Pay up: Singapore's arts and culture need your money, not your grief

The closure of The Projector shows the independent institutions we value need patrons, not performative social media mourning when they shutter.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

When an e-mail recently alerted me that my subscription to one of my morning news staples, Malaysiakini, was expiring — and asked if I might be keen on not just a one-year but a three-year extension — it was not the frugal side of me that sprang into action.

Believe you me, that voice exists: the one that makes you check other ride-hailing apps when you already have a good price on one.

Maybe you save a few cents, it tells you, or better yet, just take the MRT.

This time the other voice spoke up: click that Google Pay button, pay that RM450 (S$135). The one that takes its cue from former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho's famous quip to the club's owner when he wanted to buy an expensive new striker: "Pay and don't speak."

For all the things we are told money cannot buy, there is a flip side: in this corporeal existence, many things are worth paying for — the edifying knowledge you get from a newspaper or magazine or a paid civil-society seminar, the transient pleasure of a movie, play or concert.

Malaysiakini falls into that category for me — an ever-reliable source of information and diverse views about the country I am most fascinated with other than my own.

There are other intangibles I will pay for without flinching. For instance, money spent on a production by local theatre company Wild Rice, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, has never disappointed.