Ennui is defined as “a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom”.

Eric Hoffer, American social writer and philosopher said it best: “When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.”

We often hear our peers lamenting about feeling lethargic, dragging themselves to school early in the morning, sleep-deprived and irritable.

Through endless lectures and tutorials, one popular phrase that we never fail to hear constantly resonates in our ears despite the lecturer’s high-pitched, screeching voice reverberating around the room, unnecessarily amplified by the microphones that always seem to malfunction at the worst times possible:

“ Sian ji pua lah.”

Youths in Singapore, I believe, are long-term sufferers of ennui; be it consciously or unconsciously. We have a general lack of interest in anything at all. We get bored easily, and our gnat-like attention spans fail us in a matter of seconds. Suddenly, watching our fingernails grow seems infinitely more fascinating than listening to how the sub-prime mortgage crisis led to the current global economic recession, and how Obama has given the American taxpayers’ money to AIG to pay for the bonuses of their workers. I see gold taps and first-class plane tickets in their futures.

The lives of Singaporean youths are terribly tragic. Our lives seem to revolve around nothing but school-related issues. Singapore is made a breeding ground for ennui-sufferers by its education system, which seems to give rise to over-competitiveness and the infamous ‘kiasu-ism’ that is unique to Singaporeans and Singaporeans alone.

Many young children these days are now being ‘deprived’ of a childhood. Take for example young children at the tender age of four. Parents who have been influenced by the widespread ‘kiasu-ism’ in Singapore are now seeking out tutors for their innocent, unsuspecting children who are still blissfully unaware of the fact that their carefree days filled with Teletubby episodes are about to come to an end. 4 years of life and those poor midgets are already subjected to such torment in their early years.

The generation before us would definitely be more nostalgic; kampong life, chasing chickens and climbing trees.

Who wouldn’t be consumed by boredom if all you had to worry about in life at the age of 17 or 18 was school? Life becomes so routine and monotonous; nothing’s spontaneous anymore.

You wake up, walk to the toilet, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, head to school, study, sit for tests, go home, do tutorials, go to sleep; and the next day, the cycle starts all over again.

Some people reason that spontaneity can come only after you’ve finished your education.

It doesn’t, and I don’t think it ever will.

After you finish your education, you start to work.

You wake up, brush your teeth, shower, head on the bus with 40 others crammed and jam-packed into a tiny bus, alight at your stop all sweaty and aggravated, head to the office, curse your boss for cutting your bonus again, decide to work OT to get away from the incessant nagging of your mother or wife, arrive home all tired and ponder why life is so unbearably routine and monotonous. You go to bed, and the next morning it all starts again.

Not to mention, judging by the way the government’s raising the retirement age, you’ll be working until you die.

Not quite the perfect ending you had in mind?

Our lives lack meaning. That’s why we suffer from ennui. We’re conditioned to study, work and then die when we have served our purpose on earth.

Whatever happened to talking about Paris Hilton’s utterly hopeless and miserable attempt at breaking into the music scene with a single entitled “Stars Are Blind”, when it really should be “ My Producer Is Deaf”; Christian Bale’s annoying voice synthesizer in The Dark Knight that makes it sound like his vocal cords sunk all the way down to his intestines; and whatever happened to William She-Bangs Hung after American Idol?!

Think about it.

You really can’t blame us for having a lack of interest in anything anymore.

We’ve been consumed, overwhelmed, shrouded in the harsh reality of being a Singaporean youth – school and our grades are of utmost priority. We have to be interested (or at least fake the interest to make it seem convincing), whether we want to or not. Suffering from ennui comes with the territory of being Singaporean.

I wonder how self-absorbed one suffering from ennui can get before others start to feel the urge to clobber you with their shoe.

Sheer peculiarity.

Sir Cecil Beaton: Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.

Someone save the teenage world before ennui consumes us all.

Written by Stephanie