Slouching tiger, sneezing dragon



Work is hard. It is especially if I am having to sit, stand or run around (and commute) to work.

I read recently that one must always sit in the correct posture to avoid back troubles. With the slew of ‘ergonomically’ designed chairs all around the office floor, it is hard to imagine sitting in any posture other than a slouching position, without the help of a sitting coach, if ever there happened to be one.

Sitting in the slouching position is supposed to put stress on the muscles which hold the 33 bones of the human vertebral column together. Seems complicated, especially since on most occasions, back pain seems to radiate throughout the back, instead of being localised in one particular spot. If the muscles get stressed, they fall out of position and ruin the balance of the vertebral column.

Work is hard. Especially if I am having to go through it sipping lukewarm coffee. There is nothing worse than lukewarm coffee. It not only doesn’t help to soothe the throat or warm the body, it also doesn’t help to keep me calm. The second point is an obvious effect of coffee, though the warmth somehow tells my brain that excitation is on its way, and without the warmth, it is like a night raid on my brain, caught off guard, and steadily catching fire. And when the effect is at its height, the fire is not like the slow embers of coal that gently cook the meat, but is like a forest fire destroying everything in its way, and leaving no crumbs. But I am left sneezing and coughing.

Work makes me feel like a slouching tiger, sneezing dragon. It makes me visit the pharmacy to get a pain spray and the supermarket to get blue-capped decaffeinated coffee. And both of these activities are not very manly for me, because it shows that neither can I go through life without breaking my back, nor can I withstand the force of the coffee bean, and everywhere I see people lining up in coffee shops instead of pharmacies, and it makes my world upside down.

To share a secret, I have made friends with the tea leaf. The beautiful tea bags are not just bags of rotting leaves, but are givers of life. They contain caffeine, but just enough for me to stay awake but not catch fire, and also warm me up enough to feel comfortable. But in reality, it doesn’t really solve any of my problems, because I can go to sleep even after having a cup of hot tea, and I can’t use tea to stop slouching or cure slouching-related back problems.

Therefore, I am back to where I started, in my upside down world, feeling more comfortable queuing up for pain gels, instead of cafe lattes. And the work ... it always keeps coming, like Newman said of the mail in the TV show Seinfeld, “Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There's never a letup, it's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, and you gotta get it out, but the more you get out, the more keeps coming in!”

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