Beware my friend,

The new world

That we created

Is not of machines and systems.

Beware my friend,

That your spirit is not corrupted

By the dashing colours

Of the push-button material world.

Lured by the neon signs of modernity,

The fascinating magic

Of financial derivatives;

The cat-and-mouse game

Of the regulator

And the regulated,

Oblivious

Is the spirit of the human being.

For myself I gain.

Be you a cat or a mouse, 

It may seem fun

For a brief moment.

But as cancer rots

In a noble civilisation,

Build not

The bureaucratic systems

Without soul,

Without passion

And the spirit of being.

Without nobility or greatness.

Without the motion of inspiration.   

Wither civilisation?

Can man control

The monstrous technical systems

He creates,

Or be enslaved

By his systems?

Do we eat just to survive

Or do we savour the taste and the colour?

I ask you my friend –

Is life purely functional?

Or are there deeper meanings

To our existence?

In the Spring of your life

Functions are your colours.

In the Summer of your life

The achievement you sought.

Upon the Autumn colours

The reflections you search.

The meaning you wished

To realise

Before a contented Winter arrives.

When your physical being

Demise

When time ceases to be relevant

When time is eternity

Into silent

Into pure consciousness

Of nothingness.

When the physical world exists without you

It is in the consciousness

That you exist.       

 

Man Fong Mei

16th August 2012

London – The Forum