I recently went on a self-drive tour of Malaysia with a group. Besides having fun, I became keenly aware of my privilege of being born just across the border. An average Singaporean has many privileges an average Malaysian does not have.

Why do I say so? The primary factor lies in the paternalistic government policies of Singapore, such as subsidised public housing, a much more meritocratic education system that rewards those that do well, and a job market which offers a surfeit of employment that leads to viable career trajectories that not only pay well but affords one with professional success and the potential to venture abroad to broaden one’s horizons.

We Singaporeans are all too familiar with this path in life and in fact many of us are in the process of pursuing this playbook: Study hard, get jobs in finance or tech, get married, apply for a HDB flat, have kids, upgrade to a private condominium, etc

Few of us even consider pursuing passion in the equation. Passion made Possible was launched as a slogan by the Singaporean government agencies in 2017 and frankly it was ahead of its time. The fact is, Passion cannot be further from most Singaporeans’ minds when we approach professional success. Oftentimes, it is after we have slogged long hours in our chosen careers that a few among us develop passion for our life work.

Millionaires versus Billionaires

We are pragmatic and have pragmatic dreams of being a lawyer, doctor, work in finance or tech, careers that are generously remunerated. Our pragmatic culture does not nurture one to have aspirations, dreams of success as creatives such as pop stars, star athletes, fashion label founders, book authors or other creators, movers and shakers of their industry, who are rewarded with outsize renumeration as globalisation has made runaway success possible by opening up audiences worldwide.

Take Taylor Swift, Cristiano Ronaldo, Coco Chanel, JK Rowling for example.

1.6billion, 1.4 billion, 15 billion(brand valuation of Chanel), 1billion. These are the net worth of the world’s top talents in music, sports, fashion and fiction.

Can we aspire to achieve such heights? What kind of ecosystem must be put in place for us to create something that resonates so strongly?

We must question why we play it safe and choose the routine over creativity. The question that arises is: how many of us can achieve what these runaway successes and dominant brands? We might call it as being risk adverse for our best and brightest to traverse the well trodden pathways to becoming millionaire doctors and lawyers and executives in finance and tech instead of billionaire singers, authors, or business owners with trademark products with an unique selling point, but is this truly what we want our life work to be? If we can achieve much more satisfaction in our life by dedicating our work to being the best we can be, wouldn’t it be a life well spent? How can we bring about a generation of creators, in other words, being these who create and contribute instead of being consumers and conformists.

Can Singaporeans dream big?

In my other article about there being two Singapores, comprised of the late-stage Singaporeans and the heartlander Singaporeans, I touch on late-stage Singaporeans as being made up of a combination of highly educated professionals and/or those grown wealthy from Singapore’s prosperity often resulting from owning more than one private property and/or inheritance.

This category of Singaporeans, a significant minority of our population, are already millionaires or millionaires-to-be, and the best positioned to either become and/or nurture the next generation of creator Singaporeans, to dedicate their life work to excelling in their chosen passion. Afterall, these are no longer like the Pioneer or Merdeka generation pig farmers or factory workers that needed to work to put food on the table.

True ambition can be pursued when one’s net worth is comfortably able to support a livelihood and thus can afford to take the leap into pursuing their passion as their life work.

Culture keeps us rooted as a nation

Is the much respected Singaporean brand of scruple and fastidiousness enough to sustain us for the next century? Will our children and grandchildren be able to carry through our legacy by continuing our tried and tested playbook to remain competitive and relevant as an economic metropolis?

It is of paramount importance that we must remain or even dominate as the financial metropolis in Southeast Asia, or possibly even the whole of Asia. We cannot rest on our laurels, while we look to develop into a cultural metropolis. As Creativity creates culture, and our nation needs culture more than any other factor to thrive as not just a safe haven for capital, but a place for us to call home.

Is what goes up must come down true?

The Singapore of today is a shining jewel of a financial metropolis and amidst the unrest and high taxes of other countries, attracting well heeled migrants from every country.

We have developed a respected nation brand synonymous with fairness and equity by way of the hard work of the Pioneer and Merdeka generations.

Our next steps to cement ties to this country can be to cultivate culture, and to strengthen our culture, we need to create more intellectual property, brands and storytelling. Can we pull off hothousing creativity for Singaporeans?

Done right, our current status as a financial metropolis cum safe haven will be further strengthened by our creative development of patents, copyrights, and trademarks that build up our Singaporean cultural capital and our Singaporean brand story, attracting tourist dollars and emigres that live, study, and work here. Unlike physical assets like coal mines and oil deposits that can be depleted, creativity is an unlimited resource.

I believe the country or company which is the first to be able to refine the process of pinpointing talented individuals and hothousing them to produce creative works that not only do well commercially but play a part in influencing the young globally which in turn will dominate creative industries and also increase immigration and foreign students to our shores, thereby solving the low TFR and to that effect, either maintain or enhance the value of our physical assets like both commercial and residential property.

As the first to market in developing such a process of literally hothousing creative talent, our cultural influence on the world will be impactful in so far as to prolong our longevity for a good more decades.

No other country in the world has the leverage to change their education system as radically as to pinpoint the talented individuals early. No other country in the world has the political will to assuage an existential anxiety of becoming a footnote in the history books.

Are we on our way there?

For Singapore, its early days yet to reach cultural metropolis status. Yet things bode well, as hosting F1 and major music acts have shown. But we should stop relying on imports and instead focus on developing and assimilating.

I believe we can tweak our current schooling system with nudges and changing mindsets to spur our Singaporeans to choose passion and aspire to do their very best whether be it in creative pursuits or other talents.

I have no answers as to how Singapore the nation brand can dominate well over several centuries. What we can offer is us trying our best efforts as a determined and united nation unfettered by troubled politics and undisguised xenophobia to make Singapore greater than she has ever been before. And each of us can do our bit by, if not contributing to our own passion projects, by also supporting local artistes, authors and local products.