The Leisure article - Happy Holidays !

I'm two days away from my birthday, so it's time to slow down and talk about hobbies and interests. I have not been doing very much this holiday season even though I see a lot of folks going on staycations and travels via VTL. Also, my family has decided to stay put. 

Personally, I'm betting that things will get much better once the Pfizer pill gets deployed in Singapore. We basically have a way of not overtaxing our medical facilities and the opening will accelerate faster by then. Even now, we're seeing better numbers every day although Omicron may start to hit us hard in January 2022. 

I only have two things to share with the readers as we come to a close this year.

a) Session Zero - A D&D-themed theatre production

Generally speaking, I will not support the local Arts scene because I don't want my money to flow to woke people, but I really have to make an exception when a local production channels my favourite hobby Dungeons & Dragons. My fear is that the reception falls flat and someone loses money - then no one will support productions with D&D references in the future. 

For my first attempt to watch a play, I made sure that my party had the skills to navigate the scene, so I was accompanied by not one but two English Literature teachers, and it really helped me with appreciating the experience. The best bits I picked up is the team behind the production and how the professor thinks when improving the script. I was obviously more interested in whether the play can break even financially and the teachers explained to me that selling out is often not enough and rents still need to be paid. We estimated one full house session to bring in about 20 x $35 or $700 and rental of the premises may be several hundred a day. And there are many mouths to feed.

Still, I don't need an expert to tell me that the acting was way better than Mediacorp and the two actors did a fantastic job. Sadly the fairly brutal and real story of a disintegrating marriage was somewhat wasted on someone like me who prefer stories set in the MCU replete with pop culture references. The script really does hit really close to home and as a D&D fanboy, I felt it hit the number of requisite RPG references. 

Maybe it's just me, but 75% of the fun is talking about the event after the fact in the ice-cream parlour. It would have made a nice dating event and I was somewhat dismayed at the lack of, in woke-speak, (cis-het) couples attending the event. I'm trying my hand currently at match-making some of my friends and I must say that plays and theatre is a good choice of venue.   

Now I know that Gen-Z is gently castrating themselves our population is doomed!

b) Hikes with random friends

While I remain quite ambivalent about the Arts, I genuinely enjoyed the hikes I had for the past few weeks. It started out with ex-colleagues inviting me to meet up at 745am to climb Bukit Timah hill. It was really tiring at first, but it led to better sleep at night. 

I took some pictures of my hikes and, eventually, some friends who were on leave started to ask whether I am free to hike with them. I think the guy who FIREs is like a friend of last resort. These hikes were so random but I managed to get an invite every week now. I started with 12k steps and now I'm doing about 25k without really feeling tired. My last hike did not last too long, but I was able to swim the day after and there seems to be no need for a recovery period the next day. 

The challenge for me now is to assemble a team to walk the entire Rail Corridor from Hillview to Tanjong Pagar. Currently, I can only do half on one go. But this is not such a big deal with folks inviting me to their hikes and I let them determine the route.

I will just focus on making the dialogue as interesting as possible. 

In two days time, I'm going to be 47. There will come a time when my fluid intelligence drops, I lose my open-mindedness to new experiences, and I will become a cranky old man. I think the struggle is to continue to be relevant and fun. Fortunately, exposure to law school where I get to work with folks half my age has helped. 

Here's the thing that is interesting: For now, all the folks who invited me to walk with them are younger than me, some more than a decade younger. 

Maybe I'm using them to stay young, but hanging with Gen X really does not appeal to me ever since I graduated from SMU. Even though I cracked the finance puzzle, I'm not really interested in mortgage payments, cars to buy, Manchester United, or the real estate market. With younger folks, I can talk about cryptocurrency, robo-advisors, Wang Lee Hom's sex life, Fei Yuqing rumoured sado-masochism, crafting potions on Skyrim and Roblox. 

I might be interested in talking to Gen X about my kids, but that may actually offend my peers because I fully intend to experiment with creating trust-fund kids and my latest crazy idea is called Polytechnic Insurance. I think I'm the opposite of a good parent my peers aspire to be. 

To find out more, you need to stay tuned to future articles.