Cages.

  I'm looking at our little yellow pet parakeet as it's striding along it's tiny metal cage. It's hopping up and down plastic tubes painted just to look like branches. Not like this poor guy has ever even grasped a real wooden branch with his scaly bird feet before. Never tasted the fresh air and sunshine outside. Never spread his wings to fly high up into the skies. Shit, that's probably the best part of being a bird, even he's been robbed of that. Robbed of his freedom. But no, he's singing and chirping along, happily rolling around in his own poop. He doesn't know about the world outside. All he knows is his cage.

  We all have our own cages, whether we're aware of that fact or not. Be it our cozy homes , our comfortable beds or our same close-knit group of friends, our cages are all around us. They keep us safe. They keep us sheltered. Our sanctuary when the big bad world out there doesn't seem to work in our favour anymore. We crawl into our cages. crawl in and wait out the storm. But the storm never dies, it never fades. The world is always going to hurt you, so you stay inside your cage, never braving the cold outside.

  I had a cage once, oh, and what a lovely cage it was. I holed myself up in this cage for such a long long time. Sometimes, I still wonder what I could've done with all that time, all that good time put to waste. For the first two years of my high school, I spent at least four hours a day gaming. Mom never knew, she thought I was doing schooly things or sleeping off the morning, like every good little boy does. In reality, I was spending all that time playing DotA.

  Believe me, I wanted to stop. I knew it was wrong. I wanted to get out there and do something useful with myself, like join the athletics team or get involved in school activities. But I guess I wasn't willing enough, I guess I just didn't have the balls, I was a little bitch. In my defence though, I was having a pretty hard time in my life. My acne started acting up, and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. So I turned to this virtual world, this virtual world where I could destroy my enemies and said I was a 'pro'.

  Like a serial killer on a murderous rampage, I killed all my time away for a good year and a half. I got caught eventually though. Needless to say, I got into real big shit because of that and I doubt my parents ever completely trusted me after that. Their trust for me shattered, and it took me a long time to gain it back. Even though I played less, it was still there, right up until I left for Germany. Even on the eve of my SPM exams I still went to cyber cafes to satisfy my needs. It was THAT strong.

  It was like a drug. My drug. It was my escape for the harsh reality of the big bad world. It was my escape from the big exams, condescending teachers, non-chalant friends and just plain stress. It's one of those :" Fuck it, everything's screwed anyway, so why even bother? " kind of thing you know? Even in school, the only topic we could bring ourselves to talk about was about last nights' game or if there were any upcoming cool games. I craved it. I needed it. Thankfully, not anymore.

  And it worries me to think that I was one of the lucky ones. I had a kick-ass mom who was strict enough with me to do what's necessary. Sure it was stressful that I hated her most of the time. Sure it was probably easier to just let me play away at the computer for 8 hours a day. I'd create less of a fuss that way anyway. But no, she stood by me, even though I never did realise it. She did what's best for me. What's best for my future. Love you for that, ma. But what about the others? The others still locked away in their comfortable cages?

  Computer games are only the tip of the ice-berg. What about the things that go unseen? What about those kids who spend 10 hours a day checking Facebook, and still think it's completely fine? Now, I'm not some idealist whose hell-bent on changing this world by ridding it of these things. No, I've given up being the hero a long time ago. In this world where no one wants to be saved, a hero is no longer welcomed. Maybe it's meant to be this way. Maybe we'll be stuck in our cages forever. And when we finally grow old and lay on our death beds, maybe then we'll finally look out the window and see the world outside. The world we missed.