Seeds of all

Well said, Madame Piaf.
Well said indeed.

Lacur

Gincu tersapu
Celak terseka

Apa pula tertinggal di muka
Selain dari sepasang kristal jiwa
Dibingkai bulu mata, terpancar tatapnya
Menghunus, kata mereka!

Tak sejentik mereka duga
Sungguhnya pada lampu jalanan ia bercinta
Pembuai remuk redam dini hari
Pelempar seleret cahaya di betis
Jatuh segaris dengan peluh manusia rasa amis

Apa pula tersisa di muka
Jika bukan sebentuk lekuk penakluk
Dinaung hidung, tersemat bagai pita
Berbisa, kata mereka!

Sungguhnya gigi kuning rela bersaksi
Tentang pita yang terurai dan merekah
Kala yang empunya bertegur sapa
Tanpa niatan apa-apa

Meski yang berlidah lihai bicara,
Yang melihat lantang menantang,
Kalau tak dikata, manalah mereka kira

Akan kolonye sisa gesekan tiga-empat pejabat
Dada sisa remasan dua-tiga bandot tua
Rambut sisa jambakan satu-dua pemuda gila

Gincu tersapu
celak terseka

Kala mereka tangkap sejejak kerak di muka,
Derai tawa dan tatap darinya kini beda makna.
Buang muka, tak balas sapa.

Kala ditanya, satulah jawab mereka:
Itu lacur namanya!

An Afternote of #pilpres2014: At least he smiles big time…

Surprise not, I changed my choice in last minutes. But still not a firm one, apparently. Few minutes after I put my ballot paper into the voting box, vague uncertainties eventually crept within me.

At times I often wish I this voting matter came to me as easy as it was for those non-overtly-skeptical minds.

I wish I could easily reduced this act of making choice to simply ‘became ignorant to your idol’s defect’, like a chauvinistic fangirl did. Yet I strayed from that collectively-popular frame, perhaps too extremely. Cynicism became my main state in scrutinising both candidates. Well, the cynicism goes a bit one-sided though.

This is my most basic premise:

If well-educated people who vote for Prabowo are deemed to be brain-washed minds who see violence as “mere excess” of New Order,

then aren’t those educated beings who vote for Jokowi weaklings for being oblivious and prone to media’s doctrine?

I am very much familiar of how deceitful media could be.
Pretending to be partial towards ‘greater good’ whilst in fact no more than mere extensions of malicious interests. Blowing up only what’s sensational, cut out the context if necessary, because bad news is good news.
And how not-so-noble people in it work.
Our journalists. They aren’t really working their asses off to provide contextually accurate facts. In the field, they’re no more than savages swarming for scraps of information that’s potential to blow hype for their medias. Sure, this doesn’t applies equally the same to all heads. But those who are sane and possess correct sense of morality in heart are not that many in number. And here we’re speaking about a society that values quantity over quality, whose people enslaved under the utopicly propagandic word, ‘democracy’.

It is thence natural for me to frown on whoever came to be bloated out of proportion by the media.

And there’s this guy.

Loved by the media too dearly.

Right after voting he gave few lines of commentary speech.

And I thought, Wow this guy really suck at public speaking.

But enthusiasms kept people from reading into his words–which contain nothing. Some voices echo “Jokowi is The President!” right after he finished giving speech.

People were desperately trying to reach over him. Tried to get their hands tainted by a glimpse of his, get through the bodyguards, willingly risked themselves get stomped over by bunch of barbaric journalists. In order to shake his hand.

And you know, what was embroidering his face all the time he’s escorted throughout all the commotion? Smile. A big wide one.

I was strucked.

I formerly was more into the other candidate. Presentation-wise and decision-making-wise, he has this reassuring firm and decisive manner. Just like the popular belief would say. I almost can justify his authoritarian tendency, born as a consequence of his superior intelligence. Not all people deserves to be heard. Not all voices matters. Not all brains can think.

But Prabowo got no suavity in delivering what he think is right. He got no eloquence in giving the impression of ‘listening to his people’. Noted, he tend to resort mostly to his own mind, but at least he can act like as if his decision was compounded from people’s voices.
There’s just a big absence of diplomatic ability in him.

Most chronically, he got no suavity in front of the media. At all.
On the election day, after voting session is over, he made a fuss by throwing hatreds towards medias politically opposing him.

I pitied him incredibly. He just does not know how not to jeopardize him further into negative sentiments. And it’s such a great loss if a leader knows not to bring himself diplomatic-wise.

His contender, Jokowi. At least seemed to have automated response to smile.
At most times, a single smile is more than enough to shut people off.

* * *

I still believe neither of the two came out as a really good choice.
Yet I got reassured once more of what I’ve chosen.

If the two paths eventually lead us ashtray, let the people be fooled by the illusion of having made the right choice.

Of really having changes.

Because people don’t really need proof of changes. They just need to feel the impression that there are changes. People does not need a sense of objective reality. They fabricate their preferred own. They will sort out only pieces of information that serve justification on what they believe. They like to produce the evidences to convince themselves. That’s why there are medias and advertisers.

All the society need is to be dipped deeply into big sauce of illusion.

But I’m here to be proven wrong.

Syllogism

Great actors are big-hearted.

…I don’t have big heart.

Of abolishing doubts

Now’s the time to stop me if you’re going to, Mr. Nakata.
Time’s ticking away and I won’t hesitate. In the dictionary of the infamous cat-killer Johnnie Walker,
hesitate is one word you won’t find.

— Johnnie Walker, Kafka on the Shore

O, Johnnie.

On Why I Should’ve Been More Carefree

Think about it—sincerity is gauche, gauche is boring, and boring is rude, so it’s only a matter of ordinary politeness not to take things too seriously.

— Hari Kunzru

SO THAT’S IT.

I want to be

more like Jack.

“He must have been nervous, but never falter.”

— Rose Dawson

Most Existentialist Pact Declared

…by today:

The most troublesome people are those who don’t know WHAT they WANT.
As far as I might, I won’t throw hatreds upon them, I won’t disdain them, I won’t detest them as individuals for their way of living.
But one thing I know:
I won’t let their inherent self-confusion INTERFERE or INTRUDE my life.
I won’t be seeing myself dragged around about from what I’ve been aiming by such individualistic uncertainties.

To this, I swear.

around 3pm

Of Principle and Shame

Pernah ada suatu masa
Kala kami bertukar aksara
Bertukar pesan, bertukar kesan
Seorang rekan kemudian menitipkan kata
Bahwa saya, menurutnya, adalah

“Orang paling berprinsip yang pernah gue kenal.”

————————————————————————

Kini saya tidak bisa tidak bertanya:
Akankah di telinga saya yang dua
Dari mulut yang persis sama
kata yang serupa kan terngiang
Jika ia lihat saya yang sekarang?

 

 

Why Edward Wrote (and why maybe we do, too)

Here’s Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Suspectedly the real author of Shakespeare’s works. In dialogue with his wife, Anne. Below dialogues were taken from the movie ‘Anonymous’.

Anne                      : (sobs) Why must you write?

Edward de Vere     : The voices, Anne. The voices, I can’t stop them.

They come to me.

When I sleep,  when I wake, when I sup. When I walk down the hall.
The sweet longing of a maiden,
the surging ambitions of a courtier,
the designs of a murderer,
the pleas of his victims.

Only when I put their words, their voices, into parchment, are they cast loose, freed.

Only then my mind is quieted. At peace.

I would go mad if I didn’t write down the voices.

“Are you… possessed?”

“Maybe I am.”