Judul: Rumah di Seribu Ombak

Penulis: Erwin Arnada

Tahukah kau mengapa Tuhan menciptakan langit dan laut?
Semata agar kita tahu, dalam perbedaan,
ada batas yang membuat mereka tampak indah dipandang.

Aku melihat lagi langit di atas Laut Lovina.
Kenangan bersamamu menyerbu masuk ke ingatanku.
Laut dan mimpi-mimpi kita.  Apa kabar hidupmu?

Kita memang berbeda. Aku tahu. Sama tahunya seperti dirimu.
Warna yang mengalir di nadimu tak sewarna dengan yang mengalir di nadiku.
Namun, bukankah kita tak pernah bisa memilih dengan warna apa kita lahir?
Kita lahir, lalu menemukan tawa bersama.
Menyatukan cerita bersama.
Menjumputi mimpi bersama.

Mengapa kini kau lari menjauh?

Lalu, apa kabarmu?
Mengangakah masih lukamu yang dulu?
Atau, kini sudah terpilihkan bagimu akhir yang bahagia?
Maafkan aku. Maafkan karena tak bisa selalu menjadi laut yang tetap menyimpan rahasiamu.

-Erwin Arnada-

Taken from my sister’s blog – check out her tumblr blog here.

The word alexithymia literally means “no words for emotion”, from the Greek a for “lack”, lexis for “word” and thymia for “emotion”. Alexithymia is a maladaptive psychological disorder characterized by the inability to identify and verbally describe emotions and feelings in oneself as well as in others.

Lately I have been feeling emotionally challenged.  Not so much about how I feel, but more of like putting the words together to express how I feel.

I was opening my touchy-feely blog the other day: “Unbroken dreams”, and then I found out that I am numb.  As in I really don’t feel any emotions within me, and if I did, would it be classified as emotions?  Am I supposed to feel something?  And if you go through my first blog post ever, and then compare it to my recent entries, it has evolved or something.

I have evolved perhaps? :/

“Mangan ora Mangan sing penting ngumpul”

- which roughly translates to “Whether we eat or not, the point is we stick together”.

Although it seems a bit stupid it you think about it logically – I mean if we don’t eat something it’s most likely that we’ll start devouring each other. But here I am, trying to link things together and I can’t help but think about the importance of a community in a traditional Javanese setting. Although now in Indonesia, especially in the city, people tend to be more individualist than their parents, there is a fact that still stands, and that we as humans, no matter how introverted or look like a loner, we are indeed social beings.

We’re not talking about how the human race depends on each other for survival. I mean I think all creatures are like that and it’s the basic foundation of a human being. One can only survive if its individual members survive and they need one another to reproduce. We need each other to reproduce new members of our species and to add diversity to the gene pool which determines our survival rates as a species.
But as much as I’d love talking about anthropology, I’ll just skip that part for another entry.

Anyway, all of the sudden what came up in my mind was how my boss in Bali used to tell me his experience when a female lion who got out of its enclosure in an Australian zoo, and as a keeper who knew his animals, he didn’t have to resort to agression to actually get the lion to get in. Lions are the only cats that live in a group, and when they are alone, they feel very uncomfortable and scared, maybe even more scared than we are scared of them. And here we’re talking about a female lion, who by nature will probably live in a pride its whole life. You can find the news release about him here.

Be it a pride of lions, a pack of wolves or a herd of zebras. We, humans are very much like them.
At the basic foundation of living things, we need one another for reproduction and to reproduce other humans.
But what makes us as humans different than animals is that as we grow older, we become more aware of ourselves as individuals and our own individual place among other humans, and then discover that we are part of a unit of other humans.

Who you are comes not only from your own senses and memories, but also from the groups you belong to.

“Mangan ora mangan sing penting ngumpul”

They say that human beings need 2 things to survive: Food and shelter.
But maybe it’s not just that. We need a sense of fulfillment, and to actually feel that we are contributing something. Assurance. Confirmation of own worthiness to be a human being.
To be an individual as a part of a Group.

Speaking of which, yes, Indonesians, Javanese people especially are group people.  They find it weird to be somewhat independent and exploring ‘alone’, such as a person like me.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m weird because I’m not typically a person who often goes in groups, and I’ve thought of myself as a solitary animal sometimes.  But I guess it’s just a phase.  I don’t love the idea of being alone all the time, but sometimes I find it hard to find people who are actually interested in doing some of the things I would like to do…

And lets face it, I come from a big family… I mean a REALLY BIG family when you include my aunts, uncles, nephews, cusins, etc… So sometimes I need that ‘me’ time for me.  Sometimes for me being alone is actually a breath of fresh air!  Anyway, here’s a picture of not even HALF of my family, so you can just imagine…  +_+

But now matter what, I am still a human being.  I am still a social creature.  So even though my friends find me a bit weird, spontaneous and don’t know what to expect from me and don’t know where I will go next, I will always go back and try to find them.

Anyway, I would also like to take the time to thank my boyfriend for always being there for me when I need him and so I can pick up the phone and say “I need you to meet me NOW at ……….!” (not much of a girlfriend am I?) ;p

So how did it all begin? Here’s the story ladies and gentlemen.

The formal war between Indonesia and Malaysia started in 1962, also known as the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation regarding the future of Malaya, Brunei, Sabah, and Sarawak. Malaysia wanted to unite Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak as apart of the Malaysian Federation.
This wish was then criticized by Indonesia’s former president, Soekarno who was well known as a communist and a dictator who disliked European countries and was basically against everything being closely remote to being ‘Westernized’. Anyway, Soekarno stated that Malaysia is “A British Doll” and by making Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak a part of their federation, Soekarno was paranoid that the English would take control of Indonesia as well.

After 350 years of dutch colonization in Indonesia, things were pretty bad for the Indonesians. They were treated like slaves and dirt, it makes sense that Soekarno is paranoid of the Western Invasions. Mind you, during Soekarno’s regime, anything that sounds remotely close to the western world was banned from Indonesia, including songs, films, etc. Other than that everyone in Indonesia had to BE Indonesian, e.g. The chinese had to change their names and the only language to be used in Indonesia is the Indonesian language.

But despite the drama and hard life the Indonesians faced, this was not what the Malaysians faced. Before being granted self rule, Malaysia was already a sovereign state with little influence from Britain. And actually the English and Malaysians actually cooperated well together. During the British colonization, the Malaysians benefited a lot by producing goods for the british people, also the unifying of thier diferent languages in Malaysia. This is why today malaysia has a stable government and democracy and even today the country is economically sound.

Then what do these 2 countries have in common? The Japanese invasion in WWII. The Japanese Invasion drove both the British and Dutch away from Indonesia and Malaysia, which in turn after hardships caused by the Japanese rule, the two countries came about to obtaining their independence.
The Japanese gave Indonesia their Independence after their collapse in 1945 (giving no chance for Dutch to resume their authority in Indonesia), and although the British were able to resume their authority in the Malaysia after the collapse of Japan, they faced an entirely new political situation and those circumstances forced them to adopt new policies thus the British in the end gave Malaysia their independence in 1957.

Anyway, Soekarno tried everything to decline the Malaysian Federation, thus Malaysians became quite angry at Soekarno’s attempt and they started an Anti-Indonesia protest in 1963. Since then, Soekarno, being a dictator as he is, started this “Ganyang Malaysia” campaign which then started this war from 1963 (Indonesia attacked first) to 1965.

This war ended in 1965 when Soeharto (who was an anti-communist) was able to take the authority away from Soekarno. Soeharto eventually became best friends with Mahathir Mohamad, a former Malaysian PM and since then the rivalry between the two countries actually subsided.

Soeharto and Matahir Mohamed

Honestly, as an Indonesian, I feel a little ashamed at Indonesia’s former authorities and why couldn’t they just choose to take a diplomatic act like the Phillipines. And Soekarno, being the controversial figure as he was, took everything just a little too far. Sorry to all the Soekarno fans, but in my opinion he was just too much for Indonesia to handle. He led the people to independence, but he didn’t have the emotional stability needed for a president, especially when he claimed that he will make himself a ‘Lifetime president’.

When Soeharto’s regime ended and then eventually taken over again by Soekarno’s daughter, Megawati, Soekarno’s fame began to rise again as her regime reflected more on her dad’s fight for independence but neglect to reflect the damage he had done after that.

And another key finding I can get from the history is that Indonesians are easily influenced. Really! That’s why a really good ideal president is really needed to lead the Indonesians to the right frame of mind, not to be emotional squabblers, and honestly, Indonesia’s current president, SBY, does NOT have what it takes.

The conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia started again in 2005, during SBY’s regime. In 2004, Indonesians sent thousands of workers for Malaysia. This then became a conflict when they had reports that Malaysians started treating the Indonesians badly. But hey, we’ve always had that report about workers in Saudi Arabia who had even worse treatments long before that right?? So exactly why did it exactly became such a big deal all of the sudden while you’re still sending Indonesian workers to Saudi Arabia?

In 2009, there was a cultural issue about Malaysia displaying Indonesia’s cultural dances and claiming it as a part of their own culture. Since then little stupid things have became big issues that made the rivalry quite obvious between the two countries. I think this is pretty stupid. Having almost the same culture as both countries actually consisted of ‘Malay’ descendents, wouldn’t it be merely a coincidence that we actually had the same cultural heritage?? And you know what, this type of dance are actually found to be close to the Thailand dance as well. And aren’t we be being a little hypocritical here??

Since when does Indonesians care about their cultural values?? Right now I see more youths in Indonesia trying to be ‘western’ than they are ‘Indonesian’. Indonesia has over 100 different cultures to begin with, since when did we actually start preserving these cultures??

Am I the only one who thinks that there’s something wrong here??
Honestly, I think this is more than just issues. I think this is an attempt from whoever the sponsor is to actually tear apart the friendship between these two countries.
Sometimes I think it’s a diversion. Because everytime a big internal political issue happens (such as Lapindo issue, or Century Bank case) this kind of news all of the sudden shows up to actually divert the public’s attention to unimportant things such as this! And it’s actually wasting a little of my time writing about it.

While Indonesians waste time bad mouthing other countries, they lack to realize real issues in the country some of which are:

We have lost 75% of our forest areas and biodiversity

More than 18% of Indonesia’s people live below poverty standards and then millions just merely above it due to non-existing infrastucture

Education inflation more than 20% while economic growth is only around 5%.

So tell me, when will we as Indonesians start to actually care about the REAL issues in this country?

But my affairs with tortoise doesn’t end there, when I was small I could always hear my family, by brother especially referring to me as a tortoise. Because besides the fact that I was an overweight little girl, I was lazy and I move at a fairly slow pace.

I’ve lived with that analogy for as long as I could remember. But just lately I found out the real analogy of a tortoise, and that is someone who is other than slow-moving, is also facing a physical or personal challenge that limits themselves.

Lately, I have been feeling indeed like a tortoise.
I wasn’t sure why I feel this way but I just keep seeing that recurring image of myself when I was 4 playing with my toys, and my brother yells out “Hurry up tortoise!”

Well, here’s what I found on http://www.beingatortoise.com :

People who are ‘Tortoises’ are:

1. Those with low energy, either naturally or because of a medical condition

I am being lazy lately. I don’t think it’s because of my medical condition, but I have gained some pounds over the last month. And of course, my exercise routine have become almost non-existent.

2. Those who are trying to accomplish more than they have time for

Full time job, yes. But lately I have been applying for a part time job and volunteer work as well as trying to plan my own future business, learning to bake without even baking and spending my usual days playing the Sims Social on facebook.

3. Those who have a naturally slow, contemplative rhythm

Well, I’m guessing that’s true since the beginning of my entry.

4. Creative types who need quiet time to connect with their Muse

I have not had any quiet time ever since I moved back with my parents.

5. Those with lots of ideas and interests who don’t know what to do first and often end up becoming overwhelmed and doing little

Yes… Too many ideas overflowing on this that and even useless things like hmm.. what if I open up my own online shop and sell myself? God… Somebody give me a bucket to put them in.

6. Those who are easily distracted or find it hard to focus

What? Me? Wait… What were we talking about?

7. Those with any kind of physical, mental or emotional challenge

Physical? Isn’t that the same thing as number 1? I have no emotions. I have decided to erase that from my mentally challenged self consciousness.

8. “Highly sensitive people”

I disagree. I am not highly sensitive at all. Except for when my boyfriend calls me late and not at a certain time then I start throwing a fit. But other than that, I’m fine.

9. Those who are slowing down because of age or shifting priorities

No way, I’m still 26! …yet turning 27… And remind me exactly what am I doing with my life right now?

10. Those who don’t feel they’re living up to their potential

Ouch! that one took the bullet.

Yes. Perhaps lately I have been feeling a little out of pace. Like I am not living my full potential. Why? Maybe it’s because I’ve been seeing my friends and colleagues knowing where they are actually heading in their life and I felt somehow inadequate. I felt like I am misled to a certain direction.

But something actually opened my eyes yesterday, when my friend Nenez sent me link on Steve Jobs’ (RIP) speech in Stanford University. It took me while to read it, so I watched it and listened to it instead.

Here’s Steve Jobs’ youtube video.

I would like to quote when he said:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

That quote made quite an impression on me.
Because here I am even though I am not looking back, I keep looking forward. I keep asking myself, what am I gonna do with my life, what am I gonna be 5 years from now? And you know what, sometimes looking forward is not the best remedy to fix everything.

I want to refer to the classic tale of “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
If I was a tortoise, and then I see my friends as hares, at a glance people would just start feeling sorry for the tortoise.  Even though, maybe people don’t see me as that, I sometimes see myself as that, and then I start feeling sorry for myself. More than anyone else would.

And then I realized, how stupid I am for actually thinking that way.

Everyone knows that the Tortoise, no matter how slow, can achieve his goals by simply taking one step after another. The tortoise didn’t care what others think. People may try to underestimate him and saying that he can’t reach the finish line.

But he did.

The tortoise reached the finish line.

In short, I would like to say to all the ‘so called humasn tortoise’ living in the world that we are a work in progress, and no matter how hard it is right now, sometimes we just have to sit back and enjoy the journey. Just because our pace is different from the mainstream and what’s expected, it doesn’t make us a loser.

So. We just keep moving forward, and we’ll get there before we know it.

And in conclusion I would also like to quote Mr. Jobs again:

“ Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

Ok. This entry is going to be tough one.
Moving on. Yes. I am still in the process of being a chameleon in order to move on. The thought of ‘Moving on’ itself scares me. The thought of ending something good scares me. And the thought of all the wonderful moments that will never relive again scares me.

Maybe it’s because in my head I feel like moving on is a cruel process.
It’s like giving a child a basket full of candies and then telling them that they better stop eating unless they want their teeth to rot.

And with that analogy, another thing I have to keep telling myself is I’m not a child! and we aren’t living in some candy land where everything is edible and sweet!

So here I go trying to blame my parents, my friends, the situation, myself? I’ll probably Blame the whole world if I could. But everytime I do that, I realize that it’s one of the most painful thing I can do. Everytime I do that, I am brought back to delusioned past in which even I become too blind to actually see it clearly. It’s as if in the past I was happier than I was now, and in the past I didn’t have as much trouble as I do now.

The truth is, we as humans only want to remember the good things. We don’t want to remember the bad incidents or the signs that led us to moving on in the first place. We become delusional. We see Never land, where in reality there is no such thing as never land, because nothing lasts forever.  We could only recall the good things and deny ever seeing the signs. And then we cry to ourselves trying hard to move on and trying hard to escape the past!

But the fact is… we can’t escape the past by moving on. Because the past moves with us. We can’t forget our past or try to diminish it from our lives. The harder we try to do that, the harder it will actually become a torture for us.

So now, what I am trying to do is instead of trying to run away from things that keeps reminding me of the past, I have to face it and embrace it.
It’s hard knowing that it is no longer a part of myself, but on the contrary, it will always be a part of myself.
I want to open my eyes and my head.
Relive in my mind all the good and bad memories and actually realize that everything is still there inside of me. And everything that has happened in my life shapes me into what I am today. In this case, looking on the bright side of things, my past gave me the strength to face the world today.

Without it, I won’t be here right now.

But if I was still living in it, I won’t be able to move foreward.

And letting go of my past, even though it’s hard, is a must.
There are times in which I think that I am leaving a part of myself behind. But I’m not leaving anything behind!  That part of myself has been and always will be inside myself.

To close things off, I would like to quote:

“Letting go doesn’t mean giving up… it means moving on. It is one of the hardest things a person can do. Starting at birth, we grasp on to anything we can get our hands on, and hold on as if we will cease to exist when we let go. We feel that letting go is giving up, quitting, and that as we all know is cowardly. But as we grow older we are forced to change our way of thinking. We are forced to realize that letting go means accepting things that cannot be. It means maturing and moving on, no matter how hard you have to fight yourself to do so.” ~Unknown

(source: http://www.nudipixel.net/)

Not much is known about this creature, but it is found in Malindi,, in Kenya.

This is not nudibranch or sea slug.

For me, moving around consitutes of one thing: The art of Being a Chameleon.

A chameleon does what it does best: change colours to suit its surroundings, in other words, adaptation.
As Charles Darwin would say, Life is indeed the survival of the fittest:  ” It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”.

source: http://thewrendesign.com/chameleon/

So here’s a chameleon.

To make up for its small size and high amount of predators, it depends on its  unusual ability to change colors that distinguishes it from other lizards.  In other words, blending in with the crowd is what it does to survive.

Personally, I hate being a chameleon.
I hate being a person who moves from place to place and having to ‘blend in’ as a way to adapt to an evironment that is constantly changing.  And I hate being in the end, a person who is just confused on what my true colour actually is.
Would you call me a bit conservative?  A bit old fashioned? Maybe I am.
But if you’ve been in my shoes, you would actually start to understand that it gets a bit old.

So here’s a rhetorical question for you, Which of the following statement is correct?
1. “The more things seems to change, the more they stay the same.”
2. “The more things stay the same, the more they seem to change.”
For me, statement 1 applies.  But to most of my friends, statement 2 applies.
But of course, a neighbours’ grass is always greener.

Right now, I am in a phase where I am changing colours.
It’s a stressful condition in which I am in at the moment, and if you don’t believe me you can ask my boyfriend who has had to deal with my incessant whining for over the last 2 weeks.
Just as I was actually getting used to living my life in Bali, something just had to come up and I find myself moving to jakarta, re-adapting myself with the environment, the people, the job, and everything in between.

It’s a cycle with me.  Ever constantly changing.

I hate being a chameleon.
But personally, chameleons are truly beautiful.
Could that be the upside?

If I must be honest, the experience is beautiful once we have adapted.
It doesn’t mean that a chameleon must constantly change colours, but once they know that the environment they are in is a safe and secure environment, they will most likely change back into their normal colour.

And sometimes I wonder if it’s out of habit that I do so.
You know…, how they say the more we hate something the more we attract it (it’s from ‘the secret’ or some psychological self motivational books like that).

Well, right now. right at this very moment. I am NOT enjoying the process of having to change my skin colour.
Moving from place to place forces me to be a chameleon, and for a while I find myself lost and asking myself who the hell am I??

But of course… If I try to convince myelf, everything is at least for a while…
At least until I find the colour of my own skin.