Pining for broadband

Everytime a long weekend comes along, I pine for broadband. The newspapers today featured a survey -- more than half would rather give up their daily shot of caffeine than internet access. Considering my dependence on the effects of coffee, it is a hard decision to make, but I would have given up the java too.

Today's papers also had a special on the growing popularity of new age practices here in Singapore. It noted that as Singaporean laboured under increasing urban fatigue, more sought alternate practices that focused on holistic living. I am not surprised. How long can a person live in pursuit of money, career, or even simpler, in pursuit of a way of living? As Jeanette Winterson wrote in her short story "The World and Other Places", "The curious thing is that no matter how different they are, the people are all preoccupied with the same things, that is, the same thing; how to live. We have to eat, we want to make money, but in every pause the question returns: How shall I live?" (95)

(There is a popular book in the Christian evangelical circles titled "How now shall we live?" The title always makes me think of the phrase, "How now brown cow?" but that is another matter altogether.)

What I am trying to say is this, my pining and need for broadband is part of my colossal attempt to lose myself in the architecture of urban living, and in so doing, hiding from myself, myself.