Spontaneity: performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.

This mouth’s trip to Singapore was more improvised than spontaneous. The Omicron surge made me think better of going on a more ambitious tour of South East Asia, and I instead set out to visit Singapore for a few weeks. Even so, I had plenty of spontaneous moments of joy and yumminess in this city-state!

Singapore had too many sites, scenes, and smells to share here, but I’m telling you, it was incredible. The city was like the jungle meets a metropolis. It was a swirl of Western and Eastern culture, and traditional and modern style.

My highs were seeing the Gardens by the Bay, touring the Chinatown, Little India, Geylang food scenes with a local, perusing the National Museum and the National Art Gallery, and eating ice cream, nearly every day. The only low was seeing a McDonalds, KFC, or Starbucks on almost every block. Singaporeans have such rich food and culture, and yet they seem obsessed with buying American.

Design science. I would love go a second time to the ArtScience Museum. There I learned about Buckminster Fuller, a leading 20th century innovator and futurist. He’s best known for building geodomes, but he should be known for applying design principles to social and scientific questions. He spent two years in a silent trance, writing thousands of notes about principles governing the universe and how to make the world a better place—so basically he was my kind of person.

Neri Oxman’s Krebs Cycle of Creativity grabbed my attention as well. Her take is that science converts information to knowledge, engineering converts knowledge to utility, design converts utility to behavior, and art converts behavior back to information. I think Oxman is telling us something important here about how science can better harness human imagination.

And her work inspired me to diagram my own Theory of Everything. Below is my stab at summing up the emerging trends of the 21st century. My take is aging, automation, urbanization, and digitization are four powerful trends that have shaped capitalism, sustainability, localism, and globalism. Hey, it’s a start!

Malaysian soap operas. While surfing Singaporean TV, I discovered that Malaysian soap operas have this distinctly wholesome vibe that’s quite refreshing. The plot typically centers around a moral lesson, like honoring your parents. The characters are sympathetic, and there’s only the slightest allusions to sex or violence.

What’s fascinating is how these shows offer a lens into the life of modern Islamists. Women characters thrive in school and the workplace. Some wear the hijab, but many don’t. All characters—men and women alike—revere family and have a strong moral compass. And all have a indefatigable belief in Allah. It’s a more nuanced perspective you seldom see in Western media.

Book recommendation. I’m not a huge fan of hip hop—or the 1980s—but I came across the Beastie Boys Book at the library one day. I’m grateful to have picked up this band memoir, because I ended up learning some surprising things.

I had no idea the Beastie Boys (and Girl) were Jewish New York teenagers who were probably bored in school, and definitely hated frats. (They never performed (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party) after their early years, and they quickly regretted having performed on stage with a large phallic object.) They grew up in a gritty, pre-gentrified New York that was ripe for the rap revolution. You get the sense they just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Plus it helped that they were White.

The book also has lots of pictures of memorabilia and guest-written chapters (one of them written by the Beastie Girl). You’ll add songs from the likes of Grandmaster Flash, Treacherous Three, and Run DMC to your Spotify, after reading this glimpse into a bygone era.

What’s next? In March, I’m going to the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. I’m excited to see how my 21st century insights stack up the against the predictions of experts featured in the 2050 Track sessions of the conference. I’ll write again soon after that!