career
A career is the accumulation of footprints that were supposed to be of one's own choosing, only to find oneself ensnared by others' expectations and the pitfalls of resume screening. It is also the farcical pilgrimage toward the summit of a tower swaying on the scales of evaluation, constantly lifted up and dropped. In the end, one realizes that the only thing denser than the journey's start is the rush-hour crowd on the commute.