Digital Childhood

As I hold grande-sized Americano between two palms, it gives off more than what I've paid for through its warmth between my fingers and the steam escaping through the plastic hole to my frozen skin, and of course, also to my heart with its fluid. Across the table, I gaze at another party of three women and a child. Not too old, but not too young seems to the women's age, but what I find interest in is the perfect side view of a child about six years. A smart phone leaning against his juice tin is placed right in front of his face--his body slouched with his arms crossed to pillow his small head--and his expression remains emotionless, or just the same other way around, like the textbook illustration of any bored student in a class. Many of us believe that a smartphone will keep a child occupied and on leash in public places while the adults carry on with their businesses. But this imagery casts doubt upon me on who is keeping what occupied.

As the concrete rises taller, it seems the childhood once we have enjoyed--all the symbolisms of childhood in running the green field, capturing insects and frogs, and building empires of sand--are diminishing. I do not wish to stimulate another polemical argument of whether it is wrong to have a child raised as they are in modern times, but rather, I wonder as vivid as my childhood memories are to me I see how such lived past can be of distant history and almost legendary-like to the kid across the table. If told, would that child be filled with awe and jealousy, or with nonchalance and contempt? Times are definitely changing, I can tell by such simple observation. When that child grows up to be my age, what kind of reflection will he have of his childhood through another posterity of his age now? Will he have an Americano or what else?

BR: "The Five People You Meet In Heaven"

This book was just a reconfirmation of my personal belief in after-life. Although, different in structure, it was like the counter-version of Dante's Inferno. I always thought after-life was palpable reason to make sense of this life. The audacity, intelligence, capabilities, potentials, and emotions of human being does not make sense to have its bottle corked by the time allotted in this world. More so, the clear superficiality of people's lives throughout mankind seem so futile to have just indulge in pleasures, and to expand.

Truly it is just a theory, but I cannot feel more attached to the quote, "But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know at the time." The protagonist learns to acquire five lessons: all things in life are meaningful without mistakes and there are consequences which interconnect all of the people, sacrifice can veer the courses of life, forgiveness cures the poison of anger, love outlasts life and death in a different form called memory, and finally, freedom from guilt is the freedom from within which requires acknowledgement of the guilt. Of course, these themes may differ from the author's intention and I am no scholar to have had this book under scrutiny. These are just my personal enlightenments. But I found it ironic how the lessons we can achieve throughout this life time can be passed onto the next--sort of like unfinished homework. My answer to this irony can only come from conjecture that, as the book had mentioned, we are to make sense of our lives before fully being admitted to heaven. Hence, I can insinuate that what we experience in this world plays a vital role in continuing what was just paused, what we call death.

BR: "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" by George Orwell

They say that reluctance to cooperate with materialistic society or the acceptance of hierarchy and necessary pre-requisitory measures of success in this money-god world can be deemed as freedom, with condescending tone. For they also equivocate such freedom with free-fall--longer the freedom, harder the impact of reality. Once a victim, they will probably convene around you to offer their consolation, blithely, and concern only as adversely reflected in proportion of their sheer reconfirmation on their beliefs; that the money is their god and all innately subordinate. But if they are right, the victims will differ in their ability to become resilient after the fall--from dumbfounded to some found dead.

So I guess there's no such thing as freedom in this world, at least in this sense, for Gordon is fighting or falling in the battle against the money society. The only alternative is to keep fighting or falling in the battle against the society without knowing the depth of it. But the fear of continuous anticipation of the fall and being aware of it, he had lost since the initiation. His approach was not to sell his soul to earn money up to his capacity. The consequences of it was harsh, from squalor he is consistently reminded of his wretched and limited circumstances between romance, friendship, family, self-dignity, and even basic necessities. On the other approach, he would lose again by freeing himself from dire circumstances and succumbing to the system, for he had declared himself a war.

Either way, it seems to enlighten me in such way that this system we live in, there's no escape, hence no true freedom. Whether we are enslaved to make them, or to curse about the loosened leash, money is money. The degree of commitment may vary, but it is necessary part of our lives, more so now than ever it seems. The obvious truth is stipulated by Mr. Orwell with details enlivened by Gordon and the objective of this book was probably to remind ourselves of the world we live in, the capitalism. Most likely, we will recur about the lives we live once more in this perspective upon the end page of this book. Some might be bolstered about their current views, some will be even more discouraged, and some will scent their youth in nostalgia when we were once all oblivious. As for me, I had come to accept the shame of part-taking of this game, but with precaution as to avoid full visibility of brand of slavery.