Shelly: I’m currently based in KL. I’m thirty-nine this year, so I guess you can call me a ‘mature student’. I actually only finished my Bachelor’s in Philosophy two years ago when I was 37.
Shelly: After I finished my SPM, I was kind of lost for a bit. I pursued Mass Communications in Lim Kok Wing for about two years. And then after that, I decided that it wasn’t the path for me. At the time, I actually got a scholarship to go to Korea to study the language. After two years of that, I came back to Malaysia, but I still wasn’t passionate about any field to commit to a degree for four years.
So I opted to get a job in IT consultancy. After a while of working in corporate, life got a little bit monotonous, you know? You kind of question, “Is this where I want to be? Is this the future that I see for myself?” So I did get into a very philosophical kind of mindset. What’s the meaning of life? Am I living a good life? Am I living a meaningful one?
When I was in my 30s, I joined some meditation camps and silent retreats. They got me thinking about deeper questions about the philosophy of life. And I thought, “Oh, what better way to get this sorted than by enrolling myself in a philosophy degree?”
Shelly: I was meditating as part of a ten-day silent retreat in Gangbang, and it was pretty intense. For ten days, I couldn’t speak and I just meditated day in and day out. Vipassana, they call it. There was a moment when I realised that the stories that I tell myself about who I am and the stories the world tells itself about what the world could be—all that is actually just a concept. Something that we have the power to change. I spent the past ten years doing the conventional thing. That silent retreat made me break free from my conventional thoughts.
Shelly: Most people were like, “Yeah. Good for you. That’s so interesting.” But then, of course, some people were not so supportive. In fact, I ended a very long-term relationship because of it. To fully concentrate on my distance learning Bachelor’s degree, I had to resign from my full-time job and that meant that I wasn’t financially stable. I got into a fight with my partner and we actually broke up. We were together for seven years. So I guess, in a way, there is some sort of a sacrifice, you know? You get to know who is really on your side and who is not.
Shelly: Yeah, sure. My parents grew up in small towns. My mom is from Tanjong Malim, Perak. My dad is from Pahang. Coming from poor family backgrounds, both of them didn’t graduate high school. Before they came to KL to work, my mom only studied up to primary school and my dad only studied until he was 13.
I think they did their best when they were adults. When I was growing up, we were middle class. My parents always encouraged us to study hard because they did not have the money to send us for further education. Going to a government university was an option, but I think because my parents were not very educated, they didn’t really know how to plan for our educational future.
Shelly: That was always the dream. Within the first year I was doing my degree, I already knew that I had to do it until the end. PhD, even.
Shelly: Yeah! [Laughs] At the time it was a castle in the air. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t even finished the first year of my degree, I’m already fantasising about postgraduate studies.” During this time, the pandemic was happening. The way we worked and communicated changed a lot. So I felt strongly that, if not now, when? I’m getting older and I want to do it before I get too old.
Shelly: The scholarship means everything to me. To be honest, it was almost miraculous that it happened right at this juncture. I have all this passion for philosophy, and I couldn’t find opportunities to study the subject locally. To further my studies full-time, at University of Birmingham, would have been impossible without the scholarship. Seeing as how philosophy is a subject area that ties very deeply to my sense of meaning—of my life and where I want to be in the future—then I can only say that it means everything.
Shelly: Big question, big question. Well, I really want to continue to have a great sense of curiosity about the world. In academia, in the field of philosophy research, it will be a fantastic place for me to maintain that kind of curiosity.
We only live life once; if we do not maintain a sense of wonder and curiosity, then it will be a really, really dull life. In a sense, it’s an accomplishment. Very few people will be able to say, on their deathbed, that they have maintained a sense of curiosity and wonder in the world and themselves.
This interview was edited for clarity.
