the end is but a beggining
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auLia on i’m anxious. i’m i… Bill Bartmann on faux pas and a novice’s… Pya on manusia beragama mencintai… Pya on and his name is ben. Pya on and his name is ben.
i am not feeling quite in place at the moment. i’ve been trying to analyze this feeling of extreme anxiety for the past few days now.
this is something that i am actually familiar with but have never really felt before. the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard call this as angst in his book called The Concept of Anxiety where he discusses a deep spiritual condition of insecurity and fear in free human beings. i do not know many people who has suffered such a thing(other than existentialist philosophers), but there is one rather famous individual who has been inflicted by angst and has been able to successfully overcome it (i presume) and that man is the famous Russian writer, philosopher Leo Tolstoy.
so if there is one person able to overcome such a horrid feeling then surely i am able to overcome it as well.
truth be told though, the numerous philosophical books i have read has not driven me towards atheism, on the contrary it has forced me to explore my spirituality in its most subjective form. that is why this form of angst that i am feeling right now is not seemed to be caused by spiritual insecurity but by an accumulation of lies that has built inside me continuously, causing in a massive snowball effect towards my psychological state of mind. in others words i’ve been living in denial towards a certain subject.
and now perhaps it is time for me to un-lie myself.
but then again, since i am able to separate myself from religious dogma, thus critically questioning it. maybe spirituality does have an impact towards this rather disturbing state i am in. my mind cannot stop questioning of such fundamental things that are interlinked with the philosophical and psychological conditions of man especially concerning the spiritual realm of man itself.
we are forced to believe that everything has a reason, has a purpose, including man. but what if that were nonsense? what if we as human beings do not have predetermined purpose such as those of a chair? where in the case of a chair, the chair is built to become a chair, to be sat on, to give comfort while people sit on it etc. but how about us human beings?
have you then ever asked yourself, what is our purpose? not our purpose in life, for if we were to discuss out purpose in life it would differ from one person to another and it would be based on subjective preferences. but i am questioning our grand purpose being made, being created, being constructed by the hands of the divine entity, the grand architect.
is it merely to love, to care, to hate one another? or is it merely to fill this earth with ourselves, our children as the Holy Books have childishly portray? that for me seems so degrading. don’t we have a more grand purpose of life?
what if we had no predetermined purpose? what if this was all a coincidence? the creation of us, the earth, the universe. all of this was merely a coincidence? or perhaps not a mere coincidence but it was all created for no grand purpose at all?
i never did believe in coincidences, but i also believe that anything’s possible.
if this indeed is a coincidence, the creation of us human beings, then i have lost the meaning of life itself. and if this indeed is a coincidence then i am now more anxious than ever, knowing that i have no purpose of existence. no predetermined purpose in life.
ketidakbermaknaan.
me on the outside
this is me in the inside
a simple straight out question, can time be considered subjective and unfair?
does our state of mind influence on how we interpret or perceive time? examples are abundant. compare yourself when you are in a state of boredom. a few hours of boredom compared to a few hours of enjoyment seems like an eternity. hence the saying “time flies when you’re having fun.” but this is due to our psychological perception of time, not time itself. when we are bored and anticipating something we focus our attention more towards time and with focused attention comes greater perception to details (hours, minutes, seconds).
so is time subjective and unfair? on the contrary, time moves on relentlessly and unstoppable. therefore it is objective and fair.
what makes it seem unfair is the condition of our state of mind. the difference of attention towards time has only made it seem to move faster or slower. time itself has not changed at all.
As i try to calmly wait (emphasize on the word try) for my thesis defense which will be held on Monday of next week, I can’t help myself to think “what’s next?”. Well of course this defense is significant for me, but how significant will it be for my life ahead? Is something significant because of the time frame we are living in right now has made it significant? perhaps, perhaps.
But nonetheless, although thoughts of “what’s next?” lingers in the back of my mind. I already have ambitions or plans, if i may say, on what i will do next. These plans of mine are not detailed plans, for this is life we are talking about not some campus seminar. Detailed planning of life is something that i must avoid in order to minimize disappointments because life doesn’t always go the way you want it to go, so it’s rather useless planning accurately of your life.
Compared to my previous semesters i have been rather absent in activities this semester due to some personal problems at the beginning of the semester and of course my thesis which has taken a great deal of time out of me. I expect that i will once again be knee deep in activities after graduating. Although there is a part of me enjoying this rather relaxing state where I have had only to focus on two major things, my thesis and my personal life, and a few minor things such as the infamous summer school 2009 conducted last July. There has always been this other part of me (a rather large part of me if i may add) missing those sleepless nights in front of my computer, while muttering cursings of regret. Cursings such as “Dammit why the fuck did I take this job?” or “the fuck with them, they know jack shit on how to do things right!”
oh how i truly miss those times.
Long ago i used to ask myself, “why can’t i say no when someone offers me jobs or offers me to become a part of a committee.” Now i understand that i am like that because i am a workaholic. Which I seem to have received from my mom em..no wait my dad..well i guess i got it from the both of them.
But even though I show signs of regret when overloading myself with work, I am still as eager as ever when offered any new and interesting thing. Whether or not experiencing this new thing is useful or not for me I am not quite sure but nonetheless I have been able to experience things that many have not had the chance to experience.
Speaking of offerings I was offered this leadership course a two month leadership course called the LEAD program which stands for (correct me if i’m wrong) Leadership Education and Development program. I guess i’ll try entering this program once i’m done with all this crap at my campus..and after spending my nearly depleted bank account, travelling around south east Asia.
i will also plan one more thing.
i will plan myself to be surprised.
because life my friend is just full of surprises.
whether it be bad or good.
because that is what makes life, life.
because i will understand happiness when i have felt sadness.
and
because even the best falls down,
sometimes.
an eternal smile.
i was dancing in my room this morning. yeah i know it sounds childish and immature, but the definition of maturity itself is so vague and my personal views towards maturity has a definition that only i can understand. and so far i am satisfied with it. anyway, dancing in the morning really gets my mind going, and this nonsensical writing below, is just one of the many examples of a adrenaline rushed mind. a momentarily happy mind.
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do you know that feeling you get when you see a view, a beautiful view of nature and you try to say something wise and intelligent but only petty little words come out? words that undermine the beauty of what your eyes astonishingly see. a view that only the suprarational being, the grand architect can construct and when you view this view, this beautiful view, you find yourself so immersed in it, your emotions start to take over, you feel glorified, you feel content, you feel at peace.
i have this feeling every time i go somewhere new. but this feeling of bliss is not without its questions.
these views of beauty that i have happily seen, has unwillingly forced myself to ask a very simple question, a question that many of us have come to ask from time to time. a question that holy books have tried to answer but have come up, in my opinion, with only mediocre answers, answers that often only the most faithful have come to mindlessly accept. and that question is a complex yet simple,
what is the purpose of our existence?
i hate the fact that many us see our sole purpose of living can be easily divided into two groups, those who are good enough will be sent to the heavens above and those unlucky men and women with chronic behavioral problems will be sent to deepest pits of hell. is this our true purpose here on this planet? the grand struggle towards eternal happiness? is our God really that shallow? do we only live for this? promises of eternal happiness after dying, something that we even do not know, is true, is there.
why? why is it that simple? i feel so useless understanding such a thing. my purpose of existence here on this dying planet of ours cannot be that simple. i feel so meaningless.
Jean-Paul Satre had a rather exquisite point of view towards our existence (or in philosophical terms existentialism) “existence precedes essence”. what he meant by this is that, we humans do not have a predetermined essence the way, say, a chair does. We are indeterminate, always free to reinvent ourselves. is this true? our purpose in life is determined by us? perhaps it is.
perhaps i have a purpose then. no, it is not the heavens nor is it money. it is my love for humanity itself. i will make this my purpose in life. to merely fill my life with just a purpose is useless, that purpose must be noble. What use is my purpose if my purpose is purposeless? my happiness must be shared, because happiness is only real when shared. and that seems to be a rather nice purpose of life, at least for my life, don’t you think?
these voices in my head keep asking “why?” and i would like them to stop. just for now.
please.
oh mother Mary..what is my purpose in life?
Looking past the deaths of those whom i have seen, there is one particular death that has made a rather unforgettable mark in me. It was not the death of a loving family member nor was it the death of a dear friend but perhaps to your disappointment it was the death of man of whom i do not know the name. A man whom i last saw was struggling for his very life, while being drenched in the tears of his loved ones.
Perhaps an ordinary human being would at least have the slightest emotional memories of the deaths he or she has encountered throughout his or her life, such as the death of the man above, which will eventually lead to some sort of temporal emotional instability, but when it comes to death i as a man whom i see myself as sometimes emotional have become somewhat acquainted towards death itself. I am more touched by the suffering of the living.
When i see a person’s death my heart is not touched by the soulless body but by the grief of those who are suffering due to the hollow body. I am emotionally blunted when it comes to death. But seeing the process of dying itself has made me ponder towards death and i can thank this to the man of whom i do not know his name.
- written in the emergency room, in a hospital at Bandung -
it was late at night, my girlfriend had a high fever, i decided to take her here, she did not look well. i took her to the registration counter. i let her be filling in the forms and answering the questions needed. i turned around curious of this room we were in. i saw a man. he caught my attention. he was laying on a bed, he looked very ill. i stared. i listened. i shouldn’t have.
his heartbeat dwindling, pumping slower and slower, an alarm squeals through the air, a straight green flat line on the monitor of a machine, a nurse giving CPR, a wife crying in despair screaming the word no with all her might, a doctor shouts vee-fib, people backing away, clear! shouts the doctor, no response, the doctor tries again, no response, the doctor tries twice more, yet still no response.
the man is dead.
lifeless yet still warm. a wife and a child crying, all seems to be in slow motion. i stared, i shouldn’t have. the child looked at me, eyes full of tears, my heart tore. the curtains close. yet i am still standing in shock. i am still staring. i shouldn’t have.
and now i am afraid. frightened by death. the process of dying, and of what we will become after death.
- end -
Death, whether we are fond of it or not, is something we have come to accept. Or perhaps forced to accept. do not deny this, we are all afraid of death, whether it be the process of dying, the suffering of dying, or what will become of us after death. we have invented drugs and machines to comfort us when we are dying and we have also invented religion to comfort us as well. telling us that there is eternal happiness after death, or even eternal damnation if we are not playing nice.
i hope this is true. i maybe religionless. but alike any other selfish human being, being given expectations of eternal happiness after death has made death a bit more acceptable. if we could not find peace happiness now, perhaps in the afterlife there is.
i close this note with a poem from one of my favorite poets,
Emily Dickinson entitled Because I Could Not Stop for Death.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
- Emily Dickinson
she died i my hands
“The whole purpose of meditation in the East is to bring about such a state of mind – that is, to control thought, which is the same as constantly repeating a prayer to quieten the mind and in that state hoping to understand one’s problems.”
But that my friend is to dull the mind not to silence it.
As the world becomes bleaker by the day and new problems arise every minute or so, we humans look for peace. We try to create peace by many ways including by force and if we cannot obtain peace outside ourselves then we look for inner peace, peace within ourselves, a peaceful mind. This search for silence, for peace within our selves has led to a new trend, meditation. This is why Yoga as one of the forms of meditation has become an increasingly popular choice for people who are in search for inner peace or perhaps for people who are in search for just mere silence of the mind.
Yet, true meditation in search of a peaceful mind can be obtained everyday, every minute, and every second without the need to chant a certain prayer or conduct a certain move. The repetition of these prayers or these moves is mere self-hypnosis. Yes, of course by repetition our mind will become quite, silent, gentle and soft but all you have done is to actually dull your mind and close your mind towards the beauty of the world that will in fact create peace within us. We are merely concentrating towards a certain something. As J. Krishnamurti has said, “meditation is not concentration.” Concentration forces your mind to concentrate towards something that we sometimes do not want to concentrate on, this in the end does not create peace but in fact creates conflict within our selves. How can we force a mind to concentrate when it easily wanders to everything around us? How can we force a mind to concentrate when it easily wanders towards something that interests us? Meditation that enforces concentration will only create a conflicting mind and how can we have peace when our mind is conflict? Meditation that enforces concentration means to control the mind and when we try to control an uncontrollable mind all we have done is to imprison it.
Thus what is meditation?
Meditation is simple, meditation is observing the whole with complete attention.
Do not confuse this with concentration; attention does not require control of the mind. Attention is letting your mind free to observe everything around you as a whole. Not to focus and control your mind towards a certain object. What I mean to be attentive towards the whole means to be aware of every thought and every feeling.
So meditation can take place anywhere and anytime such as while sitting under a tree looking at the rays of the sun shimmering through the leaves or feeling the wind breezing gently through you skin or even perhaps while sitting on bus.
No one can teach you to be attentive. This is something you must learn by yourself. Only you yourself can understand what being attentive is. In the end when you are able to be attentive then you have understood meditation, this discovery of your personal attentive will also lead to peace. By understanding this then you will find meditation that creates peace but does not dull the mind. There are no chants, no movements, no repetitions. Your mind is at peace and a peaceful mind is a mind capable of great love.
And in love there is ultimate truth or what we commonly know as God.
And to achieve this we must be in peace not in pieces.
attentive towards the whole
A friend of mine once said to me, “life Ben, is about choices.”
So as I ponder on that frighteningly accurate statement while eating this four day old chinese food and drinking this not so fine wine, I reminisce on the choices I have made throughout my 22, almost 23, years of living on this godforsaken planet.
Though my ass like attitude has made me rather monstrous and hated by many, I am still as human as any of you reading this worthless note of mine. So I as a regular human being, also have regrets towards my choices but I have also been told that regretting is rather useless or so they say.
As many of you might have already known, it has been a couple months since I have applied for the summer school language scholarship to Turkey and the good news is I got accepted. Yes, my dreams of sailing through the Bosphorus strait and touching those 800 year old walls of Haghia Sophia while absorbing the knowledge of the Sufi’s will finally come true…..in another time (insert multiple F words here).
I, my fellow readers, have decided to finish my thesis instead. Well actually my parents “kindly” asked me to do so but truth be told I myself am a bit worried of not being able to finish my thesis on time for the October graduation. There is a certain sureness in me that I will certainly not be writing my thesis while chasing hot middle eastern girls..err.. I mean while visiting and studying historical places in Turkey. For that reason alone I am putting away momentarily this dream of mine whilst hoping that someday another chance will come by and once again take me away to the lands of the Ottomans.
Do I have regret after doing so? Slightly yes, but as I have said above, what good will regret bring?
But, be worried not! Like any other curious young man I have made other plans to spend my endless pit of money. Vietnam and Laos seems to be a rather nice destination. Perhaps compared to Turkey those countries are rather standard but maybe it’s due to my almost similar cultural background and geographical closeness to those countries. Then again we will never truly know what we will find unless we experience it first hand. So wish me the best of luck, hey who knows maybe I’ll be caught in some deranged child trafficking shit, (knocks on wood).
ahh..
Deranged.
A rather nice topic to talk about and talk of it I will.
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Deranged, demented, mental, lunatic, insane.
My thesaurus came up with those words after I was searching for a more formal form of crazy.
It is easy labeling a person insane, we can just merely look at his or her actions and if it is still confined in our society’s way of life then that person is sane or plain ordinary.
But then again, if we sit down for a moment and think of the meaning of ordinary, usual, common, standard and so on then we will find that this meaning is based upon what our society has accepted and not accepted.
What pushes towards this acceptance? Is it perhaps the increase wisdom and knowledge humanity has obtained throughout the centuries? Or perhaps repetitions of once insane issues which then force our society towards acceptance?
Take violence for example, due to centuries of never ending wars, killings, mass murders and so on our society has taken the issue of violence rather lightly. Yes there has been significant growth of institutions, laws and other much needed systems to combat violence but what I mean by our society has taken the issue of violence rather lightly can be explained by this quote,
(said in the context of death)
“one is a tragedy, one hundred is statistics”
Is to accept such a thing ordinary? Can this be called sane?
Who are we to condemn a person insane if we the people who are said to be sane are able to take lightly towards the deaths of thousands around the world whatever the cause. Accepting death whatever the cause surely is insane and we seem to have done so. I cannot see any higher form of insanity other than this. Perhaps we all have a small amount of insanity in us but due to our high acceptance towards this issue, death be it one or in the thousands has become rather common.
insanity is vague
and death is underrated
am i insane?
What is art?
Try to define that word and you’ll find that no definition is able to fully describe its glorious results other than to experience it by oneself.
I will not define art here nor will I even try to, that would be rather egoistic of me to construct such a guideline on what art should be or should not be. I would be dictatoring such a subject that involves individual taste. To do such a thing would be limiting its freedom which will ultimately destroy the individual qualities in art, which in fact has made art become the preferred (if not the only) medium to truly express ourselves in any possible way. Adding to this, I am merely an amateur to this vivid subject, I see myself unfit to discuss thoroughly of such an intelligent matter.
I as an amateur will simply share my views towards this issue because I am bothered by an opinion, an opinion that I see as a faux pas or a social mistake. Scold me, criticize me, do as you wish to do, it is but a novice’s opinion. To take deeply of it is unwise.
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Unlike my family, I am not gifted in any other form of art, my hands cannot portray vigorously what my eyes colorfully see, nor can they longer vibrantly play the fascinating instruments of music as I have done in the past. That is why I chose photography as my medium to express my creativity and this expression of creativity has led me to 10 years of learning.
Given the appropriate amount of time and the eagerness to learn photography, the technicalities of photography can be easily learned by anyone in mere weeks, but it does not and cannot end there. Photography is more than simply compositions, lighting, and so on. I see photography as an art, and if you concur with me towards this simple equation then you will also understand that photography too should express what we wish to express. This is a form of photography, which in my opinion seems to be lacking in Indonesia.
I was filled with fury, while I was listening to a workshop concerning photography. The seemingly intelligent person conducting the workshop spoke with a clear, loud and passionate voice,
…”so photography does not require philosophy, poetry, artsy ways of thinking or any other vague concepts, you just see, compose and shoot, this will do for any form of photography! By understanding this you will easily make money-making photos and we all want that right?”…
No my friend, I do not. What I truly want is my photos to reflect on what I feel. For me photography is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis. If you are a photographer have you done such an intimate thing? Or are you merely shooting without remorse? What good are my photos if cannot take the viewer of my photos into the realm of my emotions?
What do I mean by all this tirade? I simply mean that main stream photography in Indonesia is dull, empty and shallow. If you see photography as art then you should see that there is no uniqueness in them; there is no individual taste, there are no questions to engage the mind, there are no expressions to be felt. Art should challenge you, it should make you think, it should make you see the beauty, the sadness, the happiness, the rage of the object of the art or the expresser of the art.
The easiness of modern photography has indeed advantaged us greatly but it has also simplified it and to simplify things is often to take away its essence. If you see photography as an art then take part of your heart and express it in every photo you take. There are no rules towards expressing oneself, remember that ultimate beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Express yourself freely without the boundaries constructed by our society and you will find an essence that is being undermined and forgotten by modernity.
What is art without heart?
It is dull, empty and shallow.
Mind my ranting it is but a novice’s opinion
In order to 'give a meaning' to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder - Henri Cartier Bresson
We live in a world where peace and conflict lives side by side with one another, where you can see a man giving alms in one minute but also hits without remorse his beloved one the next minute. A world where politicians speak much of peace, but has used force to obtain peace. A world where institutions are built on the basis to protect humanity but has eventually resulted in the opposite. We have institutions such as the United Nations to protect the member countries and subsequently the people of those countries. The list of these organizations goes on. Yes, they have done a great deal in obtaining and perhaps maintaining peace but alike all collective religious organizations they have done little towards forging an everlasting solution towards preserving and maintaining peace. These institutions, whether it be man-made or the so-called God made institutions, they have all been unable to penetrate the core of the problem, the essence of where the conflict originates from. They have been unable to penetrate the ego within ourselves.
We talk much of ego when it comes to solving problems in relationships between loved one’s, but we seldom talk of it and have never made it a core issue when conducting peaceful negotiations when it comes to resolving humanitarian conflicts or wars. Have we ever asked ourselves, why? What is the difference between a conflict in a relationship and a conflict in, such as perhaps, between two neighboring countries? Yes, perhaps the problems are much more complex (and as an international political student I do know what I am talking about), but when you see with unclouded eyes, it all becomes clear, that the root of all conflicts comes down to ego, our ego. The feeling to be above another, the feeling of not wanting to loose because it will bring nothing but shame and defeat, the feeling that we are better than the other. We all want that right? To feel the sensation of winning, that my friend is ego. And we live in a society that tolerates ego, embraces ego and has made us come to think of ego as something that we are unable to overcome and useless to talk about. Yes, I do understand to overcome ego is anything but easy. But if we understand that ego, which Krishnamurti easily puts it, “Isn’t the origin of conflict ego? If there is no ego there is no becoming” then perhaps one day we can finally be at peace with one another. Peace my friends, originates within ourselves, not from a State, or religion, or ideology or even a messiah, it is and will always be from ourselves. We just do not realize it at the moment.
We have been so wrong for so long in finding a solution towards peace, everlasting peace.
We have been so wrong for so long, my friends.
