A friend brought back a local magazine from Hong Kong today - Muse [瞄]. It's thinner than I expected and the English is a lot better than I imagined. Heh. Content-wise, there was this interesting article about people who aschew full-time, permanent and stable employment and instead, choose to freelance or simply temp around, much like the freeters in Japan some years back. Anyway, though the topic was rather dated, it was quite thought-provoking. The article interviewed a whole bunch of people who decided to give up their jobs to "pursue their dreams", like writing, producing music and these two guys who set up an organic farm. The interviewees claimed that their happiness quotient increased dramatically when they were able to structure their lives as they wish, unlike slogs who have to report to work at 7 and stay cooped up for 9 hrs min. for 5 days a week. But then if the lives of waking up as and when they feel like, having breakfast by the window watching eagles swoop and soar and shopping at noon are that great, why do all of them say that they do not see themselves living like this for long and would like to go back to leading more stable lives, i.e., rejoin the ranks of the slogs? Ahh.. the lure of the commercial world. Who could resist right? Heh. Not trying to be sarcastic or cynical here, but this' a tough world man. Ultimately, it's a clash of value systems here. And in a world whose set of values are becoming increasingly all pervasive with the help of non-stop bombardment made possible by efficient media technologies, it's a struggle to resist these values and let ours rule our lives.
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