I thought about that a lot during my commutes. Following the same routine for days, weeks, months, years, and decades; repeating the hustle and bustle everyday—I can’t breathe. Oftentimes I feel like I’m trapped in a cage; both my mind and my body. I desperately need more space. Living in a flat no larger than a tinderbox, I’m so convinced that I need to work a job to sustain my living—that’s what a grown-up is supposed to do, isn’t it? Did I make myself a prisoner of the present, or was I being led by the collective desires from everyone else? Your experiences in life are the result of what you choose to believe. Driven by feelings, emotions, impulses, perceptions, and the influences of others. The stress and anxiety drive me mad at times. But I’ve to believe the world is benevolent. I have to. It’s like a magic trick, a thaumatrope. The disc has two sides; a bird drawn on one side and a cage on the other. When it spins, the image blends. Fooled by what I see. I got to the bottom of it, and I distilled the root cause of all is “scarcity.” I’m going to put away my worries for a bit in today’s post. For the first time I’m writing in my budgeted, tiny, so-called “home studio setup” that I longed for. While eating my bowl of instant noodles mixed with the dust falling off from the paint and the smell of those just-assembled IKEA furniture. As of writing, super typhoon Ragasa has left the city; it’s blazing hot outside at 32°C but I’m sitting at my desk without an AC unit installed. And, of course, hearing the disturbingly loud drilling and hammering sounds from the neighbours altogether to top it off. I see clarity. Let’s talk.

After probably a week of rains, the sun drove away the clouds, and the view became clear, with a sunny, blue, blue sky. I was a bit carried away by the work shifts, but the weather change felt like that moment was so in time. It seemed to me everything came into place and it made sense. Despite being late August, it was incredibly hot at around 33°C. The first two visits to IKEA, I wasn’t even sure what I was actually looking for. The store filled with thousands of products was quite intimidating; I didn’t know what and where to look at. It took me six trips there to finally be able to decide on a list and to place my order. I kept telling myself, “Don’t buy anything unless absolutely necessary when IKEAing,” but I inevitably fell into the trap and bought two items that I simply couldn’t find a suitable place for them to use and left in a cabinet.

I learnt it the hard way. Under the hot weather, to move the heaviest shit things around on the street wasn’t an easy task. It was my tenth trip there at a local recycle spot called Greens. Why would they swap out the “S” in “Greens” with a dollar sign? There’s no money involved. Anyways, during the process, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Our possession is a burden; discard as much as one can own, and you will be set free.” You can’t carry those with you when you are gone. I might soon become a monk and make my ascension to the Celestial Palace. For unwanted things at your home, there’re two ways disposing them: you either just treat them as garbage and throw them away, or you take them for recycling. The third route would be the second hand market. But that’s another story. Recycling requires your time and energy. I could only do my small part. Recycled 73.1kg of paper, including all paper-based mediums; 7.7kg of metal, 13.8kg of small electrical appliances, and 4 pcs of old tech. Around 100kg in total, while most of which doesn’t even belong to me. I’ll never claim to be a minimalist, but I do very much agree on keeping things simple. Downsizing will be a big task for me in the future.

Housing. It has been the most critical issue in the city for years. Because the living cost is infamously high. High land-price policy, they say. As far as I know, it was like that since I was a kid. Despite failing all of my exams and quizzes in high school economics, I know it as a fact that Hong Kong has remained at least in the top three or five most expensive cities in the past few decades. I read that tiny apartments called “chambre de bonne” are quite popular in Paris. It’s about €900 a month for a maid’s room sized 150 sq.ft.. They don’t know they are already very “fortunate” compared to my area. The rent here is probably doubled. The income is far under what one can afford for the rent. We have something worse, called “ripped rooms,” meaning that a standard-sized 300-ish square foot flat—okay, apartment, or whatever you want to call it—is divided into multiple rooms for maximizing the rent so that the landlord/owner makes more profit. It can barely fit a bed, but with a family living in it. I just heard that condo is actually a thing in Canada, I didn’t know about it until recently. Those who own a detached house here in the suburbs obviously are richer than the rich. The 1% wealthiest people.

People are hardworking here. They earned the city the name “Pearl of the Orient” in the ’80s-’90s for reasons. Don’t worry, I obviously play no part in the efforts. The atmosphere here is to keep working a job, no matter what. If you don’t work, are unemployed, you’ve no value to the society but are a burden. And in most cases, you’re kind of “guilty,” because you contribute nothing, probably living off your family. It’s even worse if you choose not to work; you’re wasting your life for nothing. There’s a running gag: “Nothing can stop an HK man from going to work.” Under any circumstances: typhoons, landslides, floodings, severe rainstorms, trees blocking the roads, even no public transport available, people still go to work. “Just another typical day in the city.” Calling in sick or feeling ill is for the weak; it would also be an excuse for being lazy. A lot of people, myself included, are bound by such a “collective psyche,” that’s the norm here.

My mentality is always the same: to secure an income and save up for the future. I kept working on it for the past twenty-something years. It’s because I know of the truth: “Money doesn’t fall from the sky.” The longest hiatus I took was no longer than three months. I don’t feel safe if I don’t see my savings go up to a certain amount every year. But it will never be enough. Scarcity. Always wanting to plan ahead, I never stop at calculating my finance and expenses. I want to see the money in my bank accounts piling up and be ready for an unknown future, worrying that if something bad might happen, it can be of use. Too many what ifs. A couple years ago, an opportunity appeared, and I took my chance. My hardwork did eventually pay off. If it weren’t for my strict and harsh saving habits in the past decades, it wouldn’t be possible. In recent years, I took it to the extreme with “zero spending” for readying the purchase. But my excitement seemed to me has never arrived because I was completely overwhelmed by endless paper works, back-and-forth talking, and all the nitty-gritty, which involved way too much decision-making, and came with a lot of responsibilities. It feels surreal to me I was able to gone through all that shit load of work.

I put a pause on streaming service, I unsubscribed Netfilx in early 2025. I plan on doing so till the next year. Also taking a break from gaming for two months because I was very busy and simply not in the mood. To distract myself, I was completely invested in searching for the perfect desk setup inspiration for weeks. I ended up picking up the ANAFALLARE tabletop paired with four OLOV legs and went with SKRUVBY bookshelf from IKEA. They sell at a relatively reasonable price. But I hate that IKEA put multiple sticky labels on their products that are unable to be removed cleanly. Gotta admit the furniture layout-ing in particular was quite fun. Assembling those IKEA furniture required some strength, especially my bed, HEMNES. When I was nearly done and ready to flip it around, it turned out the bed was facing the wrong direction, but there’s no room for rotating it, and I had to disassemble the bed and redo it, again. It took me FOUR freaking hours by myself. And there are always some pre-drilled holes not deep enough and not aligned with the screws that I screwed in by hand. My dad did help with the bookshelf and doing a lot of the chores. I cannot imagine moving in without his help. The desk setup is simple. The result is not going to impress anyone, but I’m glad that this is everything I’ve ever asked for.

My very humble desk. I name it “saltfish studio.” I can finally let my gals and my squad out of their boxes. Autobots, roll! I wasn’t able to include my book collection in the frame. None of the stuff in the photo is newly bought, not a single item—well, maybe a few—except for the furniture. This setup is indeed very budgeted and feels very IKEA-esque. But I’m very grateful that I can have my own work desk! I did try to make it an Instagram worthy shot but sadly failed.

Once you achieve your “dream,” you have the next thing to worry about. In a way, I understand the excitement of settling a home. Living space, big or small, I’m content. Rich or poor, it doesn’t affect me no more because all I needed is just about “enough.” Next time you think of your fate a thaumatrope, if you spin it, the visuals blur. All I see is a bird flip its wings and fly high. I’ve just turned 40, am unemployed, still act like a manchild at times, thinking about video games and pretty girls all day. Refuse to take responsibility. Not to mention I’ve zero intention to look for a job just yet but to finish my desk setup, which require two posters on the wall to make complete. I drafted the layouts in my head, it would be typography focused, aligned with a custom grid. All of that I mentioned here, apparently, no one cares. Absolutely no one. But I believe the universe is benevolent. Looping the song Beautiful World by Hikaru Utada while writing this, and I’m in faith that our world is beautiful. Oh, I almost cried, but not because of getting emotional but because I just went downstairs to the nearby metro station for selling an old electric cooktop to someone, and she left me a 4-star review but I left her five. I should have bargained harder.

Meanwhile, my resources is still draining, but all I want is to chill and reluctant to go back to the Reality. At this point, I don’t even know what I am doing.

As a sidenote, it took me the third edit of this post thinking whether should I include this. I’m some internet stranger. I know. But upon reading this I feel an urge to say this: My dad’s 76, I just went to buy groceries with my him. That’s all I want to say and I hope you understand what I mean. Thank you very much, if you read this or not.

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