Take a Break - 1

Anyone commuting among the marching crowds in either direction within the pedestrian subway between the MTR station and the airport express station in Central during the rush hours – either before or after work – may feel that we are no different from ants after all. Although we like to think we are creatures of a higher order of intelligence, we may not put our hands on our hearts and think the same of our integrity. In their common course of food transportation, do ants play politics? Or don’t they? Anyway, people with individual minds, different senses of purpose, coming from an expanse of origins and no doubt heading for a divergence of destinations, suddenly converge into the same space to form a phalanx of uniform movement and step out reverberating sound of an incessant long march – how we take such miraculous phenomenon for granted everyday! But as every second counts while everyone is always in a rush to catch the next train – or bus or taxi or whatever - as readily reflected in the uniformly occupied or impatient, if not apathetic, look on every face, hardly anyone would ever stop by to appreciate the amazement of daily rituals indeed.

Above is just an excerpt from chapter 6 of a story which I am composing. My story is about economic hardship, youthful disillusion, corporate hypocrisy, status anxiety, power struggle, and whatever else which almost certainly inflicts the average salary man, sooner or later, over his work life. But most importantly, I wish to be able to offer solutions - for peace of mind, if not making any material difference. 

For myself, writing is perhaps the best cure to the affliction of status anxiety. It keeps me thinking and reminds me that ones own value does not necessarily have to rest on any commonly accepted convention of judgement criteria. Otherwise, perhaps nothing is more enlightening about the insignificance of life glories than the experience of witnessing the process of dying. Remembering the timeless teaching of Solon also helps.   

As I stretch my imagination, I sometimes wonder whether story-telling can ever be achieved by way of open-sourcing: a wiki approach to story-writing!