I always start my day with exercise. At my current state of wealth, there is nothing I fear more than overindulgence in food. So, exercising is always my top priority in the morning and evening. I start with some stretching and jogging. Despite the fact that I have a fully equipped gym, my favourite workout has always been martial arts. Basically I just repeat the routines that I was thought by the best fighters that I have hired. These routines give me great satisfaction and excitement although I don’t think I will ever get the opportunity to use it.
Here is my martial arts programme. Every month my assistant will approach a top fighter across various disciplines and fly in my private jet to my mansion. Of course, they were paid in an amount which they can never refuse. This is why they are willing to come to teach me. Their job is to spend 2 hours in the evening with me to teach me everything they knew in their arts. So far, I have learned the fighting skills from almost every part of the world. Revising the setups is a complete workout by itself.
After the workout, I take a shower and join my family for breakfast. I would like to highlight here that just because I can afford any food money can buy, I do not go for the most expensive because the most expensive food does not always good for health. I value health above all when it comes to food. Most of the food in my meals comes from plants planted organically around my mansion.
Despite my achievements, I still live a humble life. I only have one mansion that occupies the area of only 2 football fields, less than 10 stories high and located in the middle of a small garden which is only as large as 10 football fields. One of the criteria I set for my architect for this mansion is it must be well ventilated to reduce maintenance cost and has lots of plants. The plants are all food producing types. Why is that so? Since, I am having plants, I might as well have plants that produce useful things like food.
After breakfast, I meet my team for work. At my wealth, I can do anything I want without having to work but without work, I will be directionless and purposeless. This is the curse that has ruined the lives of many of my counterparts. When they were poor, they climbed their way up to be rich. Once they got rich, they spent their lives indulging in leisure. However, when they became immune to it, they became lost. They ended up destroying themselves, their families and everything they worked for.
I am not going to follow their path. I still have my greed in me. I have set a purpose for myself and it is not about making money. Speaking of money, I have stopped trying to manage it. My wealth has grown to such a level than I suspect if I am to find out how rich I am, I will go crazy due to brain overload. Suffice to say, I can afford anything money can buy. As for managing them, I have one battalion of accountants in each continent to handle them. This means I can dedicate my life for the purpose I created for myself.
Here is my purpose: To be the Hari Seldon in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series. Here is a brief explanation. In the story, Hari Seldon lives in a human controlled galactic empire. He was able to predict that the empire will collapse and humanity will live in the dark age until the next empire forms again. In order to reduce the duration of this dark age, he sets up 2 foundations situated at the opposite end of the galaxy. The purpose of these foundations is to guide humanity into a new civilisation after the galactic empire has collapsed.
I am doing the same to guide the human species to reach greater height in civilisation. The first foundation I set up is called the “Greed Foundation”. Its purpose is to help humanity to progress. This involves humanitarian aids in many poor countries. I have sent experts to help poor farmers to increase their harvests, set up schools, build hospitals, dig wells and even create industries to give the poor people a chance to live their lives in greed.
I went to a few of the villages myself and witnessed the transformation there. Millions of people are no longer suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Children get to go to schools to learn English, mathematics and science. I may not be able to remove the superstition from the current generation but I want to use education to create a scientific literate generation. I believe science is what the species need to progress to the next level.
Overall, the achievements of the Greed Foundation have been obvious. Through this foundation, many lives have been saved from starvation, malnutrition and disease. However, there are still people out there who really hate me for what I have done. I categorise them into 2 groups:
- Anti-prosperity fanatics.
- Religious fanatics.
These people hated me because I am rich and not ashamed to admit that I am still greedy. The first group are against me for the word “greed”. To them greed means evil despite the fact that I have shown very clearly that greed can also leads to kindness and love to others. I guess they are angry because I defied their definition.
The second group is more creative. One preacher told his congregation that God revealed to him that I was sent by the devil to mislead people from the true Faith. The humanitarian works done by my Greed Foundation is to blind people’s eyes to the great evil I am supposed to bring to them.
However, the more popular accusation is I am the Antichrist. As I think of it, there is one similarity. I own significant shares in all the major companies dealing in world trade. Other than that, I am not interested in fulfilling the Bible prophecies for the Antichrist. The only prophecy I want to fulfil is my own.
I want to see humanity to reach for the stars. I want my species to be a star faring race. I want human beings to build settlements all over the galaxy. I know I will not live long enough to see it. I just contend to be the one who helped to start it.
This is what my first foundation is doing. I still have a second one which I call the “Seed Foundation”. It is a backup in case the earth faces a global disaster that wipes out the civilisation that we know of. Let me explain. We have disasters at various places and times. Until now, these disasters are shortlived and localised. For example, if one place has a big earthquake, people from unaffected areas will send aids to help the victims. Meanwhile, other parts of the world continue to progress.
My problem is, what if we have a really big disaster like a mega earthquake, meteor strike, plague or any unexpected event that wipes out 99% of our population? Will the remaining 1% survivors be able to restore our civilisation or will they be sent back into Stone Age until the whole species extinct?
The Seed Foundation is set up for this purpose. While the Greed Foundation does its works openly, the Seed Foundation operates behind the scenes. I have set up secret bases throughout the world stocked with food supplies, technology and information to restore the civilisation in the event we really need it. This is a really big challenge because I don’t know what the big disaster could be. I do not even know I am still alive when it happens. It may happen tomorrow, next year, next decade or even a few hundred years later. Whatever the case, it is good to be prepared.
If there is no global disaster, the Greed Foundation will propel humanity to the stars but if something really deadly happens, I have the Seed Foundation to serve as a beacon of light guiding humanity to its way of progress.
These 2 foundations have giving me a purpose for living. I will cherish every moment of my life living it.
Yeap Chee Seng Weblog 