Note to Baba – 1

I had always marveled at your habit of naming one’s contact on your phone with a long description of their role in your life or how you’ve come to know them, such as “pak budi kenal dari asep” or “pak jaja servis genset 24jam”*.

Because you’re not a forgetful person. So why would you put their contacts name that way? I thought perhaps its because you’re afraid you’ll get dementia, just like grandmother.

But no. It turns out it was a way to help me contact them when you’re not here anymore.

It has helped me enormously – from the genset service man, the bureau, your contact at the bank, family members (whom I had no idea belonged to which family branch), even the Hokben call center ..and I’m sure it will continue to help me as I navigate through life without you. So thank you, Baba.

*) I also wondered why you disliked capital letters so much. To this day I still don’t know the reason 😅

Hello again.

I spent the last few months without writing anything on this blog at all. To be honest, I have no right reason to justify that. It’s just that.. life has been pretty good to me, giving me the rainbows and butterflies of a relationship.

I used to be the kinda person that tells their friend to never let your relationship define her. That she should have a whole another world or dimension in her life that does not include their significant other heavily. That she is the sun, so she must never let herself and her life revolve around her partner.

Unbeknownst to me, those things are actually very hard to accomplish. It turns out that once you’re in a relationship, especially when you feel very happy, it is very easy to let your significant other be the center of your universe. It could become very easy for you to forget your ambitions, even when they never ask you to. You just let yourself be absorbed, readily and joyfully. You want to make yourself available for the person you love twenty four-seven.

Why? Perhaps its because the happiness you gain from that relationship simply make you feel.. enough. You no longer seek attention from other people because you already have all the attention you need from the person that matter to you the most, and you’re happy with that.

So, right now, what I intend to do with this writing is to remind myself that while it is hard, it is not impossible. You can still love and be your own person, the two are not mutually exclusive! Never let yourself get lost in the process, because while you do have commitment with your partner, its only that. A commitment. You don’t and should not own that person. You only own yourself, and that’s the reason why you should make yourself your number one priority.

02.11

Do you still believe in love?

Because I’m not sure about my faith in it. Is love something you feel when you see something beautiful? Is love something you feel when you miss a nice voice? Is love something you feel when you received a compliment? Or is love the combination of all of the above?

Is love naive? Is love possessive? Is love protective?

Dear 2020 Me,

I wrote this today to remind you what you wanted to achieve in a year, a year ago.

Okay. First sentence. That was easy enough. Now what? What do I actually want?

Maybe become a better person. But that’s waaay to ‘relative’ now. What kind of person is a better person than the other? The ones who study more, are they better? The ones who have more fun, are they better? I have no idea. I just hope that, in a year, my ability and skills to do things get better. Those things might include the technical stuff, like writing or analyzing things, but also include the ‘personality’ stuff, like: become kinder, more understanding, more patient, wiser, more punctual, and definitely have more self esteem. I hope you remember this, dear future self.

Next, I hope you enjoy what you study and get good grades out of it.. cause it’s a really good feeling, remember? To actually enjoy and be interested about what you’re studying.

Oh. I hope in a year you become healthier: workout more, consume healthier food, and have a better sleeping schedule.. because seriously, the one you have now is messed up.

About your friends.. I sincerely hope you keep in touch with them. Keep listening to their stories and be there when you need them. Guys don’t last (maybe one will, eventually).. but friends do. They keep you sane and humbled and up to date, hahaha.

Please, please, and please: stop procrastinating. I know it works. I know you still procrastinate because even by doing it you still get things done. But imagine how much better it will be if you don’t procrastinate at all?

 

Loss

A bowl of noodle is being served in front of you. There’s radish in it, which you never liked. So, almost automatically, you move those radish into your significant other’s bowl. She didn’t mind as she’s used to it for the last ten years. 

You just finished a meeting at the mall and are heading back home now. You enter the elevator and the guy inside asks you, “which floor, sir?”, to which you give no answer, because you can’t seem to remember on which floor you parked your car. You try and try to remember.. but nothing comes up. It was always her thing to know and remember which floor and which elevator to go through. But she’s not here. Not anymore.

Friends come to keep you company while you’re hitting one of your lowest point. You want to make them some coffee. You’re trying to find the coffee filters, one cabinet after the other. Again.. this was her thing. She’s the one who woke up early in the mornings and made coffee. But she’s not here now.

Now.. the hardest part. After months of sleeping on the couch, you try to enter your bedroom again. One step in, one look around inside.. And there it is. The memory of the two of you, just as if these months didn’t pass by and you’re still together. Just as if you’re still waking up next to her smile and falling asleep to her voice because she used to sing before going to bed. Just as if she’s still there, only meters away, in the bathroom, about to enter the bedroom and kiss you good morning. But those as ifs stay as ifs and the room stay empty.

If only we can live a thousand years long..

Would there still be anyone who dares to do what they know isn’t right/good for them and or will bring them nothing but regret?

—

Surely, when people have children and grand children, sooner or later, one way or another, they begin telling their offspring about what’s bad for them, what not to do, what will bring only harm, or just anything to avoid in general.

Yet, the natural curiosity and rebel in the youthful souls often (if not always) choose to avoid those warnings. They do what they were told to avoid, over and over again, and eventually, the cycle continues. The offspring of their offspring would also ignore the warnings for the sake of “experiencing the lesson in disguise” themselves, and when they grow up, they’ll tell the same thing to their descendants.

The things to “avoid” can be as simple as falling in love to the person that’ll only hurt you, or not to get attached to anyone that doesn’t take too much time thinking or caring about you, or not to get high on things that’ll get you addicted in a way that will only harm you. Even simpler, the “warnings” can also be in the form of “advises”: to make sure you stay healthy, to workout, to care more about your family, to eat fruits, to be confident, to read books, and so on. Still, most of them would not do it anyway.

Then, just when the realization hits them, they’re all already worn and tattered from all those wrongdoings and regrets, and commonly, this happens when they reach old age. When they have only little time to “reset” and do something about their regrets. Just when they know exactly what to do and not to do, just when they actually have the will to “obey” the warnings set by previous generations, they lose the chance and time to do so.

If only every individual could live for.. say, a thousand years, can this cycle be avoided? Or..

Will humankind always be trapped in this.. mortal cycle of “curiosity” of “doing the bad but interesting” things?

 

05:19

Wow.

It just struck me how each person, each individual, is different.

I’ve always thought and believed that we’re all basically the same, differentiated and seasoned only by the different culture that surround us, norms and values that guide us, family that raised us, schools and teachers that taught us, movies we watched, books we read, food we tasted and places we traveled.

It dawned on me that all those experiences could really shape a person: physically and mentally. Each person’s way of thinking is also a result of all these.. lessons. I once believed we will all arrive at the same and identical understanding of the world and everything in it, and at the moment not everybody could understand each other because we’re currently living different phases of the journey.

But.. I’m beginning to think that all the journeys are different. Each and every one of them. The destination and length vary too.

I can’t help but wonder.. who determine what kind of journey we take? Will we end up having the same understanding.. (on the same page)? Or will we die thinking that our way of seeing and understanding everything is the best and better way than other’s?

01:51

I just finished watching the Before trilogy after two years. No, no, the total length of the movie is only 5 hours but I actually watched the first two (and 20 minutes of the third one) on 30th of December 2018 and finished Before Midnight on January 3rd, 2019.

The movies were brilliant.

Among many things, the movie reminded me of what I’ve truly been looking for, not a romantic.. we’re together all the time boyfriend, but someone whom I can truly connect with, someone I could talk about anything with. I want to fall in love at their ideas that they also share with me. Basically, a good conversationalist that can carry out any type of conversation with me. I believe at most times human interact with each other, they know what kind of answer they are looking for in response, and we go all around searching for some people who gave that answer. The kind of person vary according to what topic we want to talk about, and that’s why we are friends with many different people. This movie showed something fantastic : two people who can talk about so many topics, like politics, art, history, environment, etc. with almost the same level of interest and knowledge. Well, not on every topic, but it’s great to see two people who seem to understand what the other person is saying almost as if they live in the same society (hence, same knowledge) when the two of them are actually natives to different continents.

And that’s what I really want to have and to experience in life. I will probably come back to this post and add a few more things I really loved about the movie, but that’s it for now. If anyone is reading this and haven’t watched the movies, well, you should. It will change your life.

PS. Below is a poem featured in the movie, it’s so unique and beautiful and I really wanna post it here. It will give nothing away. (I also hate spoilers).

 

The day I meet you again

Andai kamu bukan aku dan aku bukan kamu,

Dan semesta hanya sekumpul abu debu

Maka mulut tak perlu berkata dan mata menerka

Bahwa yang ada benar-benar ada,

dan yang dulu sudah sirna.

Bahwa kita adalah bukan kita,

yang menjelma menjadi satu cerita.

Cuma karakter buku fana,

yang tak pelu kena sakitnya realita.

Andai aku bukan aku,

dan kamu bukan kamu.

Dari aku… yang selalu merindu kamu bak orang dungu.

 

 

 

00:08

Aku harus apa? Ketika yang ada di depan mata hanya sengketa dan perkara;

Aku harus apa? Ketika opini datang bak tsunami namun tak ada yang bermakna;

Aku harus apa? Ketika kiri dan kanan selalu saling berburuk sangka;

Tak pernah ada habisnya.

Kemanusiaan jadi omongan; mainan; alat berebut kekuasaan.

Jabatan jadi tujuan.. tahta di atas segalanya.

Yang banyak, berkoar bersama kelompoknya; padahal ketika sendiri, kata maaf jadi temannya.

Apa semua ini pantas?

Nilai kekuasaan bukan mata uang kita..

Nilai agama juga bukan alat saling hina..

Nilai kemanusiaan harusnya tak punya harga.