ooi Kok Hin, 1992-20XX. He tried to live on his terms”.

If there is still space, maybe they can also scribble the words of the famous dead poet, putting a fitting finale to the finite existence: “I went into the woods because I want to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life! To put to rout all that was not life... and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – October 24, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.