Deviation

Illness and the following recovery often herald the coming of the muses. Both symbolically and physically, these two states mark a deviation from the norm, from the routine, from the familiar, and essentially, according to Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry, possess a quality of poetry in the broader sense of the word. I remember having written a poem about the owl springing from the cage of frost when catching a fever brought by COVID-19; I also remember the ecstasy and vitality brought by recovery which accelerates the movements of the bouncing thoughts inside the skull. What Nietzsche famously wrote in The Gay Science, “Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened—the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was unexpected…. The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again”, may indeed act as the source of inspiration, and the joy of life.

Beneath the seemingly blissful everyday life of Omelas, there lies a gloomy truth – an innocent child, as the ultimate scapegoat, is bearing the crushing weight of the world in utter loneliness, just like that cursed titan Atlas in Greek mythology, the only difference being the vulnerable child has not rebelled against the vengeful gods. People who choose to stay in Omelas pass by this terror of injustice in silent acquiescence, relinquishing their human agency to make any meaningful ethical decision at all, and insisting that the single sinless child should somehow bear the whole weight of all their moral obligations. Can such a city still be called a utopia, where the goodness and beauty of humanity are cherished and celebrated, when every trace of happiness is sicklied over by the taint of injustice and bad faith?

The Downfall

(2025.5.4) Every age has its own plight, and the relentless consumption of media is one of ours. In the vast expanse of cyberspace, many of us have succumbed to a peculiar kind of gluttony—a ceaseless craving perpetuated by the bombardment of video games, anime, provocative content, and endless streams of short videos. This insatiable beast, ever hungrier after feeding, has not only eaten away our time, but more importantly, our mind—our ability to concentrate is eroded, replaced by a constant pursuit of the new and the stimulating; the passage of time, once a steady flow, now feels disjointed and surreally fleeting; our experiences, once cohesively expanding throughout the day, have fragmented into foggy moments clouded by digital haze; creativity, the expression of the human spirit, lies dormant under the weight of passive indulgence and mindless binging. Yet the cruel irony remains: when we look back and examine what lingers after consuming such an astounding amount of content, we are often met with a mocking devil gesturing at us—a blank page and the quiet void of oblivion!

Resentment refers to the bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly. By examining this definition, it is easy to identify the two indispensable components of this emotional state – “having been treated unfairly” as the external event that triggers such an emotion, and “bitter indignation” as the internal response towards such an event.

“When there is poetry,
it is Orpheus singing. He lightly comes and goes.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Poetry reading is one of the most enriching of all social activities. And it is an activity uniquely human. Despite the myriads of ways a nightingale or a skylark sings to the fading night or the rising morn, they do not indulge in anything that could be called the chanting of poems, those sweetest songs of humanity that often “tell of saddest thought”.

As human beings, we tend to forget things, sometimes rather quickly and against our will. We reach out our hands, often quite desperately, to grasp the precious moment as it slips away. We take photos, write notes, and try so hard to bore our eyes into the ephemeral nature of things.

Introduction

In today’s world of booming technologies, we face a serious problem: how to effectively utilise technology so that we can become its master instead of its slave.

一、骨笛

I. The Bells of Black Sheep