Nothing

Nothing big happened in my life, lately. Here I am, in my house, reading, watching movies, doing some translations, and going outside sometimes.

This house has been a little bit quieter since my mother, and my sisters left. Well, because of this and that, half of the people in my family move to Jakarta. It is not due to a divorce, though.

Here I am, with my father and my little brother, who will soon leave this house too.

 By the end of this month—or the beginning of next month—I will start living by myself. That is what I have always wanted; to be alone.

I could have moved with them too, actually. I, however, said to them that I still have many things to do concerning my study—which actually is already over. In fact, I do not have anything to do in this city, but I just do not want to leave this city.

***

Like I said before, this is what I want, to be alone and tranquil. I want it since what I usually heard in this house was nothing but arguments. Those arguments, however, are what I am longing for, now.

***

I feel tranquil and still… very still so that I can hear nothing but the tick of the clock, my heartbeats, and my own thoughts.

I am tranquil with nothing to worry about. I have finished my final project paper, I have enough money to stay alive, and I am no longer curious of how it is to be loved and how it is to be hurt. I have had enough of it.

I do not really want to continue my study since I can learn what I want to learn. I have all the sources and empty mind that is ready to retain anything. Besides, I have been offered to work at some places.

The questions are:

1. What do I want to do?

2. Where do I want to go?

***

Several months ago, an idea has just struck me in the head. It says that I should go find a job with high salary in other islands or even countries for 3 years, and then get back here (to Indonesia) to buy a house in the middle of nowhere, in a place where signal cannot even reach me. It says that I will buy a farm so that I can provide myself what I need.

Well…

I know that soon, my path will head to some branches. It is up to me to decide which path should I pass.

The path that I cannot take back…

Jogjakarta day 1

February 19^th 2015...

 ...in the midday I rushed from my home with my motorcycle carrying 4 train tickets to Jogjakarta (tickets for depart and return). I got into her boarding house and buzzed in with a big cup of ice cream. 

“Happy birthday!”, I said, giving the tickets and ice cream to her.

Around 5 p.m. we were at Kiara Condong train station, I was disappointed. There were many people sitting here and there on the floor with their luggage. I hardly could walk.

That was the fourth time I was at the train station—after Gambir, Station Hall, and one of the train stations in Central Java—yet, this was the worst so far.

The picture of ours, waiting for the train

We were to depart around 7 p.m. and the worst part about the station is that I did not hear any information of our train either because of the noises or they did not inform it. I, then, asked the information center. He said, “the train has arrived ten minutes ago, and it will depart in five minutes”

I wanted to say, “thanks to your crews who told us about it”, but I decided to keep silent.

We rushed to get into the station, had our tickets and ID checked, and then got into the train.

It was the second time I was in a train, and I was disappointed. We were placed in a seat front of two men. A middle-aged man and a young man—supposedly a boy—but they did not know each other. The worst part was that the distance between the seats was to near so that when I sat, my knees came into contact with the old man’s. I realized that that just the way economy-class train was. 

(My first experience in a train was in the business class, that is why I was shock when I was in the economy one)

I had to bend my knees in an uncomfortable way for 9 hours!

The steady tick of the clock accompanied me in the whole evening. I saw her sleeping and thought, ‘that is the perk of having short feet, heck!’

I glanced at my watch and saw it pointing at 1 a.m. and I just closed my eyes without being able to sleep.

“Wake up. It’s 4 o’clock. We are about to arrive”, she woke me up. I did not know whether I was sleeping or not, but time seemed to move so fast. I got off the train, taking my luggage—and some of hers.

At 04.30 a.m. we were at Lempuyangan train station and then went to a mosque.

Around 5 o’clock, we continued our travelling trip by a taxi to find a place to stay for 4 days.

Fortunately, we could borrow a motorcycle from a student in Gajah Mada University so that we could go anywhere we wanted. We start our trip at 1 p.m. at Taman Sari, a place where the royal family of keraton used to take a rest.

These are the pictures where the princes used to take a bath, but the water were drain when we were there.

We continued to get in the some other historical (abandoned) buildings and mosque in Taman Sari.

 

 In the evening, we went to the Alun-Alun (town square). There are two big Beringin trees there. The legend says that only a person with a kind heart who can walk through the gap of the two trees blindfoldedly from a flag pole (around 30 meters from the trees).

“That must be easy. Look.”, I said, pointing at the gap of the trees, “the gap is so wide. Anyone can walk there”. Then, I was blindfolded and walked to the gap. 

  I was quite sure that I walked in a straight line, but she stopped me and undid my blindfold. With a smile, she said, “you walked way too far.” When I looked to my right side, I found that I was walking so far to the side.

We were having dinner there while enjoying a festival. I did not know what festival that was, but it was like a light festival where people were riding a lighted cars (the car goes without engine, it is with pedals, like cycling)

After visiting and taking some pictures at the monument, and went sleep.

The Time Traveler

By the threshold I leant, looking into her two wet eyes. My hands trembling, my head dizzy, my quiver lips let me utter no words. I kept looking at her sitting on the corner of this small chamber with raised head. We had enough reasons to be together; yet we had enough reasons to fall apart too. We had been through this for so many times, yet, we always found a way to reunite. This time, I felt something different in polemic; I somehow did not think we could settle this down anymore.

At that time I had so many things to say, but all my words were just stuck in my throat, allowing me not to say anything, but silence. Amid the awkwardness and conflict between us, I looked at the golden key suspended from my neck; suddenly, my thoughts were just flying back to the very first time when I buried my heart into hers. I almost could not recall how I loved her; it was just like a moment between two heartbeats. I saw her completely different from whom I used to see years ago, just like a black hole that sucked my dimly-lighted heart into. I could not resist, but meekly allowing myself to go gleefully deep inside the blackness that possibly killed me.

I could have gone back there to start everything all over again. I wanted it, but it was just the fear of making mistake that could change or even erase all her good memories of me –or us in her mind. But no…no… I could not put her at the risk of losing every best moment in her life if I had failed in the past that was so perfectly knitted with both of our hands. I just could not repeat that perfect moment.

Then I looked into her wet eyes; the tears went slowly down her cheeks like the stream in the spring day, released all the remaining frozen particles from the former winter. I could see her happy without me, flowing in the great stream of the river of life, free from all the particles burdened her; she is going to be free, independent, and happy.

In the silence, I thought I could have gone forward to the future. I had thousands burning questions in my mind, like, ‘What will she do? What will she be? Will I still be with her? And… so many more.’

But I did not think I want it, I actually wanted to feel all of the feelings I should felt.

It is so complicated.

An old man with a golden key suspended from his neck was once told me that life was like a novel; we could either go back to any specific page, or go forward to see the ending of the story; but once we did the ‘page jumping’, we would get used to it, kept doing it, and eventually lost the meaning of the story itself; trapped between the past and the future. It’s definitely what the cowards always do; anyway, the choices they always thought of when they were in trouble were to which corners they would run and then hide.

That night, the breeze danced beside me when I was sitting under the sycamore tree, glancing at the incinerating laboratory. I felt sore in my eyes, perhaps some cinder went inside my eyes; the cinder of the fading past and the darkening future.

Now under the night sky blanketed by the luminous stars, I read the novel page to page. I neither know what will happen in the next pages; nor can I change the bygones. I enjoy the reading with all the surprises and suspense I may bump into. 

This is the short story I wrote about a year ago and—luckily—won a writing competition. I know this is not really a good story; yet, this is one of medium through which I could express --maybe--some ideas and feeling in my subconscious mind. 

Happiness: Origin and Misconceptions

What can make you happy and peaceful? 

Firstly, let me provide you some definitions of happiness:
1. Emotions experienced when in a state of well-being.
2. State of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy

While the meaning of unhappiness is closely related to the negative thoughts like anxiety, fear, disappointment, etc.

Now, let me take you back to our leading question. What can make you happy and peaceful? 

You may say that it is to be financially secured. 
You may say that it is to have a good job.
You may say that it is to live happily with a faithful partner.
…or any other things a human being may say.

Nevertheless, I’d like to reject all these things and argue that these things are just the means that will make you happy and peaceful.

Let me take some cases to point this out.

At one particular time I’d think that a bar of chocolate can make me happy. In fact, it is not the chocolate that will make me happy; it is the feeling that having the chocolate that will give me pleasure which makes me happy. If the chocolate does not give me the moment of pleasure, I surely wouldn’t want it.

Okay. Chocolate seems to be too trivial for this topic. Let me give you other examples.

You may think that having a perfect soul mate that meets all the criteria of your perfect figure will make you happy. It is not—it may only do for moment. As the matter of fact, it will create even bigger anxiety about losing your soul mate, or the thought that he/ she might cheat on you. 

Another case:

You may think that you will live a fulfilled and happy life when you have great amount of money with nice house and the good kids. No, I bet it is not. There will be many ‘what if’. What if someone kidnapped the kids? What if someone stole from me? There will always be negative thoughts such as fear or anxiety—which refer back to the definition of unhappiness.

The basic mean of happiness is, therefore, a situation in which we can erase all the negative thoughts such as the aforementioned ones above.

After all, in my whole life I have been pursuing happiness by means of:
1. Providing myself some education to erase the anxiety of being incapable of coping with the crazy competition to win a good job.
2. Having myself prepared for good jobs to delete the anxiety and fear of living in hunger or being a bum in the future.
3. Looking for partner to get rid the anxiety that I am undeserving and unworthy; or to feel the happiness that I am lovable.

All the efforts are nothing but the means to pursue happiness.

Actually, when I broke up with my girlfriends—either I dumped her or I was the one who was dumped (Actually, I don’t really like the idea of dumping. We are not rubbish after all; unless if you think I am; but I don’t really care because that’s merely your truth anyway)—I always refer back to this basic definition of happiness (I’m sorry for being too personal. Anyway this is my blog; I can do anything in here. lol). 

The thing is that each of us has failed to make our partner happy—which is the main task of a partner—in fact, we failed to erase the negative thoughts. We make each other unhappy.

I failed. Yes, I am...for over and over again… but so will all other human beings! There is no one in this world that can erase all the negative feelings except the one whose head is full of those thoughts. This is the task that has always been doomed for failure.

In summation we have been thinking that happiness is external factors like good jobs, good fortune, good partner, good kids, and many more. However, if we take a look at the meaning of unhappiness, the key is in our thought.

I am not promoting Buddhism or any other religions here, but I recommend you all to take one or two hours in a day to meditate… to be a floating branch in the middle of your stream of thoughts.

I have risen to my highest joy and fallen to my deepest despair; and all I know is that the one that is responsible for that is thought.


This is not entirely my idea; this writing is based on the interpretation of some books and sites I read. There is no such thing as my completely work.

A (Rather) Critical Analysis of Relationship

It is all started in this semester when almost all the courses I took has a word ‘critical’ as the pre-modifier of the courses name. Firstly, I did not really like these courses for they ‘force’ me to keep questioning and thinking over everything. That was some kind of madness!

Since it is inevitable for me to run away from these courses, I started trying to like these courses instead. It turns out that I like these ‘critical’ things for it is substantially important skill in human’s life—or at least in my life. 

I realized that all the media; television, radio, newspapers, magazines, internet, and all of other media—by using discourse—are trying to construct the reality concerning things. Because of I was too lazy to even think, I succumbed to all the constructionists ideas and conceptions about reality. That was how I turned into a shallow and superficial person incapable of thinking deeply.

In the last previous days, I have been thinking over the term ‘relationship’. Although it is a kind of trifles, I find that there is a fatal error in the construction of relationship discourse by the media—including narratives all this time.

One of the ‘fatal errors’ is Plato’s The Symposium. In his writing, Plato says that according to Greek Mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. Zeus—who fears their power—split them into two separate beings, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

This excerpt is indeed romantic and somehow cute or something; but it proves that even since centuries ago, there is a false construction that human relationship is consist of a pair of people who are needy and desperate, then cling to each other because they are destined to be so. It is not a shocking fact if then almost all of romance stories portray relationship or love as a quest for finding somebody else to be complete.

The question is: is it really true that we are incomplete by being alone? 

Well… I did think so.

In my previous relationships, I thought that my girlfriend was the one who fulfilled me; who complemented me; and the one who filled the void in me. That was when I started being needy and desperate. Interestingly, my girlfriend thought so as well. All the relationships in my life have been a co-dependent relationship of two dysfunctional needy and desperate people who are incapable of independence.

The point is that I have to be capable of happy by myself, and only then, I can come together with another to create a great entity which is greater than the sum of the each of us. 

If you are now sitting and reading this post alone, feeling lonely and lack of something, and then you start to think, “if only I had someone or love to re-kindle the little spark of my dark heart, I would be happy and complete”, you are indeed needy and desperate. If you are needy and desperate, the person you will probably attract is either: 1) another needy and desperate person; or 2) nobody.

If you think that there might be someone who will finally complete you—which it will—you will never actually happy for your relationship will most likely turn to be sour, before it ends—or it will stay sour for eternity. Trust me!

The thing is that there is nothing that anyone in this world can offer me what I cannot offer myself. I am not saying that I do not need anybody else. Of course I need teachers to teach me, I need farmers to plant my rice and vegetables—I don’t like vegetables, but let me just mention it—or many more people. I am saying that the ‘need’ here is the psychological need; the feel that there is a void in my ego that need filling.

Let’s be happy by ourselves. Let’s be complete… and after that, let’s be happy together.

This is not entirely my idea; this writing is based on some books and sites I read. There is no such thing as my completely work.

The Photograph

This afternoon, I was rearranging my stuffs when I found some photo albums. When I grabbed one and took a look at it, apparently, it contains tons of photos when I was like four or five years old. I looked into how I was when I was a child, who is a lot cuter than how I am now. 

I am not good at remembering things; through these photos, however, I could clearly recall all the occasions. They are when I was in my 5th birthday, when my family and I were on vacation somewhere in Lembang, and so many more occasions. God, I remembered the time and felt the state of having a real and normal family. 

I took another photo album; it contains some photos when I was around seven. I was with my cousin to whom I had a fling—kinda stupid. It was familial love—like the forbidden love story in some of the Greek mythologies. That photo took my mind into that very day; it was in late afternoon when I came home from madrasah with her, and some of my other friends. At that time, I knew that my friend liked her, but I did not care about him; because I thought she liked me too—which I never find out the truth. What a load of craps.

I was so happy.

I feel so bad knowing the fact that I was, indeed, a lot happier than I am. Suddenly, I realize that I—and maybe most people—keep almost all the good memories in the form of this two-dimensional image—which eventually ended up in the warehouse.

or sometimes they are simply missing.

I never take any photograph when I am throwing rubbish, or get accident, or something terrible. In fact, I keep them and all of my bad memories in the form of images somewhere in my three-dimensional brain. That is why I sometimes get depressed; it is because what come up in my mind frequently are my bad memories, my childhood trauma, the time when I was bullied, and all what I think life has taken from me.

For so many years back, I was more comfortable being in noisy and crowded place because I was afraid that some bad memories just struck me any time when my mind is vacant. The worse thing is that I cannot cry. Well, sometimes I am proud that I have the quality of a real man—who never drops any tears since the birth. Anyway, there is a time when I simply need to cry. Indeed, crying cannot make any difference, but my eyes are like the dark cloud that needs to release its particles. 

its burden

This year—thanks God—I can control my own feeling through some meditations and self-reflection. I still cannot cry unless I watch a very touching movie--which is better than not-cry-at-all.

I, moreover, stand up to face any my worst nightmares that may come up anytime by being still and quiet. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose; I do not know when this battle will end.