This is not to say that I somehow find fault with our society on trivial grounds, although I am known to be cynical and sometimes loudly proclaim myself a misanthrope. I feel the pinch, too, just as keenly as other folks do, for I find myself at the moment cowering at the desk, leaning towards the laptop screen and hitting hard on the keyboard, not wanting to budge a bit. It is to insist, thought, that for all I know, a dip in the temperature has literally laid bare the way our society functions and the ease and unease with which we interact with each other. The reality is that people around me, those of my fellow students, are becoming more and more focused on themselves, their own concerns and self-interests, to the exclusion of many apparently peripheral calls for attention. A plausible explanation for our lack of interest in many seemingly circumstantial things is that we are busy, all the more so since we are seniors and have to worry about our immediate future after graduation: some have to prepare for the National Postgraduate Entrance Exam; others are either preoccupied by the prospect of seeking a niche in government service or rapturous over the vista that leads them to thread their ways through throngs of eager applicants in a job market before eventually snuggling down in a cozy office somewhere in downtown Guangzhou. I concede that these of our individual pursuits are all well justified and well-taken, and that what I find lamentable is that motivation seems to fail me at a time when it’s most needed, as a result of which I subconsciously magnify the flaws of individualism and the defects of our utilitarian society. But I would also challenge anyone to dispute the proposition that our society as a whole has gone seriously awry from the path that our right minds and honest sentiments still dictate. In major cities, especially in the forefronts of social competition such as college campuses and job fairs, a dogma of individualism and materialism seems so well entrenched and deep-rooted in our elitist corporate and social culture, which extols success by any means and glorifies hypocritical mediocrity, that anyone who dares to challenge any received norm of social behavior and any existing rule of the game will be labeled a cynic and disdained as a self-consequential bummer. Under all sorts of pretexts, we uphold privatism in private and preach reciprocity in public. Whenever I think of this, I am filled with righteous indignation and outright disgust with those false-faced people that continue to hold sway over ordinary people’s lives and act as if they can domineer over us without having our best interests at heart…

    This latest meditation of mine, the cause of which can be attributed rightly to the sudden change of weather, leaves me rethinking about those awkward incidents that have become part of my college experiences, and leads me, unfortunately, to question some hitherto unshakable beliefs and unswerving friendships that I have struck up with some worthy people and cherished at heart over the years. Thereupon I become increasingly suspicious of and querulous about how I am treated and received by those people whom I once deemed stalwart friends and whose company and timely encouragement have carried me through untold numbers of setbacks and predicaments. I am not forgetful of those favors that they have done me; nor am I doubtful of their readiness and anxiety to offer help should I find myself in need of it. I assume then, correctly I hope, that I am just too fearful and worried about the possibility of losing any of my friends on whom I rest so much of my hope and reliance.

    After all, to know what you care about and protect it with all your might and main is a bliss which should not be discounted by any means.