the pitfalls of travel
Right now, it's 1am in Hong Kong and that alluded to lion's roar has settled down into a soft distant mumble, and yet there is never silence.
Hong Kong is truly a city. Amongst one of those heralded as emerging powers, it is permeated with the grandeur of riches and successes of asians, epitome of the "modern asian" taste and thought, yet unfettered by the trappings of black communism in China.
It satisfies every criteria in deserving this status.
Sky high skyscrapers, that really seem to scrape the sky.
Eternal servitude of a restless, ceaseless colony; hell bent on making money.
World class efficiency; transport systems that run on liquid gold, shops and department stores fortified with diamond steel.
The money that flows like water.
The night life, the dirty side of life.
Success,
Glamour,
Power.
And yet...
One is never more alone, than when densely surrounded as such by a million other individuals.
Those ominous premonitionary words of Eliot comes to mind;
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock
I feel the cautionary, long-gone words of the Modernist master crashing down upon me with an imminent sense of doom.
I have written about the spiritually exhausted individuals of a broken modern landscape, of disconnection between human souls inspired by the desolate city, of sordid images, soiled palms, dingy shades and lonely cab horses in essays, yet I never would have the foresight or even ever considered the thought, that it would be a prophecy of my present state of being.
I am lonely, far removed from everyone at home; and my social circle reduced to be able to be counted with the fingers on my hands. In this large city, where there are millions of other ants teeming in this termite nest, I am acutely aware of how insignificant, how trifling and trivial a single human life is.
Does anyone else feel this melancholy when they travel?
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