I have been working on a book about my experiences and my perspectives on the political and social history of Singapore and how the political and social events impacted on the everyday lives of Singaporeans. The question that keeps coming up, while writing, is: what is motivating me to write this book? Why am writing it?

David Brooks gave me the answer and I quote the concluding sentence of his article “It is not about you”. I am liberated and inspired by what he wrote.

“Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.” David Brooks writing in the New YorK Times