A Piece of My Mind

Do you still remember the first book that you read when you were a kid? I kinda forgot the things that I read when I was a toddler, but I do remember the first book that I read, it was Tintin’s The Crab with the Golden Claws (of course I read the Indonesian version back then).  And the book captured me like no other book before.  The adventure, the funny comebacks between Tintin and his best friend’s Captain Haddock, the experience of foreign countries, they all just glued me to the book that I forgot to eat or to take a nap. 

Why do I suddenly remember this?  A couple of weeks ago, I was killing time at Periplus Terminal 2 as I was waiting for my plane to take off, and I saw a whole rack of Tintin comics.  And I smiled, as I remembered my elementary school years, the excitement every time my family drove to the book store and got me a new edition of Tintin each month.  Each time, Tintin inspired me to pursue a different career, sometimes a journalist, sometimes an astronaut, sometimes an archaeologist, sometimes a detective.  It was also Tintin who then inspired me to become a diplomat as he took me anywhere from Egypt, Eastern Europe, Peru, The United States, Mexico, Tibet, to the Antarctic.  Although I ended up studying economics instead of international relations, Tintin still inspire me to travel, to see the world. 

I’m kinda thankful that I wasn’t born in the era of Japanese comics like today’s kids, because somehow I think European and American comics are more exciting and more appropriate.  Not that I have anything against Japanese comics, I’ve read some also – especially since my brother then became addicted to the Kung Fu Boy series when he was in junior high.  But nothing as engaging, as inspiring, as exciting as an episode of Tintin or Ric Hochet.

I still have many of my original Tintin collection (can you believe that it cost only 3000 rupiahs back when I was a kid?), and now I start buying the English edition one piece at a time – although it’s funnier to hear Captain Haddock saying “Sejuta topan badai!” than “A zillion thundering typhons!” hehehehe.

Summer is coming, I would encourage you to fill your summer reading list with the books that you read as a kid.  Wanna know my list?

The story actually started a couple of weekends ago, when one of my best friends, Wida, said that she was getting married on the 22^nd of April.  Coincidentally, my boss sent me for a meeting in Jakarta that same weekend (I was dreading the meeting part, but the paid weekend in the capital city just seemed so intriguing), so I called Wida and said, “Guess what, I think I might be able to come to your wedding after all.”  So I flew to Jakarta on Friday, arriving at the hotel sometime after 2, and just as I was about to take a bath, a message came across my inbox.  It was from another friend in Medan, Tofan, saying: “Wanna see Kala later after work?” to which I replied, “Gue lagi di Jakarta, ntar mungkin mau nonton sih, tapi di Blitz hehe.”  I haven’t heard about the movie by then, I didn’t even know that it was an Indonesian flick.

Later that night, I did go to Blitz, but my best friend Korry and I decided to see Wild Hogs – which I really recommend you guys to see, it’s totally hilarious.  The next Saturday was kinda hectic morning, had this meeting slash forum slash whatever all day (it didn’t finish until 6, mind you that!).  I actually had an appointment to have an afternoon caffeine run with my so-called Friends genk (it was kinda funny, really.  When I moved to Jakarta to work, they were still in Medan.  But later when I moved back to Medan also for work, they all work in Jakarta, but it’s a kind of long distance friendship that we hope to last until we’re old and gray).  Needless to say, I had to cancel the appointment with them.  But at around 8 that night, I did meet with my other group of best friends, the so-called ODP ex-Medan single digit hehehe, so there we were at Kemang having dinner and sharing laugh: Firman, his wife Inga, and their baby boy Raka, Yan, Korry, and Yoes.

Coming Sunday morning, I was supposed to go the Wida’s wedding that day.  But another coincidences happened.  Remember my Friends genk?  They all showed up at my hotel room since Sunday morning: Inge with her husband Ivan and their baby boy Hanif, Wawan, and Dewi.  I haven’t seen them for months now.  Inge was busy with her new baby (can’t believe one of us actually has a baby, the rest of us are still babies really hahahaha), Wawan has been preparing himself to go the United States later this year for his post-graduate studies, and Dewi was always busy saving lives anywhere from Aceh to Thailand to wherever.  So it was a pretty good reunion.  On the other hand, we lost track of time and I couldn’t make it to Wida’s wedding (she’s gonna be mad hehehe).

Because I didn’t go to Wida’s wedding, I arrived at the airport earlier that I should that afternoon.  My booked flight was at 4.30, and I didn’t feel like waiting for 3 hours so I walked up to the Garuda counter and asked for an earlier flight.  They had to offer: the one leaving at 2 and the one leaving at 3.30.  I chose the second one because I needed a moment to grab some books at Periplus and didn’t feel like running to the departure gate just yet.  I picked up The Sunday Jakarta Post and The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes and spent an hour or so reading them in the executive lounge.  And I found the review on Kala on the newspaper.  As it turned out, it was an Indonesian movie, it was directed by Joko Anwar (who was my senior at high school and at AFS), and it was called – by the reviewer – as the monumental achievement in Indonesian cinematography, so I said to myself: I’m gonna see this on Monday.  Lost in my readings, I didn’t realize that it was time to board the plane, so I was probably like the last group to board it, and as I was making my way to my seat, I saw somebody familiar, Al.  He’s my friend from Medan, and he’s been away to Bali for three weeks for work (he works for the United Nations), so I changed seat and sat next time, and we spent the whole flight catching up.  Coincidentally, we both brought The Jakarta Post with us, and we both read the review on Kala, and we both were planning to see it as soon as we can (I wasn’t gonna pass on the chance to witness a monumental achievement in Indonesian cinematography).

Needless to say, my week at work was swamped, didn’t find any time to see it on Monday, Tuesday, till Friday.  But on Friday, as I was returning from visiting my client’s business, a message arrived on my inbox, it was Al, saying: “Did you find time to see Kala yet?  I had two tickets to see it tomorrow morning.”  So we met at Sun 21, the movie started at 10 AM in the morning (I’m not a very morning person on weekend, but anything for a good movie like this).  As it turned out, Joko Anwar and his casts namely Fachry Albar and Ario Bayu were also there to talk about the movie, and as it turned out, the organizer of the event was a friend of mine (he wanted to remain anonymous so I can’t give you name).  We were introduced, and Al and I ended up having lunch with Joko, Fachry, Ario, and my anonymous friend later that afternoon.  For so-called movie stars, they’re very humble and smart, most of our conversation went in English and went anywhere from the movie to the food to whatever.  You know what I was thinking the whole time?  If my book are to be made into a movie, I would love for Ario to play the lead.  Al called it ‘the power of networking’ hehehehe.

Here I am, spending another weekend in the capital city, probably for the zillionth time this year only, always on business.  But there’s just something exhilirating every time I step out of the plane in this city, making appointments with every single one of my closest and dearest friends on the way to the hotel.  And then there’s the most annoying thing in the world that I have to do - unpacking.  I never pack my own suitcase when I leave.  I’m just so bad at packing.  And when I’m about to fly home, I usually just throw everything in the suitcase, stuff everything here and there as long as it fits.

And then there’s lying alone in my hotel room, taking a rest for a while before moving on to the next agenda on my schedule - reporting to the head office, dining with friends, solitary shopping or whatever.  The time that I usually use to plan my next travel - if everything goes well and the budget works, there are two trips abroad that I’m gonna take this year with some friends.  And no it’s not Puerto Rico, we didn’t save that much yet ;)  Although I’d love to go there.  Or Brussels.  Or Morocco.  Or New York.  Or Hong Kong.  Or Zurich.  Or Johannesburg.  As I’m crossing off the list of the things that I wanna do before I turn 30, I’m looking forward to put "see the world" in the list of things I wanna do before I turn 35.

And then, there’s lying alone in my hotel room, calling friends or whatever, and then - always - looking at his name on my speed dial. Thinking I should call him.  Thinking of his name on the other boarding pass of my trip to Puerto Rico or Brussels or wherever.  Thinking of how his signature laugh over the phone can take away all of the clouds in my mind.  Thinking how being in the same city just doesn’t make it easier for us to connect.  Thinking how every time I travel to some place, I’m always finding something that I think would be perfect for him.  A tie, a t-shirt, or even just a keychain.

If travel teaches you how to see, how come every time all I see is you?

Maybe because you’re the one that I choose to help me cross one thing of that list.  We both know what it is.

The bank that I work for has reached a monumental achievement yesterday, as we book 300% increase of profit compared to last year’s and we currently also hold the position of the second best bank in term of service excellence according to the Marketing Research Institute, something that is quite huge in the banking industry.  And in appreciation of that achievement to its employees, we were given a special financial reward yesterday.  And also in appreciation to those who worked their ass of to achieve this, especially the frontliners, they were given a whole lot more financial reward than the employees in the middle management to senior management level – including me and my friends.

Being human, it’s actually very possible for us to envy the numbers that our subordinates get (and I’m telling you, it’s a huge number).  Personally, I also thought that I deserve more – the Mango sale and the Zara new items just seem so irresistible.  But then I came home last night, after a long day of work, and I found this kripik bawang in my room.  At home, we eat in a very healthy and selective way that we rarely find any snack lying around in the house.  So I asked my mom, and she said, “Oh iya, tadi tuh waktu Mama lagi ke apotik, ada ibu-ibu tua yang jalannya udah terseok-seok dan dia jualan berbagai macam kripik, dan waktu itu Mama liat nafasnya aja udah kecapekan, dan dia akhirnya numpang duduk di apotik.  Mama kasian banget, ya udah Mama beli aja kripik-kripiknya.”

And as I sat in the car on my way to work this morning, the image that my mother described just flashed in my mind.  Imagine a sixty something woman still has to drag around her ‘jualan’ in the midst of the burning sun, walking, trying to sell one or two just to eat.  Imagine what time she woke up every morning to make that kripik then tries to sell it all day until she came home at nite, to a house that’s probably not very comfortable, only to wake up the next morning doing the same thing again.  Imagine thousands or hundreds of thousands or probably millions of Indonesian women and men who have to live the same life, accepting life the way it is and still express their gratitude to God every single day because they still have food to eat.

Who am I to complain about the ’small’ amount of reward that I get when that ’small’ amount can actually feed her family for two months?  Who am I to say that I’m not completely satisfied with my job when there are thousands of people out there who would be completely happy and grateful to taste even one thenth of what I have right now?

So when you read this, why don’t we take a moment together to be grateful for what we have, and for once, let our soul be our pilot.

Don’t you just love the title?  There’s actually a song by Panic at the Disco called Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off.  Well, it’s not the lying or the taking the clothes off that I wanna talk about here, it’s flying.  You see, I have flown a zillion times with these:

And tomorrow, I’ll be flying with this:

Wish me luck! (Especially when all of my work mates have made a list of all my possessions in case I don’t make it … funny, but kinda scary hehehe).

How much money do you spend monthly on magazines?  Guilty confession: my subscription bill sometimes top my mobile phone bill, if you can wrap your head around it.  Although my CFO Asia subscription is free, I do spend hundreds of thousands on other things like Harper’s Baazar, Esquire (not the local one, it’s just lost in translation for me), Cosmpolitan, InStyle, to Harvard Business Review (just trying to get a headstart to become a CEO one day hahaha).  If you have the same problem, I now have a solution for you.  The hottest item in town right now is Soap Magazine, a perfect combination of Baazar, Esquire, InStyle, and Fortune, and you get all that with a price tag that doesn’t rob you bankrupt.  I’ve been buying this magazine since its first issue – although it’s only sold in Kinokuniya and TGA in Jakarta and I literally have to have it mailed to me every month – and I love it! 

It’s fresh without being marginal, it’s chic without being pretentious. And I’m not just saying this because the editor-in-chief is a good friend of mine and some of the contributors are also my friends and I also contributed a couple of articles on their March issue (which is available on the newsstand as we speak).  But if the fact that I’m on it makes you wanna buy it, tbere’s no harm in mentioning it, right?

which one do you like best, is it this one:

or this one:

or this one:

Hello, guys, just wanna post some entertainment buying guide for you.  All of the followings have been my absolute favorite these last few weeks, I thought you might wanna get a taste too.

THE BIG SCREEN (CATCH IT ON DVD ALSO)

Don Juan De Marco – Marlon Brando had a life-altering experience when he took a mental patient, acted brilliantly by Johnny Depp, under his custody.  Depp believed that he’s the legendary Don Juan de Marco.  Depp gave a v ery remarkable performance as De Marco, bringing the suave and charismatic character alive and left Brando – and us – wondering : is he really Don Juan?  The best thing about the movie is you get to experience what it is like to be swept off your feet by the greatest lover on earth.  The song Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman by Bryan Adams was actually a soundtrack of this movie.  Good luck in finding the DVD thought, the first and the only time I’ve watched this was in 1996 – ages ago! – and still can’t forget it since.  I heard that the DVD was released in 2002, so it’s probably a very rare piece right now.  Kalo nemu, gw titip beli satu ya!

The Holiday – Cameron Diaz has been my favorite actress shince her amazing performance in There’s Something About Mary – it’s still my favorite movie of all time – and I’ve seen every movie she has made since, from A Life Less Ordinary with Ewan McGregor, Feeling Minnesota with Keanu Reeves, Being John Malkovich with John Cusack, My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts, to Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise (why didn’t I mention Charlie’s Angels?   Not my personal favorite).  Jude Law has knocked off Brad Pitt from the number one spot of my favorite actor of all time, because he never seems to fail to shine in every movie that he did, from Gattaca, The Talented Mr. Ripley, to  Alfie.  How can I resist The Holiday?  In this feel good movie of the year, you will be charmed not only by Jude and Cameron, but also by Kate Winslet and Jack Black as they answer the question: how much of your life would change if you have the chance to trade places with someone?

Babel – you know the saying that everyone’s life is connected somehow with other’s, even across the world, and how you never know that taking a chance or meeting someone would change the course of your own life?  I always like ensemble casts, and I think Tom Cruise’s Magnolias was genius, Matt Dillon’s Crush was really in your head for a long time, and Babel really glued me to my seat.  The story was so powerful that you don’t really think that it was Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchett who got you hooked on the screen.  Remarkable directing, great editing, touching performance, call me egocentric but I really wanna tell Martin Scorsese to hand the Oscar for Best Motion Picture to Babel.

THE SILVER SCREEN (BUY THE DVD AND YOU CAN HAVE A SERIES MARATHON)

Heroes – Tim Kring is a fucking genius!  We all have been familiar with the story of a superhuman living amongst us since the era of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, to Mutant X.  But they all fail miserably in bringing up the whole emotional conflict and self-doubt when somebody wakes up one day realizing that he or she is blessed – or cursed? – with a special ability.  Heroes makes you think the impossible, even question the people around us, as every character appears so normal until their superhuman ability takes them over.  Genius writing, excellent casting, and you can’t help being curious what’s gonna happen next.   Too many main characters usually get the viewers lost, but I – and I’m sure any of you too – can remember perfectly every one of our heroes and what kind of strength they possess.  Whether you relate more to Nathan, Peter, Hiro, Niki, or matt, Heroes has something for everyone.  And for me, it leaves a question: when will I be able to write a story as engaging as Tim Kring?

Dexter – There’s something about the life of a serial killer that fascinates us when they bring it to the screen: Jack The Ripper, American Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, to Talking Lives.  Dexter is a whole new game though.  Dexter, our main character, is a forensic expert specializing in analyzing the cause of daeth from the pattern of the blood splatter.  Dexter is not your average CSI kind of guy, he is also a serial killer.  He’s been pathologically diagnosed with a tendency to commit a killing spree since he was a kid, so his adopted father – who happens to be a police officer – tried his best to control Dexter’s dark desire by channeling his murder passion to the people who they think deserves to be killed.  Yes, Dexter is a serial killer, but he only kills criminals, child molesters, rapists, and other serial killers.  This critically acclaimed FOX drama is written brilliantly, bringing you inside Dexter’s head, and actually making us like and understand him because he is actually a protagonist in this world full of monsters.  I really recommend you to see this mind-bending series.  American Psycho freaks me out but Dexter has a twisted, engaging appeal that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Grey’s Anatomy – Another wonderful performance of an ensemble cast.  For a medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy really doesn’t get you lost in translation, as it deals more with what’s going on inside the heads of the surgical interns at a Seattle based hospital.  It has this rare mixture of drama, romantic comedy, to dark comedy quality in it, and you will be sure to pick your favorite character, whether it’s the model-turn-doctor and emotionally fragile Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), the smart yet romantically challenged Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), the nice Irish guy who everyone thinks is gay and tired of being taken for granted Dr. O’Malley (T.R. Knight), to the handsome attending surgeon everyone called McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey).  Grey’s Anatomy has anything from strange medical cases, quirky love story, inter-office dating and affairs, to the no-holds-barred competition to handle the most difficult patients.  I nearly faint at any sight of blood, but Grey’s really wanna make me trade my business suit with scrubs.

I saw Grey’s Anatomy last night, and it was a bad day for the resident surgeons.  A bomb was gonna get off any minute, and it was inside the body cavity of a living patient, and everybody’s struggling between their Socrates oath to save lives and the human desire to save themselves and ran away from danger.  And they stayed to finish the surgeries, to deliver the baby, to strive to save lives at the expense of risking their own.

Would I be able to do the same if I were in the same situation?  Honestly, I don’t know.  But that one episode does bring up a question: what would you do if you know that today is the last day that you’re gonna be alive?  How would you spend the last day on earth before you take your last breath?

I can think of a thousand things that I should do before I die.  Climb a mountain, ride a Harley, stand on the top of the Eiffel Tower, drive an Aston Martin, bungee jump, publish a best-selling book, travel around the world, the list is endless.  But the deeper side of me just want simple things that I’ve taken for granted: say I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done that might hurt my parents, be more receptive to my loved ones, treat people better, and have a meaningful conversation with my father, something that we haven’t done in years.  I just want to stop being emotionally shut off most of the time.

And to my 5 o’clock shadow, quoting Keane,this could be the end of everything so why don’t we go somewhere only we know.

If I can rewrite the hierarchy of needs, I would probably put the need to be listened on top.  I’m sure you have experienced some moments in your life that you don’t feel like doing anything – eat, sleep, or even open your eyes and get up – until you can just talk to someone, spilling your innate feelings and just be listened.  And we do do that on a regular basis, sometimes even more than once a day, you know, just sit or stand or walk or run and you  talk and talk, fulfilling your needs not just to be heard, but to be listened.  And it’s not until you can find someone that you feel you can trust and can understand you that you’re ready to open your mouth.  It has to be someone who can listen to whatever it is that we have to say without being judgmental.  Usually, the roles are filled by our friends, our spouse, a member of our family, or in most cases today, a professional like a psychologist.  But who would have thought that right at this very minutes, almost 50.000 citizens of the planet have been spilling their grudge, feelings, and secrets to two total strangers?

I was browsing around the other day and came across a website called Are You Tired? And across the plain white background was the sentences in a typewriter font: “Are you tired?  Tell us why.”  And that was it.  So I clicked the “us” word, and it linked to an email address tired@tired.com, and I guess I was supposed to email this website the answer to that very simple question: “are you tired?  Tell us why.”  I thought that was kinda interesting – I could say that I’m tired because my boss won’t let me take a leave and keep dumping new accounts on me, but I really don’t have any clue who I am really emailing this to.  This is like a totally anonymous confession site.  I googled this site, and came a name Mike Kuniavsky.  A web designer for Wired magazine, Mike bought the tired.com domain name from a friend in November 1997, just for fun.  And not expecting anything, he put those two sentences, and put a nondescript email address which forwards the messages received to his personal inbox.  The first message, surprisingly, arrived almost instantly, from an East Coast university, saying: “Let me get this straight.  You have a website about people being tired?  Hmm … sounds sketchy.  Either you guys got too much time on your hands, or something else.  Anyhow, I got work to do.”  Since then, hundreds of emails keep coming in every week, and to this date,  he has received around 32.000 emails, from anyone you could possibly imagine: housewives, corporate slaves, college students teenagers, to military guys, all baring their feelings to Mike, without even knowing who Mike is.  All they care about is that they finally have a place where they can spill their complaints without being judged, as Mike never published or replied to these messages.  To them, tired.com is the unlikely and unexpected invitation to complain about anything to a complete stranger who might actually listen.

This trend of “confessing to a total stranger” doesn’t stop there.  Around three years ago, Frank Warren started a community art project called PostSecrets.  In this project, people from across the country and all over the world mail in their secret anonymously on one side of a homemade postcards.  Since then, thousands of people have shared their secrets and thoughts and decorated them on a visually engaging piece of art, and Frank posted 10 to 20 chosen ones on his blog.  While tired.com is not anonymous at all – people mail in their compalins from their own personal email and therefore can be trace back assuming that they use their real name on the email – Postsecrets is a whole different story.  There’s no identity on the postcards at all, except the arts that you put on them.

And the secrets they share are sometimes so dark and unspeakable, literally something that you could never share with your loved ones.  On one postcard with a sketch of the New York Twin Towers, somebody wrote: “Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I’m dead.”  On another postcard, also with a picture of a burning WTC, somebody else wrote: “He should have been at work that day.  I wish he had.”

Some postcards engage us in the sad reality of the world.  One postcard with a picture of empty beer bottles wrote: “I get up early, before the kids, to get rid of the beer bottles so they don’t know how much their dad drinks.”  Another one was a sketch of a female body with a love sign that wrote: “I love my husband because he’s the only man I’ve been with who hasn’t hurt my body with violence.”  Some shared their innate desire and feelings.  There’s a postcard with a picture of a smiling baby that said: “For the first time since I was a baby, I’m feeling finally happy.  I’m 28.”  Another one came with a crayon drawing of a bride and an inscription: “When I see an ugly bride, what I’m really seeing is a glimmer of hop for the future.  Maybe I  will marry someday.”

When we somehow no longer find comforts in sharing our most personal thoughts and deepest secrets to our closed ones, we choose to turn to these complete strangers in the assurance of knowing that they have no interest in turning these secrets against us.  Are we all really on the verge of shifting our comfort zone, prefering to share the most confidential things about ourselves to total strangers rather than to our loved ones?

Personally, there are a  thousand things that I could share to Mike and Frank.  But today, let me just start with this: