the greatest human tragedy

Metallic skyscrapers, a generous cleavage view of the sea, the light blue skies and chunks of cotton-candy clouds that you yearn to take a bite out of, acres and acres of vast green chasms, valleys and mountains, and the majestic shipyard with its clout of impressive ship armies.

No, I'm not talking about a painting.

This is the view I see every day when I look out of my office window.

But, what I find even more amazing than this view is the fact that how there is such a magnificent sight just a glance away, and yet colleagues remain oblivious, eyes remain glued to their wired-up mechanical devices, otherwise known as computers, fingers furiously tapping away at their keyboards.

No one bothers to look up, no one takes time off to stop, look and stare in awe at the magical scene that both God and Man have created; the natural beauty and the man-made one, the picture-perfect juxtaposition of a scenery. I become the lone ranger in my lonely pursuits of admiring natural and man-made beauty.

That is the greatest human tragedy of all. Not illness. Not death. But having beauty right in front of your very eyes, and not seeing it.

The serenity of watching an airplane crawling across the painting-like of a sky and slowly disappearing from sight as well as the calm blue waters guiding the ships like a beacon to their shipyards is the very best antidote to the drudgery of the interminable flow of work, work and more work.

It is a Friday morning, and I am sitting in front of a computer stricken with arthritis. Like an old man who has difficulty walking up the stairs, the mechanical device fights against the burgeoning pains of growing old, struggling with each wisp of breath to upload a file, download a document.

Sometimes, it succeeds, thumping its fist high up in the air with victory and the glowing pride of triumph. Other times, it slumps dejectedly as it takes forever to upload a document or reboot the computer.

It is also a constant uphill battle with the devils of impatience within me to try to control my growing feelings of impatience at that ancient monitor. I cheer when it cheers, and I mumble and curse inwardly when I've just wasted 5 minutes sitting in front of a page that stubbornly refuses to load.

It is an old boy. This computer of mine. An outcast in the expanding portfolio of technology. It groans when it has worked a muscle too hard, but I've since grown accustomed to its snail speed, even as it remains apathetic to my pockets of annoyance.

I feel lament and perhaps on a good day, a tinge of sympathy, towards this old boy. For once it must have been a gem, a plaything for the rich, a desirable for the poor. It has since lagged behind in the rat race, faltered to a statistic in the history of computers, emerging one of the lasts in the pecking order of computers around.

Its pregnant behind has since been replaced by countless of others, each one boasting a screen flatter than the other.

Surrounded by colleagues with the latest flat-screen monitors and laptops, I am sitting here. With my old boy. On a Friday morning.