Sadness/Happiness

Sobering thoughts for sobering days

Like Dostoevsky's protagonist from the Underground, roaming the streets where the populace converged and throngs moved alongside each other careful to protect the little space that was left between them, the experience of acute alienation and estrangement ran through every fibre of one's being.

Shaken and stirred, the air of ennui blended well with the pollution and blaring of horns in a cocktail of modernity.

They moved past, glided along, rushed head-on, weaved around, halted and moved on again. What was their destination, no one knew. They just moved on - and headed along what has now been commonly called life on the fast lane.

No one paused to look around, no one queried the fate of the peddlar along the street or the handicaps that littered the pavements seeking spare change in all desperation. Where were they going? Why were they moving so fast? What laid ahead? And what happens when they get to their destination? Would they be happy once they've reached where they needed to?

There were no smiles. There was no gesture of recognition nor realisation. There was only fear, a fear so pervasive and so chilling that no one chose to acknowledge its presence; they fled in hastening fear. There was only fear, a fear of time running out, a fear of a late appointment, a fear of life running out; a fear that life would cease to mean anything if there was no movement.

Did it matter that there were pre-pubescent youths littering the streets with cigarettes in their hand? And dolled up teens whose insecurities drove them to adorn the most audacious and outrageous outfits just to blend in with a culture so bent on manufacturing Hollywood clones? Did it matter that there were women so wanting of attention, fueled by a deep-seated need for acceptance, haunted by a distaste for oneself, seeking affection from passer-bys with inch-thick make up and high denim shorts? Did it matter that no one cared for no one?

Hidden beneath the polished veneer, did it matter that their eyes merely revealed emptiness, loneliness, and sadness?

That was all I saw as I floated like a spectre amidst the crowd along Orchard Road on a busy weekday evening. Beneath the trendy styles and l'urbane look, their loneliness called out deafeningly...

We are ill... surfeit with excess but empty of affection. There is so much sadness, so much pain, an inalienable loneliness. A lost voice among the crowd, a history of struggle and toil trails behind every individual. Like a sickle, the horrors of ineptitude and isolation could fall anytime, leaving one decapitated by an unspeakable torment and ... sadness.

There is so much regret, so much loss, so much anger.

There is so little kindness, so little sincerity, so little humanity.

There is so much yet so little.