Inquisitions with no answers

Tonight, I am observing the landscape of a streetlamp-lit country. There are protrusions of cranes in the skyline, cable cars, distant and ambiguous, sailing in the darkness. The smoke from a cigarette butt rises from a rubbish bin. Trees with leaves so black, they are unrecognizable from their morning identities. Sights like these go unnoticed every night as they negotiate in dark spaces.

Each time, I’m on a bus ride or a train ride, I feel like I’m in a goldfish bowl watching the rest, without them realizing my gaze is on them. In these rides, everyone is busy, reading a book, a magazine, playing PSP, catching up on lost sleep, bound and tied down by institutions. I wonder if people are happy because people look tired mostly, they look like they have so many things left to be ticked off their lists and they are not even half-way through. In this space of eyes glazing over, I think we have to deconstruct the term happiness. What does happiness really mean, and how much do we need to be happy in this space? How much more or less do we need to be happy in another space?

Happiness, in our space, is tied to achievements and rewards from capitalism. The lure of it is so great, it traps us in, leaving us in an awful mouth-agape, perpetually hungry state. Pragmatism is the reason why we will never escape the lure of the big C. Sometimes, on cold nights like this, I wonder what is practical about such relentless drive for economic betterment, social mobility and at the end of it all, feeling breathless enough to yearn for simplicity.
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Z says:
do u think u can give capitalism up?
D says:
why do u ask ?
Z says:
oh..
Z says:
because i was thinking it is so difficult to do so
D says:
well...capitalism is the dominant form of way of life
D says:
if we give up capitalism, we become peasants and farmers
D says:
LOL
Z says:
hahaha
Z says:
yes exactly
Z says:
u know how people have to get everything
Z says:
before they can finally retire n go fishing
Z says:
i mean-u can go fishing without completing all that
D says:
hahaha
D says:
u see how pple associate fishing - a form of non-capitalism activity, as a form of 'retirement' ?
Z days says:
HAHA
Z says:
but it is such an irony of life u know