ESSAYS
(strolling with people from different cultures and personalities)
A COMPLEX
EMOTION
“Night
is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night
everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken
during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he
doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night
that should only be said by day.” - Elie Wiesel
I accidentally killed a rat. For some
reason I felt very bad about it. It was an accident. I never meant to end his
life. Absurd, I know, but my heart is like cotton when it comes to animals.
It was 3 in the morning when I decided
to have a break in my movie marathon to wash myself, and get ready to sleep. I
hurriedly went down the stairs and into the bathroom to do my daily routine. I
was finish using the wash room when my eyes caught a mischievous gray-colored
thing stuck between the door and its hinge. I opened the door and realized it
was one of the rats pestering our kitchen. We've been trying to catch him but
he seemed to be very smart and agile in hiding from us.
When I found his unconscious body, I
released and checked if he's still alive. He's abdomen also do not move,
indicating that he already died. My heart aches upon seeing him and almost
cried. I hurriedly ran to my father who is already sleeping. I shook him hard to
wake him up. I told him that I killed a rat. He immediately stood and wrapped
the carcass on the newspaper. I can't help but felt bad about what I did. I
brushed my teeth and brooded myself to what I have done.
I just remember a report I did during my
third year in college about religions in Asia and different parts of the world.
There is Shintoism, Buddhism, Jainism and many more. Jainism is the religion
that caught my attention. What I have remembered is Jainism has a belief that a
soul can be reincarnated to any forms of life. They believe every little thing
has a soul. It is the reason (I think) they don't kill even the tiniest living
creature in the world.
We all have different beliefs and
opinions. But what fascinates me about the believers of Jainism is how they
respected life no matter how small or big it is. If only people know how to be
sensitive like them, not exactly on how they viewed life, maybe life will not
be hard at all. But life is complicated. It is impossible to urge everyone to
act humanely as possible at all times because our emotions and personalities
differ from others.
We live in a place with so many cultures.
We were brought up with different beliefs and environment that what we think
often varies to others. There are lots of things to learn in this world, and a
single lifetime is not enough to understand and learn it. However, it is not
enough reason why we shouldn't care for other's feelings and opinions.
It's natural that we don't fully
understand each other. What matters most is we learn to respect each other’s
differences, and adjust to things new to us.
However if conflict arises, there's something inside of us that must be
willing to reconcile. There's a pest inside us and if we don't know how to
control or even kill it (even if it do harm than good) will eat us. Pride cannot
only kill mentally, but emotionally and physically as well.
Conflict only arises when we are
unwilling to reconcile or get eat up by our own pride when we know in ourselves
that we are in the wrong track.
From the bad experience of killing a rat
sprouted a lot of ideas and memories in my mind. Life is connected after all.
It is like a spider web linking our experiences to a certain point in our
lives. Our experiences, no matter how unimportant we think, contain lessons we
must always cherish.
As for killing the rat, I could do
nothing to undo it. I guess I need to let time heal the guilt that’s killing me.
Being “ADULT”
Even adults cannot call themselves adults, I believe.
The word “adult” entails a lot of responsibilities before we can call them one. Physiologically, humans can achieve maturity but not psychologically.
Notice how persons we usually described as adults still act childish or childlike. It is because these characteristics are innate in us. It makes our world a better and interesting place to live in. Imagine the world with people acting maturely. I wonder if there would be harmony. It sounds cool but life would appear black and white.
When I searched the meaning of “adult,” most dictionaries define it as humans who are fully-grown or develop. I assumed what the dictionaries is clearly defining is the physical maturity of a person and being legally dependent, and not the mental and emotional state of a human being.
Humans never became fully grown psychologically. No matter how we strive, we will never be become one. Being fully develop means having no weakness or lacking, in short, perfectness. There are no such human as perfect. We all have weakness. It will exist no matter how we strive to become one.
Adult, for me, is a vague term to describe a person even he or she reached the age of 18 or 21, because those who deserved to be called as such are those who smoothly handles and understands every aspect of life. And no one is such. We all have shortcomings, which served as our alarm whenever we forgot the term “being human.”These mistakes shaped us into a better person but still depend on how we handle them – either positively or negatively.
This is how life works, and the reason why inequalities exist, and why there is such thing as hard work.
The definition we gave on the world “adult” appears on the way we judge those persons we characterized as adults. We expect them to be fully-grown or should I call it “perfect,” who can fully understand life and others. We expect them to be the expert of life, the person who can fully understand us most. But we all got it wrong. They are also human, living in a world of peculiarity and inequalities. And who will always possess the word “limitations.”
Therefore, we must not associate adult in a definition that suppose to define the physical maturity of a person. It is because a human mind and emotion could never be contained in a single definition. It can be summarized in a series of paragraph but can never be fully understood, which what makes our life complicated and mysterious.
Our characteristics vary, and a single lifetime is not enough to understand the complexities of how human mind and emotion works – the reason why we never stopped studying the human brain, and why no matter how we try to be open-minded we always commit mistake.
Man usually despises or looks down on adults who act childish and childlike. It is funny how we act and judge them like they are perfect without blemishes o flaws. We do not know or try to believe that life is a process full of bizarre occurrences. And not everyone act or think like a certain person do, a reason why inequalities exist.
THE RIGHT TIME COMES
Unknowingly, we are confined with our own biases and selfishness. Although we are taught to be altruistic, we have the instinct of thinking first of ourselves than of others.
Now that the world itself became much more complicated and cruel, we have no choice but to think of ourselves (consciously or unconsciously), especially on how we could live in such a demanding era. This usually results to not achieving what we want or long, which in turn breaks our hearts and make us feel hopeless.
The idea and action of striving very hard, yet no fruit appears, turns our world upside down. It drains our hope and confidence to face the future. Yet some point in our life, we always find light. The light might come from someone or something dear to us.
The process, in which finding such light, is being selfish itself. We've been thinking of ourselves, not knowing that we also grab the chance of others to succeed. This is a competitive world: to win is to also think of ourselves, a must-part of our lives.
For example, working until late night or doing your best in your work, and achieving compliments gives you the chance to get promoted. When you look behind, there is also someone who’s striving hard but not as gifted as you. In this manner, I’m sure you won’t give him or her the position, because it is a chance for you to achieve your goal, and to have the comfortable life you always wanted.
We don’t always need to be altruistic. The point is we should learn when or not to be one. Life is cruel itself and it has no mercy. You must first show mercy to yourself, so you could give mercy to others. We must learn to love yourself so you could give something to others.
We must learn to fight. Life is never fair that ‘s why we need to strive hard and face the future with positive and strength.
It is natural for us to feel down or think that there is no hope at all. However, we must remember that there is still light along the way. Brood but do not take so long that you already miss the opportunity in your life. There will come a time that you will have your chance and show what you got. Just wait. It might not be now. But it will surely be in the future.
PURSUING HAPPINESS
I've been trying to find the meaning of happiness and what are the requirements to acquire it. I also wonder how would I make the feeling stay longer rather than sadness. But my pursuit of finding it seems to entail a lot of conflicts and misunderstandings, making it seemingly impossible to achieve.
Reasons vary for different kinds of people. For materialistic persons, possessing the most expensive gadget or clothing would be the reason for their happiness. Others might reason love or intangible things (emotions, etc.) to achieve it.
My emotion is always unstable. Bliss never stayed so long that I usually got stuck up in sadness. It seems that my wheel of fortune is always stuck up on a dark and muddy terrain.
I once read that the emergence of problems cannot be controlled, but how we react to it solely depends on us. I believe in it, but why can’t I tightly hold onto it? I tried several ways, even by trying to pattern my way of living in the philosophy of persons who value tangible and intangible things, successively, as a source of their happiness. However, it does not suffice my requirements to prolong the joy.
I realized that one’s happiness differs and won’t be exactly the same reasons as others. It is because our needs and reasons to feel joy and to prolong it vary. And the ways we view it solely depend on us.
Another reason is we can never be contented, influencing our view of happiness. Once we acquire the reason of feeling the joy, we long more of it that many of us became greedy. We are subject to jealousy and ambition. And there’s no escaping it.
What I simply understand is happiness is complex itself. What more the ways and reasons to achieve it?
Happiness is a word so simple yet difficult to study or comprehend.
Someone asked me why I cannot be a bully?
That was the first time someone asked me such question. It was also the first time I asked myself why after several years of being a victim of bullying, I cannot be a bully.
We were riding MRT station, going home from work, my first work after graduating from college. I was not bullied during my college years, though I experienced some indirect bashings. I took it lightly. Of course, they were my friends, and patience is the essence to have more friends. That is how I think back then, even now. But, honestly, their bashings were gravely imprinted on my mind.
Now that my new friend and I became close, we became too comfortable with each other. We started criticizing each other. Not in the mean way of course, but if people would hear us, they probably asked us if we were really friends. She often call me “fat,” obviously, she’s thin that’s why she has the guts to tease me. Being bashed seemed to become a part of my normal life. There are no months that I haven’t heard any criticisms about me, especially on how I look.
If you ask ten people, including me, to line up according to how we look, and based it on today’s criteria of beautiful, I would be the last person in the line. That’s how I imagine myself, a result of years of bullying during my younger years. People barely acknowledge my physical beauty. I am often regarded as unattractive, worst, as the ugliest in our family. Even my relatives would give me the least attention, because of how I look. I should be agitated and angry at them. Partly, yes, but I use criticism as my advantage.
Thinking of how I was treated back then, especially when people don’t even try to bother to know me more, I taught myself of distancing myself to others, even to whom I am close at (eventually). This is how protect I myself from them. I don’t want to expect a lot from them, especially when it comes to trust issues. It is something that is too much for me to give, moreover, it will take too much pain to be betrayed by the people I regarded as family.
It is not my principle, and will never be a part of my norm.
So when my friend asked why I don’t want to be a bully, I contemplated on the answer and come up with two things: (aside from not good in saying mean things to others) empathy and conscience. Circumstances told me that I should be vengeful or I should’ve learned how to fight, but unfortunately I did not listen to it, But that is not how I think, that’s not how I fight, I thought.
My answer to her question is empathy. I always put myself on the shoes of others, imagining how they would feel if I bully him or her. I’ve been there. I know the feeling, although not as exact as his or feeling. But I have an idea, the feeling of what it felt like to be look down because of just how you look. It is the main reason I cannot fight the way they want me to. I have felt the pain. Why should I let others feel it too? It is like a study: when it is done and an error occurred, it should serve as a learning experience. So on the next years and following, it will not happen again, it will not be a waste of time and effort.
Moreover, despite the criticisms of my physical being, somehow, I have at least something to be proud of: It is that I live listening to my conscience, and tried my best to be good at others. At least, in that way, I would live my life at ease.
A COMPLEX
EMOTION
“Night
is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night
everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken
during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he
doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night
that should only be said by day.” - Elie Wiesel
I accidentally killed a rat. For some
reason I felt very bad about it. It was an accident. I never meant to end his
life. Absurd, I know, but my heart is like cotton when it comes to animals.
I don't know whether what I accidentally
did was wrong or right. The pests invading our house decrease from three to
two. I'm glad about it but I, the unintentional culprit, killed
a rat. I never want to lay a hand that I know has a life. The result of my
wrongdoings always seems to slap me, I guess.
It was 3 in the morning when I decided
to have a break in my movie marathon to wash myself, and get ready to sleep. I
hurriedly went down the stairs and into the bathroom to do my daily routine. I
was finish using the wash room when my eyes caught a mischievous gray-colored
thing stuck between the door and its hinge. I opened the door and realized it
was one of the rats pestering our kitchen. We've been trying to catch him but
he seemed to be very smart and agile in hiding from us.
When I found his unconscious body, I
released and checked if he's still alive. He's abdomen also do not move,
indicating that he already died. My heart aches upon seeing him and almost
cried. I hurriedly ran to my father who is already sleeping. I shook him hard to
wake him up. I told him that I killed a rat. He immediately stood and wrapped
the carcass on the newspaper. I can't help but felt bad about what I did. I
brushed my teeth and brooded myself to what I have done.
I just remember a report I did during my
third year in college about religions in Asia and different parts of the world.
There is Shintoism, Buddhism, Jainism and many more. Jainism is the religion
that caught my attention. What I have remembered is Jainism has a belief that a
soul can be reincarnated to any forms of life. They believe every little thing
has a soul. It is the reason (I think) they don't kill even the tiniest living
creature in the world.
We all have different beliefs and
opinions. But what fascinates me about the believers of Jainism is how they
respected life no matter how small or big it is. If only people know how to be
sensitive like them, not exactly on how they viewed life, maybe life will not
be hard at all. But life is complicated. It is impossible to urge everyone to
act humanely as possible at all times because our emotions and personalities
differ from others.
We live in a place with so many cultures.
We were brought up with different beliefs and environment that what we think
often varies to others. There are lots of things to learn in this world, and a
single lifetime is not enough to understand and learn it. However, it is not
enough reason why we shouldn't care for other's feelings and opinions.
It's natural that we don't fully
understand each other. What matters most is we learn to respect each other’s
differences, and adjust to things new to us.
However if conflict arises, there's something inside of us that must be
willing to reconcile. There's a pest inside us and if we don't know how to
control or even kill it (even if it do harm than good) will eat us. Pride cannot
only kill mentally, but emotionally and physically as well.
Conflict only arises when we are
unwilling to reconcile or get eat up by our own pride when we know in ourselves
that we are in the wrong track.
From the bad experience of killing a rat
sprouted a lot of ideas and memories in my mind. Life is connected after all.
It is like a spider web linking our experiences to a certain point in our
lives. Our experiences, no matter how unimportant we think, contain lessons we
must always cherish.
As for killing the rat, I could do
nothing to undo it. I guess I need to let time heal the guilt that’s killing me.
Being “ADULT”
Even adults cannot call themselves adults, I believe.
The word “adult” entails a lot of responsibilities before we can call them one. Physiologically, humans can achieve maturity but not psychologically.
Notice how persons we usually described as adults still act childish or childlike. It is because these characteristics are innate in us. It makes our world a better and interesting place to live in. Imagine the world with people acting maturely. I wonder if there would be harmony. It sounds cool but life would appear black and white.
When I searched the meaning of “adult,” most dictionaries define it as humans who are fully-grown or develop. I assumed what the dictionaries is clearly defining is the physical maturity of a person and being legally dependent, and not the mental and emotional state of a human being.
Humans never became fully grown psychologically. No matter how we strive, we will never be become one. Being fully develop means having no weakness or lacking, in short, perfectness. There are no such human as perfect. We all have weakness. It will exist no matter how we strive to become one.
Adult, for me, is a vague term to describe a person even he or she reached the age of 18 or 21, because those who deserved to be called as such are those who smoothly handles and understands every aspect of life. And no one is such. We all have shortcomings, which served as our alarm whenever we forgot the term “being human.”These mistakes shaped us into a better person but still depend on how we handle them – either positively or negatively.
This is how life works, and the reason why inequalities exist, and why there is such thing as hard work.
The definition we gave on the world “adult” appears on the way we judge those persons we characterized as adults. We expect them to be fully-grown or should I call it “perfect,” who can fully understand life and others. We expect them to be the expert of life, the person who can fully understand us most. But we all got it wrong. They are also human, living in a world of peculiarity and inequalities. And who will always possess the word “limitations.”
Therefore, we must not associate adult in a definition that suppose to define the physical maturity of a person. It is because a human mind and emotion could never be contained in a single definition. It can be summarized in a series of paragraph but can never be fully understood, which what makes our life complicated and mysterious.
Our characteristics vary, and a single lifetime is not enough to understand the complexities of how human mind and emotion works – the reason why we never stopped studying the human brain, and why no matter how we try to be open-minded we always commit mistake.
Man usually despises or looks down on adults who act childish and childlike. It is funny how we act and judge them like they are perfect without blemishes o flaws. We do not know or try to believe that life is a process full of bizarre occurrences. And not everyone act or think like a certain person do, a reason why inequalities exist.
THE RIGHT TIME COMES
When a man realizes that there is no point of hoping, pain resides in his mind and heart until a new opportunity arises.
Unknowingly, we are confined with our own biases and selfishness. Although we are taught to be altruistic, we have the instinct of thinking first of ourselves than of others.
Now that the world itself became much more complicated and cruel, we have no choice but to think of ourselves (consciously or unconsciously), especially on how we could live in such a demanding era. This usually results to not achieving what we want or long, which in turn breaks our hearts and make us feel hopeless.
The idea and action of striving very hard, yet no fruit appears, turns our world upside down. It drains our hope and confidence to face the future. Yet some point in our life, we always find light. The light might come from someone or something dear to us.
The process, in which finding such light, is being selfish itself. We've been thinking of ourselves, not knowing that we also grab the chance of others to succeed. This is a competitive world: to win is to also think of ourselves, a must-part of our lives.
For example, working until late night or doing your best in your work, and achieving compliments gives you the chance to get promoted. When you look behind, there is also someone who’s striving hard but not as gifted as you. In this manner, I’m sure you won’t give him or her the position, because it is a chance for you to achieve your goal, and to have the comfortable life you always wanted.
We don’t always need to be altruistic. The point is we should learn when or not to be one. Life is cruel itself and it has no mercy. You must first show mercy to yourself, so you could give mercy to others. We must learn to love yourself so you could give something to others.
We must learn to fight. Life is never fair that ‘s why we need to strive hard and face the future with positive and strength.
It is natural for us to feel down or think that there is no hope at all. However, we must remember that there is still light along the way. Brood but do not take so long that you already miss the opportunity in your life. There will come a time that you will have your chance and show what you got. Just wait. It might not be now. But it will surely be in the future.
PURSUING HAPPINESS
I've been trying to find the meaning of happiness and what are the requirements to acquire it. I also wonder how would I make the feeling stay longer rather than sadness. But my pursuit of finding it seems to entail a lot of conflicts and misunderstandings, making it seemingly impossible to achieve.
Reasons vary for different kinds of people. For materialistic persons, possessing the most expensive gadget or clothing would be the reason for their happiness. Others might reason love or intangible things (emotions, etc.) to achieve it.
My emotion is always unstable. Bliss never stayed so long that I usually got stuck up in sadness. It seems that my wheel of fortune is always stuck up on a dark and muddy terrain.
I once read that the emergence of problems cannot be controlled, but how we react to it solely depends on us. I believe in it, but why can’t I tightly hold onto it? I tried several ways, even by trying to pattern my way of living in the philosophy of persons who value tangible and intangible things, successively, as a source of their happiness. However, it does not suffice my requirements to prolong the joy.
I realized that one’s happiness differs and won’t be exactly the same reasons as others. It is because our needs and reasons to feel joy and to prolong it vary. And the ways we view it solely depend on us.
Another reason is we can never be contented, influencing our view of happiness. Once we acquire the reason of feeling the joy, we long more of it that many of us became greedy. We are subject to jealousy and ambition. And there’s no escaping it.
What I simply understand is happiness is complex itself. What more the ways and reasons to achieve it?
Happiness is a word so simple yet difficult to study or comprehend.
Someone asked me why I cannot be a bully?
That was the first time someone asked me such question. It was also the first time I asked myself why after several years of being a victim of bullying, I cannot be a bully.
We were riding MRT station, going home from work, my first work after graduating from college. I was not bullied during my college years, though I experienced some indirect bashings. I took it lightly. Of course, they were my friends, and patience is the essence to have more friends. That is how I think back then, even now. But, honestly, their bashings were gravely imprinted on my mind.
Now that my new friend and I became close, we became too comfortable with each other. We started criticizing each other. Not in the mean way of course, but if people would hear us, they probably asked us if we were really friends. She often call me “fat,” obviously, she’s thin that’s why she has the guts to tease me. Being bashed seemed to become a part of my normal life. There are no months that I haven’t heard any criticisms about me, especially on how I look.
If you ask ten people, including me, to line up according to how we look, and based it on today’s criteria of beautiful, I would be the last person in the line. That’s how I imagine myself, a result of years of bullying during my younger years. People barely acknowledge my physical beauty. I am often regarded as unattractive, worst, as the ugliest in our family. Even my relatives would give me the least attention, because of how I look. I should be agitated and angry at them. Partly, yes, but I use criticism as my advantage.
Thinking of how I was treated back then, especially when people don’t even try to bother to know me more, I taught myself of distancing myself to others, even to whom I am close at (eventually). This is how protect I myself from them. I don’t want to expect a lot from them, especially when it comes to trust issues. It is something that is too much for me to give, moreover, it will take too much pain to be betrayed by the people I regarded as family.
It is not my principle, and will never be a part of my norm.
So when my friend asked why I don’t want to be a bully, I contemplated on the answer and come up with two things: (aside from not good in saying mean things to others) empathy and conscience. Circumstances told me that I should be vengeful or I should’ve learned how to fight, but unfortunately I did not listen to it, But that is not how I think, that’s not how I fight, I thought.
My answer to her question is empathy. I always put myself on the shoes of others, imagining how they would feel if I bully him or her. I’ve been there. I know the feeling, although not as exact as his or feeling. But I have an idea, the feeling of what it felt like to be look down because of just how you look. It is the main reason I cannot fight the way they want me to. I have felt the pain. Why should I let others feel it too? It is like a study: when it is done and an error occurred, it should serve as a learning experience. So on the next years and following, it will not happen again, it will not be a waste of time and effort.
Moreover, despite the criticisms of my physical being, somehow, I have at least something to be proud of: It is that I live listening to my conscience, and tried my best to be good at others. At least, in that way, I would live my life at ease.
