Observing the Machine

What a day.

When the clock struck six in the evening, with a chime slicing through the air, his hands seemed to mock me as he watched all of us leave, shedding our cogs like snakeskin. We were canned commodities traded for hours and output, dispersed into the night. I immediately wanted to hide, to burrow beneath the covers of my bed and disappear from the world. It wasn't a day of grand failures or dramatic confrontations, but rather the quiet, insidious exhaustion that comes from laying low, doing the work, staying quiet. The kind of day that leaves you feeling like a ghost in your own life.

Pen and Inc bar, quarter past six in the evening. Everyone in the office has left. Here the bar is mostly empty. Just the staff, moving with that practiced, almost languid efficiency, calibrated to maximise their time and their worth. A couple, briefly intertwined, a shared whisper, and then they slipped away, leaving behind the ghost of their closeness. And so I sit here, pen scratching across the page, words forming themselves into a slide deck that might never be seen. Preparation is a strange thing, for it's not a welcome guest, not a necessary ingredient for effective work. No, it's more like insurance, disappointingly born by initiative.

Here, it seems it’s all about the rhythm of getting by. Decisions made not for their inherent value, but for the simple act of completing them. Tick the box. Send the email. Meet the KPI. Not with a flourish, not with exceeded expectations, but with the quiet satisfaction of a task accomplished. A message sent, a box checked. That's enough, right?

Perhaps it is. Perhaps the system is a grand, benevolent illusionist, concealing its inefficiencies with the sheer volume of perceived effort. Was it really about the money? What of ambition and his restless, gnawing hunger? No, it's more like a safety net. A bowl of rice, always there, replenishing itself, gleaming softly against the everyday humidity, the hours wasted going back and forth, Outlook to Teams, meetings to more meetings. Enough to sustain, to nourish, to get through another day, another month until pay arrives quietly before our loans swallow it whole.

Isn't that what we're all searching for? A normal, boring way to survive, a postured and polite way to live. The CPF contributions, the bills paid, the points accumulated, like steps to a choreographed dance, a mundane choreography of existing.

But even within all this anguish, all this grey, I can still feel a quiet sense of relief. Something akin to gratitude.

For having the space to pause, for leaving the room to reflect. To step outside the machine, just for a moment, and observe it with a detached curiosity. To understand its workings, its rhythms. It's been over ten years, and even the circles that they make always find a way to look different, shiny and new.