Eureka Junkies

"A toast to celibacy," goes the pony-tailed, be(black plastic)spectacled man. Beside him, a body-builder-type puts aside his cigarette, and crashes his beer mug into ours.

Outside, the sky is darkening with storm clouds, but the scene at a small coffee shop is looking bright. I wouldn't swap this for anythign in Jurong.

"Three guys, all single, drinking beer and eating prata," says the body builder. "Sounds perfect," I say. I love guy time, expecially when an ah-beng look-alike is actually a sociology lecturer, and the other is a bulky, contemplative PSC scholar who carries no airs. It is refreshing. We talk about religion mostly, and politics, movies, relationships, and sociology. Fromm, Hume, and Gandhi pop up from time to time, and the uncle opposite quoting Anzhelina Zholi must wonder who these people are.

Chee Han tells me that four long years ago, he saw the intelligent twinkle in my eye in sociology tutorial, and knew that it was this that separated the sheeps from the goats.

I return the compliment, recalling the 'eureka moment' he provided me. "Sex is no longer a moral or religious issue," he said in class, "but a temporal one." Four years later, the Nietszche-esque simplicity and truth of the statement still stuns me.

I offer a theory on prayer. 'It's such a powerful tool', I say. 'If you pray for rain and it rains, you are happy, it shows God is listening to you. But if you pray for rains and it doesn't rain, then it's a test of patience. Both ways it affirms religion what -- of course people believe in God la!" Chee Han smiles, and puts it in three words: "Ah, the unfalsifiability of religion." (Okay, five words -- must be the beer).

Eureka!