let’s be a judge

i’m in love with Ryan Higa.

*i might need to calm someone down after that statement.

 

yes, i love Ryan Higa, but, no, not in crazy way. he is a Youtuber, been involved in posting his vlogs and videos for 8 fricking-years, and his videos are somehow funny in rather smart way. i like the way his ADHD drives him in talking in such very, VERY long sentence. i like his sarcasm. i like his honest yet sometimes dumb but deep in his way opinion.

 

so many contradiction, and i am contradictory, so yeah, i can relate. hahaha

 

i literally just watched this video, and his narration hit me at 01:00

 

there are three main reasons why people said that video games are a waste of time:

1. they’re not good at them so they don’t like playing them

2. they like playing them but they have no time so they don’t want you to either

3. the worst of all, they judge you because you have an interest in something that they have no interest in, which is so judgmental and makes absolutely no sense

 

earlier this morning, i read a post that a friend shared about an “opinion” of a girl about this anime-cosplay event held in Jakarta, i don’t know, few days ago? or weeks? sorry, i can’t remember the time.

BUT, the so-called-opinion was more of like a judgment. that that girl, who isn’t even interested in Anime, couldn’t get how they were so many Otaku willing to ‘waste’ – spend – so much money on photobooks, figurines, posters, costumes, keychains and so on, which she thought it’s useless. a lot of people commented on her post, and mostly in angry tone, like, the girl shouldn’t judge it that way just because she doesn’t know anything about those stuff, that they’ve been saving for those collectible things, that it’s their hobby and their money and it depends on them how they want to ‘burn’ the money away.

 

well.

i realize nowadays too much opinions being shared through social media. once the ‘opinion’ hurts some people, it will spread faster than Ebola. sometimes, even before we have the fullback story, the legit source, it’s just too late to block the transmission.

 

although, opinion and judgment are a bit overlapping, they’re in gray area where one can observe a sentence as an opinion, and other as judgment. for example, movie review. one can say they llloovvveee the movie because this and that, but other may say they dislike it because this and that. mostly, about three quarter, it’s the writers’ fault if somehow readers hate it and mark the post as being “judgmental”. the other quarter is the readers’ fault for being too temperamental.

 

is the post meant to be “judgmental”? dear writers – well, i guess that includes me too – it comes back to us all, whether we really mean it to be judgmental or not. a good post, a good writing  – in my opinion – has to be as objective as possible. unless some people twist their brains around and see things waay beyond what it’s supposed to be seen, a good thing will be viewed as good, vice versa.

 

if, and only if, you mean it to be judgmental to specific person(s), i hope you know that what you write hurts at least one heart.

 

and you never really know how it feels to be hurt until you feel it yourself.

 

i’m not sure why people are being judgmental, but somehow i can relate to what Ryan Higa said.

probably, they’re not as good as people they judge.

probably, they don’t feel good, so they want people they judge to feel so.

probably, people they judge have an interest in something they have no interest in, but they are interested in people they judge.

 

getting dizzy?

yeah, read over, s l o w l y.

 

to be honest, this post was based on what i experienced a week ago. i meant to write about this ASAP but i realized that if i did, what i would have been writing would just as judgmental as the post i read. i tried so hard to make this post as nonjudgmental as possible, i hope i made it because really, being judged when the judge knows nothing at all or knows only a little is… as i said before, hurtful.

 

however, i do know, that the world spins not because people stop judging but it’s going to be much prettier if we try to stop doing it.

 

people hurt enough.

 

and we may say that humans are way better than animals. but i don’t think animals judge their same species more that us Homo sapiens. so… roughly said…

 

how can we claim that we are better than animals?

 

haha.

 

-aga-

karma (?)

i don’t suppose that i’d include myself as one of those good people.

in fact, i don’t really understand how a person can be listed as ‘good’ or ‘kind’.

 

if two people saw a kitten stuck on a tree, one helped it down and the other didn’t, would that make the first person a good person and the other a bad person?

if the kitten managed to get down itself and somehow a car run over it and it’s dead, would that make the driver a bad person?

if somebody who saw the collision carried the kitten’s corpse and buried it, would that make that somebody a good person?

 

if a man was just hopelessly romantic, would that make him a good person?

if a woman killed her enemy, would that make her a bad person?

 

if a girl cursed her teacher, would that make her a bad person?

if a girl’s teacher was cursed by the girl, would that make the teacher a good person?

 

if someone did nothing but smiled to all of the human being, would that make that someone a good person?

if someone donated millions and millions of money to various charity but never smiled at all, would that make that someone a bad person?

 

if a religious person followed all of the norms and rules but never prayed, would that still make the person a good person?

if a religious person ignored the norms and rules but kept saying prayers to God, would that still make the person a bad person?

 

***

 

earlier this day, i got major help from the nurse when i was working on my denture patient. i then said to her:

why are you so kind, ma’am?

 

she chuckled, and answered:

because you are kind to me.

 

then when i was getting ready to go home, another nurse was mopping the floor wet. i needed to walk out of the room she was mopping, i tiptoed my best to keep the floor clean. she said:

just take it easy, step on it, i won’t mind.

 

i said:

but you already mopped it, i will give it dirt again!

 

she replied:

no, no, don’t worry, i really will not mind.

 

amazed, i spontaneously told her:

why, Miss, you’re being too nice.

 

and the answer gave me another amazed reaction.

ah, it’s just because you’re nice to me. go, step on the floor.

 

***

 

in my explanation, i don’t recall being that kind or nice so that i so deserved their help.

i didn’t bring them cakes or food or meal that often, just once or twice, and it was from me momsy.

 

i just like to hang around and talk to them and tease them.

 

or is that enough? is what i usually do enough to receive such ultimately kind reciprocation?

 

if it’s the case, so actually it’s not too hard, isn’t it, to be good, to be nice, to be kind?

 

so why is the world so gloomy and sad and awful?

 

-aga-

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared

before i go on, i should warn you that i am in a major UPSET state.

i have this ‘unique’ idealist relationship with books. quite troublesome cause this limits my reading target. i’m really eager to read at least 5 books in a year, but since i have to have the books first before i really read them, this 2014 year i haven’t really read anything proper. too much expense to prioritize, they’re for fulfilling my dentistry co-assistant requirements, and i can’t really save enough money to buy books that i want.

i kept entering the bookstores to stare the books, touch them, pick them up, read the synopsis, then look at the price tags, annnndddd

eventually put them back on the rack.

man, the price. so damn expensive.

and they just keep rising and rising. that is frustrating.

in 2013 i read lots of books. from The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – the final book of the Millennium Trilogy, 4 books of Larten Crepsley saga of Darren Shan, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and some manga. i’d say that was quite productive. but then i’ve finished the trilogy and the saga, i’ve read all of Sherlock Holmes, and two manga i was collecting had finished too, i really don’t know what to read next.

so one day i went in, and a book caught my attention: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared

the title was so intriguing. it is so damn long and basically summarizes what’s going to happen to the main character yet still feels so fascinating to be read. but then again, i was broke. i couldn’t afford it. so again, i left empty-handed.

until this afternoon. i’ve had some cash, i’ve made my decision that i HAD to bring home a book. i saw the book. i saw two versions of the book, the very same book. apparently, the book has been made into “Now a Major Motion Picture”, so the book publishers decided to change the original book cover with the poster of the “motion picture”.

i hate when the book publishers do that, and they do it all the time.

like, WHY do you do that? the original cover is already awesome. why are they doing this over and over and over. they did this to The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, Twilight, Divergent, Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Eat Pray Love, The Fault in Our Stars, and so much more books. why? why? WHY?

Harry Potters manage to keep the original covers. why can’t the others?

so, naturally, i took the ‘The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared’ book to the clerk and i asked him: do you still have the old version of this?

and he said: we had one, but somebody just bought it few moments ago. really, just few-moments-ago.

FYI, repeating the sentence didn’t help.

needless to say, i was so disappointed. it’s like, someone stole my significant other. it was so sad.

ah anyway, i ended up buying Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. it had turned into “Now a Major Motion Picture” too, and they also insolently changed the cover but i managed to get the original cover, yeeaaahh. however, i did watch the movie once, and i cried so much, i wonder how massive the book will bring out my tears this time.

-aga-

midnight musings

So don’t you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard

-Ours, Taylor Swift-

 

sudah sekitar satu tahun lamanya sejak terakhir kali lagu itu ada di playlist ponsel, ketika mendadak sepotong liriknya berkelebat dalam pikiran. dengan koneksi internet yang cukup menaikkan emosi, akhirnya memacu kendaraan pulang dan segera mengaktifkan wifi rumah. ketik, ketik, ketik.

 

oh iya, judulnya Ours.

 

mengunduh video klipnya. mengunduh lagunya. membuka liriknya.

 

and life makes love look hard.

 

pertama-tama, life itself is hard. bagi yang belum pernah terlintas di benaknya untuk melakukan bunuh diri, biar kuberi tahu. bertahah hidup jauh lebih berat, jauh lebih menyakitkan daripada mecoba untuk mengakhirinya. karena itu artinya perjuangan; tidak ada perjuangan tanpa perlawanan; tidak ada perlawanan tanpa luka; tidak ada luka yang tidak sakit.

sementara love alias cinta, kondisi ketika level dopamin cukup tinggi, seharusnya memberikan sekian persen kebahagiaan dalam diri setiap manusia. kondisi yang secara kurang ajarnya akan diganggu oleh kewajiban mutlak seorang manusia: evolusi.

 

untuk berevolusi, waktu yang dibutuhkan tidak sebentar. untuk berevolusi, perkembangan yang perlu dikejar tidak sedikit. untuk berevolusi, life dan love harus bersinkronisasi sedemikian hingga untuk mencapai sebuah keseimbangan di mana Earthlings tidak hanya bisa berevolusi tapi tetap bahagia.

 

people throw rocks at things that shine

 

ada dua alasan mengapa manusia menyengajakan diri untuk duduk mengelilingi api unggun dan melempari api itu dengan batu kerikil, kayu, marshmallow. karena manusia suka dengan hal yang bercahaya, dengan hal yang mereka lihat bercahaya, maka mereka melemparinya dengan segala jenis barang karena:

1) untuk memadamkan cahayanya

2) untuk melihat selama apa, seterang apa api itu bisa bertahan

 

karena love katanya bahkan bisa membuat tai kucing terasa seperti coklat – yang mana adalah nggak mungkin, jelas ini adalah sesuatu yang bercahaya, sesuatu yang terasa bercahaya, sesuatu yang membuat orang-orang terkait bercahaya. maka life, secara alamiah, melemparkan segala jenis aral rintangan, keputusan, kesempatan, cobaan, ke arah love. dengan dua alasan yang sama seperti paragraf sebelumnya.

 

so don’t you worry your pretty little mind

 

siapa yang mengatur pikiran kita? ketika kita tidak percaya diri, kita bisa mengakali pikiran kita dengan berpikir bahwa kita percaya diri, dengan bersikap tegap, tidak defensif, dan eventually kita menjadi percaya diri dengan sendirinya. kita bisa mengakali pikiran kita. kalau pikiran kita sendiri saja bisa diakali, siapa yang mengakali?

wajar saja kalau apa yang sudah tertanam dalam pikiran kita akan tidak sulit untuk diotak-atik. dengan sedikit pertimbangan, dengan sedikit pengaruh dari life dan love, yang ada dalam pikiran bisa berubah. dengan catatan, setelah berubah, hal-hal tersebut juga tidak permanen: bisa berubah lagi, atau kembali ke keadaan sebelum diubah.

 

jadi ya wajar kalau pada titik tertentu kita perlu meyakinkan diri, meyakinkan si pikiran yang gojag-gajeg ini untuk tidak khawatir dengan keputusan-keputusan yang sudah, yang akan, yang belum diambil. khawatir, ragu, wajar. karena toh si pikiran memang labil.

sering ada kalimat “i’m gonna regret this, but, okay”. ini nih, salah satu bukti bahwa pikiran kita memang agak-agak. tapi itu hanya karena pikiran kita tahu, penyesalan datangnya memang di belakang, kalau di depan, namanya pemberitahuan. inilah yang menyebabkan manusia berani mengambil risiko, sedikit nekat dengan gambling dan menyilangkan jari berharap semesta akan mendukung.

 

renungan tengah malam. atau hanya sekadar cerita yang kalau tidak dituangkan akan segera hilang tapi masih menyisakan ganjalan seperti phantom pain: penyebab sakitnya sudah hilang tapi rasa sakitnya masih terasa.

 

-aga-

story

i don’t know how i can describe how amazing Darren Shan is.

 

really, i don’t know.

i love his books. i love his characters. i love his plots and twists. i love the way he plays my emotion. i love the way he greets his fans by choking their necks. i love his works. like so very much.

 

doesn’t mean that i dislike, for example, the great JK Rowling. afterall, Harry Potter was the earliest novels i read back then. and Harry Potters will always be my inspiration to write something odd and unusual.  the novels give me such conviction that in a way, we can assure people to things that even illogical.

 

is there such thing as magic? perhaps. maybe. no. but Harry Potter, JK Rowling, made it to convince me that magic was great, that Hogwarts was an unbelievable school to study magic.

 

however, i love Darren Shan more.

 

and there will come a question:

WHY?

 

i might not answer it here in this post, because, before i could list WHY i love Darren Shan more than JK Rowling or any other authors, another question imposed:

 

WHY did i read their stories?

 

and that brought me to the next question:

 

if, i write something, WHY must people read it?

 

it’s a logical question. i am nobody. i write things on this space because i need it, because if i don’t, i’ll go drowning in my own thoughts. i can not force anybody to really read what i wrote. WHY should i force them? WHY should they know what i wrote?

 

WHY do i so concern about the WHY?

 

well. somebody – you know who you are *wink* – showed me this video about a year ago.

How Great Leaders Inspire Action

 

the speaker specifically stated: people buy WHY you do it, instead of WHAT you sell.

 

being a writer has been my hidden dream for quite long time. i started to write my story when i was in Junior High. it was a story about 4 girls, who happened to be bestfriends, not knowing that they would be involved in some random magical adventure through symbols and some sort mysterious history of one of the girls… i recall that i wrote them on 4 notebooks, and i also tried to sketch a little, and now i can’t remember where i put them.

 

then i write another story when i was in High School. i had 7 main characters. 4 boys and 3 girls. they were some kind of mutants with different abilities, and they went to this school and a cliche that they of course had enemies, but in an occasion they had to help each other if they want to get out from a ‘game’. the sneak peek is also in this blog, you can go here: Flipside.

 

anddddd, one thing i’ve been trying to finish since 2 years ago – God, i’m so pathetic. i’ve mentioned this project few times, Incomplete Prophecy.

 

yet, i feel like there’s something missing. i still can not find WHY should people read my story. are they motivating? i guess not, they’re just… stories i made up. are they entertaining? i don’t know, i did have fun writing them, but i don’t know if any of you are going to feel the same.

 

then WHY?

 

WHY?

 

damn it, WHY.

 

-aga-

a little bit

i guess it’s human’s nature that we all will want to have more than what we already had, than what we have.

 

enough with throwing pebbles to the window so that Romeo could meet Juliet, people started to develop thousand other ways to communicate. letters delivered by a messenger, letters sent by pigeon, telegram, pager, phone, cell phone, chat application, social media, soon we would be able to send telepathic signal as well, who knows.

 

human beings will always want more.

more of this and that.

 

just a little bit more speed so people can arrive early on their meetings. no more walking, people started to ride horses, invented carriage, bike, car, train, soon to hot air balloon, zeppelin, plane, shinkasen, faster car, faster plane, rocket.

just a little bit more place to hang out. garden, book store, market, supermarket, supermall, skyscraper, thousand of skyscrapers.

 

and i also want just a little bit more time to meet, see, talk, laugh, cry, tell stories, sing along, wonder, stack dreams, plan…

just a little bit more.

 

but that every little bit will grow into many and much.

and every too many and too much is never good.

 

pursuing what we eager to have is necessary, but good things will come to those who also wait.

i believe, when we feel like stop waiting, it’s the time to wait a little bit longer cause what we want is coming around the corner.

 

and being grateful is the easiest way to appreciate all of the good things in our life, no matter how big or small they are.

 

-aga-

tentang

bukannya mau anti-mainstream gimana, tapi tulisan kali ini sama sekali tidak berhubungan dengan berakhirnya Ramadhan, sedihnya bulan Ramadhan usai, maupun hingar bingar perayaan Idul Fitri dan mohon maaf lahir batinnya.

 

well, ya udah deh. maaf lahir batin dulu boleh deh. hehehe

 

sorry for all of my mistakes ya gays, humbly seeking for your forgiveness deh. awkay? awkay.

 

jadi tulisan ini adalah tentang…

 

kangen.

 

satu-satu ya di-breakdown.

 

belakangan, tetiba kerasa udah tua -_-

seminggu yang lalu, buka youtube lagu Sheila on 7, Hingga Ujung Waktu atas arahan masnya *nyengir*

yang kemudian atas suggestion youtube, ada film 30 Hari Mencari Cinta yang terpampang di sana.

 

that brought me to, “ermagah this movie was a hit when i was in Junior High.”

kemudian aku menghitung mundur. SMP. itu artinya…

9-11 tahun yang lalu, sodarah-sodarah sekalian

-____-

 

gila nggak tuh. udah lama banget kan sembilan tahun itu, apalagi sepuluh, sebelas tahun! memang belum setua, sesenior bapak-ibuk kita yang looking back 30 years or more to their Junior High. tapi sembilan, sepuluh, sebelas tahun is enough to make me think that i’m already old, geez ><

 

tentang sebelas tahun yang lalu, ketika film 30 Hari Mencari Cinta sedang ngetren-ngetrennya, dulu sempet diajak dua temen buat ikut-ikutan. bikin taruhan, dalam 30 hari jadian, yang nggak jadian traktir temen-temennya.

nope. aku nggak ikutan. alasannya?

 

they are my friends, but i don’t belong to that kind of community.

 

pola yang sama terjadi, tentang 2 tahun berikutnya, tentang masa SMA.

 

yeah you’re my classmates, perhaps good friends too, tapi no thanks kalau disuruh ikutan ngumpul dalam jumlah besar karena apalah aku dibandingkan dengan orang-orang yang superior-superior seperti lainnya. beberapa sering meng-encourage “ayo ikutan, ayo dateng aja buat ramai-ramai.” the fact is: ya yang ramai ya orang itu-itu aja. minoritas sepertiku, bisa apa me-reach out mereka yang seepertinya nggak ada intention untuk merangkul semua orang?

 

bukannya apa-apa sebetulnya, tapi, yaaah i don’t really fit in big community.

 

tentang SMP, aku punya beberapa teman dekat, yang mostly sekarang entah di mana maupun bagaimana juntrungnya.

tentang SMA, thanks to my anti-social trait, i basically pushed away people around me. dan beberapa orang yang jadi sahabat pun mulai tercerai-berai.

 

tentang kangen. aku kangen dulu di jaman SMP tinggal di sekolah sampai siang sekali, fooling around in class, nyanyi-nyanyi nggak jelas, terus nitip tas di atas lemari kelas buat ditinggal pergi ke swalayan Mitra (yang sekarang kabarnya Mitra sudah dihancurkan) dengan Tasha, Yudis, Tata, Tika, Ann, masuk ke KFC-nya, hanya buat makan ice cream cone atau ke pujaseranya buat minum es kelapa muda yang kelapanya terlalu tua.

tentang Tasha, sampai 2 tahun lalu Tasha terbilang sering ke jogja, jauh-jauh dari jekardah, mengunjungi teman dekatnya (yang lain). sekarang Tasha masih di jekardah, job seeker.

tentang Yudis, kabarnya masih menjalani koas kedokteran gigi juga sepertiku, tapi di universitas di malang sana.

tentang Tata, kelihatannya sih, sudah lulus dari sastra jepangnya.

tentang Tika, tampaknya sudah kerja, entah di mana.

tentang Ann. i hope you’re doing what you really want, what you think is right.

 

tentang kangen. di SMA bisa ketemu Siska dan Desti (Mak’e) mungkin adalah titik balik ya. tanpa sadar, banyak good traits yang terasah karena berkawan dengan mereka. suka banget ngajak Siska renang di kolam renang deket rumah. sukaaaa banget nyeret Siska ke gramedia pusat buat milih-milih buku yang nggak akan aku beli. dan favorit banget nge-bully Mak’e yang super ndeso dan lugu tur polos tapi kok ya nggak pernah marah.

tentang Siska, lupa gimana ceritanya, tapi aku lebih sering memanggilnya sebagai cezca hahaha. kabar terakhir kudapat kemarin sebelum lebaran. job seeker, saat ini di malang.

tentang Mak’e, duh ampun mak, sudah berapa lama kita nggak berkontak, ampun, ampuni anakmu ini mak. kelihatannya masih koas kedokteran di universitas di malang.

 

tentang kangen.

kangen banget sama mereka. kangen banget masa-masa itu.

tentang permasalahan terbesar di kelas hanya PR Fisika yang entah mau diapain itu angka dan rumusnya.

tentang kelabilan remaja yang ngefans banget sama Jonas Brothers.

 

tapi itu semua tentang kangen yang hanya bisa diandai-andai dan akan ada terus rasa kangennya karena gak bisa kesampaian.

kalaupun toh waktu bisa diputar, apakah akan ada yang kuubah?

mungkin ada.

ingin kuubah?

as weird as it sounds, enggak.

 

kalau ada yang kuubah, aku gak akan kangen pada yang bisa meredakan rasa kangen saat ini.

 

tentang kangen, gak bisa lepas dari tentang kamu, ya.

 

🙂

 

-aga-