Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Walking around the mall on a lazy afternoon, the author was suddenly tapped on the shoulder by a middle-aged Filipino man casually walking by.  "Hey, I remember seeing you at the hotel lobby," the man cheerfully recalled, noting the dual-purpose hotel-condominium complex that the author currently resides.  The author quickly noted that the man is the security guard as the complex, and struck up a casual chat on his way to the store.  The man noted that he was on his way to meet his family to celebrate his 5-year-old daughter's birthday.

On a perfectly sunny day with a tinge of humidity reminiscent of the gradually nearing monsoon season of pouring rains , a coworker popped a casual question while we lounged around in the local Starbucks.  "What do you miss the most about the U.S.?"  Without thinking, the author just replied, "Umm, I do occasionally miss the snow on old buildings..."  As soon as the words are blurted out, the mind conjured up images of fresh white powders topping the spires of Yale's stone-clad campus.  But, quickly, "well, maybe for a day, but I do not think I can go back to the cold weather anymore,"  the author indignantly added.

All the sudden, everything on the floor came to a stop.  All the usual sounds of pop music blasting, packing materials screeching, and scanners beeping were suddenly cut out from the heavy dusty air of the overworked, sweat-filled warehouse.  The chain was broken and the process was paralyzed.  It was a blackout, a complete outage of power within the whole compound.  But it was more than just a realization of over-dependence on electricity that came about, it was fear and stress that the orders that need to be sent out, with all the items already in the building, had to be halted.

There was a time that the author felt that his world was perfectly aligned with the descriptions and the words spelled out on these posts, and that the posts themselves were a springboard and preparations for something greater in the direction of his life .  But as Chinese New Year's 2013 approaches, and the daily grind of work at a faraway corner of the world sinks into his psyche as a persistent reality rather than some sort of ephemeral adventure, for some reason, that notion of writing as a target of life is starting come into heavy doubt.

Once a friend asked a senior leader at Rocket Internet, "how did you manage to assemble such an elite team of ex-consultants from the most renowned firms and fresh grads from the most reputed universities to work in your ventures?"  The leader simply replied, "Money."  For the author, there was not a sadder moment since joining this global firm than upon hearing this little anecdote.  It is not only he who is not understood, but a whole group of people, that whole group of "ex-consultants from the most renowned firms and fresh grads from the most reputed universities" that was just ruthlessly labelled as "shallow" with one word.