last night’s meeting of the local chapter of “The Green Drinks” prompts this post and two simple requests:
firstly, asking for your support for the NSS petition to the Government for the future use of the railway land and
secondly, discover the unreasonable being inside of you and set it free!
captured your interest now? then let me explain:
we listened to a brief presentation by Nature Society of Singapore on the KMT Train tracks connecting Singapore to Malyasia, from Tanjung Pagar Station right up to Woodlands, including the Jurong sidetrack.
this “Green Corridor” - a beautiful, natural spine with it’s own incredible biodiversity (including community gardens!) – through this concrete- and glass-city -jungle, is in dire need of protection as the train service will end in June 2011 and revert into state land.
the greenery is too narrow to be converted into the usual condos and malls and Nature Society is now looking for great ideas to make use of the 40 km long tracks, an area as large as the Botanical Gardens!
Singapore is a thoroughly structured, planned and controlled city state – I suggest to try something really different for once: Do nothing at all!
set your citizens free - let them define the space, allow them to realize their “green” dreams and create places for recreation, sport, play, gardening, food production and a revival of the Kampong life!
let the residents reclaim ownership of a piece of their land, their city state – after all, it is their home, let them decide!
I am often told of having too high expectations and standards (of myself and others), of being utopian and unreasonable in ideas/approach and expectations for change in the way we lead our lives as communities and individuals.
“reasonable people adapt themselves to the world, while unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. when we’re talking about changing the world for the better, we’re also talking about being completely unreasonable people.
being unreasonable can often be the only approach to work some sense into people and help them see how shifting the way the world works is far more beneficial than trying to scale possibility down into something that will fit inside a far too reasonable world.
sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s tough, and much of the time it’s completely worth it.”(Jill Vialet – a kindred spirit…)
“all progress depends on unreasonable people” – and that would certainly be a very novel approach to progress in Singapore…
let us be surprised, and maybe even awed, by the inspiration and creativity this simple freedom could transform – in visible and invisible ways …
