I have a friend, whom I liked very much and still would like to like. He is a high school classmate of mine, but I guess we were never really close in high school, for whatever reason that I have always had a clue about but never wanted to acknowledge. Anyway, we got closer when we were in college, different colleges, with mine in our hometown and his in the capital. So we got close when we were actually apart. Come to think of it, the thing that tightened the bond was our momentarily converged misunderstandings of what the other person was like. I found him a guy who wanted to get "the best education", someone who was seemingly interested not only in having the ability to make a living, or even to make money, but in excelling in the one thing he had set his mind to, which could well make a contribution to the actual human civilization and benefit all the ordinary human beings around the world. Something that would make the lives of all people, everywhere, better, instead of something that only feeds the rich while buries the poor, aggrandizes the strong while exploits the weak. Somehow, somewhere along the way, he got sucked into an operation. It is an operation that tries to turn everybody into a whore, who sells his or her body and soul for a trinket, an item, a product, an asset, a piece of "real" estate, a "portfolio", a life style, a particular "aspiration", or specific kinds of members of the opposite sex, things that he would never want or need, and people whom he would never be interested in, had he still lived in the Eden. Yet he lives in the world. He hears, reads, and sees. They tell him what he should need or want. He wants to be liked, loved, and esteemed. They tell him how he should achieve these, and they tell everyone what the person is like whom you should like, love, and who demands your esteem.He bought it, and he turned. He thought reality rules, and since the reality is different from what he had thought, he'd better want something else.In this way, the operation succeeded. It made him think the things they want him to want are really what he wants himself. No better whore than this. Willingly, qualm-lessly, doubtlessly, never with hurt pride but always with judgmental arrogance, and with the everyone cheering him on, with unfeigned admiration. I know he has defense for it: "You know, what am I supposed to do? Judging from the way you speak of 'the operation', you know how it works - it crushes those who refuse it, and awards those who join. I have a life to live, and I even want to make something out of it. I cannot afford the sorry existence you proscribed."And he would tell me: "You just never grew up. You live in your shell and you had the shame to tell me how I should live my life in the real world? You know nothing of it."Protest I would: "My dear dear friend, you know me. I had bared my all to you, as you knew. Not that I ever put up much disguise. You and I shared something that others would never with us. We know where we come from. We know our roots. We know what we were. We know our history, our origin, our genesis. "In more practical words, we know what we really were and still are, had 'the operation''s devastation never occurred or even occurred. "You know, my dear friend, I would never look down upon you. Sharing what we shared, it is simply impossible for me to look down upon one of my own. I treat you all not simply as my brothers and sisters, but as my alter-egos. It is a bond that would never break. I would fulminate, I would curse, I would berate, but I would always love."Then he would retort: "That is disingenuous. You never lived. After all the backstabbing, the double-dealing, the about-face, much of which I experienced with my 'alter-egos', I doubt you could still 'love'."I would again appeal: "Would those happen if all of you were still in Eden, instead of in the 'operation'? Think on it, my other self. Think on it. Your sufferings you have made yourself. Your fate you sealed yourself. And your grave you dug yourself. "And you call my existence 'sorry'? Well, I concede it is. But so is yours. And my sorriness is because of your sorriness; it is caused by your sorriness. You can say I have never lived, but had you, all of you, refused to be fuel to the operation, I might have, with every one of you, lived in a new Eden that would put to shame the previous lesser evil of one."He would not be moved: "You are babbling. The operation has no mercy. Before you can have enough power to kill it, it always wins. You join, or you die. Simple as that. And I do not want to die. I like my life, my entry-level luxury car, my new apartment, my girlfriend who really knows how to dress and how to make love, my nights out in the city, my shopping in the boutiques, my web-ordered consumer products mailed to me, and, you know what is the best of it? The sense of being accepted and loved, when you know you have a position in the world, and that your folks would not worry about you, and you have a family to come home to, and your family and friends even get together sometimes not for any specific purpose, just to feel good. "I love all of that, and I have no intention of ever abandoning any of it for your life, as if you even had one. You know what, do not talk to me about this any more. There is no point. I just love what I love. I just want what I want. I only care about if I am happy. Yes, I only care about myself. I said it. If they give what I am doing a meaning, or give it a purpose or a cover of 'righteousness', telling me as well as everyone else what I am doing is of value and right, I am all the happier for it. But even if they do not, which never happens, I am still all for it. As long as it gets me through the day, I do not care if it satisfies my conscience or fools it, is truthful about its purpose or lies about it. As long as I do not feel a qualm about it, I do not care about what I do or what it does to others. Of course, I'll always believe and say I am doing it for the right purpose, because, in the final analysis, whether it is actually right or whether it is right with caveats and nuances do not matter, what matters is if I can make myself believe in it, heart and soul, with no caveats, sans nuances, never second-guessing."I wish I never had this conversation with you. And I wish I never had this 'Eden' experience with you, giving you all the pretext for chatting me up a storm for this nonsense about what I want. Just so you know, I did not know what I wanted back then, which I guess is what made it so Eden for you, but I know what I want right now because I've grown up! The more people grow up, the more clearly they know what they want."You know what, I admit this is an operation. I have always known. Don't you think you know more than me. The difference between us is that you are deluded; you think wrong. You think just by standing on the sideline you are doing anything about it? No, you are not. But I, working my way up the ladder, who knows, maybe some day I can even do something about it!"End of conversation. Go back to your desert. I am busy. You know, you are such a hypocrite: the movies are what we consume, we people of the operation, it is our reward and fodder for our having done another day's worth of hard work, another day of triumphant operation conducting, and you lap up this stuff that you so despise, even in your purported desolate existence? You know, because of this hypocrisy of yours I just discovered, I conclude everything you just said is wrong. What you said is all nonsense. Bye. And do not contact me again."But I know I would. He is my brother and alter-ego after all. And I would say to him: "Bro, I need my telescope into the operation. Do not blame me. I know I am being a voyeur, what you might even consider an impotent voyeur, but I am just not of the temperament for the 。

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