A Piece of My Mind

I wasn’t a very big fan of Sundance – apparently there’s only so much Quentin Tarantino you can take – but last week I got the chance to see the opening selection of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.  The movie, directed by Nicole Holofcener who previously has brought us Walking and Talking, is called Friends with Money.  In this simple yet uplifting story, we are introduced to the four affable characters, each brilliantly brought to life by Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, and Jennifer Aniston.  Having been friends all of their adult lives, these four women are now faced with challenges, discomfort, and concerns due to the growing disparity in their individual levels of financial comfort.  Jane (McDormand) is a successful women’s clothing designer, Christine (Keener) makes a very good living as a scriptwriter, while Franny (Cusack), the wealthiest of them all, is a happy mother of two.  The three friends share somewhat a concern for Olivia (Aniston), the fourth woman in the group who is always out of luck in relationship and money, at least by their standard. 

Although the idea of the movie – according to Holofcener – is to address the issue of money between friends – how society divisions of class and money have disturbingly put a pressure on long-lasting friendships – I think Friends with Money has also brilliantly bring us a true story of female adulthood to some extent, how we reach a new stage of life goals, a new degree of satisfaction, a new definition of attractiveness and sexuality, and eventually, a new definition of our own being. 

Jane for example, struggles with the question: “Why do I still feel incomplete despite all the happiness of a family and a successful career that I have?”  Christine keeps questioning her own happiness: her relationship with her husband – both personally and professionally as he’s also her partner in writing – tumbles apart when she realizes that she hasn’t got the true affection that she long deserves.  Franny feels somewhat guilty for refusing to help Olivia financially because she kinda believes that it’s politically incorrect.  Olivia tries to maintain her free spirit whilst struggling with one bad relationship after another and keeping her beauty with her limited earning as a maid.

The truth is, these four women portray something about women everywhere, at any stages of their adulthood and financial achievements.  Each one of us struggles with issues every day, from relationship, career, marriage, to money, but manages to keep a beautiful smile on our face.  And at one point or another, just like Jane, Christine, Franny, and Olivia, you might be asking yourself about your decisions and your choices, about the meaning of life, that sometimes you feel that you’re about to give up.  Allow me to borrow a campaign theme from Lux to remind you – and me for that matter – about the strength that you have in you.  Lux is redefining beauty by putting across the idea that beauty gives you super power.

It says beauty is the power to take a stand.  From taking a stand to an abusive husband at home, to taking a stand in front of the nation as a female president.  Christine, in the movie, chooses to kick her husband out of the house when she can no longer stand his verbal abuse.

Beauty is also the power to seize your destiny.  If you have seen the critically acclaimed series Commander in Chief, then you’ll know what I mean.  In this series, the Vice President Mackenzie Allen – radiantly acted by Geena Davis – was asked to step down so the male Speaker of the House can take the office as the new president once the old president died.  Believing in her responsibility to the nation who has voted for her, Mac refused to step down and seized the office, bravely welcoming all the challenges ahead as the first female president of the United States, trying to prove her self day in and day out.

Beauty is the power to illuminate others with joy.  From some simple cheering up that you do to your girl friends when they’re feeling down, to actively participating in world missions of rescuing children and refugees.  The fabulous four of Sex and the City – Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda – never fail to be there for each other through the turbulence of their complicated life.  Angelina Jolie brings smile to many children around the world everyday through her social missions with the United Nations.

Beauty is also the power to fight for your dreams.  Let’s be honest, our society has become a double standard believer for years: there are jobs who are only fit for men and there are jobs that should be left to women.  That’s why we are having a hard time accepting a female general and president, the same way we would think twice about the idea of a male nurse or secretary.  If you ask me, the only limit you have on your dreams is the limit that you put on yourself.  Sky is the limit, and I’m not only talking about female pilots and astronauts.

So, to the Franny, Jane, Christine, Olivia, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda, Mackenzie, and Angelina in all of us, let me say that no matter where lives take you, you are born with the super power to take a stand, to seize your destiny, to illuminate others with joy, and to fight for your dreams.  And if one day, you feel that you’re losing your super power as a woman, listen to James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful, close your eyes, and think of all the lives you have touched with your beautiful smile today.

In the spirit of becoming a recovering shopaholic, I really needed to find out what drives my consumptive, materialistic, hedonistic, cosmopolitan buying habit.  Why do I – the present tense honestly indicates that these are still my preferred way of life – choose Starbucks over the so-called warung kopi?  Why do I immediately go to the Evian rack instead of the Aqua rack?  Why is the name Anya Hindmarch means so much to me but I won’t give the time of day to Sophie Martin?  If I were forced to explain my own buying habit to public, my immediate and logical – or should I say defensive – respond would be: taste is something quizzical that I can’t explain with just a few words.  It would be the same as asking a woman why she prefers wedges over pumps, or asking a man why he chooses to wear a t-shirt instead of a polo shirt.  Taste, I believe, is something to be enjoyed, not something to be explained.

But with a pure intention of finding out the naked truth behind my – and of course your - preferred lifestyle, and to give myself an edge in putting a halt to Starbucks, Zara, Miss Sixty, and Barneys which are continuously after the money in my purse, I do need an explanation behind my consumption habit.  So I went to the local bookstore, picked up The Undercover Economist by Tim Hartford, and to quote David Bodanis: “Reading this book is like spending an ordinary day wearing x-ray goggles.”  Just what I need.

Let’s say that we’re not blaming the expensive taste on the taste, but on the expensive price.  I like Starbucks because I like Starbucks, but why does a cup of cappuccino there cost a fortune while a cup of the same thing at your local warkop costs practically nothing?  If you look at the location, the common-sense answer would be because coffee bars such as Starbucks and Coffee Bean pay a significant amount of money on rents, hence hiking up the overhead costs, which of course, triggering the expensive price.  But is that really all there is to it?  Our dear friend Tim Hartford showed in his book that there’s more to that than just location. 

He explained bluntly through the theory of well-known economist David Ricardo.  In his story, Ricardo illustrated that there are two things which determine the rent of prime locations like meadowlands (or in the modern world: prime locations like the central business districts, and the strategic street corners where every coffee chains are after): the difference in agricultural productivity between meadows and marginal land, and the importance of agricultural productivity.  At USD 1 a bushel, five bushels of grain is USD 5 rent.  But at USD 200,000 a bushel, five bushels of grain is a USD 1 million rent.  Meadows command high rents only if the grain they help produce is also valuable.

Let me turn the time machine back to our world now.  If we blame the high price of branded coffee on rents, we should also take note that prime coffee bar locations will command high rents only if customers – that’s us – will pay high prices for coffee.  Rush hour customers, caffeine-bound yuppies, and just anyone with the given lifestyle are really so desperate for coffee that they literally become price-blind, or as Tim put it: “The willingness to pay top whack for convenient coffee sets the high rent, and not the other way around.”

Mmm, I stopped for a minute when I reach that page.  Does Zara really apply USD 30 on a piece of white t-shirts because we’re willing to pay for that?  And does Miss Sixty get away with price-tagging USD 100 on a pair of jeans because we don’t object and keep on buying?  Thus, another question is arising: why don’t we object?  Why are we willing to pay for it, despite our endless complaints of calling it “ridiculously expensive?” 

The answer is, as simply as, scarcity power.  Tim said: “If there’s a profitable deal to be done between somebody who has something unique and someone who has something which can be replaced, then the profits will go to the owner of the unique resource.”  This is how the relationship between scarcity and bargaining strength works.  Let’s say that you work in the Jakarta central business district.  To make your life more practical, of course, you would want to live around the area, thus saving a lot of time on your trips to and from work every day.  The main problem is, there are only so few apartments in this prime locations, but there are so many people wanting them, making the rent price of these apartments skyrocketed, leaving most of those people – including you, maybe – disappointed.  But the last time I check, coffee is not scarce, jeans are sold everywhere, and looking for a white shirt is as easy as lifting up a finger, so why the high price? 

Allow me to replace the word coffee with Starbucks, jeans with Miss Sixty, and white shirt with Zara, and you’ll start to get a clearer picture.  There’s not many quality coffee like Starbucks, stylish jeans like Miss Sixty, and chic white shirt like Zara, thus giving them the scarcity power and high value above the others.  But then again, the wondering part of you might be dying to ask this question by now: is Starbucks really the only quality coffee in the world?  Is Miss Sixty the solitary stylish pair of jeans on the face of the planet?  The answer is of course no.  And with the existence of free trade competitions, won’t Starbucks, Miss Sixty, and Zara try to lower their price to keep customers from buying products from them instead of from their competitors?

This is where the concept of the so-called “marginal products” comes to mind.  In the eyes of die-hard, brand-minded shopaholic like me, the values of Starbucks, Miss Sixty, and Zara are way above their competitors, hence making the competitors marginal.  With the already branded state of mind that I have, these certain products will be the only ones I care about every time I’m ready to splurge some money.  The brilliant minds behind the success of these top products realize the hard fact that once they have built a strong customer base, they can get away with most any prices.  How did they do it?  How did they make me – and maybe a million other customers – don’t feel like they’re ripping us off? 

Before I answer that, allow me to present you with another question: what do Starbucks, Miss Sixty, and Zara have in common?  If you ask somebody like Nicholas Kochan, the editor of The World’s Greatest Brand, he would probably answer: they’re all heavily promoted, all owned or sold by large companies, and each has a carefully developed set of “values” which appeals to a specific audience.  They’re all powerful brands.  And all powerful brands have loyal – if not fanatic – customers who would enjoy everything that the brand has to offer at any cost.  But how do they arrive at that point?  How do they develop such a brand that has an emotional connection with its targeted customers?

The answer is, again, very simple.  Starbucks, as any other strong brands like Nike and Coca Cola, continues to spend a lot of money on maintaining brand awareness to its customers and …   Wait, what time is it?  Oh shit, I’m late to my shopping date with a friend.  I’m sorry if I seem to end this discussion abruptly, but a 20 percent discount at Zara is waiting.  Well, no matter how many economics books that I’ve read, being a recovering shopaholic is never easy

Lately, there have been a few people who have pulled several attempts on insulting my intelligence.  To this certain members of society, allow me to extend my profound apologies for leading them to believe that they could actually do so.  And let me also express my deepest sympathy to the ones who have gone the extra mile and spent the extra energy on those attempts, only to face the inevitable truth that such efforts are merely futile, as my mind and senses are working perfectly well to perceive such act of defiance.

Nevertheless, I should also convey my gratitude to this people, because their thoughts, actions, and mindless attitudes only trigger my radar of conscience to recognize the true quality of these certain individuals beyond reasonable doubts.  Although experiencing a mild astonishment at first, I would like to state that this newly found knowledge – or should I say repeat offenders in some cases – has left both my pride and principles remain intact.  It’s only fair to admit that at some points, I’m even contemplating on whether I should send them a thank you note for saving me invaluable time in summoning further judgments upon the benefit of their existing acquaintances, as it has become clearly evident that such rapport is a complete waste of my time and energy.

In the end, as I open a box of chocolate, let me share a piece of wisdom from Forrest Gump.  No, it’s not “life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gonna get,” but it’s just these simple words of truth: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of air travel, especially after this little incident in 1997, when the tail of my airplane was on fire just 5 minutes before it landed.  I’m telling you, I was scared shitless, with me sitting upfront and then this group of backpackers started running to the front of the plane screaming: “Fire!  Fire!”  And I thought, great, I’m gonna die on an airplane crash, on the day before I’m supposed to enrol at university.  Anyway, we landed safely, but with about eight fire trucks waiting on the landing strip.  It wasn’t a pretty sight, let me tell you.

And I started avoiding flying if I could, but then again, what other choices do I have?  I hate travelling by ship, thanks to the acute sea sick.  And although the words “road trip” sound sexy, the whole concept becomes so appalling when you think about the rest stops and the traffic and the idea of sitting up for hours.  Try to think of it in “Jeepers Creepers” kind of way instead of in “Thelma and Louise” kind of away, and you’ll know what I mean.  And I don’t even have to begin to tell you about this terrible car accident that I experienced when some friends and I were on a road trip together then our jeep got thrown off the cliff.  I’m starting to think maybe I am accident-prone after all.

Well, anyway, due to my jobs and my love of travelling, I do have to fly a lot, and once I got over the fear of flying, I actually cherish the moments when I’m about to fly, and I’m talking about the one hour that I spent at the airport just before takeoff.  And one thing that really excites me is the way the airport looks.  I believe each airport is actually an architecture masterpiece, with its own uniqueness and individuality.  And I really appreciate airports with cozy lounges, where I could sit with a cup of tea and a good book with a little bit of soft jazz or Sting.

One of my favorite airports in the world is the one in Los Angeles, the Tom Bradley International airport.  First, let me say just how amazing it is that they can build landing strips on levelled concept like that.  But who cares about the landing strips.  The main reason why I love LAX so much is the fact that it felt like being in a mall when I was there, with stores from The Gap to WH Smith lining up along the hallway.  Honestly, waiting for takeoff is usually very exhausting and boring, but if I have to fly from LAX again, I don’t mind coming even three hours before takeoff.  Everything from clothes, books, watches, and even shoes are available there.  And while sitting on the comfy couch at the airport lounge, you can enjoy a wide collection of glazy donuts and coffee and chocolate chip cookies and potato chips.

Another one with a mall-within-the-airport concept is the international airport in Sydney. You know what’s great about this kind of thing?  When you forgot to buy some souvenirs or whatever for friends and family waiting at home, you can just browse through the stores and pick one or two items or even more.  I was there just a few months before the Sydney Olympics, so I ended up spending almost an hour at the Olympics store.  Okay, another confession, another hour was spent at Portmans and Sportsgirl and Sisley and I lost track of the other store names hahaha.  But what I love about the Sydney International airports the fact that their regular lounge is more comfortable than the executive lounges at Indonesian airports, decorated in this black minimalist industrial style and equipped with wi-fi hot spots and cappuccino machines.  The Canberra airport was not so impressive, the Ayers Rock and Alice Springs airports even felt like Polonia in Medan (if you’ve been to Polonia, you would be laughing when you read this sentence), but the Sydney airport has my vote any day of the year.

I still have many corners of the world to fly to, and many airports to swing by, because there’s just something about the airport terminal that really condones my fear of flying.  If you have seen the movie Love Actually, you will understand what it is.  One of the characters in it, I forgot whether it’s Alan Rickman or Ralph Fiennes, said something that stuck to my head: one thing that makes the airport terminal is such an interesting place is because it’s a zone where all hatred, scars, and resentments are forgotten.  It’s a place where you just wanna hug the people leaving or arriving, showing them how much you care.  And I don’t know why, but every time I said goodbye to my friends and family before I boarded the plane, it kinda felt like saying goodbye forever.  Maybe because the plane is actually a little like the Schrödinger cat box.  In his quantum physics experiment, Schrödinger put a cat inside a closed box with a capsule of cyanide in it, and a trigger which would tick off if a radioactive isotope shot an electron.  If the electron hit the trigger on target, the capsule would pop and the cat would die.  But if the electron missed, of course the cat would live.  Now the paradox comes because the observer would not open the box until an hour later, and then find out whether the cat died or not.  In the one hour, when the box is still closed, we are left with a paradox of 50-50 chance that the cat still lives.  And in the six hours flight to Sydney, two hours flight to Jakarta, twenty hours flight to Los Angeles, or eight hours flight to Riyadh, we don’t know how our friends or family or acquaintances are doing up there in the plane.  Not until they landed and called us.  Meanwhile, we are left in the blank as to how they are.  It’s the same as waiting to open the Schrödinger cat box.

So the next time I step foot on an airport, listening to Tori Amos’ Sleeps with Butterflies on the headphone, whether it’s to mischievously try the hopscotch zone at the Stockholm airport, or to relax in the huge red sleeping chair at Heathrow in London, I will cherish everything that the terminal has to offer, the facilities, the stores, the gorgeous architecture, the smiles and the hugs, and the “call us when you get there,” because I know in a few minutes, I will submit myself as a Schrödinger’s cat in a box called an airplane.  But meanwhile, let me sit in the comfortable couch at the lounge, raise my glass and say “Cheers!” to the whole experience.

No, I’m not gonna talk about the brilliant song by John Legend that we all must have heard by now.  I’m just gonna tell you a simple story today.  This is a story about a woman named Sue, forty-something, a single mother with a teenage son, working as one of the cooks at my high school.  And one day, as I was standing in line in the cafeteria, getting the apple juice, the sloppy joe, green bean casserole, and vanilla pudding served on my lunch tray, she smiled and said to me: “Ika, are you planning to have lunch at school tomorrow?”  Not sure where this question was going, I just answered casually: “Mmm, I don’t know.  Why?”  And then she said, still with a smile on her face: “Well, we’re serving pizza tomorrow, and it’s gonna be pork.  And I know you don’t eat pork, so if you want to have lunch at school tomorrow, I’ll make you a pan with beef instead of pork in it.”  Honestly, I was a bit surprised: “Really?”  She nodded: “Yeah.  So?”  I smiled: “Sure.  Thanks a lot, Sue.”

This is also a story about a man that I call Bang Paimun, not really sure about his age but I’m guessing also forty-something, a grandfather working as one of the office boys at the office that I’m working in right now.  Honestly, the only reason I wanted to know his name when I started working here a couple of years ago was so I know who’s the person who can run errands from me, from taking my wrinkled suit to be pressed at the dry cleaner just in time before the director arrived, picking up my favorite breakfast of lontong in front of my old high school every morning, queuing for movie tickets at the mall so my friends and I didn’t have to rush to go there after work, fixing my broken heels, to paying my bills every month.  I didn’t really think that his existence actually means something in my life, until one day he wasn’t there when I needed him to do things for me.  And all I cared about then was: damn, he picked a perfect day not to show up at work, because I really needed him to run and get me something for my unbearable headache before my big meeting with a client.  And not to mention how suck it did that I couldn’t start my important day with my favorite breakfast.  So I walked to the pantry, looking very annoyed, asking the other office boys: “Bang Paimun mana sih hari ini?”  To which one of them answered: “Dia nggak dateng, Bu, kan cucunya dioperasi hari ini."

  And it was then, that I felt so selfish.  When I was worried about not getting my power breakfast, he was actually worried about his sick grandson.  And everything just started to come back to me as I was sitting at my desk.  I remembered a year back when I found a wedding invitation to his daughter’s wedding on my desk, and I didn’t even bother looking at the date, and honestly, I probably threw the invitation into the trash just after taking a quick glance.  If it were the mayor’s daughter, or the daughter of one of my big clients, I knew for sure that I wouldn’t take those invitations for granted.  And I was thinking, God, with his office boy salary, he actually printed wedding invitations for his daughter, and gave one for me.

I actually stopped a while when I finished writing the last sentence.  Just thinking about the ordinary people that I’m not friends with, but they spend their daily life making my life easier in one way or another.  From the taxi driver who offered me a bottle of water when we’re stuck in the traffic while it’s already the time to break our Ramadhan fasting, the cook who took extra time to prepare a special meal so I could eat, the girl who cleans my toilet at the office, the office boys who run errand and keep my desk shiny every morning, the receptionist who screens my phone so I don’t have to take calls from people that I don’t want to talk to, the newspaper guy who brings me my Cosmo on time every month, the man who never complains even if I ask him to make 5 copies of my 30-page loan analysis, to the becak guy who pedalled for an hour to get me home when I couldn’t find a taxi in a very rainy night.

This is a story of ordinary people in our life.  Sometimes we know their names.  Sometimes we only recognize them from the color of uniforms that they’re wearing.  But every time, they never fail to make everything easier for us.