The tyranny of J.C.F

Starbucks walked into us, at Vivo, at dark. A double-shot something- (on second thought, it was quite good) was placed in your hands, and Java Chip Frappuccino (which undoubtly was better than quite good) into mine. It simply happened - not a deliberate spending. I thought it's just - tyranny.

It is my favourite drink from Starbucks, costing $7.30. What do you see in a cup of Java Chip (Grande, no whipped cream, please)? Do you see relish in the chocolate chips? Or perhaps relief in the compelling caffeine?

Java Chip. Tyrannical?

It is a simple, and even bare, object. A slave of Man and a soulless entity. A submission to our tyranny.

Or is it?

The sweet first impressions, no doubt images that are ingrained in our subconscious. Put there because our brain, like a super-absorbent sponge, is soaked in polluted society. Our minds are so saturated with myths, lies, impressions and whatnots. But beyond that, we see a fearful picture – its true identity.

A button is pressed. The blender hums. I perceive, helplessly and in despair, the menacing hailstorm brewing underneath its innocent and harmless disguise as a drink.

To salvage the bits of chocolate chip from hailstorm: the sins of indulgence, the synthetic indifference of polycarbonate cups and straws. And to ride the drift of the viscous blend of mocha Frappuccino: the disgusting concoction that poisons humanity, that poisons us.

Such a drink is the real life equivalent of Aldous Huxley’s soma. In his utopian postulation presented in his book, Brave New World, there is “always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon...". Nothing is more valuable and desired than soma. Likewise, nothing betters the draw of coffee. The lucrative attraction of coffee business is one that is unlikely to tire anytime in the near future. (The survival of Starbucks, The Coffee Bean, The Pacific Coffee Company, Spinelli, and the nearly inexhaustible list of other modernist coffee-centric outlets that we see today affirms and attests to that) Coffee = Money. The comfortable existence of such coffee houses can be linked inextricably to the popularity and demand for this class of coffee in today’s society – even despite the expensive tag. My $7.30, it is worth it. Somehow, something convinces me that the $7.30 is just a small price to pay. $7.30 to pay for? What am I buying? My line of reasoning abruptly ends here. What different am I, a coffee-maniac, from a drug addict? This is the tyranny – Java Chip indulgence is like drug addiction. Each cup of coffee consumed for drowsy relief allows us to work for longer hours, thereby nudging the average number of working hours of society a little higher. Caught in the cycle, more coffee in consumed invariably to cope with the expectations of longer working hours. The terrifying prospect lies in the self-amplifying nature of the relationship between coffee consumption and work demand. Like soma, and like Ecstasy pills, coffee serves humanity in a way no different from the un-chivalry of superficial band-aids, hiding, stifling, but never bravely tackling the root cause of problem. Who now would grieve over at our foolish self-enslavement? Dammit. Our brilliant innovation - indeed!

The entirety of this ice cold beverage is the ultimate embodiment of our ignorance and indifference. Our character is as cold as the drink. Bridging that, is my cold, dead, frozen hand. Only now can I empathise with the insanity that a pro-environment advocate feels. Brainwashed and manipulated by The Drink, which he helplessly craves for on a regular basis, it is hard for him to be convincing when making his speech. The sins of caressing the polycarbonate cup and kissing the plastic straw can neither be forgiven nor forgotten, and surely will return to haunt him in the course of his speech. Open your eyes! This is how the world had become; the very ignorance of mankind is manifested in our everyday objects. Our Frankenstein creations! We fail to see them, however, because we are deceived by the apparent reality suggested by the hallucinations of soma – the superficial impressions ingrained in our psyche. So who cares even if the sea level will rise over our heads by next week? Just buy me my panacea from Starbucks right now (Grande, no whipped cream, please) – and all shall be well. Trust me.

Simply depressing. I look at that disgusting concoction, not knowing how to express it precisely. The slow poison that creeps within our body, the secondary tumours that spreads and spreads and spreads, evading removal. We can’t kill it unless we kill all of ourselves, so that it has no more left of us for it to spread to. By “it”, I am referring to none other than the superficial masking of genuine appreciation. The immense success of chemical sciences today has armed cooks, chefs and coffee-brewers (baristas) of today with a wide arsenal of ingredients. This diverse repertoire of weapons comprises everything from aspartame to sugar zeal, contributing to the grossly over-sweetened foods and beverages characteristic of today’s world. Perhaps troubled by their sins of indulgence and the synthetic indifference of polycarbonate cups and straws, or perhaps overweening at their triumph at chemistry, people of today appear to disregard sincere appreciation of food. This is unquestionably one of the triggers to the fervent debate and controversy over Frankenstein food, which largely refers to the infringement of genetics upon gastronomy. Oh, to lament such tyranny! It was never ever about the coffee that we love anyway. As we all know, our desire had always been linked to the brand that we must flaunt while satisfying our addiction. Starbucks coffee culture is an addiction – an addiction that is cultivated from our obsession, although its patrons are not quite in the same classification as despicable marijuana addicts. The patronisation of Starbucks, and other coffee houses of similar class and concept, has become a legal sort of drug addiction, one that is dignified, respected, considered upper-class and not in any way undesirable.

A drink seems harmless. An apple, too, seems harmless. But Snow White wasn’t too lucky, you see, for she truly thought the apple was harmless. On this note, I must caution, once again, that we should not think to sweetly of this sugary drink. A huge chunk of chocolate got stuck in the straw - luckily - I'm safe from that bite-sized shrapnel.

Life goes on, still, I could nearly forget everything. Almost as if I didn't realise anything. Almost. Despite perceiving the menacing hailstorm brewing underneath its innocent and harmless disguise as a drink, ambivalence quells in me, as I am absolutely powerless. I am merely the enslaved, and could only bewail the tyranny of Java Chip Frappuccino (Grande, no whipped cream, please). You could now only really understand why I desire the drink I despise, and loathe the drink I love.


(btw this is partly a re-work of some earlier stuff, still on my computer)