Adios my friend

Again, one shocking news about death. My friend, and ex colleague in my team few years ago, passed away in the morning, 2 days ago. We had been in the same team for over 2 years. A tough 2 years. A friend rang me that morning and I couldn't believe what I just heard.

My friend said he fell to the ground, vomiting blood and passed at the mosque at dawn. They took him home but he could not be saved. He lost his life that dawn. He died at his early forty. Leaving his wife and grown up kids. What a tragic end.

I haven't met him after the team was ruined by the bosses. I had to face all the problems with the management, and this friend of mine, even though he never really show obvious support for my cause, I always knew that he supported me deep inside. I understood fully that he must secure his job. Because he has a wife and three kids to feed at home. Unlike me, who would fight fierce and risking the job, because I have no one to feed. 

He's one of the most sincere person I've ever met. We were a very solid team. Four of us. Five sometimes. Our friendship grew stronger with more pressures from the office. We laughed, we swore, we sang, we screamed together. We ate, we mocked, we learned together. 

Time brought us all to different worlds. I heard news about him, not a really good one. Though I thought it's your choice, the rest of us thought you should have been wiser. But then I guess, that's what  real friends always think about their friend: even though their friend did wrong thing, make a bad decision, waste their time: they still stick with the friend. Forgiveness, understanding, come just as natural as the air flow for good friends.. And that was how we felt about him when he made mistakes..

Despite those..he passed away. We mourned, we cried for his short life in this world... Adios my friend, you will always be remembered...

Of the 6 billion people's problems

There are at least 6 billion people in planet Earth
They with all their problems
I with mine
Despite all our problems
The Earth spins as normal
Rotating the Sun in its oval orbit
It does not miss an inch from the orbit (otherwise we doomed)
Why would my problem be the worst one?
Among the 6 billion people on Earth's problem
Maybe, at worst, mine is No. 5,999,999,999
So there is at least 1 more person whose problem is worse than mine
Or..okay, mine could be No. 6,000,000,000 (the probability is 1:6,000,000,000 -so there's still a chance)
But it's not possible
My life is not under threats
Because life is one's most valuable thing to keep
Then I can't be No. 6,000,000,000
People are at war in many countries (may peace come soon for them), they might die every minute
People might die the day they were born
People might starve and face their death with empty stomach
So I don't even close to No. 4,999,999,999
Then why must I feel pity for me?
More people deserve to be pitied
But not me
My problem can't be the worst one
Because there are 6 billion people on Earth

Me, these days

Been in:
confusion
frustration
confusion
frustration
fractured
crashed
cracked
crumbled
collapsed
wrecked
shattered
helpless
restless
struggle
In need of:
perspective
perspective
perspective

Space Conspiration

I am speechless
this feeling grows naturally
Yet it feels so odd
I am breathless
to learn that time
and space
and mother Earth
Why do you all conspired
to separate these people
while the world we live in
spins just as normal

June 2013

"Be Yourself"

By Audio Slave

Someone falls to pieces
Sleeping all alone
Someone kills the pain
Spinning in the silence
To finally drift away
Someone gets excited
In a chapel yard
Catches a bouquet
Another lays a dozen
White roses on a grave

To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

Someone finds salvation in everyone
And another only pain
Someone tries to hide himself
Down inside himself he prays
Someone swears his true love
Until the end of time
Another runs away
Separate or united?
Healthy or insane?

To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

And even when you've paid enough, been pulled apart or been held up
With every single memory of the good or bad faces of luck
don't lose any sleep tonight
I'm sure everything will end up alright

You may win or lose

But to be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

Practicing Contentment

In our modern culture, we have more, but seem to enjoy less. No matter how hard we work or how much money we accumulate, on the whole we’re not happier. Instead, our society seems to be obsessed with wanting something more, something new, something next (Christianity Today.org)

The title of the page is ‘Practicing Contentment’. Living in this city for a while teaches me that too. This is also something I observed from the life of the, sorry, shallow urbanites. I know many people who worship wealth, and cars, and houses, and jewelries and branded clothing / shoes / bags and other luxurious goods or assets. Look at the crowded shopping malls. The hunt of and race for wealth sometimes is sickened. Needless to say, we need only to open our eyes in the morning, watching television, check the news portals, or unfold the newspapers and magazines just to find out that these kind of people alive and live well in this city, country, and in the world I suppose.

The group of 45 young women who were poured with wealth and cars and jewelries and money from AF, the money launderer of a famous religious based political party, precisely exemplifies how sickening this mammon worship is. Some people may argue that these women did that for their family or for sexual pleasure or any other motivations only they and God knows. Yet, my opinion is still, money is the root of all evil, I remain biblical I must say. The temptation of living a good life, a hard work-free life, wearing branded clothing or handbags, driving luxury new car, spendthrift have poisoned these women’s head. I imagine how they would enjoy driving through the street and looking to the poor pedestrians and motor bikers and public transport passengers outside who work hard to make ends meet. How they would enjoy looking down to people who wear non-famous brands, looking down and say “Lucky I’m not one of them”.

This world we live in has been so much altered from the point where it was created. It is now a corrupt, materialistic and unfair world. A world that has been stained. People are led to think of their value from what they wear, or what they drive, or what they possessed or what they are capable to purchase or afford or how they look. And at certain point where they think they lack of those, they simply cease to exist; they lose their existence before others. As if human being is all about their material attributes. And when they don’t possess any, they think that this world is going to end, that they are not worth living anymore, that they’re unloved and unappreciated.

I am not saying that those materials are not necessary. We still need some to be functioned. But there’s a level of necessity, how much we must keep and how much we must give away for good causes. As the Bible says, the faithful and their children and grandchildren will not beg for breads, so that promise should be sufficient for the believers. As the lily of the valley is not worried about what they wear, yet God give them more beautiful outfits than Solomon’s, -the thinking of wearing luxurious expensive outfits to make one beautiful is vain.  And the awareness that there’s only so much food we can digest in our stomach, no matter how expensive the restaurant’s menu is, is as logical as being aware of the wild sparrows that don’t plant and harvest but eat sufficiently and not hungry.

The key is contentment once again. How would you feel contented about what you have? How would you give thanks and feel grateful every time it’s rain and thunder outside and you have a place to shelter and a bed to lay your head warmly? And you have a shelf where the food is stored? And the books and the music. They are all beautiful enough and more than enough to make us give thankful for our life.

Well, others may argue that this is a typical un-ambitioned person’s argument for lack of ambition they have. For their laziness to pursue higher targets in life. Less progressive. Ummm…I have lots of reason saying that it’s not. What is an ambition anyway? More to argue on that but now I must stop here. It's weekend and there are too many ambitions to catch today :D    

Another weird Dracula dream

I notice that most of my bad dreams happened when I slept over my arm(s), or when it is too cold. I think those were the reasons why I had it last night. But as usual, when I recall the bad dream, I can’t help saying that they’re all somehow the resultant of what I had been through, or watched, or thought.

The building is like a school building. There are two or more ‘classrooms’ in it, like my primary school building, with the wooden triplex doors and high nako windows. It has half cemented floor, holes here and there, but clean and well moped. Sunshine outside lightened the rooms. I forgot to check the sky’s colour.

I saw mbak Y in the other room, had some chit chats with her about..well I think I congratulated her for something. She laughed and said thank you, and after that I said I’d go to the next room, which seems like a classroom of mine. It is exactly next to mbak Y room. I saw my friends there, E, L, B, and some more people, mostly from Y City. They seemed to get prepare for something. Then I suddenly saw T, a good friend from back home. I said hi to her and joking around about how we could meet again here. Some other people came too. They brought something in. It was a cadaver! The body looked like an old man’s, a bit bald and skinny. Eyes closed and looked like other normal dead body I saw in the funerals. He looked so much like mbak Re’s husband, wearing black or grey suites like common men back in my hometown when they die and lied in a coffin like this. I had no feeling when I saw the body, I mean, I did not feel sad or pain. I didn’t have any connection with him I reckoned.

Then I started to hear people talked. Mumbled. That the body was transported from far away. Europe perhaps (I guess, because mbak Re’s husband is a Caucasian and he looked so much like him). Eastern Europe region. To be exact: Transylvania, Romania. Now you must be able to guess what’s the story was all about. Yes, Dracula. Count Dracula. He was Count Dracula.

Now Dracula’s corpse was prepared at the stage. Yes, stage. That was odd because it is a normal classroom without a stage. But let me tell you why. After I was that it’s Dracula, I felt like I must get some fresh air so I asked my friend that I was not comfortable and would get out of the room to get some drinks. I went to a canteen, sort of. I talked to people there that I was not interested to see the Dracula show or whatever it is with the dead body as the centre of attention. But they said I must because it will be different than the show I saw last year (seemed like it’s an annual show, gosh!).

When I got back, the room setting was altered. The building was altered. It became a large single room building.  A kind of auditorium. With rows of chairs and hallways. It’s a mix between cinema and church. Red carpeted and the chairs are set in the setting of curved lines, which centre is the stage. Dracula was there. And I saw that the room was full of people, mumbled and whispered among them. I knew some familiar faces. Ladies. Tante O, M etc, they are my neighbors back home. I guess I even heard choirs sang in the background.

I came in, smiled to those I knew, and looking for a seat. I found one vacant seat near LM. She pssst-ed me to come and sit near her. Apparently, she was eating something. Mango, with bright red chilies and salt. She offered me some, and I said thank you.  

So I sat beside her and started to see what happened in front of the stage. People seemed to be silent. And then……Count Dracula rose from his death and looking around to the crowd. People started to say whoaaaaa…. I was afraid, this was the part of the show that I did not like.  I started to wonder, this scene seems familiar. This was the scene from Nosferatu, a Dracula black and white movie I watched last year in Auditorium TIM with a friend, where Batavia Madrigal Choir sang beautiful compositions. Yes, it’s Nosferatu. But it was worse because it was not a movie. It was a real time show. My goodness, I must run from this creepy reality show! So is started to stand and prepared to walk out of the auditorium. But then I felt my arms were sore. I didn’t feel any blood flow or sensed anything at all. My legs were sore too. And it was cold…my body was getting colder. I said aarghhh….run run run…

And I woke up. And I saw that I slept with my right arm under my body, which stopped the blood flowed, and folded leg, and the aircon was too cold I almost trembled. So there I was.

I typed this while the memory was fresh. It is 6 AM something in the morning and I am typing this post while the visuals are still fresh on my mind. It is a bit unusual that I woke this early. But what else can be more unusual than this dream anyway?

I made myself a cup of mint tea. I needed it badly to calm myself down.

A funeral and a wedding, the very same morning

Last night I went to attend a consolation service for a distant aunt who passed away one day before. My other aunt rang me yesterday and informed me that, asking if I wanted to go. I recall the late aunt as someone I and Mom once or twice visited when I was in Surabaya. I called Mom to let her know this news and she sounded sad on the line.

She was Mom's distant cousin (two times if I'm not mistaken), but they were so close because they used to live under one roof when they took their college degree in Kupang. Under the same repression if I may say, to me it was almost like slavery because of all those physical chores that they must borne for exchange of the shelter and food. They survived the difficult years though. She's of the same age with Mom. While Mom has reached her 70 last April, she should reach 70 this next July. Sixty nine that's the age her Maker has decided from the beginning for her to stop roaming in this world, to start roaming in another world. I saw the flyer says so, 69, rest in peace.

And this morning, while I called Mom to say that I have passed her condolence to the aunt's son (the only person whose face I recognized last night), she said thanks and said that she's in her sister's house, ready for the wedding ceremony of a cousin. 

At the very same morning, two opposite occasions take place. First, a funeral, and second, a wedding. Look at how life brings different plate for different people/family. Grief and happiness, sorrow and feast. The diametrical events just took place at the very same morning, under this very same old sky.