The Pharmacy(TM)

John looked through the looking glass and this is what he saw.

Couple of friends gather for some drinks. Employees all, they bitch about how they hate their mundane jobs. They’re not exactly underpaid, but what they gain in salary, they eventually lose in sobriety. Social life at a standstill—limited albeit, to the occasional office fling (or thoughts thereof), travel life non-existent, and culture life limited to the furtive mall hopping and movie going at every other payday or bonus day.

Definition of self (or as Morpheus would say in the Matrix: “residual self-image”): a grande Mocha Frappucino. And for some, a stick or two of Marlboro every three hours.

These friends make up for this pathos by “pushing the envelope” in their own little way. All of them have under-utilised gym memberships. Some of them teeter-totter in schizophrenia, blowing half their bonus on a nature trip at some undercivilised part of the world at one extreme, only to lapse back into the “forced-to-good” frugality when the paycheck runs out (usually around July-September, waiting for the next bonus).

The luckier ones make the most of company sponsored business trips, bigshotting it up with friends in similar circumstances: gathering for that one cup of coffee in Singapore (just one cup, because it’s expensive.), or finding that gadget in Hongkong, or trinket in Bangkok.

Of the motley lot, a few will find their salary increases miraculously outpacing their spending habits—enabling them to save a little money. Seeing this excess bank balance gathering in their accounts, they scout around for “investments”. Unfortunately, their busy and hectic worklife (the main reason their salaries are up in the first place) will preclude any time for serious investment research. Usually a large amount of their investable funds will end up in an insurance policy—which will only benefit everyone else if they die.

A fewer number of them will take out car loans—and feel that rush when they drive that brand-new or second-hand car back to their parents’ house. Only to realize later the slavery they have doomed themselves to for the next several years that they are paying for the car. A much fewer number of them will take out housing loans, usually with the help of their parents—getting a studio or one-bedroom unit somewhere. Half of them will live in the property once it’s done, the other half will not, because homeowner dues are expensive. And, like their car loans, their properties will seal their fate to their jobs forever.

Some of them will take graduate studies. One out of four of these people do it because of ambition—the need to get that Ivy League degree to complete the picture of a successful white-collar worker. Two will do it because they have extra cash (it’s an “investment” too, you know) but do not have anything better to do. The last one will do it because the last job promotion was more than two years ago and they think the degree might help (notwithstanding the fact that the boss of his boss does not have one).

The years pass for these friends like a freight train—running over their lives. The half who see it coming—the bored, disgruntled ones: rather than avoid it, they toast it with a bottle of San Mig and a cigarette. The other half—the ones who are happy with their jobs, look at their sad despondent friends with only a little pity and apathy. They only “hear” the train coming but they don’t see it because they are too happy looking in the opposite direction. In the end, the train hits with merciless force—turning everything into a bloody wreck. For some of them the train is marriage. For the others it’s age, illness, and loneliness.

A few will leave the country, and find their fate elsewhere. Some will marry foreigners, and will lose themselves nearly completely in another culture—but knowing at the back of their minds the life they have turned their back on. Some of the friends will find solace in the company of others by joining support groups—religious and quasi-religious organizations, charitable institutions, non-profit organizations. On half of these occasions it only leads to more bitching about life and its inequities. Others will drop out of circulation, retreating into their solitary shells in total catatonia.

The friends will talk about all this—their lives every time they gather over drinks. Over time the gatherings become less and less, until eventually they stop meeting—and learn about each other only during weddings, baptisms, and funerals.

John looked into the looking glass and this is what John saw.

The looking glass offered no solutions—nothing that John was not willing to give himself.

“The thousand mysteries around us would not trouble but interest us, if only we had cheerful, healthy hearts.”

- Nietzche