Turn
Once one held strongly to a hope
His own hope, that he thought own only by him
But apparently the hope was shared
He looked forward for a path, found the visible one.that would lead to the future
Walked on it, slowly but sure since he knew that future wasn’t insight yet
Along the way he found that a path was not a right one
He also found that the light of the future was almost burning his eyes
Should he keep walking or should he turn back ?
Whatever you tell him what he ought to do, the decision is on his hands
Would he keep walking or will he turn back to the starting point ?
Whatever he would do, you got no reason for asking why
Out of sudden, one realized.
Should he always be walking on path that one have determined before?
Seems like its not, why dont he turn to the right or to the left. Instead of turning back?
My Dreams = Your Imagination ?
In the state of self-esteem deficiency, that’s all I can say to describe what I feel recently. The series of rejection and failure make me think that I can get to the place where I want to be, but hey wait!… Life is about facing and accepting the failure. It sounds totally cliche, but may be it’s true.
Very pleased to be born as a simple person. A simple and easy-to do thing, like writing, can cheer me up and make me keep thinking that I worth more than what I thought. You may think that I am overconfident, but it is the way my parents raised me. Once the 6 old years me lost my 1st ever writing competition, held by a chain of fast food restaurants, I remembered parents said that I lost because the judges could not even believe that a six year old boy (read:me) can produce such an incredible writing so that they disbelieved and chose another piece of other kids. Its kinda resembling how Rachel Berry’s fathers raised her.
To make me feel better about my self, I will write 11 seriously-worth-to-pursue dreams of mine. Before you keep reading this post, I will tell you that some ( or most) of the dreams are too high that I don’t even know how to get it. Oh yes I get so confuse when it comes to separate dreams from imagination.
ps: I bet you wonder, why the hell I list 11 instead of 10? because 1) 10 is never enough and more importantly 2) in case I screw with one, I still get other 10 to nail.
Shall we start the countdown?
11. Starting from the one that I want to achieve in short term. Being an exchange student in National University of Singapore, this August.
10. Get my writings published in major publisher. The book can be fiction or even the bundle of personal essay. Additional wish: seeing the book in best seller shelf and getting positive response from readers as well as good review from favorite magz.
9. Having a perfect graduation day, in my 8th semester. Siting in the frontest row at Balairung UI, wearing good outfit, taking perfect graduation pictures.
8. Being an apprentice on Voice of America in DC
7. Back to Indonesia and start my career in a national newspaper that my family have subscribed for decades (the one that has its office in Palmerah, you know what it is right?)
6. Going to Cambridge, Boston and pursuing master degree in Harvard Business School
5. After Cambridge, next destination is…BIg Apple !! Accepted in an established media group, managing its business matters and policies.
4. Fly back to Indonesia, after some wondrous years in NYC,
3. Starting my very own unisex teen magazine, I’ll make it different from any other teen magazine. I’ll let literally any teenagers to be on cover as long as they have confidence. The mission of the magazine are: to encourage teenagers to be who they really are without have to be shadow of anyone else, to eradicate bullying in any form (verbally, physically, conducted by friends, teachers) and to raise teenager self esteem. I hope this magazine can make everyone’s eye open wide that every teen is born perfect so that they have equal chance to get whatever they want.
2. Hosting a TV talkshow with the same idea from the magazine I established.
1. Be happy and grateful for every single thing I have, even though some of them are less than expectation.
The dreams sound beyond my capability. Who knows what happen in future? people grow strong every single day. Today’s imagination can be tomorrow’s dreams, and the day after tomorrow’s reality.
I’m a natural observer and even though I’m academically involved in academic environment I don’t ever think to cite any social theory to support this writing that 100% comes from my not-so-bright brain and shallow observation that I do unpurposively .
Do you think that hatred always grows for a reason? Well, I don’t since based on my observation people can easily hate others without having a single rational and understandable reason. Simply we can say that the to-be-hated person is just born that way, he/she just born to be hated by particular groups of people because he/she got the thing that I call : The X Factor that makes one hated by others.
To make it short, I’ll shorten the terms: The X Factor that makes one hated by others into The X Factor. So readers, every time I mention The X Factor I mean it as The X Factor that makes one hated by others not the talent show on TV or whatsoever.
The moment I met a person whom people proclaimed as public enemy(PE) was the moment I realized that there’s such thing like the x factor. I bring this notion to real context to make the thing easier.
I have a friend (I use present tense instead of past tense to tell you something very important and relevant with this story without tell it too explicitly). To disguise this public enemy’s identity I will use IT as the pronoun referring to the public enemy, I don’t mean to be rude but if I use the proper pronoun (HE or SHE) to refer to the PE it will reveal his/her identity. For the sake of courtesy and friendship I don’t want to reveal (I start to use that pronoun) IT’s identity.
I can say that IT is my friend not just a casual acquaintance, considering the fact that we belong in the same group of something and we’ve been through pretty much same ups-down during our involvement in the group. Even though, as long as I remember, we never done significant talks or contacts. Long story short, IT is hated by almost everyone. If IT were living in a sinetron-alike life, IT would get the lead role which requires IT to cry out loud in every episode for every single mean thing that people around IT did. In fact, in the real life the haters resemble a bunch of persecuted angels with shiny halo while the actual object of the hatred is considered as the persecutor.
IT has flaw as much as the haters and I have, but now and then the same-sized flaw that IT has appears bigger that it suppose to be. Even the goods that IT try to do ,for the sake of entire group, seems not measure up the standart of what good for the group we belong. It (doesn’t refer to the PE but the situation) makes me questioning why this situation happens to IT not me (amit-amit, Oh please God don’t let this happens to me) or other friends. I asked to some friends why they don’t get along with IT, some have adequately acceptable reasons like they spotted IT sneakly improperly glanced at ‘em but some other surprisingly hate IT for no reason. A friend of mine said: “I get peevish everytime I see IT face”, then my friend kicked me back with the question: “ So if you feel sorry for IT’s exclusion, have you prepared yourself to befriend with IT?”. The question makes me keeping my further questions on why do people hate it.
Another long story short I came up to the finding that IT has the X factor that me and other friends don’t have. No one to blame on, I certainly believe as a normal human IT never wants to be in IT shoes in another hand the haters do have a prerogative to detest IT even for no reason. There’s no clear difference between love and hatred right? Both just can grow with no reason.
I Tell you Buddy: Defecating is Not A Sin
I definitely have to state that: defecating is not a sin or ignominy. Whoever feels that he/she get the calling to defecate, whenever and wherever he/she is, has to follow that call for the sake of health. Any cancelation due to possible reasons exist are not allowed for your own good.
Though considered for being under-weight, I Think that I am healthy. Right now I can do 1.2km jog like for 2 times a week, Once at 8 y.o I was diagnosed with ulcer disease and felt a massive pain, but Alhamdulillah that disease almost never relapse until now. I tend to be a hypochondriac; most of the pain that I’ve felt comes from that syndrome. Another symptom that ensures me that I’m (still) healthy is the morning ritual I do every day. The calling that always comes after I drink a glass of water in the morning. The calling that comes from the white stuff with the flush button on the top of that. The calling that makes me relieve. The calling from a thing that you all call TOILET. Thank God for being so precise and well executed in the making of human being, I can’t imagine how greedy human being’s life will be without defecating mechanism.
Back when I still in elementary and middle school, defecating in the school is not a good idea. Or maybe we can say that it is bad idea if we don’t apply the euphemism concept. Seriously, no matter how limp you are in defying the need to go to toilet ASAP, your friends will not care. If you decide to go ahead and follow the call, I am sure that your little fella will look at your butt and make comments like: “You Stinky!” (Even when you spend half of the soap to clean your butt and you’re not stinky at all) or “All take a look on Arya’s pants, there’s a giant brown stain on the back of it”.
I’d rather to hold poop-ing rather than being humiliated by people.
Like I wrote earlier, I defecate every single morning. When I don’t, normally I can hold until the afternoon when I back home. That day, I forget the exact reason why I didn’t defecate in the morning. Problem happened right after I made my first step in school, after spending 45 minutes in Jakarta traffic. I felt that my stomach starting to flare up the way like when I want to poop-ing. I can’t hold it but I don’t want to defecate in school for the reason I told you before. Additional information, the toilet in my middle school wasn’t measure up my cleanliness standard and the doors are made from plastics (not wood) so anyone can easily get in when I’m half-naked.
The only answer to my problem was: BACK HOME!!!
Yeah BACK HOME, I’ve to spend another 45 minutes or even more just to defecate in proper place and without strange look from ABG labil who thinks that defecating is a sin and those who defecate at school are blame worthy.
I made up a story; I told my teacher that I was sick. Yes I was, my stomach was sick not for particular disease but for holding an urgency to defecate as soon as I possibly can. My teachers (yes not only 1 but about 2-3 teachers) were believed they said that my body was cold. Of course it cold since the feces was already waiting in the edge of my digestive system, I supposed to defecate the moment my teacher checked my health.
I went back home, before the 1st class started.
Moral of the story:
Don’t ever listen to bad things that people said about you. As long as you do something that make you happy and relieve, just go for it. I should have not listened to what people would say if they know I just defecated, even I can repel their mockery and said: “Chill dudes, I’m just doing a normal thing everyone does. You know what my feces remind me of your finger, it has the same size. Want you see the photo?”
The Beauty of Traditional Market
So stuck with the idea for Photography Journalism’s mid-term project, I decided to bring the simplest topic for the photo essay. Traditional Market. I chose the nearest market from my house, Pasar Ciputat, which is well-known for it’s poor managed condition, mound of trash and as worst as hell traffic. Surprisingly, there’re still some beauty hidding behind the dust. With the very limited skill in photography ( I rarely take great pictures even for narcissistic purpose), I managed to get some colourful and speakable pictures.
Never praise for Pasar Ciputat before, but eventually I have to take back all the vituperation I throwed. I believe every traditional market wherever it is must have it’s own story and beauty.
Newbie in The Adobes
Though seems like everyone have an expertise on the adobes, I didn’t have any idea about how those softwares work. This semester I take Graphic Design for Ad class, so I start to learn the adobes ( photoshop, illustrator, and premiere-actually I learnt premiere in the past semester). I’am a newbie in the adobes, I used to be a stranger for ‘em. Even I don’t know how to crop my handsome face and attach it on found-by-google new york picture. So shall we say goodbye to the ignorance era of my life ?
The Curious Relationship between Me and The Cigarettes (Part 2)
Cigarettes and Masculinity
The next thing about smoking that I can’t figure it out is the correlation of smoking with the masculinity. What I learnt through the television and the giant billboard on the street is “REAL MAN DOES SMOKE”. Seems like a fag automatically boost men’s power to its maximum level like spinach does to Popaye the sailorman.
Once I heard that actually men are more fragile than women, that is why the rate of domestic violence rate is higher in husband to wife because the husband are often feeling insecure with their position so they torture their wife because they consider their spouse as the subordinate one. Based on that theory, I assume that we, men, need something to hold on that can ensure our position in society and that something to hold on is cigarettes.
This is just my own thought; with the cigarettes men can show their superiority over women, women are considered to be the ones who control house hold expenditure. The women’s role at home is like treasurer in an organization or financial minister in a country, they decide what to buy even though (mostly) the ones who earn that money are the men. By buying trashy thing like cigarette a man can prove that he has huge power to tear the woman’s wall, that prevent the woman to spend the family’s money lavishly to buy things like children’s toys/snacks, down. A housewife can control every penny that flies out of the family saving but she loses control over the money when she must face her husband that ravenously wanting for some fags.
So who is to blame on? Never seen the 1st cigarettes’ ad but if it had cultivated the notion that “a cigarette makes a man man” I think we’ve already known who to blame on. A man is still a man with or without cigarette, aren’t we? .
The Curious Relationship between Me and The Cigarettes (Part 1)
If someday I start working somewhere cool and the boss of mine comes then say: “Hi Arya you’ve been doing great things these days, here it is your uang rokok (Indonesian phrase means money that supposed to be used to buy cigarettes)”, I will definitely reject the money even if the money is 100k rupiah or more, simply because I hate the phrase “uang rokok”.
I am hardcore haters of cigarettes, there is no way on earth that make my foot move to the nearest warung and waste my money to buy a fag and light it up. An IDR 500 choki-choki is my fag; it calms me down when everything is suck.
A week ago, I met a friend. Talking about somebody else’s business and life always be our favorite topic. That day another friend was the target of the talk; the friend that I and my friend were talking about is a newbie smoker. My friend spotted her smoking.
Then my sense of keponess was raising to the level that make me can’t hold myself to ask the next question.
I asked to my friend: Does she smoke bl4ck Menthol?
Friend of mine: Nice guess.
I can guess it at the very first shot because I refer my guess at the term BBB which stands for behel, blekberi, bl4ck menthol. Nothing else but those BBB that can make you more Gaul in this social jungle of Jakarta.
Sort of surprise with the news. I respect everyone’s right to be what they want to be, if they want to be smoker just do it. But here deep inside my heart, I always ask “Why do people smoke?”, “what do they feel when they inhale the smoke of the cigarette”, “Isn’t it gross?” I don’t have any idea what it tastes like, all my life I never ever actively smoke and I think I never hold a fag in MY OWN HAND more than a minute or even 30 sec. I am not shame of it, I am weird but I am healthy.
Galakkan Kegalauan
Galau, entah sejak kapan kata ini begitu populer. Apa-apa dibilang galau akhir-akhir ini, mulai dari lagu, film sampai status orang-orang di situs jejaring sosial. Padahal dari dahulu kan sudah ada lagu yang nyanyinya mengiris-iris, yang minta dipulangkan ke rumah ayah dan ibu. Padahal sebelum ini juga kan sudah ada jutaan film cinta, yang menampilkan adegan sang pemeran utama menangis bertemankan bantal. Padahal, meski zaman dahulu sosial media belum ada, abege-abege kan juga sudah sering mencurahkan perasaannya di: tembok-tembok, meja di ruang kelas, dashboard angkot dan lain segalanya. Namun baru akhir-akhir inilah kegiatan-kegiatan yang awalnya normal menemukan suatu term yang spesifik, galau namanya.
Galakan galau sekarang juga!
Dua sisi galau yang saya lihat, yang satu apa bangeeeet deh dan yang satu kayaknya oke.
1. Yang apa bangeeeet deh
Entah mengapa, linimasa di twitter saya seringkali terbanjiri oleh kalimat-kalimat yang okeee tau sendiri deh bagaimana setiap malam. Rata-rata dengan bahasa inggris, kadang me-retweet akun-akun tertentu yang memang rajin mempost kalimat-kalimat galau. Oh iya untuk meng-clear kan, kegalauan yang saya maksud di sini adalah kegalauan di bidang percintaan. Kadang saya heran sendiri, apa orang-orang menggalaukan apa yang semestinya tidak digalaukan.
Rata-rata kegalauan di linimasa adalah :
a. Love someone who doesnt loves you back
b. Still can’t find someone that fit you well and want you to become his/her girl/boy friend
Okeee ya rata-rata kegalauan yang menjelma dalam sejuta kalimat berlainan ini ya intinya cuman dua ini.
Kenapa menggalaukan yang tidak semestinya digalaukan?
Rata-rata penggalau di linimasa saya usianya bahkan belum mencapai 20 tahun. Okee terserah usia-usia sepantaran saya mungkin masih suka dibilang abg labil berisik sama orang-orang berusia late 20s dan early 30. Iya juga sih agak labil, kadang saya lagi face to face sama seseorang teman/ berjarak beberapa meter saja di dunia nyata. Kemudian saya iseng buka twitter, munculah ia dengan kegalauan nya di dunia maya, padahal di dunia nyata bisa jadi ia sedang bercengkrama penuh riang gembira.
Sebelum ditimpukin sejuta umat ABG, saya juga labil kok. Dan terkadang galau, setelah mengobservasi tweet-tweet macam apa saja yang saya lahirkan tibalah saya pada satu kesimpulan. Kegalauan saya itu rata-rata berkenaan dengan ke-underdog-an saya.
2. Galau yang kayaknya oke
Saya baru sadar, blog ini yang usianya udah hampir 3 tahun dan sudah menghasilkan hampir 100 dusts ini rata-rata isinya kegalauan. Saya nggak bilang blog saya oke lho, tapi at least berkat kegalauan saya bisa produktif menulis sesuatu yang insya allah disebut tulisan. Segala sesuatu, karya yang ada di depan mata kita ini adalah produk kegalauan. Kalo Graham Bell nggak pernah galau betapa susahnya berkomunikasi satu sama lain belum tentu sekarang ada telepon apalagi blekberi yang menunjang abege-abege untuk memperlancar serangan kegalauaannya ke linimasa. Begitu juga penemuan-penemuan lainnya lahir dari kegalauan manusia, yang intinya sama dengan kegalauan para abege-abege di twitter : Kondisi yang ada di kenyataan, tidak sesuai dengan apa yang diangankan.
Galau yang apa bangeeet deh dan lumayan oke keduanya pantas digalakan. Yang apa banget deh digalakan, (galak dalam kalimat ini bermakna seperti kata galak dalam frase anjing galak)diusir jauh-jauh digantikan saja dengan kegiatan positif dan lebih bermanfaat. Yang lumayan oke, juga digalakan saja (digalakan dalam pengertian seperti frase Galakkan Penghijauan).
Hidup Galau!
Short Break
Sebelum saya bosan dengan blog ini, saya rehat sejenak dengan menulis beberapa short stories dan juga tumblr-ing. Yap situs yang satu ini hits banget, mostly saya tumblr-ing tentang makanan, makanan,makanan (ingat kan saya lagi belajar masak gara-gara nonton masterchef australia) dan sedikit tulisan.
Isi kepala saya sudah penuh ide, hallo wordpress. Saya Kembali
