There are the tyrants who write history, and they will perhaps be forgotten by the very truth they have written into life because the writing of history has to be invisible.

Then there are those who make history, and they will be remembered as people treasure the few moments when the history written for them seems to be undermined.

Mr. J B Jeyaretnam made history with Anson. Written history cannot suppress the fact, even though it does attempt to avoid it.

But the sense of loss that many might now feel does not arise from a nostalgic remembrance of a history maker. History made is history made. It is the history that Mr. Jeyaretnam has yet to make that creeps under our skin, tingling it with a mild sensation that eventually turns into an almost inexplicable dull pain. The history that is drawn to us because we, too, might wish that it has been made. The history that we might have prevented from being made. The history that reminds us too much of our inevitable mortality that follows our destined futility: the pain of the history yet to be made and perhaps will never be made.

But pain is the creator of its own imperceptibility. JBJ is doomed to be forgotten after the few days of blogospheric outbursts and perhaps token media coverage designed to put down what the man stands for (though probably not the man himself). We forget history makers as easily as we forget about all that the government has done to piss us off. Singapore is the world's greatest cultural anesthesia, though there are a few individuals who develop allergic reactions to it.

Pain will never go away. But one could stop perceiving it. (Who wants to be in prolonged pain except those who really do not have a choice?) Stop perceiving the pain. Let the disease grow and triumph. Destroy the body, and the friendly disease will easily find another host whose life it seeks to destroy. Even if you choose the bear with the pain, the disease is incurable. Inescapable as death, it plagues you for life. That’s why many choose Anesthesia Amnesia.

JBJ, I don't know how to remember you. You, whose destruction testifies to your resilience. Yet, I do not wish to remember you as a victim or a hero, a loser or a winner. I don't even know you. You are not a mere name, a mere symbol, a mere function. I can only remember you as myself. But am I even in a position to be elegiac in the face of a demise that is my own and yet not only mine?