The Lines of the Real

Despite its sizable potential quotes, there’s a line from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love that is surprisingly stuck with me. It is said by the protagonist’s inner voice when she was on the brink of a mental breakdown, not knowing what to do, and wanting to run away from her life. The line was simple and nothing extraordinary. “Go back to bed,” it says. Yet it was the thing the protagonist needed to hear.

For the past few days, lines just like the one above have crossed my path. And also just as the one above, I have come to like them. They all have something in common. They are simple, they are real, and yet, they work.

I believe I’m somewhat an optimist, but I certainly have little care for fairy-tale hopes. Movies like Serendipity, as much as I am entertained by them, don’t hold a candle to my real-life perspective. And it doesn’t help that I was raised Catholic, which mostly involved a heavy dose of embracing reality as it is. I am mostly detached from words that leap too far from reality. Overly optimistic promises of love, success, health don’t ring much in my soul. And so do every life advice that are based on those promises.

However, unlike those advices, the lines that I like are not built on over-the-top promises. When the protagonist in Gilbert’s novel heard her inner voice, it didn’t tell her to leave her life, or stay with her husband. It also didn’t tell her how everything would pan out. It merely told her to do the only thing possible for her at the moment. “Go back to bed,” the voice said. And so she went to bed, which so happens ultimately led her to where she was meant to be.

Another line, “Everything worth doing is worth doing poorly,” also have come to my liking. It is not about doing your job irresponsibly, though. It is about not letting too-high expectation prevent you from doing something good. Amazingly, it doesn't only work for people who have more grounded perspectives in life, but also for people with depression, or people who have lost their hopes. If you can’t shower, wash your face. If you can’t exercise, go out from your house and have some sun. This kind of thought invites such people to move and do something. Because just like how sometimes form precedes essence, doing something, no matter how mundane, enables hope to reemerge. And for the people who are already with hope, it does something greater. If you can’t do kindness to the whole world, do it to this person in front of you. If you can’t write something that will touch a lot of people, write something that will touch yourself. Because everything worth doing is so worth it, that doing it a little is better than not doing it at all.

And even when such lines turn to more optimism, they still remain within the bounds of reality. Just like in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which despite its flaws, has delivered one of the best lines that answers the question about why we should hope. “And even if we fail,” the character Gwen Stacy said, “What better way is there to live?” For me, this simple line answers the question of why we should hope beautifully. It doesn't jump into promises of outcome that it can't possibly keep. It stays in the real. It answers the question by giving value to hope itself, and not to what it aspires to attain.

In the end, I guess the reason the lines attract me is because their comfort doesn't require me to believe in something that may be far-fetched from what I see everyday. They only talk about the now, what you can do, and how valuable it actually is. They don't talk about some prize at the end of the road, because the prize is already here, in the form of the simple actions, and in me doing those actions.

What Are Clinical Pathologists? - A Second Year Resident's View -

In Indonesia, the laboratory can be described as a place occupied by three things: machines, analysts, and clinical pathologists. Machines are contraptions doing all the automated laboratory examinations, analysts are people operating the machines and performing the manual examinations, while clinical pathologists are medical doctors who click on the computer mouse. This unfunny role of clinical pathologists in the world of medicine has been a subject of ridicule and mockery. The machines are perfect and the analysts are experts, so why does the world of medicine require an extra person to authorize something that doesn’t need to be authorized? Even if some kind of authorization is needed, isn’t it best be done by the clinicians who treat and know the patients well, thus enabling them to directly compare the laboratory results with the real conditions?

It’s no wonder then to have a clinical pathologist’s protest in a seminar painfully dismissed by an internist. The protest was the fact that most clinicians do not include the patient’s diagnosis in the laboratory form, making it hard for clinical pathologists to produce a clinical interpretation. The dismissal was that a clinical pathologist’s interpretation was actually not needed at all. “We will make the interpretation ourselves,” said the internist sharply. Ouch... It seemed like there’s no use to have a clinical pathologist around.

Such notions proved to be personally troublesome, especially when I realized I had already enrolled in a school to be one. Bigger questions came up in mind. What are clinical pathologists really? What are they supposed to be doing? Is it true that they do not have a role at all in the world of medicine? And if they do, must they first be medical doctors?

I pondered as I went along. After about two years living in the environment, here are a couple of things I’ve noted from teachers, friends, and my own experience.

Blackberry: Gallivanting towards Collective Awareness?

For the past week, I’ve been using the friggin’ device. Apparently my old cellphone couldn’t stand being submerged underwater (along with the handler as a matter of a fact) for a good 15 seconds.

Anyhoo, I wasn’t exactly ecstatic of using it. And the reason was simple. It was too much of a cost for something I wasn’t sure of needing. And of course, there’s also that thing about my obsessive-compulsive tendency which would surely give me a pain in the ass if I ever tried to build a whole new set of meticulously detailed contact list,
which
only a smart phone can give.
Hoh…

Nevertheless…
Here I am now, BBMing (if there is such a term) my fingers off. I haven’t got any problem with my contact list also (since I strategically haven’t started building it).

Freedom

[this is not a note about determinism]

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony this life

Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down

You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah

No change, I can't change, I can't change, I can't change,

but I'm here in my mold , I am here in my mold

But I'm a million different people from one day to the next

I can't change my mold, no, no, no, no, no

- The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

Only 600 miles to the south, there's a vast city. And here you find civilized man. Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment; instead, he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery, and he put up power lines to run his labor-saving devices. But somehow he didn't know where to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier, the more complicated he made it. So now his children are sentenced to 10-15 years of school, just to learn how to survive in this complex and hazardous habitat they were born into. And civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings, now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment. For instance, if it's Monday and 7:30 comes up, you have to dis-adapt from your domestic surroundings and re-adapt yourself to an entirely different environment. 8:00 means everybody has to look busy. 10:30 means you can stop looking busy for 15 minutes. And then you have to look busy again. And so your day is chopped into pieces, and in each segment of time you adapt to a new set circumstances. No wonder some people go off the rails a bit...

- The Gods Must Be Crazy

The things Man does in life: being born, spending 30 years or so preparing to live in Man’s own construct, spending another 30 years or so establishing life in that construct, and finally spending the years left remembering the past and preparing for his demise.

Faced with such a revelation, it is only appropriate if Man asks this question,

Reality

Infinity times infinity.
No words suffice.

In Greater Sense

Have you experienced something like this?

• There's a well-known saying or sentence.
• Somewhere along your life, you suddenly find a much deeper meaning in that sentence, and you begin to see why it is so popular in the first place.
• You feel excited, ecstatic about this new understanding that has been revealed to you.
• You call your friend, telling him/her about it, hoping he/she will get the excitement that you get.
• But you're left disappointed, upset, and frustrated because your friend doesn't see your perspective. He/she is trapped in the popularity of the sentence, failing to see something valuable because it is heard too many times.
• So in frustration you say, "No, there's a wholly deeper meaning to it. If you see it, you'll get fired up like I do."
• "Okay," your friend says. "So tell me then."
• You open your mouth, but lo and behold, you can't find any words to explain it.
• And after a while of silence, you have no choice but saying that very same sentence again, no words added or subtracted, only with louder voice.
• And your friend replies, "Of course. I know that. It's obvious, isn't it?

Aaargh!
I hate it when it happens.

A couple of days ago, I had it TWO times in a day! One's involving a philosophical idea (not gonna touch it), and one's about Indonesia.

This is what I said.

Cyn Says

Cyn is one of my closest friends.
She is this cheerful innocent sprite of a girl and you can see no evil in her.

A couple of days ago, I called her and we talked a lot.
At one moment I explained my opinions surrounding feminism to her.
I said that women, especially in this country, had their heads imprinted with an idea that they could not become a real woman without getting married, thus making their true existence only to become a wife.
“Feminism tries to free women from this false idea,” I said. “It basically says women have the options to pursuit more dreams. They too can change the world instead of just trying to get married.”
Upon hearing this, Cyn said with her signature spritely childish voice, “I am a feminist!”
“Oh, really?” I replied. “And what kind of big goals you have other than getting married?”
“I want to finish reading Madame Wu!” (It is a book she was reading then)
“Uh-huh? What’s so big about that?”
“Of course it’s big,” she said. “It’s something only myself can do. Nobody else can do it for me.”

I remember that her answer silenced me for a while.
It reminded me of the very-private-very-personal-actions.
You know, the actions we do specially for ourselves and influence us firstly and mostly.
Things that nobody else can do for us.
Learning, understanding, experiencing, reading, everything first hand…,
or basically...
the very subjective things,
the opportunities to realize, see everything, and incorporate them profoundly in our souls,
and the only moments when we can truly grow.

Yeah, Cyn was right.
It’s REALLY...

big.

You Are What You Love: A Reflection on Dreams

“You are what you love.”

- Donald Kauffman in Adaptation

This is the last time I’ll abuse this quote, and if you still want to read this, you'll have to read the first post first.

In my first post, I describe that you are what you love, and the world plays some part in defining what you love at the very least.

Well, last Sunday I watched this talk show called Kick Andy. There were a couple of guests, all of them accomplished something despite their disabilities.

I’m only going to talk about two of them.

- One man had so small limbs that he couldn’t support himself. He had spent his entire life on a wheelchair without friends. When he had been young, he would have spent all day by himself, listening to the radio. After a lot of hard work and determination, he had his own radio station.

- One woman had been struck by cancer not once, but twice. She had survived both of them. She was a medical doctor, specializing in nuclear medicine.

They are all great fighters, we all know that, and I’m not going to say otherwise.
I just find it interesting that their deepest dreams and desires correlate perfectly with their past emotional wounds.

- The man who was desperate for communications is now the owner of a communications hub – a radio station.

- The woman who was beaten by cancer is now someone who destroys cancers – a nuclear medicine doctor.

It’s amazing how people take the biggest trauma in their lives and make it their purpose to be a 'powerful someone' exactly in that very field, isn't it?
The world DOES shape what we love.

I wonder what trauma I had that gave me this unspecific drive.

You Are What You Love: A Reflection on Self

"You are what you love."

- Donald Kauffman in Adaptation

The quote is powerful, isn’t it? I got it from a blog I found the other day. In just five words, it is able to describe how you see (your perspective upon the world), what you value (everything that matters to you), and why you do (your tendencies, drives, actions); the things that are basically and brutally, your true existence, or basically and cautiously, the deeper aspects of YOU.

No Need for That

Sometimes I think the reason I don't put too much effort to comfort myself is because I love myself too much to put myself in any kind of trouble that comes from trying to provide comforts for me.

Confusing?
In other words,
me: I'm gonna find something to make you comfortable.
me: Don't bother. I love you even if you don't.
me: Okay.

Pretty weird, eh?

Why Kneeling When Praying?

Karl Rahner, SJ

Yes, it’s a very stupid question.
Most people will just answer, “Does it matter?”

But do you know that the answer of this very question helped Karl Rahner (a respected theologian) explain his solution to one of the hardest problems in theology, the connection between sacraments and grace?

Please Farhat Abbas...

Polisikan Luna Maya, Farhat Abbas Cuek Dihujat
Adhie Ichsan - detikhot

Jakarta Pengacara Farhat Abbas lewat Lembaga yang dipimpinnya, LSM Hajar Indonesia, melaporkan Luna Maya dan Ariel ke polisi atas video mirip mereka yang beredar di internet. Lelaki yang mencalonkan diri sebagai ketua KPK itu pun cuek saja meski dihujat atas tindakannya.

"Kan yang melaporkan atas nama LSM, biar aja kalau ada respon negatif," ucap Farhat saat berbincang dengan detikhot via telepon, Senin (7/6/2010) malam.

Suami dari Nia Daniati itu melapor ke polisi karena mengaku peduli terhadap masa depan generasi muda. Makanya ia tetap melaporkan pelaku serta penyebar video porno yang dirasanya sudah meresahkan masyarakat. Farhat juga tidak peduli jika tindakannya dianggap hanya menumpang tenar.

"Ini bukan tentang numpang tenar, tetapi bentuk kepedulian," tambahnya. Pengacara yang pernah menangani artis Manohara itu juga tidak takut jika sewaktu-waktu dilaporkan balik oleh Luna Maya maupun Ariel.

Sebelumnya, LSM Hajar Indonesia bersama Perhimpunan Mahasiswa Hukum Indonesia (Permahi) melaporkan Luna dan Ariel tentang tindak pidana pornografi dengan pasal 27 ayat 1, UU No. 11 tahun 2008, tentang informasi transaksi elektronik (ITE), junto pasal 282 KUHP. (ich/yla)

Another example that proves education doesn't mean shit here.

- Even though I personally believe the persons in the tape are indeed Luna Maya and Ariel, is it right to report them even though it's still not confirmed that way?
- If it has been confirmed that they are the ones in tape, is it right to punish them? I thought they were the victims? I wonder how Farhat Abbas would react if someone took a picture of him naked in the bathroom, posted it on the net, and had him reported for displaying nudity in public.

Publicity stunt? Overblown self-righteous ego? Morality retardation? Or just plain old raw stupidity?

A Bit About Anarchism

Symbol of Anarchy

Every time I heard about anarchy or anarchism, the first picture that came to mind was people throwing rocks to the police in some kind of riot. In my ignorance, anarchy and anarchism were something of a retarded-violent-childish mind. So when I read somewhere that the character V from the novel ‘V for Vendetta’ was actually an anarchist, rather than a romantic freedom fighter, it intrigued me. The character was described as educated and civilized. What an educated-civilized person would have to do with anarchy?

I finally decided to look it up (sadly, in Wikipedia for the time), and this is a bit of what I came up.

"I don't want to talk about God. I'd rather talk about Man."

"God is found by searching something else entirely."

"If you want someone to see an apple, give him oranges and tell them they're not it."

"To understand silence, one should first understand noise."

"Even when I apologize for my ego, I did it for my ego."

"I've come to learn that there is nothing need to be learned."

Old Post: Starry Sky - A New Perspective

I found these old posts from my no-longer-existing-blog when I was cleaning my hard drive. I thought it would be interesting to post them again and add some commentaries.

I love to watch a starry sky. I often consider it as a window of different time options. Maybe just like a time machine display.

Stars are so far away that it took several, tens, hundreds of years for their light to reach earth. The star we see is the star at a moment of the past.
When you see the stars, you may see the light that was generated at the time you were born. Or the time your father was born.
When you see the stars, you may see 1973, 1987, 1964, or whatever years the light originate. You see the stars of those years.
The sky is like a vast beautiful black blue screen filled with images from the past.

I think there is nothing more VIVID in terms of "looking back at the past" than watching the stars.


COMMENT
No comment...

Old Post: Just How Late I Am

I found these old posts from my no-longer-existing-blog when I was cleaning my hard drive. I thought it would be interesting to post them again and add some commentaries.

I've been breathing for 24 years, 9 months, and 22 days.
I've only been living for less than 3 years.
Just how late I am.
Better late than never.

COMMENT
I get the feeling I'll be writing something similar in the next months.

Old Post: Why I Don't Want to Learn Playing Musical Instruments

I found these old posts from my no-longer-existing-blog when I was cleaning my hard drive. I thought it would be interesting to post them again and add some commentaries.

Playing music has always been interesting for me. I like watching people generate beautiful sounds. But I've never been too keen on learning how to do it.

Because I believe if I did, I would destroy its beauty.

Cyclopes and Us

Some say that Cyclopes, the one eyed creatures from Greek mythology, are cursed because they know the time of their death.

When I thought about it, I used to ask myself.

Is it a curse, or is it, in fact, liberating?

Then again, I thought about myself, and how I didn't have the slightest clue about my time.

Is it a curse, or is it, in fact, liberating?

I don't know. It may as well be a matter of choice.

Mm.. It's so easy to say it when they're just words.