Just Some Footnotes

Pity and Fate. From the Fellowship of the Ring

2011-06-29T00:57:00.002+07:00

This is one of my favorite conversation in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - to be precise, in the Fellowship of the Ring -. It happened After the fellowship entered the Mines of Moria (Khazad Dum), Just at the intersection where they stopped because Gandalf forgot which way to go. I quote it straight from the movie.

Frodo (F) : There is something down there.

Gandalf (G) : It's Gollum.

F : Gollum?

G : He's been following us for three days.

F : He escaped the dungeons of Barad-dur?

G : Escaped..or was set loose. Now the Ring has brought him here.
      He will never be rid of his need for It.
      He hates and loves the Ring, as he hates and loves himself.
      Smeagol's life is a sad story.
      Yes, Smeagol he was once called.
      Before the Ring found him.
      Before it drove him mad.

F: It's a pity(1) Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance.

G : Pity(2). It is pity that stayed Bilbo's hand.
      Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life.

      Can you give it to them, Frodo?
      Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment.
      Even the very wise cannot see all ends.
      My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over.
      The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.

Some simple messages that I like. The first is about judgement. I will not make a lengthy explanation about it. I think it's quite clear and simple.

Although there is one thing that intrigues me. The use of the word "pity" here can be immediately redirected for other purpose. The first "pity(2)" will be translated to Bahasa as "sayang sekali", but the second "pity(2)" should be translated as "kasihan". This I haven't cross checked it with the Indonesian version of the novel, but I think some meaning will be loose to translation. the ability to use the same word while immediately change its meaning is one of the interesting part of English language.

The second message is the work of fate. I love how Gandalf said that no one could truly predict every outcomes, even the darkest situation can actually end well, and visa versa. And sometimes an unfortunate event at present, or in the past, can actually lead to a good thing in the future, and visa versa. Thus the work of fate.

F : I wish the Ring had never come to me.
I wish none of this had happened.

G : So do all who live to see such times.

      But that is not for them to decide.
     All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
     There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.
     Bilbo was meant to find the Ring.
     In which case, you also were meant to have It.
     And that is an encouraging thought.

I love the way Gandalf responded Frodo's desperation. It is quite similar with what Monk Gyatso, Avatar Ang's Teacher said toward Ang's uncertainty.

"But we cannot concern ourselves with what was, we must act on what is"

And at the later part of Gandalf speech, he iterates about the work of fate. If Gollum hadn't found the Ring in the first place, Bilbo wouldn't had gotten it, and so wouldn't Frodo. And we all know that at the end of the story, Frodo proved unable to cast the Ring into the lava. And it was there that Gollum's role come into place when he grace the Ring from Frodo by force and fell - with the Ring - into the lava.

Of course by the logic of probability, many could go wrong, but that doesn't mean that we have to loose hope no matter how unfortunate we are. I know that this sounds cliche, but at least it is an encouraging thought, said Gandalf.

Sang Pelihat Dunia

2011-06-25T00:17:00.006+07:00

100.000 tahun cahaya lebarnya, dan 1000 tahun cahaya tebalnya. Demikianlah ukuran Bima Sakti galaksi tempat tata surya kita bernaung.

46 miliar tahun cahaya. Demikianlah radius jagad raya yang terobservasi dari bumi ini, dan itu pun belum diketahui batasnya.

1 detik, adalah waktu yg dibutuhkan cahaya untuk melintasi jarak dari bulan ke bumi. Demikianlah kecilnya kita, bumi, kehidupan, manusia, dibandingkan kemegahan alam semesta.

"Tuhan Maha Besar"

Begitulah kata para monotheis dan pantheis dengan kata-kata yang sama, namun pengkhayatan yang sama sekali berbeda. Kita - bumi, kehidupan, dan manusia - sungguh kecil, tak berarti dihadapan Yang Maha Besar.

Namun, cobalah bayangkan apa yang terjadi di alam semesta yang luas tak terukur itu.

SUNYI

Megah, tak terbatas, namun SUNYI.

Matahari bersinar terang, namun tak ada mata anak kecil yang melihat terbitnya dan berkata "Indah" atau merasakan cahaya paginya dan berkata "Hangat".

Gemuruh dan kilatan halilintar menyambar, namun tak ada yg melihatnya dan berkata "dahsyat" atau mendengarnya dan berkata "menggelegar".

Bintang-bintang bersinar, planet-planet berputar mengelilinginya, Namun tak ada ilmuwan yang melihatnya dan berkata "megah", atau melihat jajaran bintang dan memanggilnya "Ursa Mayor".

Hukum alam berjalan begitu saja dalam monotoninya, tak mengenal waktu, tak mengenal momen, tak mengenal masa lalu, masa kini, dan masa depan, karena tak ada yang mempersepsinya.

Adalah yang terbatas yang mempersepsi dunia dan eksistensinya dalam rentangan waktu - struktur apriori kata Kant. Kekinian pun dirasakan, momen menjadi ada, dan pada saat yg sama, Ketidakterbatasan - atau Kekekalan - pun dikenali.

Mungkin sesungguhnya hakikat kita - manusia - tidaklah sekecil dan se-tak-berarti itu. Mungkin memang benar adanya ketika Hegel mengatakan bahwa manusia adalah mata dan terang budi Roh Absolut - sebutan Hegel untuk Allah - untuk mempersepsi dunia - ciptaan-Nya.

Yang tidak terbatas melihat diri-Nya dan bergerak melalui yang terbatas untuk mencapai tujuan akhir-Nya. Manusia mengambil bagian secara aktif dalam proses progresif Roh Absolut mengenali, mewujudkan, menemukan, menjadi, dan melebur dengan diri-Nya sendiri.

Stairway to Cardiologist At Last. Stairway to Happiness? We'll See About That

2011-06-15T00:18:00.004+07:00

Finally, I'm now officially a Cardio resident. Well, it has been officially announced by the department since 23th of may, but it just cross my mind that I wanna write a thing or two about it.

I have wanted to enter the Fellowship of Cardiology for a long long time, and it isn't at all an easy or even moderately difficult task, but instead it is a very very very HARD thing to achieve. I'll try to describe it without disclosing to much facts, but more just like a picture of how hard it is.

First, I have to bust my ass six hours a day, reading about cardiology. And that six hours doesn't come cheap either. Since I wasn't at home, but doing errands at South East Celebes, my surroundings there weren't actually conducive for such serious study, but I had no choice. So I went to the most comfortable coffee shop that I could find, and spent like almost all day sitting and forcing myself to read - which wasn't at all an easy task if you have leaved the college chair for more than two years -. Comfortable coffee shop also means, uncomfortable coffee and food price, but who cares - actually people will care, but I don't - because at that point, there is nothing more important that to be able to read and finish my study. So I would expend whatever it takes as long as I can study well.

Second I have to re-prepare for my TOEFL, which luckily wasn't such a hard task for me. Two days of review is enough for me, and I scored 627 by ILP standard, my last two years ago TOEFL was 630, it's a degradation but still acceptable. Sounds like bragging? You bet I am, anyone with TOEFL score 630 has the right to brag...hehehe...just kidding...or not.

And the last is that I have to pull strings that I never thought I would have to pull in my life. In my young naive days, I thought life is suppose to be simple. Work my ass hard enough, and I shall get what I deserve. But apparently, it isn't. I have to play smart, I have to consider every factors that could jeopardize my mission, and close the leaks here and there, and even after that, when I thought I've considered all leaks that is there to be anticipated, some unpredictable leak still emerged, and made the road slippery.

But eventually I succeed, not by my will power per se, but also by huge huge supporting factors (the collective will of many many people) that had been there along the road, aiding, guiding, even sometimes pushing me beyond my control to the direction that finally brought me here today. And from that six months of extraordinary experience, I could say that:

Human greatness is only limited by his/her power of will and God's will

Heck, I'm being religious, oh well. I do believe that intelligence does play some part, but not that huge. In the end, its all about will, and fate. Fate is the equivalence of luck, and luck is govern by the will of the Absolute Spirit (Hegel's way of saying God). But even when the supporting factors are there, and ready to help me, if I wasn't ready, if I wasn't well prepared, if I had not such strong will to prepare myself, then the chance would've been missed, and I wouldn't had succeed.

Training is nothing, Will is everything

Ra's Al Ghul - Batman Begins

Having endure such struggle, and then came out triumphant, I sure am very very happy shouldn't I? Well, there are some story about great warriors and winning their battles. Both the Pandawas and Napoleon succeed in defeating their enemy, and seize the enemy's castle, but the story goes that they found that the castle is empty, as empty as their heart, the winning doesn't mean a thing. So, do I feel the same way? Yes and no. Yes, because I realized that after the euphoria of triumph has passed, things go back to normal in there - in the heart - which apparently is also what my friends had experienced before. But also no because I don't actually feel empty as they are, because I know as hell I'll be devastated and probably perform hara-kiri if I had failed the test. Well, in a nutshell, I'm content. I never was a constantly euphoric guy, but at least these days, I'm not swinging down to the bottom of the mood scale.

And something else that I want to point out is that heart, mood, or emotion is unreliable. You can't keep them up all the time, because in order to do so you shall feed them constantly, and if you do that, you are a drug addict - anyone who have known me for a long time will know that I consider human is basically a drug addict -. and this is also stated by Schopenhauer' theory about will (not the same will as I said earlier, but more like a lusty, consuming, egotistical will) that it always "wants", and it will never be satisfied. Sound like following your heart is very very bad and primitive right? But I do also know that there is no way that you can live your life if you keep your mood scale, or shall I called it Schopenhauer ego meter stays at the bottom.

So what about love? - From cardio to love? No, I'm not on alcohol, not on drugs either, I just feel like babble a little about it, after all, if I put the word "Happiness" at the title, it would be very relevant to discuss about love right? - Does love can give me that constant flying mood? I don't know. Theoretically I should've said no, but I can't deny that in some way, I still do hope that it will. Well, probably not in constantly flying mood, but perhaps, if my mood meter is now oscillating from 40% - 80%, I hope, love - the right kind one which I hope I'll find - would bring me to around 30% - 100%, the bottom margin is loosened a bit to 30% because that is the amount of depression that I'll allow myself to be either caused by cardio, or by relationship.

Anyway, my new motorcycle, the white-pearl Yamaha Scorpio New Z has just arrived, WOHOOOOOO.... I probably call him Crixalis, since he is a white big muscular scorpion, just like Crixalis the DOTA character. Well, this will hold my mood meter for some time, if he could help me getting a girl he could probably hold it for much longer. White motor bike riders equals to white horsed prince right? Or no..I start to sound disgusting. Okay..On that bombshell..Good night..(Clarkson style).

Goenawan Mohamad

2011-06-10T10:06:00.001+07:00

I've just made a dedicated page to post and share the writings of Goenawan Mohamad. Of course, all entry about his writings will still get posted here, and discussed (Even translated if I want to) here.

Why him?

Because he is the first Indonesian author that could impress me. He has deep critiques, ridiculously deep and large amount of knowledge in just about everything (philosophy, religion, anthropology, mythology, and all other -logy, you name it, other then science perhaps). But more importantly, He is the first author that could show me that bahasa Indonesia can also be written in a simple, but deep, symbolic, and thought provoking style, and he manage to do that with a daily language such as "grogi" (directly translated as stage fright) in a way that makes me dare not to jump into conclusion about what he means by "grogi".

I don't know whether his writing can be categorized as poetry, but it sure as hell provokes my emotion much more then other Indonesian popular poetry that emphasize on the mimics, intonations and - for crying out loud - tear shedding of the poet on the stage. I think a good poetry should be able to provoke our emotion even when we read it casually, not necessarily on the stage. So here it is.

*After attending yesterday's briefing at Harapan Kita Hospital with Cardio Head of Department and Head of Education. I realize that my time is short. That is why I'll try to do as much non-medical related stuffs as I want to before the business of cardio residency take over my life.

Divergence

2011-05-17T00:48:00.001+07:00

I've decided to create a new blog which you can access from that link up there called "The Executor". I decided to separate my blogging topics so that I can get them more in-focus. Existentialist and Photographer may reside within the same being, but to babble about both of them at the same time would greatly confuse the audience. You never heard Mr. Kierkegard spoke about hyperfocal distance or Ansel Adams gave a comment about Thus Sprach Zarathustra aren't you? Heck, even Gabriel Marcel who try to play around with both philosophy and drama, was more famous due to his philosophy. Learning from the past, it seems a good decision to concentrated on a particular subject, at least to a particular audience. Hence the divergence. Some of the post here that is too photographic would probably get exported to the new blog

Well, I'll still keep this blog running though, since I don't think I'll ever run out of critiques for the humankind. Bastards and fools are still everywhere, earth will not run out of those kinds - at least not in my life time -, especially in this part of earth where the Ubermensch is clearly misunderstood even by a person who claim himself as a scholar, so a critique will always has its place as a good countermeasure. Other than that, the Greats from the past - characters or tales - are still large in number that I'll never run out of them to tell and discuss.

In a nutshell: I got a biggie plannie for this bloggie thinggie. Just hope that the fire keeps burning with a plenty of time to spend on this. Fingers crossed.

Loha

2011-03-01T11:21:00.001+07:00

I think my last post in Bahasa is the last thing I need to say..Combine with all of my post about those sort of thing and you could probably sum a "tiny tiny" bit about what I think of those matter..At least for now...But that "now" would probably be a very very very long time "now". I'll probably still post a thing or two, but lately the only things that stick in my head is Barney Stinson, Canon EF 17-40 F4L USM, yummy food, smokin hot girls, and Cardio, and of course AWESOMENESS..haha..well..thats just about it.

Till we meet again.

2010-11-26T14:47:00.000+07:00

[Jethro]
A single thread in a tapestry
Through its color brightly shine
Can never see its purpose
In the pattern of the grand design

And the stone that sits on the very top
Of the mountain's mighty face
Does it think it's more important
Than the stones that form the base?

So how can you see what your life is worth
Or where your value lies?
You can never see through the eyes of man
You must look at your life

Look at your life through heaven's eyes
Lai-la-lai...

A lake of gold in the desert sand
Is less than a cool fresh spring
And to one lost sheep, a shepherd boy
Is greater than the richest king
If a man lose ev'rything he owns
Has he truly lost his worth?
Or is it the beginning
Of a new and brighter birth?

So how do you measure the worth of a man
In wealth or strength or size?
In how much he gained or how much he gave?
The answer will come
The answer will come to him who tries
To look at his life through heaven's eyes

And that's why we share all we have with you
Though there's little to be found
When all you've got is nothing
There's a lot to go around

No life can escape being blown about
By the winds of change and chance
And though you never know all the steps
You must learn to join the dance
You must learn to join the dance
Lai-la-lai...

So how do you judge what a man is worth
By what he builds or buys?
You can never see with your eyes on earth
Look through heaven's eyes
Look at your life
Look at your life
Look at your life through heaven's eyes

Eksistensi dan Citra Allah

2010-11-26T13:52:00.000+07:00

Ini bukanlah artikel lengkap seperti yang biasanya saya buat, namun sesungguhnya sebuah email yang saya tuliskan kemarin malam (masih di kampung) dan kirimkan pagi ini (masih di kapal) ke rekan diskusi saya. Karenanya mungkin dalam penulisannya akan terkesan tidak runut dan melompat-lompat serta terkadang membahas hal-hal atau istilah yang tidak langsung dapat dicerna, karena memang awalnya tulisan ini ditujukan kepada orang tertentu yang sudah terbiasa membahas urusan ini dengan saya. Saya meletakkannya disini hanya sekedarnya dengan kemungkinan ada saja yang membaca dan memahaminya. Dan ya, ini juga artikel pertama saya yang menggunakan Bahasa.

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Dengan menyadari "eksistensinya",manusia sesungguhnya lebih dari berelasi dengan Allah, namun juga menyadari dirinya sebagai "citra Allah". Manusia menjadi "sadar" akan dirinya sebagai "perwujudan nyata" dari keilahian itu sendiri di dunia fisik materi, juga sebagai mata yang "eksis" dan memandang dunia. Dalam konteks ini, manusia sebagai citra Allah itu menjadi "inkarnasi" yang ilahi.

Ketika dikatakan bahwa manusia berbeda dari hewan karena manusia berakal budi, sesungguhnya akal budi inilah perwujudan "potensi" "ketidakterbatasan" dalam manusia. Yaitu sebagai satu-satunya mahluk yang "berpotensi" melihat keilahian.

Urusan "eksistensi" tidak akan pernah bisa dimengerti selama kita masih mencoba mempelajari Allah dan manusia dalam ranah "objektif" - Yang dimaksud dengan ranah objektif adalah mencoba menilai dengan menggunakan akal pikiran, rasio, dan logika (termasuk urusan yang tidak logis secara pikiran, karena selama hal itu masih dihubungkan dengan proses sebab akibat, maka ia masih masuk ranah rasio "objektif"). Ranah objektif hanya bisa memberikan kita "pengetahuan" akan itu, tapi tidak akan membuat kita "melihat" itu. "Eksistensi" hanya bisa dipahami secara subjektif dan personal, yaitu sebuah kesadaran diri sebagai "aku" yang hidup dan berada disaat ini, ditempat ini, dijaman ini, didalam tubuh ini, melihat serta mengalami dunia. Dengan menyadari eksistensi, ia menjadi "tonggak utama" dalam melihat sebagai subjek.

Menyadari - bukan mengetahui, atau menerima - diri kita sebagai "citra Allah" atau "inkarnasi keilahian" adalah tujuan yang paling utama dalam hidup dan perjalanan iman manusia. Kesadaran akan "citra allah" adalah tonggak utama yang membuat kita menjadi sadar penuh bahwa kita (atau "aku") tidak sama dengan tubuh kita, perasaan kita (reaksi batin terhadap external), karakter kita (kecenderungan dan penyesuaian kita dari lingkungan), bahkan pikiran (karena pikiran bekerja dalam ranah objektif dan logika) dan kesadaran kita (kesadaran dalam konteks objektif medis misalnya), dan karenanya mampu "melihat", mengendalikan serta tidak terikat dengan semua itu. Namun tentu saja tanpa menyangkal bahwa semua hal tersebut diatas juga merupakan bagian dari kita.

Dalam kesadaran penuhnya sebagai "citra Allah" manusia akan memiliki integritas dan moralitas yang "mendasar" dalam dirinya. Dan ketika sang manusia tersebut mampu bertindak dan hidup sepenuhnya dalam kesadaran tersebut, ia sudah menggenapi "kesadarannya" itu dalam tindakan nyata. Hal ini tidak mudah, karena manusia kerap terbawa kembali pada lima unsur diri tadi.

Inilah sesungguhnya hakikat manusia didunia ini. Inilah yang dimaksud dengan sadar diri sebagai "manusia sejati". Inilah yang dimaksud dengan menerima "Roh Kudus". Yesus berkata, menghujat anak manusia dan allah itu masih termaafkan, namun menghujat roh kudus itu tidak termaafkan. Karena "Roh Kudus" adalah keilahian dalam diri manusia, yang membuat manusia sebagai "citra Allah". Ketika Yesus menyebut dirinya sebagai "anak manusia" dan memanggil Allah sebagai "Bapa", Yesus mengungkapkan suatu gabungan antara "kedekatan" (relasi personal) dan "kesatuan" (kesadaran personal) dengan Allah. (Sadarilah bahwa pernyataan ini adalah usaha untuk menjelaskan secara objektif hal yang bersifat subjektif, karena itu tidak dapat lepas dari keterbatasan pikiran dan kata-kata manusia).

Dengan persepsi "citra Allah" yang demikian, maka berteori tentang allah menciptakan kita sesuai dirinya dengan mata, tangan, dan berbagai perwujudan fisik dan kemudian menyamakan perwujudan fisik allah dengan kita dari pernyataan "citra allah" adalah kebodohan luar biasa. Dan kebodohan lain adalah ketika manusia mencoba berteori untuk "membuktikan" keberadaan Allah, karena pembuktian menggunakan proses berpikir, berasio , dan berlogika, sedangkan keberadaan Allah adalah untuk "disadari". Keberadaan Allah juga bukan untuk dirasakan secara emosional karena emosi tetap hanya sebagian kecil dari diri kita, dan bukan bagian dari kelilahian. Dan jelas setiap perdebatan akan keberadaan Allah menjadi kebodohan luar biasa.

Ketika saya pertama kali menuliskan artikel "The Indescribable Experience of Consciousness and Existence", saya kira itu adalah kegilaan sesaat dan akan terlewati. Namun sesungguhnya kesadaran akan "eksistensi" adalah awal dari sebuah kesadaran yang sama sekali baru. Semua artikel sebelumnya, mencoba menjelaskan kemanusiaan dan keilahian dari analogi, dan ulasan yang bersifat objektif dan logika, mencoba mengartikan makna2 simbolik dari sang "firman". Namun ketika perihal eksistensi itu dihubungkan kedalam pengetahuan dan persepsi keilahian yang sudah ada, maka semua persepsi keilahian yang dulu menjadi tersadari secara berbeda. "Melihat" bukan lagi sebagai "perbedaan sudut pandang" semata, bukan lagi sekedar suatu kacamata lebih besar yang memandang seluruhnya dengan kebijaksanaan lebih, tetapi sungguh2 sebagai Allah yang melihat.

Tambahan diluar email: Perlu diketahui bahwa "kesadaran" subjektif akan keilahian, atau akan keberadaan Allah disini, sangat berbeda konteksnya dengan mempercayai begitu saja kebradaan Allah sesuai dengan yang tertulis, atau diajarkan. Pengalaman akan "eksistensi" diperlukan untuk bisa menghantar sang subjek ke tahap "menyadari". Dan sesungguhnya, saat saya mengatakan bahwa proses berpikir rasional objektif tidak akan bisa menjawab, bukan berarti bahwa proses berpikir ini akan dibuang begitu saja dan tidak berguna. Sebaliknya, berpikir rasional justru menjadi tahapan penting yang pada akhirnya membawa pada "kesadaran". Dan kesadaran ini sangat jauh berbeda dengan kepercayaan yang buta total begitu saja. Yang menjadi kebodohan adalah orang yang terikat ada proses berpikir rasional saja, dimana proses berpikir gagal membawa subjek pada proses "menyadari". Untuk dapat lebih mengelaborasi perihal kepercayaan buta, pemikiran rasional, dan "kesadaran" subjektif ini, saya akan memberikan link ke artikel rekan saya yang membagi pengalaman pencariannya dengan menjelaskan tahapan dan proses ini secara lebih terperinci.

http://hubertushosti.blogspot.com/2010/11/search-of-reason_26.html

The Indescribable Experience of Consciousness and Existence

2010-10-25T01:26:00.002+07:00

No. This time it’s not an essay, because this matter is too great for me to explain, discuss, or argue systematically, I have none of the thinking capability (or at least not yet), and none the language or words that I could use to describe it comprehensively. This article is more of some sort of a sharing of my very personal experience, which I consider too peculiar. Hence the title “indescribable experience”

Since my childhood, I had a question that by normal human standard is considered abnormal, and it was “Why is it that I can see people looking at each other, but I couldn’t see me?” And that weird question didn’t stop there. It became a weird feeling that appeared within me as I grow. To feel separated from the rest of the world as if there are only two entities in this world, the first is the “I” who see, and the second is the “others” that is the rest of the world which I saw. There was never any answer to this question, so most of the time I just leave it be (I was a kid back there, what do you expect). Of course this kind of feeling comes and goes, and it even mostly goes away as I involve myself in the drama of human interaction that related to social function, social hierarchy of teenage, love life, quarrels with parents, pursuits of achievements, dissatisfaction toward my condition as human both in physical and character, etc, bla bla bla. But nevertheless it keeps returning, again, and again, and again.

As I grew a little more in character and faith (It was around high-school age), my opinions, and the way I see this weirdness grew a little. It was not just a matter of seeing anymore, but it was a matter of being truly exist in this body right here, right now. I couldn’t formulize any theory back then (and probably still can’t) since philosophy “wasn’t” my thing at that time. I couldn’t even write an article, and I wasn’t a very religious person also, or should I say that I did believed (yes it is past tense) in God, but had a quite discomfort toward religious rituals, and the idea of religious salvation that makes me feel doesn’t belong to it (at least at that time), it didn’t touch my heart. But nevertheless, this weird feeling eventually gave me the unbreakable faith to the existence of God, and I eventually stating to myself “There must be God, because I am here” (I was already in medical school by the time I have this idea). And no I wasn’t saying it in a sense like most faithful religious devotee said it “of course there should be God, because He created us”, no definitely not. As the matter of fact, I didn’t care whether we human being is created from the ashes or whether it’s a result of billions of years of evolution that originated from a single cell creatures, because as far as I’m concern, even if we really are the result of evolution, it also works in God’s way. Well, probably different from biblical way but still God’s way, it still is God’s work. I was saying it in a sense that my “being”, exists in this time, in this space, experiencing the world by vision, touch, and taste, is too weird to be called normal and there is no way such anomaly happens without the intervention of God in it. Weird huh, and sounds too narcissistic.

Then there were times that I was too busy thinking on “how am I supposed to life as human”. It occupied my mind for quite a long time, and hence the entire search of “the way” (not the existence) from martial arts, eastern religion and philosophies, books that explaining a way of life, and ultimately brings me back to Christianity, while still seeking from every source that the world could offer (Since I personally think that there is nothing in this world that is beyond the power of God). And this period of search is actually the most influential period of my life. It has shaped my vision about humanity, religion, universe, life, and God. It makes me a person that I never thought I would be, but there are moments when that feeling of anomaly returns, and it keeps returning but I don’t take heed of its call.

Lately, a friend of mind poisoned me with ancient Greeks, Germans, French and other western philosophy. At first I took it casually and later seriously but still related it to my perception about the world, universe and God. But just recently as if the “ingredients” that are gathered has quite enough, I suddenly experience this “explosion” of anomaly in a scale that I have never thought could have happen before. That night, I was reading some novel that actually has nothing to do with it, but it mentioned the experience of death, and it made me think about life, body, and soul. And suddenly the anomaly attacks my mind and heart out of nowhere, I scream to myself question like “What is this?” - While looking to both of my hands and moving it as if I’m wearing a new robot body -; “What the hell am I doing here?”; “Why am I here? Why now? In this time, in this age” Then I imagined myself seeing other “human object” and think “they are they, they are different from me, I am a subject who sees” “So if the objects are human, what am I? Am I still existentially can be called as human? (Of course scientifically I am human) Do I really belong here?” The subjective feeling is so intense that I could probably conclude it as “crystallization of consciousness”. I even scream in frustration that night, because in the face of such fundamental question about existence, other matters become minute and meaningless. “How can I continue to live without understanding the life itself?” I thought at that time.

Let me try to describe a little bit about the subjective experience of “seeing other humans as different objects” with an analogy. Take our eyes for example. We see many colors in the world and have a consensus about the colors that exist in this world. But in reality, what we see are actually photons and waves with certain frequencies, and then our brain is the one that actually interpret the wavelength as colors and thus we called certain wavelength with certain colors. The problem lies in “does our brain interpret the wavelength in the same way?” Take red for example. We have seen that particular wavelength since we were born, our brain has interpreted it in its particular way, and we were taught to called the interpretation of that particular color as red. So we all agreed to call it red. But there is a chance that color that I called red is interpreted my brain as color (X), while by your brain as color (Y), but we all agreed to call it red. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. This is just an analogy, but yet there is no way to find it out right? There is no way you could truly experience that the red that I see, because it isn’t you who sees it. Same goes for subjectivity. I can certainly observe the “symptoms” that you are the same as I am, and take the conclusion that we are both a conscious and functionally living human. But there is no way I could experience your experience of consciousness, there is no way I could be sure whether you are as conscious as I am. Why? Because to me, my existence is the only one that I can be sure is real. I can’t be sure whether you are real or not because I don’t experience your consciousness as I experienced mine. From my point of view, being real, exist and conscious is like being the one who sees, moves, and thinks. And that consequently will lead to two possibilities. First possibility is that if our consciousness is the same, but since we are separated, I can’t experience other people existence. The second possibility is that my consciousness is unique to myself, that other human beings have a different level of consciousness, or probably different entirely, a different “thing”. Which stand point will I take? When I’m assessing it in philosophical manner, of course the first possibility is the one that fits. But when I’m assessing it as “The one who sees”, the condition of being the subject itself already put me in the situation where I can’t see the sameness of our consciousness. Confused? So do I.

Another thing is that the feeling of being truly unmistakably real, is so intense, that it is impossible that it – the consciousness – will gone one day even when my body dies. It’s a combination of experience of being truly exist in physical manner, and of being truly conscious as a “soul” (the only words that I think resembles the crystallize consciousness). In this sense, I personally think that both Platon and Aristoteles are wrong and right. The former argue that the true existence is something that is not in the physical world but is in the world of ideas, in other dimension. And the later argue that reality is the one that you can experience in this physical world. In my experience (not just opinion) existence is very real physical manner but also has its unexplained non-physical aspect. And from that point of view, I personally think every simpleton atheist – who is being content of the idea that there is nothing more other then the physical world seeks nothing else about the meaning of this life – is a creature with lower level of subjectivity and consciousness – except the father of Atheism whose name I forgot and whose idea is somewhat related to cosmic and inner “God”. Their unawareness of existence is low enough to make such contentment possible. There is no consciousness within them great enough to make them think about existence seriously. No, I’m not being a religious devotee who fears that “if there is no soul and God then our life would be meaningless” and thus clings to the idea of heaven and hell. But I personally think that based on my “indescribable experience” of anomaly, there is more to life than just a world of chemical matters, and no I don’t need any bible or prophet to tell or confirm me about it. I’m sure of it by myself.

So that night actually bothers me with several things at the time, those are: 1) Am I existentially the same with other human being? 2) Crystallized Consciousness (or soul), its origin and its fate after leaving the physical being (which I’ll never try to discuss). 3) The purpose of being this anomalous existence in the end (if it really is anomalous). And as you can see, I am sometimes being philosophical, sometimes being religious, and sometimes being a semi-lunatic in the manner that I write this article. It is inconsistent, it experience some change of perception based on which point of view that I try to explain it. Heck I don’t care. It’s not an essay anyway.

The Teaching of Diogenes

2010-09-27T08:26:00.005+07:00

"It's my fate to steal," pleaded the man who had been caught red-handed by Diogenes.

"Then it is also your fate to be beaten," said Diogenes, hitting him across the head with his staff.

The Teaching of Diogenes

2010-09-27T08:22:00.003+07:00

Diogenes was knee deep in a stream washing vegetables. Coming up to him, Plato said, "My good Diogenes, if you knew how to pay court to kings, you wouldn't have to wash vegetables."

"And," replied Diogenes, "If you knew how to wash vegetables, you wouldn't have to pay court to kings."

The Harsh and Restless Teacher

2010-07-25T14:47:00.000+07:00

Teacher O Teacher, why are you restless in your way?

Have you no pity to your disciple?

Haven’t I been brave in my pursuit for your wisdom?

Haven’t I been restless in understanding the reality of illusion?

Haven’t I being all courageous to venture beyond what others dare not to venture?

Alas, all the rational and the wisdoms are powerless

You cast your lesson mercilessly

And I who have stood my ground firmly before is now knelt

Powerless with agonizing pain and aching heart

What is the purpose of all this?

For more the wisdom that I gain, the harsher is the trial

Can there be no relief in what I have learnt?

Can there be no rest in the journey of studying?

Pity us, pity us O ye great Teacher

For the pain is real even for the illusionary cause

Return To Innocence

2010-07-16T11:30:00.002+07:00

Love . . . . . Devotion . . . . .
Feeling . . . . . Emotion . . . . .

Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence

If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence

That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence

My Personal Journey from Martial Art to Spirituality

2010-07-13T20:07:00.006+07:00

When I first practice martial art, my goal is to be stronger and better. A fighter is the one who can defeat his opponent, the better martial artist is the one who can punch and kick harder and faster, with better stamina, and agility. But as my learning progress its way in martial art, my knowledge and experience from this all punches and kicks world entry point has lead me into a vast exploration about fear, courage, attitude, self, enemy, ego, philosophy, culture, heritage, wisdom, humanity, religion, and finally enlightenment respectively (Note that I don’t mean to say that I am enlightened, but I explore about enlightenment). Well not a clear cut respectively but you get the picture.

Some backgrounds about my pursuit in martial art

Why is it that I want to learn martial art in the first place?

First: because I was introduced and taught about martial art early in life. Most of my grandpa’s generations had at least some amount of knowledge and experiences in martial art, some even master the art skillfully, and my own grandpa from my father’s side master the Tai Chi Chuan. Down to my father’s generation things may not as extreme as a Kungfu Sifu, but at least almost all of them were involved in martial art at some point of their life; my dad practices martial art vigorously throughout his youth and early adulthood; I have two uncle that reach black belt in karate; others are either practice karate even though not until black belt, or have no martial background but known as a fearless fighter in his young age (the eldest of them). So there you go, a long list of martial blood is encoded in my gene and or like the martialist used to say, “It is in our blood”.

Second: because despite of being taught the way of courage early in life, I was kid with a fearful heart. I thought I was brave, until I learned that I wasn’t, I realized that I was afraid of being bullied by street kids, I funnily refuse to run by pride, yet am freeze-handed to strike a hit, and I was afraid at plunging myself in the middle of kumite competition when I was still a brat. But I refuse to bow to that condition, so there I was fighting my fear with years of practice all the way to a point where some bruises and small lacerations around the lips and eyelids, and painful joint injury of the jaw are a common thing after each fighting practice yet I feel nothing, and I have known to refuse to bow down to extreme pain even after a major direct hit to the abdomen out of pride, and also stubbornly open the defense of my head even after dealing with a major hit. I plunge myself in the pursuit of the strength and honor in the way of the warrior (Bushido).

The turning point

But there is a critical point in my martial journey that makes me see martial arts in a different way, a more philosophical way, and that is when I first met my Karate master from BKC a few years ago. In summary, he taught me that martial art is not just about punches and kicks, and not just about tradition and art, and certainly not just about pride and winning, but about attitude, a way of life, and wisdom, and that a true master is the one who have total physical and mental awareness that he can deal with any conflict with the slightest or no violence at all, and hence it makes me reconsider about the true goal of martial art itself and makes me – like it or not – to explore about which things are important to me and worth to defend till the necessary violence and which things that don’t. And of course it didn’t stop there, the surge of curiosity flows like a tide wave that it gives me no choice but to question about why are those things are important to me, and why some aren’t. In the end all those questions lead to the ultimate question about what is the purpose of live itself, and what is the meaning of Truth, hence all the reading about philosophy, religion, great old tales of wisdom, ancient ways like Tao, Zen, and about enlightenment.

Yet I was not alone in this transformation of a greater purpose of martial arts. I was within a brotherhood that values the old wisdom of martial arts just as I am. And the fact that some of them trained in different kind of martial arts like Aikido, Jiujutsu, Kyokushinkai full contact karate is also beneficial for the knowledge that is being taught to me from these various kinds of martial arts has been a very helpful catalyst toward a grander view of martial arts wisdom and eventually sprang toward spirituality (Particularly Aikido).

Well that is a quite far deviation of my original intention to learn about martial art. I never even thought that some punches and kicks will lead me this far. But actually, after a careful observation, I conclude that for a serious and I mean really serious martialist (or at least those who are serious enough to explore about the deep value and history of the martial way), it is inevitable that the pursuit will eventually brought them to the path of spirituality (How deep will it be is a matter of personal preference). Because our forefathers of martial arts are indeed masters of life philosophies and great teachers of religions like Bodhidharma – a Buddhist – the founder of Shaolin Temple, and Zhang San Feng – a Taoist, and a Tai Chi Master – the founder of the Temple of Mount Wudang. And from Japan, all great samurai – who in time had eventually developed the empty handed martial arts like Aikido, Jiujutsu, Judo, and Karate – are greatly and vigorously educated in Zen meditation, and Zen wisdom, where Zen itself – originally called Chan in Chinese – literally means meditation that developed from Buddhism at Shaolin Temple.

One of the most famous modern time great martialist that had walked more or less the same journey as I am and had transform in his purpose on martial art is Bruce Lee (also known as Lee Xiao Long/Lee Zhen Fang) – yet I fully realized that I am still dwarfed compare his achievement and far from thinking myself even close to him. Anyone who knows him from movie alone will think that he is all action fast punch and kick guy. Few know that after years of martial art training under master Ye Wen (or Ip Man) he eventually recognize the greater value on martial art and decided to enter a four-year education in philosophy at the University of Philadelphia.

Intermezzo: My objection toward the degrading value of martial art

Most modern martial arts practitioners pursuit health, self-defense, achievement and social activity, and I have nothing against those who fall in this category. But heck, the even more modern practitioners have downgrade the high value of the art that was first founded by the ancestors of martial arts into petty ideas like life-style, looking cool, mating screening candidate, and so on, and so on. So I personally think that those who practice martial arts in the former ways, even though not a true martialist, but a sport athlete, they still have the right to be honored. But those who practice in the later ways are gymnasts, not martialists. It’s okay to be a gymnast, but it still saddens me that the value of true martial way has in practice degraded so low in this modern age.

A Quotation for the Disciples of Truth

2010-07-10T21:15:00.004+07:00

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

~Mahatma Gandhi~

Thus the Way of the Cow

2010-06-28T17:53:00.001+07:00

I see a flock of cow
Their head ducked and eyes fixed
Looking only to the grass with mouth chewing
They are busy grazing

The vast green field, the colorful flower
The blue sky, the warm sunlight
Notice them, they do not
They are busy grazing

Down to the water hole they go
Up to the grass field they return
By the bark of the herd dog they moved
For their mind knows nothing but grazing

The perilous nature, the hungry predators
Away from them they stay
But aware of them they do not
For only the bark of the herd dog they obey

Dare not to venture, dare not to separate
By the flock they stay, by the herd dog they rely
Aimless moves they walk, mindless moo they utter
Thus the way of the cow, the way of the unaware

Thus I Honor the Wisdom that is spoken by the Ancient

2010-06-22T14:45:00.006+07:00

WARNING!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!! (But who cares anyway since this is a very old tale that I think too many people should have known how in general the story goes and ends)

And know for the negative boring and surely what most modern popular novel would have thought sort of comments about this tale:

The storyline is too rigid and unrealistic.
It progress too slowly that most will find it boring.
The Indian sure is a very over-melancholic race that lamenting and tears-shedding are heard too often from both gender, and for both joyful and sorrowful event.
It makes to many unnecessary detours with the need of Rama to keep lamenting and seeking help everywhere when He is in fact the living Vishnu whose power can overwhelm the entire Rashasa army by himself.
If only Brahma the Creator God hasn’t gave Ravana the Rakshasa King the special power, none of this conflict would’ve happen. Hence the Creator God Himself is the one to be blame.
It is mostly a Love story which over-spiced with Gods and stuffs.

Those are general comments that I think most simple readers will have in mind. Why? Because most reader seeks thrill, adrenaline provoking plot, or tears shedding love story, or sometimes religious obedience fostering tale. Yet I seek the other, I seek whatever values and wisdom that are offered by the ancients who first recite this tale in their poems.

And now what do I think about it? I think it is awesome, marvelous, outstanding, period!! This one tale alone has so many values to be told; so many religious aspects can be learned; and so many messages that can be used as tools of self-introspection (or in-sight). Its teaching about virtue easily surpasses any other literature that I have in my disposal. The valor and loyalty of the characters are certainly no less if not better compare to the bushido from Japanese samurai stories. It describes very well the weakness of human mind and heart under some unfortunate circumstances even from the mind of the incarnation of God Himself. It depicts the work of fate in such way that series of joyous fortunate and sorrowful unfortunate events are all within the grand plan of God and eventually reveal the true purpose of everything, it is the mystery of fate that even the Avatar of God Himself is bound to follow as well.

I am astounded by Bharata – the brother of Rama – who was described to have a spotless virtue, sometimes even compared to Sri Rama Himself. I am astonished by the loyalty and valor of Jatayu, who fought to defend Sita with no fear of death. I greatly salute Hanuman – the son of Vayu (the Wind God) – the minister of the Vanara’s Kingdom – for his unequalled intelligence, wisdom and loyalty, and not only because it was claimed as such by the author, but because of the series of deeds and wise decisions he had made along the story, and I even almost shed tears at one of his scene (I’ve forgot which one) not out of sadness, but out of awe. If one day I happen to found myself in front of a Hanuman worship temple, I could probably do no less then to stop and offer a respect toward Hanuman by heart. Yet it is not the physical statue of Hanuman that I honor. But the values which are carried by the Hanuman character themselves.

And as for C. Rajagopalachari the author of this version, I am grateful by how in many events the author always describes the ancient Tamil poets – Valmiki, Kamban, and sometimes Tulasidas – differences in how they describe the events, then explain the context and the message of each version, thus saving the need to read the original version from all three poets. Even more, the author also gives his personal opinion about the moral of each event without subtly changing the story according to his will, but to explain it separately.

Thus said, this is not a synopsis, this is not a review, but a humble expression of my sincere amazement. I am unworthy of judging a tale of wisdom that has been developed thousands of years ago, yet has stood the test of time and still dwells in the heart of some delicate readers in this modern age. Thus I honor the wisdom that is spoken by the ancients.

And if I travel to Bali again, or India (perhaps one day). I will surely wont just simply enjoy the beauty of the beaches or the unique and colorful culture, but I'll deeply appreciate the rituals, and worships that has always been a part of Hinduism. Now I see cultures and rituals in quite a different perspective, even if the pious devotees who held the worship were probably do it out of habit of inherited tradition from their elders, or perhaps even just to satisfy the tourists, those rituals still are the embodiment and symbolization of values and wisdom inherited from their Sages.

I’ve only read Ramayana once for now, but I will surely reread it again sometime in the future, both to enjoy its beautiful utterance and to remember the wisdom that it offered. And now, I shall progress on reading the other Tale which is Mahabharata.

The Wisdom of Old India

2010-06-22T13:54:00.003+07:00

During my last trip to Ladianta, I had managed to finish the whole tale of Ramayana retold by C. Rajagopalachari. I’ve wanted to read about both Ramayana n Mahabharata since several months but can figure out which version is the best and which author (or translator) that would suit my purpose of reading. So I browsed the Wikipedia to find out more about these two books where I finally discovered about C. Rajagopalachari’s version. Actually this is not the first time that I heard his name. In fact his is the first version that I found when strolling around Gramedia bookstore but still hesitated to buy since I have a little doubt about the author’s background and quality in cultural and religious literature. But from Wikipedia, I found out that I have nothing to doubt about. To quote Wikipedia:

"Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (Tamil: சக்ரவர்த்தி ராஜகோபாலாச்சாரி) (10 December 1878 - 25 December 1972), informally called Rajaji or C.R., was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist, politician, writer, statesman and leader of the Indian National Congress who served as the last Governor-General of India. He served as the Chief Minister or Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, Minister for Home Affairs of the Indian Union and Chief Minister of Madras state. He was the founder of the Swatantra Party and the first recipient of India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna."

“Rajaji was an accomplished writer both in his mother tongue Tamil as well as English. He was the founder of the Salem Literary Society”

“In 1916, Rajaji started the Tamil Scientific Terms Society. This society coined new words in Tamil for terms connected to botany, chemistry, physics, astronomy and mathematics. At about the same time, he called for Tamil to be introduced as the medium of instruction in schools.”

“In 1951, Rajaji wrote an abridged retelling of the Mahabharata in English, followed by one of the Ramayana in 1957.”

“Rajaji often regarded his literary works as the best service he had rendered to the people. In 1958, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil for his retelling of the Ramayana - Chakravarti Thirumagan. Rajaji was one of the founders of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of education and Indian culture.”

Nuff said. And even better, his version is available in PDF online for free, so what is it that needs to be considered anymore? Here is the link:

So why are all the sudden with this Ramayana and Mahabharata? It is because of my friends influences. One of them said about his father in-law who always teaches about religion by using the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Son Go Kong (Which I wish to reread also some time in the future) yet he is a Moslem. Another friend of mine is a Jogja-nese who always poised me with the Java version of these tales from “Pewayangan Jawa” hence increased my interest to both stories. Well he mostly boasts (sorry :D ) about Mahabharata, but why not read both tales when I can, considering these Tales are strongly related to each other both in their storylines and in “Dharma”. But the problem is I couldn’t care less about the Java version (pardon me) yet since it has always been my personal policy since the dawn of my personal study to read a literature as original (if not close to) as I can get. So yes, I’m searching for the Hindi version, but in English - I’m not Karan Johar or Shahrukh Khan, don’t expect me to read in Hindi, Heck, even for reading the Gospels I still wouldn’t want to learn to read in Greek (Yes the four Christian Gospels are originally written in Greek, not Latin nor Hebrew), and I don’t even think that Russell Peters could speak Hindi other then Hindi accent-English, so English version is enough.

Another factor is that I inherently have deep love and respect toward great ancient literatures, doesn’t matter whether it’s a mythology or history, I honor both of them. When a mythology has stood the test of time and even stands as one of the groundwork of one of the oldest religion ever on earth, then it must have some great wisdom in it.

Relax O Ye my fellow Christians for I would never converted to Hinduism, since I don’t think any conversion is necessary to learn the wisdom of any religion from any culture. Wisdom and teaching have been here in the universe since the beginning of time, and no human categorization including religion can confine it, it surpass every worldly boundaries provided one ready to learn from it with an open heart. And truly I tell you, woe to you who judge a teaching or religion other than your own before even care to lake a good look at it and understand about the teaching of that certain religion (simply put – negative prejudice).

The Vows of a Bird

2010-06-12T12:18:00.004+07:00

What is the purpose of my writings? That question has always intrigued me. And it goes even deeper to: what is the purpose of my study? Is it true that I want to search the truth? Or is it just to makes me feel better? Like a new hobby, a new toy to me. And about the writings and all their publicities, what is it that I aim for? Do I wish to spread the truth? Is it just a share? Or perhaps it was just some ego of to be seen as the one who knows more? And upon thinking about that, I finally reach some conclusion.

It doesn’t matter how good and systematically proven my writings are. It will get the job done to explain my ideas but the reader will still only grasp them to a point of logical reasoning. What I am trying to communicate is something that can only be seen by those who has finally choose to seek for it and discover it “by themselves” in this chaotic journey of life. So it doesn’t matter whether they agree or not, because even when they do agree, they will still not “see” what I “see”. And worse when they don’t agree, it will trigger some meaningless theological debates that will lead to nowhere since they haven’t seen what I have seen anyway and hence will never speak in the same “language”.

Understanding something merely with logic is entirely different with actually “seeing” it. And since the beginning, Anthony de Mello can’t describe it better when he said, “Observe, then you will understand” or shall I say truly “sees” it. Bhodidharma the founder of Shaolin temple, upon finishing his nine-year meditation and reach enlightenment said to his disciples “There is no use of logical and theological reasoning. To reach enlightenment, one shall just practice diligently until one finally understand”, and in martial art, practicing will always leads to self-observation, it is a tool used by the Buddhist monks to assist themselves to be more “observant” about the law of nature.

And even Jesus said something regarding how hard it is to speak of the truth to those who haven't experienced it first hand when he said, “The reason I speak to them in parables is that seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand” (Matthew 13. 13, NRSV), and so “Jesus told the crowds all these things I parables, without a parable he told them nothing” (Matthew 13. 34, NRSV), and hence the parables about the Kingdom of Heaven (scattered everywhere in all four gospels).

So now I will make my vows about my attitude in theological writings:

I shall not write to prove that I am right and the others are wrong.
I shall not write with expectation to be fully understood.
I shall not write to satisfy my ego to be seen as the one who understands more and gain pride from it.
I shall write as a result of my natural learning process and as a way to systemize my understanding.
I shall write as literal records about my learning process so that I can one day reanalyze them in my future study.
I shall write as an expression of my awe toward the grandiosity and sacristy of the Word of God.
I shall write only from The Spirit.

"A bird doesn't sing because he has a statement. He sing because he has a song" - Anthony De Mello

My Chemical Romance - Helena

2010-05-31T11:42:00.002+07:00

And its time to go crazy again...Simply put...I love this video...its insane..period...one of the commentary at the youtube actually said: I want my funeral to be like this. =]...Hahahaha

The Son of Man, the Son of God

2010-05-31T08:46:00.000+07:00

I had described the nature of humanity, and also about Godliness in my previous articles. In the later, I had also mentioned that we human should “reach Godliness and still retain our Humanity at the same time”. And that example can be found in Jesus at least for us Christians and others that care to learn about Him without being a Christian (And I personally think same goes for other examples for other religion). Jesus is our example (as Christians) of how we human suppose reach our Godliness, to earn our salvation.

While we have always referred Jesus as God, we shall not forget that He took his first breath as a human being. That is why He always referred Himself as “The Son of Man” because He was indeed born with flesh and blood, with every limitations of a human being, with hunger and thirst, with insecurities and fear. If He had not felt hunger and thirst, then His fast would’ve been meaningless. Had He not bleed and wounded then He wouldn’t had suffered when He was tortured. Had He be fearless then He wouldn’t had “grieved and agitated. Then He said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death” (Matthew 26.37 – 38, NRSV) and “threw himself on the ground and prayed ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26.39, NRSV) in Gethsemane the night before crucifixion. So He was indeed afraid of God’s trial, as we all humans are, and thus said by Him to His disciples at that same night “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26.41, NRSV), and taught to His disciples to pray “And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one” (Our Father; Matthew 6.13, NRSV), as a way to teach us that one shall realize one’s limitation as a human being and not to become arrogant with a blind bravery.

Jesus has an intimate relationship – and oneness – with God which enabled Him to called God as Father, and thus we called him “The Son of God”. I don’t have to describe His powers in abundance of miraculous deeds that He had done. Those are very eye and ear-catching and a bit – if not too – “overly popular” that I bet not a single Christians (and probably many non-Christians) that aren’t familiar with it. Even though there are many symbolic messages presented hidden in those miraculous deeds, few are recognized and I will not discuss them here. More importantly, as the “Son”, He has within Him God’s love which I had tried to describe as love that “even extends beyond our understanding of love itself” kind of love. The God’s love within Him enables Him to said “Not to resist an evildoer, and if anyone strikes you at the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5.39, NRSV), but not out of merely a crybaby – blind patience and conflict avoidance, instead “To approach an adversary in the same way as this adversary may be approaching us: who is the wicked one?” (Commentary by Pastoral Bible). That is why Jesus ask us “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” and told us to “First take the log out of our own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.” (Matthew 7. 3 – 5, NRSV). These messages clearly teach us to see things in broader perspective instead of our own personal narrow perspective in right or wrong, because there is a big chance that our opponent is reacting toward the situation exactly the same way as we are, thus both are just following our “human nature” and either both are wrong or both are right and neither should be judging the others because both see things only from their own egotistical perspective.

Jesus even described God’s love in such extreme by saying “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter” (Matthew 3.28, NRSV). And the Commentary by Pastoral bible goes like this: “The God whom Jesus knows is aware of how far human stupidity can go and doesn’t feel offended by so many ridiculous or blasphemous words habitually used in our society”. It is an awareness of His (God’s) creations stupid and ugly nature – again, not a crybaby sweet patience out if nowhere, but a kind of love that is beyond our ability to accept. And if this still can’t give the clue about God’s love, I don’t know what else can.

Now after a long babbling about why Jesus called both human and God at the same time, I will cut this straight. It is because He was able to reach God’s love even when born as a human that He is an ideal “teacher” for us in search for God. His presence is a proof that we Human can earn our salvation and reach the previously impossible God that is within us. Thus the birth of Jesus spread as “Good News” because finally God has shown us that human can reach salvation. That is also why we called Jesus our “Savior” because by His teaching, He show us the way towards salvation. And also, through His birth God has fulfilled what has been written “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them” (Genesis 1.27, NRSV), so it has always been our purpose in this world as human to become the Image of God and Jesus fulfillment had shown us the way, and proved that it can and must be done.

And why is it that when He was crucified, it is said that He has paid for our sin to God? It was because He had made a stand for the word of God that was taught through Him. During His whole life, He had been the messenger of the word of God which didn’t suit the religious authority at that time. He was consider blasphemous by the Jewish priests who at that time struggled hard to kept the authority at their hand during Jewish oppression by the Roman empire. So the torture and cross are consequences of the way that He had chosen, and He had no choice but to face it. By “drinking from His cup” (Matthew 26.42, NRSV), He had fulfilled God’s movement in spreading the teaching toward salvation. By making a stand for the cross, He had showed that the spreading of the teaching shall not be suppressed and defeated by worldly fear of pain and death. The word of God shall remain timeless in its value. He had than finally “kept the salt from losing its taste, and put the light on the lampstand” (Matthew 5.13 – 14, NRSV). The tales of crucifixion and resurrection are very ear and faith catching thus so wildly popular and easily acknowledge by many. By acknowledgement of this story alone, one at least has kept an access toward the teaching – the word of God – even when it is merely believed and not immediately understood. So that is why by being crucified, He is said to have repented for our sin. Because He showed that the truth of the teaching shall defeat pain and death, and He had also kept the teaching alive and He made it widespread, so that we humans may forever have the access to the word of God and the knowledge of salvation that will freed us from our Sin.

That said, “when we human poop at the wrong place without wiping our own ass, instead of cleaning our mess instantly and wiping our ass for us, Jesus has taught us to poop at the toilet and to wipe our own ass”. Not the most suitable parable – I made it myself, what can you expect –, but hopefully you got the message. Jesus death wasn’t meant to instantly erase our Sin, but instead to keep the teaching alive and made it widespread so that we Human may forever have the access to it and thus may be freed from sin by earning salvation through constant learning and understanding of His teaching.

ISO VS Shutter Speed - Night at Kendari

2010-04-27T17:09:00.003+07:00

This images were taken in the middle of the night, from the third floor of my aunt's house. All using ISO 100, F/8 to optimize sharpness, and 20-30 second of shutter release.

There are two things that I found that night:

1. Long shutter speed is much much better compare to high ISO when it comes to noise. see it for yourself.

2. when using tripod with long shutter release, turn of the IS (Image stabilization). the IS is kinda wobbly and will cause as if the picture were taken by hand held.

Dusk at Kendari

2010-04-27T16:33:00.004+07:00

I'd taken some picture about a week earlier prior to the morning stroll. Those were taken when I accompanied my aunt to local evening fish market. As usual, around the sunset or sunrise, I was looking for the golden sunlight at the golden hour, but it was cloudy and the sky is dark blue everywhere. it is here that I realize that if I don't have a golden sunlight to utilize, I will always have the blue light to exploit. White balance is determined by temperatures, means if I can't find the warm light, it means there is a cool light. So I have to be creative, using everything that is provided to create a good image.

Other things that I discovered when editing my pictures is that even if I like high saturated colors, it is not wise to force it at the in-camera setting, because it will make your images prone to noise. So I find it that I will get a better result if I add some more saturation later from my laptop

Kendari's Trivial Things

2010-04-26T15:21:00.003+07:00

Traffic:

1. Kendari's drivers and bikers are generally as assholes as Jakarta's, as noisy as Jakarta's, but at the same time are much more moronic than Jakarta's, and thus more annoying. but nevertheless, driving and biking in Kendari is still much enjoyable due to its very low traffic compare to Jakarta's - full hell unleashed - traffic especially around busy hours.

2. You'll find some community service billboard telling you to wear your seat belt, yet in Kendari wearing seat belt drivers is a very rare sight if not none at all. it doesn't matter if there is a police riding a bike right at your side or patrolling sideways. They won't do no shit about it.

3. I drove a pickup car yesterday with only one seat to spare at the front seat, yet I manage to stacked 3 other PTT doctors by my side (means there are four of us) and drove exactly side by side with a police motor bike. The police just stared once and didn't give a shit, literally at all.

4. So I concludes that the only punishable trespasses are:
- Crossing the red light
- Driving against the verboeden (only in main large streets)
- Not wearing helmet (for bikers), and
- Crash directly to a group of police I guess.

Food:

1. Generally there is nothing very delicious or unique in Kendari's culinary.

2. Food are generally expensive, fish are expensive, chickens are even worse. Pork?dream on, you won't find any, not even in restaurants. Well you'll find some if you have your dinner at some local Chinese families.

3. They have this strange love to "cassava" (singkong) and strangely named it "sweet potato" (ubi). For example, they have this menu called "sweet potato soup" (sop ubi) which is actually a chicken noodles with fried "cassava" (singkong), chopped and mixed altogether. Heck, they even got a "sweet potato rib soup" (sop konro ubi) - originally a Makassar's cuisine which use no ubi and should've called soop konro, but they add a cassava in it and hence the name "sweet potato rib soup" (sop konro ubi). Confused?me too.

4. They also have a love for peanut. They add it to their "grilled fish" chilly mixture - which is unusual because back in java, we mix peanut sauce only with satay or dumpling - and even to their "pisang ijo" - which is also unusual because originally pisang ijo is Makassar food, and use no peanut - but the later actually is quite tasty.

Large City Delicacy:

1. Kendari has one KFC. (THANK GOD!!)

2. One Gramedia. ( DOUBLE THANK YOU GOD!!)

3. One Matahari Department Store. (Humm...not bad)

4. One Paparon's Pizza. (Don't care, don't like it)

Internet Access:

1. You can find internet quite easily here. 4k an hour, cheaper if you prepaid the rent for two or three hours.

2. If you had a laptop with wireless modem on it, than internet is as cheap a 5k rupiahs cup of - not so delicious - coffee, or 8k rupiahs glass of juice, depends on your taste, for an unlimited time. a very good value for money compare to 150k rupiahs a month of painstakingly slow and 1 or 2 (I forgot) GB limited Telkomsel flash. But I heard that laptop is a trend here, and if you got one and hang around the cheap coffee shop to get that cheap but satisfyingly fast internet, then you are considered cool. Heck I don't care, just let me finish typing and publishing my post or uploading my pictures in peace.

My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Okay

2010-04-24T14:55:00.006+07:00

Just an old music clip from My Chemical Romance that I like. It was named REVENGE!! haha..

Enjoy :D

Kendari Morning Stroll

2010-04-24T14:19:00.009+07:00

At last, an entry from my laptop after a long hibernation, HURAAAAHH!!. I have just discovered that in Kendari, suppose that you have a laptop, then free internet is available everywhere, all it cost is a - mediocre not so tasty - cup of cheap coffee around 5K rupiahs, and you are set for an unlimited time, surely better then 4K an hour at warnet around here.

Okay, a little update about me. I am now at Kendari, jobless but not wage-less, don't blame me, blame the local health department for requesting medical professionals to national health department in Jakarta without carefully planning the public health centre where I'm supposed to work. Mine is suppose to be at the island of Wowoni, and happen to be still 80% finished, and believe me when I say that the process will take quite some time due to very limited access and complicated bureaucracy. So here I am, waiting aimlessly in Kendari.

Now back to business. Being jobless is not such a bad thing, especially in a place you've never been before. other than reading novels, browsing the net, and "thinking", I can doze off doing a tourist-like sight-seeing. Kendari has a - not so beautiful - beach, an MTQ monument, and a mosque like - they call it MTQ - building, and those will be my photography objectives. and here is the first project. I wake up early at 5:am to take a walk around Kendari Beach and bring with me my Canon 400D and EF-S 55-250 mm IS and take some photos.

Just one?Are you fucking kidding me?yes and no, this is only the first image uploaded. You can see the rest at this album. I've decided to stop uploading every single image that I shot here at blogger since my template only allow me to display pictures not wider then 400 pixel, and that sucks, so I just post one here along with the link to the album at facebook. There are 25 images uploaded, along with personal commentary from me.

Enjoy :D

PS: I just found out that if I uploaded the images somewhere else prior to put it on blogger, I have a better control to the images display size compare to if I uploaded it directly to blogger. but I'll leave this post just the way it is for now, and save it for the next post.

Desperate Attempt.

2010-04-20T20:10:00.001+07:00

Yuhuuuuuuu...

Added: I MADE IT..I MADE IT..I MADE A POST WITH BLACKBERRY AND OPERA MINI BROWSER..WOHOOOOOO!!!!

"A Journey" Landscape Photographs Slideshow by Yadi Yasin

2010-03-29T00:55:00.005+07:00

During my early days of browsing about photography, I stumbled upon a post at www.fotografer.net, - an Indonesian photographer forum - by Yadi Yasin who appears to be a professional landscape photographer. He post a link to his slide show, which present his works all around the world. So I download it and watch it, and astonished right afterward. His work really inspires me and show me how a landscape photography should be like, and it amaze me even more that those pictures were not edited in Photoshop or any kind of digital darkroom. So I request his permission via the forum, and he granted that I share his works from this blog. Here it is:

And here is the link to download the file and watch it natively on your computer:

http://www.fotografer.net/isi/forum/topik.php?id=3194213309&p=1

Enjoy :D

PS: Note that landscape photography is one of my interest on photography, but not the only one. I also have some interest in Human Portrait, Human interest, and Wildlife photography, so that means, I will need a Canon 10 - 22 mm, a fast mid-zoom or short telephoto lens, and a fast long telephoto lens in the future :D

Rabbits, With Canon 18-55mm II

2010-03-17T16:07:00.006+07:00

This images were taken before I have my 55-250mm is, I happen to have this two naughty rabbit who loves to jump around like crazy, so I have a plenty of chance learn some about living creature snapshot.

Sweet huh, looks like two best friend, even a little gay perhaps - Yes, both are males. But don't let them fool you, they were friends back there when they were still teenagers until testosterone takes over and the vicious Darwin law play the game. And rabbits happen to be a little sadistic in their rivalry on sex - they castrate each other - yes, you heard me well. I've seen the gold one chase the brown white one like crazy, trying to sniff his testicles, and bite it. I thought its a natural process, until the two colours loose one of his testicle and they are separated since then. Kinda spooky species huh, never thought it would occur to this cuddly mammal.

Anyway, please gives some commentary on this picture. These are not shown straight out of the camera. I use photoshop and ACDsee Pro3 to tweak the saturation and warmth, as I personally love warm and over saturated colours. My next post will still be about rabbit, but using my 55-250mm is, or my old lens but with wide focal length - 18mm.

And Thou Who Never Stop Searching Shall Find The Way to Him

2010-03-04T00:15:00.005+07:00

I have finally bought my English Holy Bible about a couple of weeks ago. Why bible? Because I am a learner, and I have always been searching for meaning. If I have to tell the story of my spiritual journey, it could be dozens of posts and might still not complete, let alone understood by the reader, so I‘ll just write a quick summary.

I was an inherently frustrate man – or boy perhaps – about the way I was, and the way I should had been; I never feel comfortable in the way of people in general, and even in the way I was or still am now; I never quite satisfy with the common answer about the purpose of all thing, and about how things should be, for the world, people, and me, anything, you name it. Well of course, many shares my frustration at some certain level, but trust me when I say that it is very different in my case. Many choose to shut their eyes and deny the frustration, or do nothing about it, some even don’t realize that they are frustrated and carry on with their lives. But for me the frustration never stops and it was like “I can’t go on living like this”.

So there came the start of my journey of self-discovery. It had brought me a long way and start from life-enhancing novel like Paulo Coelho’s (particularly The Alchemist) and Mitch Albom’s books, which are good, but once I get their main idea – seriously – there aren’t much left for me to learn from them anymore, but those still offer good reading tough. I scour through martial arts philosophies, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, histories of great men, self-assessed psychiatry – a little bit of a lunatic I guess – ,and finally Awareness – Which by far is the most influential reading of mine – and other Anthony De Melo’s books, and some long discussions with colleagues who share about the same level of frustration. And in the end my search has brought me right to the one that I have always avoid, Catholic Christianity. Why was I avoiding it? Because at that point, I thought that religion acts like doctrines which truth can’t be questioned, and to have questioned it, is considered infidelity – Which I think are the most fucked-up opinion of many religious fanatics. And those years of searching are the one that helps me shaping my spiritual maturity so that I am ready to finally learn about the religion that had been fated to me since the day I born without the same prejudice that I once had, and also thanks to it, I will not fall into some religious fanatics – which in my opinion have hampered the beauty of the sacred teaching and successfully mislead many devotees into shallow and false theological understanding by manipulating their insecurities.

Now why English? Because in learning something, I always tend to be an idealist. I think that a source of translation is always less tainted and unbiased compare to the translation itself. And since I will never be able to speak in Greek or Hebrew-Aramaic, the closest I can get is the direct translation from it, which is an English bible, and even our local Indonesian Holy Bible is a translation from the English one. And the other reason is because I simply love English. I think as a language, English is at a whole new level compare to Bahasa, so expect me to post some new-learned vocabulary from the Holy Bible.

So I discuss my options with a friend of mine whose uncle happens to be a Catholic priest and a Holy Bible scholar at the same time about which version of translation that offers both the combination of unbiased translation yet at the same time manage to retain the literary beauty of the language. So here it is, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Catholic Edition: Anglicized Text Holy Bible. Now that I finally have got one, and fortunately actually reading it at least until now, hopefully this bible really helps me in understanding His way.

Trivia: It is interesting to me that this version is a result from a team of translator that includes Catholic, Protestant, Judaism, and Orthodox representatives. The difference is that both Catholic and Orthodox Christians agreed to keep the Deuterocanonical – A.K.A Apocryphal, written in Greek instead of Hebrew-Aramaic – books, and try to keep it in its original order – instead of putting it in separated section like Indonesian Holy Bible does –, while the rest, doesn’t. And of course, Judaism will not include the Gospel and the New Testament in their holy bible since they are the one who actually crucify Jesus. Hahaha…

Around the Garden

2010-02-25T16:49:00.004+07:00

Just some images that I had taken several weeks ago but all are still objects. I'll upload my rabbits photos in the next post.

Priscilla Ahn - Dream

2010-02-24T02:24:00.003+07:00

I heard this song for the first time from my sister's mp3 CD, and fall in love instantly with the melody. And after searching for the lyrics, I fallen even deeper..hehe..

Dream

I was a little girl alone in my little world who dreamed of a little home for me.
I played pretend between the trees, and fed my houseguests bark and leaves, and laughed in my pretty bed of green.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I'm supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.

Now I'm old and feeling grey. I don't know what's left to say about this life I'm willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell. I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream

Canon EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS

2010-02-24T01:13:00.011+07:00

Say hi to the newest member of my photographic equipment family, its a Canon telephoto zoom lens 55-25o f/4-5.6 IS. the cheapest Canon telephoto zoom with IS available to date. New item will cost around 2.2-2.3 million rupiah, but I got the used one from bursa.fotograner.net for 1.75 million rupiah, both physical appearance and function is good, no defect detected to date, and adding to my luck, it is still officially guaranteed by Datascript until September 2010.

Why a telephoto zoom lens? Because I like to take a portrait and snapshot, means taking a picture silently from distance without get noticed by the subject so that I can capture the most natural looks, facial expression or behaviour of the subject. And I also happen to love taking picture of my rabbits, which IMO the weirdest but tame rabbits ever known by me. Additional usage will be taking nature photography like my recent trip to TMII where I extensively use this lens to take many portraits of birds from distance.

But this lens still has its disadvantage. First, its quite slow, so adequate lighting is a must, and second, it can't produce an extreme blurred background, the solution will be Canon's EF 70-200mm L lens series which will cost around 7-16 million rupiah depending on its aperture opening and IS, so no, I'm good with my lens thank you. Another disadvantage is that on a holiday trip, I would want to take some picture of me and my spouse or friends with vast background and that means I'll have to change my lens several time with a wider lens, and that is why I also brought my Canon EF-S 18-55 mm II kit lens. the ideal choice would be Canon 18-200 mm is, but it'll cost around 6-7 million rupiah, so again, I'm okay with changing lens at least for the time being.

And here it is.

This is how I keep it, shortest focal length and focus point.

Here it is at maximum focal length 250mm

And here with the focus point extended to infinity

The Hoya UV HMC 58mm filter that I bought to protect the optic, also used, got it for 125 thousand rupiah.

The IS (Image stabilizer)

And I just noticed that taking pictures of a lens from the front using flash will gives you a funny looking reflection depends on the angle of flash light

This is how it looks on my EOS 400D digital. It extends quite long.

And this is what the lens can do, note that this image is taken from 2.5 meter from the object

At 55 mm

At 250 mm

It is Beyond Humanity, It is Godliness

2010-02-09T23:25:00.004+07:00

What is Godliness? If you had read my post before about humanity, I think you’ll notice that I stated something like “… it is beyond humanity, it is Godliness”. So in this post, I would like to share some of my view towards the concept of God.

Humanity has a long course of history in what they refer to as God. During the primitive era, they refer the natural phenomena as God, they refer to the Sun, or Jupiter as God, and the Torah actually refer God as the creator and controller of the world, but I’m not going to explain every single of it. Based on my observation, God has two important elements that are essential for humanity to refer it as God. The first is power, and the second is love.

From the eye of the mortals, God is powerful, had it not powerful, they would not refer it as God. Why would human need God as a powerful being? Because to humanity, God is the answer, the answer of uncertainty, the answer of good fortune, the answer of catastrophe, the answer of life and death, the answer of everything. A friend of mine mentioned that Humanity has an inborn “fear” that sourced from the uncertainty of human fate in the afterlife, and also the inability to accept that what if when we die, we will just vanish into the thin air? And to that matter, the mortals turn into the Almighty as the answer. That is why humans are drawn to God, they cherish God, they worship God, and they fear God.

Describing God as a powerful being is a simple task, since I think most of the people have quite the same view about it. But to describe the love part of God in my point of view, now that is a very complicated matter. But I’ll still try my best here even though I’m quite sure that there is a big chance that I might be misunderstood, not just in the bad way, but also in the good way.

God is a being that is full of love. God’s nature as the creator of the universe means that every day, we live in His mercy. With every step we make and every breath we take, we are living in His world, God is everything in life, and God is everywhere surrounds us and each of us is part of Him and from that, we can also say that “we are in God, and God is within us”. Well you get the idea, not the hardest thing to explain is it?

But God’s love is so much more than that, it even extends beyond our understanding of love itself and here are several examples. When a baby is born or an elder is dying, the mortals tends see these events from their narrow understanding of life as a good and bad events, while God just sees it as a normal cycles of life. When a generous one gives to us, and the wicked one robs from us, we will cherish the former and curse the later, but that is not the way of God, for God is also understand that the generous one may happens to act based on his own personal satisfaction of being referred as a good man wished that he’ll be in heaven in the afterlife, so he is actually a merchant who sells good deeds and wished to get paid afterlife, giving debts to God, and the wicked one may be struggles to survive in this world and he just happen to know no other way other than being a robber. When a man has missed judge us, and think of us in a bad way while we actually has a good cause in our doing, we are disappointed to them and despise of how shallow they are, but God understands that the man with shallow mind is also helpless against his shallowness, he might not even aware that there is something deeper beyond the shallow water that he has been swimming in his entire life, and therefore in a way, he is also can’t be blame for it. Haven’t we while judging the other usually forgotten to look at our own flaw? And after realizing the mistake, we think badly of ourselves? Yet God knows that we are helpless in our way, just as the others are. And that is also why we referred God as a forgiving one, for the rain drops equally to the good and the bad.

But can humans see things that far beyond what are seen from the naked eye? Can we humans deal with such unfortunate events yet so unattached to the negative emotion? Can we human understand that good and bad is just our narrow limited perspective on how things happen in life? Well God can, and God is. That is why God is also powerful even in his love.

Now I’ll recite a poem that I write a couple of weeks ago.

A vision beyond perception

A feeling beyond emotion

A mind beyond rational

An understanding beyond judgement

A passion beyond desire

A serenity beyond patience

This poem gives me a mixture of feelings. It is my way of trying to describe the vastness of God’s love, of God’s vision, and how the concept of God’s way should be, it still isn’t perfect and probably never will, but this is as close as I can get. But at the same time, it also arouse some sense of desperation in me, of how can we humans reach this state? Are we bound to suffer the inability to understand life and God?

The mystics of the old said that to find God is to find love, to experience God is to experience love. So in that sense, other than a being, God is also described as a “way”, a “state” that one must reaches during one’s pilgrimage of life. Wait a minute; did I just say must reach? Didn’t I in my previous post of humanity has just explained the nature of humanity and separate it from Godliness? Didn’t I in my explanation about God’s love just described of how God’s love seems impossible to human standard? And isn’t reaching God is like totally be “inhuman”? Well I think we can, in fact here on earth I think our reasonable choice is to reach Godliness and still retain our Humanity at the same time. And I will not tell you how or which way is it or which religion I think suits the most, the debates can go on for lifetime and no solution can be formulated.

To me personally the search of the meaning of life, the meaning of God, or love is a very personal matter, and no one – I mean it, NO ONE – but YOU yourself can tell you which is the right way to go, I only tell you that you need to do it, not how you can do it. That means a thorough understanding of self is needed, endless self-exploration has to be endured, you have to understand YOU, understand, understand, understand. After all, how can I explain about Godliness before I Explain about Humanity? How can you reach “your” God if don’t know your humanity?

Photoshop, First Attempt

2010-01-26T00:46:00.005+07:00

I decided to learn something or two about photoshop. Even though I was originally a naturalist, after doing much reading about photography, and looking at some great photos, I realize that there are just a thing or two that you can't achieve without digital post-processing even with the most powerful photographic equipment to date. And here is a statement from a master whom I've been learning from all this time.

"Digital photography is one part photography, and one part post-processing software.

Since post-processing has such a big impact on composition, why ignore it?"

-Harold Davis-

I think that is all needed to be said. So after spending 12 hours of clinic work with just 4 patients, this is what I come up with.

Of course this are just some experiment about the usefulness of "layer" in Adobe Photoshop. What I'm planing to do with post-processing is something different than these result. but enough for today. I'll experiments some more later on. :)

Orchid

2010-01-26T00:26:00.007+07:00

Okay, enough with religion, philosophy and awareness thingy for a while. I have some analysis related to the "humanity" post, but haven't had the "feel" to write it down yet, so here is just some light update.

These are images that I had taken about several weeks ago during my early days of learning photography. I used these image to measure the sharpness of my EOS 400D in a variety of light condition and at the same time trying to appreciate the beauty of my mom's orchids by taking it from several angle.

Enjoy!

Some comment please, along with which one do you like the most and why. Thank you. :)

On Human, Human Race, and Humanity

2010-01-21T01:53:00.004+07:00

Sure you have heard the word “humanity” (kemanusiaan). When you hear it, what is the first thing that crosses your mind? I imagine you will visualize a scene somewhere with poor people – By the merciless economy or by the wrath of mother earth – helped by social workers of any professions like doctors, military, etc. Hence the words “Dana bantuan kemanusiaan” or “Misi kemanusiaan”. Well of course it is not false, but not entirely correct either. Using it in such way as I mention above will narrow the potential of the word in which it only represents the “sympathy” part of human quality while human qualities are much more than just sympathy.

Humanity has the word “human” within it, it represent every part of the quality of human. Therefore it describes humans along with its histories, achievements, discoveries, religions, cultures, philosophies, and every other aspect of “human race”. Every greatness of human race is a part of humanity, yet every wickedness, savagery, trickery is also a part of human race. The politics between the rulers of the nations are part of human’s histories. The savagery of war is also a part of human history. Those are the way of the mortals and therefore also represent by the word humanity.

Many of you of course will feel uncomfortable with the idea that humanity can also be associated with the negative aspect of human being. If the word has been used for a good cause like those that I mention above, how come it has a bad meaning at the same time? But let me gives you an example. When a man has done something bad and he regret it, yet can do nothing about it, what would most people say to calm him? “Don’t be too hard on yourself; you are just human after all”. When we somehow getting careless, or worst have our emotions, or lusts and desires out of control, we are doing a bad thing in many living standard of human, but that is a part of being human, we make mistake, we get careless. Even In many prayers, phrase like “Have mercy on us dear Lord for we are imperfect, and perfection only belongs to You” appears in many religions. As a human we realize our limitation, and should have embraced it as a part of being a mortal living.

Humanity represents human being as a whole. When you hear the word humanity, you can’t just think of it as good human qualities, even if Webster told you so at the fourth meaning of humanity, because it would be cheating. To separate the negative aspect of human from the terms humanity is a denial, a rejection towards reality, because the nature of human being itself is not perfect. If it is perfect, then it is not human, it has surpassed human, It isn’t humanity anymore, it has become a being beyond humanity. It is Godliness.

So humanity neither represent goodness alone, nor badness alone. It has no polarization of the good and the evil. It has no standard. But nonetheless it is a great word; a concept with profound meaning. It is greater than the many concepts that represent goodness alone like virtue, wisdom, humility. It is only surpassed once again by the concept Godliness.

Bliss

2010-01-19T01:25:00.009+07:00

A vision beyond perception

A feeling beyond emotion

A mind beyond rational

An understanding beyond judgement

A passion beyond desire

A serenity beyond patience

-Aron Husink-

Quote of the Day

2010-01-19T01:02:00.005+07:00

This quote teaches me the best lesson for today, and I shall remember it. Because no matter how deep you learn about awareness, sometimes you’ll still lose your grip.

“What you see here, is not me, but an illusion of me”

-Wongky MD-

And it strikes me for the second time at Gold’s Gym while running at treadmill and there is a commercial HDTV shows this.

“A Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow.

The shadow is what we think of it.

The tree is the real thing"

-Abraham Lincoln-

FN: spending 45 minutes at treadmill will either make u contemplate, or make your eyes stray to find some nice looking chicks. But it certainly helps to make your abdominal muscle lines appear more contrast, due to the effect of slight dehydration, at least until the dehydration resolve. :P

An Absolute Sense of Awe

2010-01-18T23:45:00.008+07:00

No this is not another experiment, this is my spontaneous artistic soul comes into play if you want the most nauseating description, and at the same time not entirely correct, because the words artistic soul is very-very not me. I’ve always interested in taking pictures of clouds and sky, whether its bright blue sky, grayish cloudy sky, or dusk and dawn. Their constantly changing shapes and colors are always intrigues me. And this is my first attempt.

Not quite impressive I suppose. That was the first time I realize that sky – no matter how beautiful and moving it is – is a very hard subject to photograph. It looks good in your eyes, but looks completely dull when captured casually. So a couple of day later, right after the rain stops, I tried to take some more pictures. But the only one that I thought quite worth showing is this.

But it is still embarrassing. Still looks – again – dull. And then comes the sunset.

A little bit of improvement, but still not quite there yet.

And then comes today’s evening. As I rode my motorbike home from Gold’s Gym, I noticed that it was sunset already. The sun wasn’t visible, because it was cloudy. But the clouds which reflect the sunlight were just beautiful, very beautiful. You know I usually photograph the sky from the ground, or from my window at the second floor. I had given a thought about climbing to my roof, but it just sounds crazy – A jobless man climbing his roof to take a picture of the sky, what is crazier than that? But this time it was different. Even as I rode home, the thought strongly cross into my mind “I have to go up there, I must”. So there I was, climbing the roof like Spiderman only with 3 extremities – my left hand was safeguarding the camera – and found myself a stable spot to sit at.

“It’s important to move beyond your comfort zone, even if that means venturing beyond the things you know and have photographed in the past.”

– Harold Davis.

And that was the moment I realize the beauty that has been taken for granted by humanity. I sat for a while, staring, contemplating. It was not like “Oh it’s so beautiful it makes me wanna cry” sort of thing. A “Twilight” reader might say that, but not me. So I’ll describe how I felt with only one phrase at the top of this article, and I’ll repeat it again.

“An absolute sense of awe”

Then I try to memorize a thing or two from what I had learned from Harold Davis’ articles at photo.net, and start to take some pictures.

These are the widest perspectives that I can get with my camera, just to get the feel of being up there.

And here are the main cookies.

Diagonal line

These are shapes that I accidentally captured. I only realized it after viewing it at my laptop

Phoenix

Dragon or Godzilla, you name it

An aeroplane passing by

If any of you couldn’t quite get the reason why I feel so intensely passionate about it, it is only because my extremely limited skills and resources.

This is the kind of sensation that keeps me from drifting away into a gadget collector. This is when I feel the stronger sense of why I want to learn about photography. It is not about technical ability (although it’s a prerequisite), or satisfaction of owning expensive priced goodies (which is still necessary at some point, like wonky said “Man behind the gun my ass!”), but it is about “to communicate the beauty of the world as I see it”.

Whatever

2010-01-17T09:28:00.002+07:00

If you like a cute toddler, try to watch this...haha :D

Turtles

2010-01-16T02:37:00.006+07:00

And now just some pictures of my turtle. I like to take its picture, because it has this funny look at its face, and its also very slow, means you can get a pretty good result in a low light condition as long as you can rest your arm on something. this picture was taken in rather shadowy condition, its dark, and no tripod. all picture are taken with ISO 400, aperture f/5.6, focal length 55mm, and Speed 1/50, except for the last one, it is 1/13, that is why its a little bit brighter.

And this one at a pixel level.

More Experiment about DOF

2010-01-16T01:23:00.019+07:00

On the next day, thanks to the generosity of Amon Ra or Apollo for showing his face, I was able to capture the image with smaller apertures to get a deeper DOF. Here are some more pictures that I took with the same object and relatively the same angle, and with different DOF. I crop and resize them so that the different of sharpness can be easily seen.

f/7.1

f/8

For comparison I also add the cropped version of the picture from the day before.

f/5.6

As you can see, there isn’t much improvement even when I decrease the aperture opening, but as I try to capture from a different angle, something happened.

Viola

It is also using the same f/8, but I move the camera a little bit higher, so that the relative difference of the distance between the front and the rear groups of flower to the camera is lessened a little bit, thus both groups of flower are now within the DOF. And there is more to it about DOF, which I forgot to take attention to other than aperture and angle, it is distance.

Look at the rabbit, it has a round body shape, but you can see that there aren’t any out of focus area to even a single fur. That is because when I capture the flower, I use the closest distance that the lens is capable of, which is 28 cm. But I took this picture from much farther distance, about 1-1.5 meter. Increased distance from the object will increase the DOF despite the aperture opening. But that’s kind of problematic isn’t it? If I want to take a portrait of a small object like the flower above, to take it from a far distance will hamper the composition right? Because the main object will be too small. Or, the other solution is to decrease the aperture opening right? But what means you’ll need a good light source, or else, the shutter speed will be too long, and your shaky hands will tell you that you aren’t meant to be a neurosurgeon. And that is when the money comes to land a hand. A telephoto lens is the answer. With it, you can use the largest aperture, but at the same time taking it from greater distance without losing control over the composition. That is why a good portrait lens always uses short telephoto focal length, which is about 60mm to 80mm, even 100mm. Long live money eh :P

Another picture that I took at the same day was my mom’s Adenium.

Noticed that the background is somewhat less blurry then my yellow flower pictures. That is because the distance between the main object and the background is much closer, and in this condition, the only way isolate the main object even more is a larger aperture opening, like about f/2.8 to f/3.5, and that my humble friends, means more money. Sadly there aren’t so many cheap “fast lens” (larger opening, means it requires less time to capture the adequate amount of light) with zoom capabilities, and now is the right time to add a quotation from photo.net in their guide about buying lens.

“Be careful (and Rich)”

And, discussing about this DOF and background reminds me of Mr. Toad’s analogy about shoot and leave friends. A good portrait photo shows you the main object pleasantly, but no background is perceivable. Same as shooter and leaver friends will looks good and nice to you, but the hell you know about what lies beneath their hearts, and the hell do they know about your life and the depth of your soul.

And here is how the above picture looks at the pixel level.

But don’t get too excited yet, I had about several dozens of this same picture, only 3 or 4 of them are qualified. Mostly, what I get is this.

Or sometimes even worse. So life isn’t that all convenient even with a DSLR in hand. But that’s the advantage of a digital camera, you can just take as many pictures as you want to, and choose the good one later on. And of course a DSLR with a good lens will make life easier. :D

And, there is one more thing that I can show from this particular experiment. Look at the two images below.

Notice anything different from the first one? See that the green fence at the background looked farther at the first image, and farther even more at the later, while the main object looks exactly the same. That is the effect of using a different focal length. If you use a wider lens as 28 mm like the later image, it will give the impression that the object and the background looked farther. But if you use a 55 mm focal length, it will as if the background is at s very close distance, as the first Adenium picture shows.

I think I’ve done quite a lot experiment about DOF for now. Some of the picture I took in the subsequent post also got something to tell about DOF, but let’s just save it for later. :P

Edit: I have increased the picture that I upload to 700 pixel wide, but somehow the blog setting limited the appearance to 400 pixel wide, and I have found no way to alter it for the time being. Perhaps I'll make a flicker account. But the pixel level image has been readjust to 400 pixel only.

Flowers, Day One

2010-01-13T00:43:00.013+07:00

Messing Around With DOF and WB

Why another post about photography? Because I’m lazy, writing about other serious things will require quite an effort to create a well formulated theory. Not to mention most of them are just the peculiar side of my head, or like Cheiro the astrologer mention “Children of their brain” (“their” refers to me, the 4^th of April born guy). So I think I’ll just enjoy the simple things first. This is what the Taoism called a non-action act, a wu-wei act, or a meditative action.

“Act without action

Do without ado”

-Tao Te Ching

A similar concept to what Mr. Toad has told me about doing things one at the time. Perhaps he’ll write something like “A Toad’s Prayer 3” in the future.

After spending like more than a week in my own garden, capturing images of the same objects for dozens of time from many varieties of aperture, ISO, WB, different angles, and sunlight intensities, I came out with hundreds of photographs. But I’ll start slowly, one post represent one day attempt. As for the day after, I’ll make a different post.

My first attempt is to create a portrait with a shallow DOF (depth of field), to isolate the object that is to be the starring of the image. And my first subject is flowers, red and yellow flower which names I don’t know. Well this is the primary result.

Although it looks pretty fine right on, but at the pixel level (zoom to 100% magnification with your image viewer) I noticed that not all the flower is in focus. I only use 55mm f/5.6 and it seems that the DOF is quite shallow already. The background looks readily blurred, but unfortunately with the expense of some body parts of the main actress is also out of focus. The next image will depict what I mean more clearly.

Noticed that only the several front flowers are in focus, the rest are in misery. But the 2 images above have a 3 dimensional shape, meaning each small flower has a significant range difference, and it is more pronounced by the relative close distance which I took this image (as close as I can get with this lens, that is 28cm). So my next-day attempt will be to capture it with smaller aperture, hopefully with the effect of increased DOF, and get a sharper detail for all the flower, and capture another flower with a more 2 dimensional shape.

This is also the first time I ever noticed the huge difference between different settings of WB. The first picture was taken with the WB set to auto, and here is the same object with more or less the same angle but with the WB set to sunny, cloudy, and shade. By the way, it was about 3 PM when I took those pictures, its cloudy and no direct sunlight.

Sunny

Shade

Cloudy

The shade setting always gives the most reddish color, or what Mr. Ape called “hot” several days ago, which sometimes makes my eyes sore a bit. The cloudy and sunny setting looks better IMO. I think I like the sunny best. The auto setting just looks too dull, but sometimes it does get the job done.

Now the post gets too damn technical. Well, what can I say, during my infantile photographic life, exploring the technical aspect is the basic requirement. Great photos are about artistic soul, momentum, and luck. But when the opportunity does come, or the artist of your brain gets the tickle, you would want your photographic skills as superb as you can get, not to mention having the suitable equipment required to capture that specific moment. So be enthusiastic, be aware, be diligent, and be rich. PTT salary, here I come. :D

NB: any tips about uploading image to Blogger?because I'm not quite satisfy with the resolution they provide.

New Year 2010's Firework

2010-01-11T16:23:00.006+07:00

First project with Canon EOS 400D/Digital Rebel XTi

It took the eagle quite some time to figure out what would he like to post, since he got a mate to be dealt with, nest and eggs to be taken care of, and not to mention setting up snake traps here and there for either protection and free lunch. But here it is, the eagle eyes are still a bit sore from 2009’s lack of sleep and depression, so it hampers his ability to learn early on. But fear not, more projects and experiments will be posted as more knowledge is gathered during this lazy useless idle life phase of him.

This picture was taken from eagle’s mate’s second floor balcony, right at 00:00 am 01-01-2010, the fireworks actually launched from La Piazza at Kelapa Gading Mall, but since it only happens for a few minutes, and I didn’t brought my tripod, plus I was lazy, so there is no use of running down the street to get a better position, because it will be either too late or result in a horrifying image quality caused by either my unsteady hands (not a neurosurgeon’s hands I guess), or streetlights hampering the metering process.

This is my first attempt to get pictures with my sister’s Canon EOS 400D + 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit zoom lens (which I had just claimed for ownership :D ) and I will stick to this camera for quite a long time. Because it happens so fast, there is no way I can use manual setting to determine the effect that I desire, so I set the ISO to 1600, used the P program to let the camera determine the correct aperture, which always 5,6 at 55mm focal length (the focal length that I use for all this images), and I rest both elbows on the balcony’s fences to act like tripod (which I couldn’t had done so if I ran down the streets).

All the image above were taken under correct exposure determined by the P program, so the aperture is varied from 0.6-2.5 s. although some of them are quite satisfying, personally think that the auto metering makes the sky look a little too bright.

Below are a couple of images that is accidently captured without waiting the camera to be ready, so that the shutter opens up quite briefly. But in my opinion it gave quite a decent effect. It isolate the fireworks with no trees or grainy sky background, and it freeze the fireballs along with its smoke, contrary to just some lines of colors u see above.

And that’s it for now. Please give your comments especially Mr. Swikee, Mr. Snake (If you haven’t tripped on my snake trap), Mr. Ape, and Mr. Bunhead (even if it’s just to make fun of the snake).

AHAAA!!!

2010-01-07T00:54:00.005+07:00

Aha...Hello...at last...I'm back...that's it....enough with this screw up phase....its been a while since my last post to this blog, and during those months of absence, I've been through many cycles of insomnia-hypersomnia-insomnia-repeat, depression-anger-depression-anger again...I've been lazy, piss off, delusional, etc...I hate 2009, along with its holiday, along with its Christmas (yes, you don't need to reread the sentence)...Sounds really bad eh...so that's it...time to wake up...I had just cleaned up my desk, cleaned up my camera, and my laptop, and along with this post, well that's a start...my next goal will be to repair this laptop (it beeps crazily when the electricity is unstable), and reboot the system..and I still got 5 new books to be plastic covered...so yeah, one thing at a time.

Anyway those phase is not entirely that bad...during those screw up phase, I have many ideas to write about...from the most rational like updates on my situation now, what had happened, and what am I going to do in the near future, or to the most insane one like where human evolution is aiming to in relation to medicine...I want to write about the history of China, particularly Beijing and its relation about the pride of being Chinese, about the history of the founding of the USA along with Christian church, and how it should effect the Christians point of view about religions in the modern world...about Lonesome George, the only creature in the world that lives totally alone since we humans had wiped out his entire species...but most of the day, I just stuck with gym, DOTA, and anger...so hope that this post is a start of a series of article, since I have this habit of brooding, I borrow this word from "eat pray love" a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert, a very good book, which reminds me that I also write something about this book..but my kind of brooding is not quite the same, Her brooding is mostly about her love life, while my brooding is mostly about random insane thoughts, or at least peculiar point of view, like the things that I mention above.

And last, I have a new hobby. Photography...hahahaha,It never cross my mind that I'll ever enjoy capturing beautiful pictures...several years ago, if you said something about photography, I'll just say "duh", ain't my thing...but hei, who would've thought...up until now I've manage to learn many things about lights, exposure, white balance, etc, which means, some updates will contain images that I've taken.

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

2009-10-12T10:17:00.005+07:00

Just a funny video clip that was shown by my sister..She told me that this technique of film making is "stop motion"-film...enjoy :P

Roverandom from Tales From The Perilous Realm

2009-09-26T12:46:00.015+07:00

This illustration depicts very well what kind of story Roverandom is. that tiny winy dog is Rover the main character, and the bird is Mew one of the character that he encouters during the journey. No I'm not gonna spoil everything here, so this is not going to be a true review, but rather my personal impression of this book plus some background information about this book.

Roverandom is one of J.R.R. Tolkien's work that has no connection to the Middle-Earth Saga, and lately it is republished in "Tales From the Perilous realm" along with four other Tolkien's works. No it is not some book about searching for eternal meaning of your life, nor cracking the mystery of God or Love or whatever that is, nor that it is an encouraging brave adventure story that gives you a boost of adrenalin and motivates you. it is a children bedtime story about fantasy and adventure, in a creative and fun way, reading it will gives you the impressions very much like "Alice in Wonderland", but in a less cartoon way, and more like a delicacy of the british old legends. And to my surprise, I like it.

It reminds me the simplest joy of reading a fantasy book. It never stops to stimulate my imagination, along with its detail but with a little bit of poetic touch descriptions about the scenery. as I continue to read it, as long as nothing from the "outside" comes to bother me, it actually feels like watching a movie. you can actually imagine in your own way how does the environment looks and feels like. And now, with some addition of Alan Lee's illustrations, it gives more value to the book, because i just simply love it. That picture above is just one example of his works.

Aha, I remembered now why I like to read The LOTR trilogy at the first place, it is not because of great plot, or deep psychology, or the bravery of the soldiers. It is because this (imagination stimulating) reason and the vast unbounded fantasies that doesn't fall into a foolish nor ridiculous cheap creative way. Even in the translated edition (My first Tolkien's book is Indonesian translation of "The Fellowship of the Ring"), Tolkien's works always excel on stimulating your imagination. Of course not all readers fancy it, because some of my friends are not.

"Along the way, the pine trees stands firm like the soldier of the white tower at the right side and the river flows steadily along the left side and end to the water-fall that as deep as the abbys. Far beyond, the hills with its arrogant look upon us crwal its way to the unkown boundry of the dark clouds"

Well that isn't originated from the book, it is just my own recreation of how the book usually describe the scenery, and far from good i must say. Yet for some, this kind of detail is just to much and confusing. But for me, to be able to visualize it, is a very enjoyable experience.

And here is some more fun fact about this story. It is writen in the first place for his son, who losts his toy-dog one day while playing at the sea shore. So Tolkien wrote the story to calm his son and gives some relieve about the fate of that lost toy-dog of his.

Here is some phrase that is simple but attract me to share it here along with some picture that I hope best accompanied it.

"The moon rose up out of the sea, and laid a silver path across the waters that is a way to places at the edge of the world and beyond, for those that can walk on it."

"The sun jumping out of the sea, all fiery-red with clouds about his head, as if he had had a cold bathe, and was drying himself with towels."

Other illustrations of Roverandom. I can't find any on the net, so I just take a picture of it directly from the book.

Roverandom with the sea-wizard.

The White Dragon of the Moon.

Here are some other illustrations that I found from internet, but they are not Alan Lee's works. I got them from here : http://jemimahunt.blogspot.com/

Roverandom with the Moon-Rover

Both Rover are chased by the White Dragon.

37.61 + Right-sided Sore Throat - A Possible Source of Depression?

2009-09-24T20:55:00.005+07:00

Yep..apparently I got mild fever, and an acute bacterial right tonsillitis, with a small amount of detritus in it. perhaps this is the source of my drowsiness this whole day, and perhaps the day before. Or perhaps I just hope it is so that I can have a rational excuse for my laziness. After all, I do make lots of rationalization with this depression.

Yes, I am depressed, I admit it, and I realize it, and I'm aware of it, but it doesn't solve the problem. I thought there should be a reason for this depression, perhaps it has something to do with the meaningless of life, that it has something to do with the faulty of my searching for the truth. well the search did brought to me this depression, while it shouldn't. But to think again, why was it in the first place that I begin to search. I realize that what I actually seek is energy, undiminished source of energy, I need an endless boost of spirit, and many authors refer it as "enthusiasm".

So in that sense, there is actually no reason for me to be depressed by what I found (Well I'll not claim that I have found some everlasting truth, because I don't know, I just found something, that's it). Because perhaps at some point at my way I have strayed. My search for energy has brought me to explore myself, "What is the cause of my emptiness?", I thought that if I find the source, I can cure it, and my energy will flow. But then I start so see the faulty, I start to judge myself, my parents, and people around me. My scepticism took over, and I'm entering an endless search for reason and meaning. I start to judge the way of human's world (because I don't find that the world itself is faulty, It is as it suppose to be), and start to hate them because they are worthless and hopeless. And what is worst is that I end up in self-hatred.

But thinking again, perhaps it should be "everything can be meaningless and pointless, but it doesn't have to effect me". It struck me that I'm searching for enthusiasm, and it shouldn't have anything to do with others, or even my faulty. I don't even know why I suddenly think of this way, perhaps De Melo has got in to my head, perhaps it is he that do the talking. Well I certainly hope not.

Or perhaps I'm just depressed in the first place because I didn't read enough cardiology and afraid of failing even if I don't admit it. but it is possible, you never know, hahaha.

Idle is Misery

2009-09-24T15:07:00.008+07:00

About a month ago, I was still a Cardio intern an RSUD Tarakan, trying to smooth my way out to become a cardiologist in the future, hopefully. And that means I will need to take the Cardiology residency exam, which also means, I will need to take a break about a month before the test, to make sure that I study enough. The idea is “With that much time, can u imagine how much about cardiology that I can learn”.

So the plan was:

Wake up – breakfast – study – lunch – study – nap – dinner – study – good night.

Or:

Wake up – breakfast – go to gym – lunch – study – nap – dinner – study – good night.

Looks like a terrific plan uh. Sure I’ll get to the top of the list of the writing test. I had no obligation else where, why should it be a problem to manage my own schedule? But Nooooooo. . . . It is much much harder then I think. It turn out to be:

Wake up – breakfast – uhmm.. still sleepy, might wait a bit so I can focus better when I read, so watch BBC knowledge – uhmm.. still sleepy, a short nap might help – uhmm..no, My eyes wanted to close, but my brain refuse to shutdown, so I’m force to wake up – lunch – uhmmm..now the headache kicks in – study, err..struggling to focus – nap – dinner – watch TV a little, why not, reading after dinner will only make me sleeps faster, that is called rationalization of laziness – oh my god, late night, study – barely focused – go online – sleep. And it goes for days +__+

The next day:

Wake up – Gym – aha, tired, but better then drowsy, u can study while tired, but u can't study while sleepy – lunch – study – long nap – dinner – watch TV – study – early sleep. Hmm…sound better, but it rarely comes this smooth..1-3 days a week, that is very inefficient +__+

So idle seems to bring more misery then a boost of spirit. Now I understand why the idle old Chinese folks do morning tai chi exercise. Perhaps an “SKJ” that I usually resent rather made sense. Because practice at gym in the morning seems make a better day. And it seems we people, or perhaps its just me, are accustomed with arranged daily schedule. when I have the freedom to manage my own daily routine, things seems to be getting out of hand. What a robot...

Fck You...With = U..hahaha

2009-09-20T00:27:00.008+07:00

Well, in respond to my friends post about cool cursing, I think it will be interesting to add the infamous - since God know when used - word "Fuck" in this blog. Well generally, we know Fuck literally means having sex, or illiteraly means anything that resembles cursing. so I just opened up my Webster and found these:

1. To engage in sexual intercourse in both transitif and intransitif forms.

2. To meddle, followed by with.

3. Fuck around: To spend time idly, foolishly.

4. Fuck off: To idle, Go away.

5. Fuck up: To make a mess, or blunder.

6. Fucking: Extremely. Ex: It is fucking hot in jakarta lately.

The funny thing is, you can actually find it in Webster..hahaha...well you will certainly never find "ngentot" in Indonesian Dictionary. And I dont think ngentot has other meaning, or used in other vocabulary but literaly having sex, or pure cursing with no meaning. And I personally think that "ngentot" sound harsher, as this word will only accidently pop out when I am extremely angry with the "metro mini's" attitude while driving.

Psychic Ladies

2009-09-20T00:00:00.009+07:00

Here is the number one psycic in the animal kingdom.

How is it called psycic?It can forecast weather 6 months ahead..and based on the research in America, it is with 100% accuracy. What does weather forecast has anything to do with ladybug??well...It has something to do with their survival.

In England, ladubug will need to know how harsh will winter come. If its a mild winter, then they simply do nothing, and by the time the weather gets cold, they only need to pick a spot which is shielded from the a direct wind and open air. they will freeze by the winter, but not freeze enough to kill them. As soon as the spring arived, they will "melt", and be the first bug to roam the spring feast of fresh leafs.

But if the coming winter is a harsh one, they'll need to dig an underground temporary settlement so that they don't freeze to death during six month of winter. So yes, weather forecasting inaccuracy will be a death sentence. Luckilly so far, research has proven that their psycic ability is 100% accurate. And up untill now, no scientist has ever succeed to unravel this "psycic" ability.

The Way of the Giant Panda

2009-09-15T18:51:00.004+07:00

Here is one weirdly paradoxical creature. I discover these strange fact when I was watching dodo's guide to extinction (I forgot wether its at NGC or Discovery Channel)

It is a bear descendant, but looks like a racoon, and unlike other bears family, it has a thumb.
It is a carnivora by nature and has a carnivora's digestive tract system.
And yet they refuse to eat anything other than bamboo.
They only get a small amount of calory each meal, and therefore should eat all the time.
Low calories cause low blood sugar, hence the letargic and lazy behavior.
That is why the most popular panda's pose is this. A perfect combination of lazyness.
Panda doesn't know how to mate unless they had watched other mating couple.
So in captivity, they try to make panda watch panda's porn, and viagra, but also didn't work. (Yes a porn movie for panda...can u believe that!!)
Thus happen the artificial insemination for captive panda.

Bushido: Truth or Myth

2009-09-15T15:27:00.005+07:00

Bushido (Bushi: warrior, Do: way) which can be directly translated into “The Way of the Warrior” has been the infamous code to samurai class in Japan for many centuries. It is considered as a noble way of life among the samurai (warrior) in service to their master. By the commoners, bushido can be simply put as “do or die” principle. It is believed that the samurai is a loyal servant, who always kept pride for his status, and task. Should he ever fail his master, the penalty of death in his own sword (hara-kiri/seppuku) awaits, for a samurai was thought to be unable to bear the shame of failure or defeat.

But under my research on the spiritual basis of bushido, I had found that there is more to it about bushido. The part “death “of bushido needs a more philosophical approach for it to make sense, so it doesn’t sound stupidly as a waste of your life for an errand that is consider unworthy of a human life. A samurai is said to pursue perfection is everything that he does. Because life as a warrior means that death awaits every day, the samurai must do everything in his best so that should he died that day, he would have no regret, because he have lived an unregretful life.

And even further, after I read Musashi (a novel my eiji yoshikawa), my understanding of bushido itself is biased. Musashi is considered as the greatest samurai ever in Japan, yet many things that I found in his experiences and wisdoms are contradictive to the popular opinion about bushido. Musashi considers that life is a precious diamond that should be well kept. A samurai must guard his life as his first priority, for as long as he is still alive, he could still fight or repent for no matter what failure he had done. A samurai should only fight to his death for a matter that is worthy of his life. That is why, Musashi found no shame in fleeing from the battle, he even comes late in his final battle with Sasaki Kojiro, he has no particular tradition or technique in his sword style, he utilize everything in his surrounding to achieve his goal. Freedom of mind and body is the core essence in his teaching. All that he knows is that if he didn’t do it (in a sword fight), then he’ll die. That is why for some narrow minded bushido fan-boy, Musashi is considered not noble, even a cheater.

Now having heard all that, we expect the samurai as noble warrior with a strict code of honor, Like the Jedi perhaps. But the reality about samurai life is far from what we expected. As I read my latest book “Samurai – An Illustrated History”, it is stated that most samurai were killers, superstitious, irrational, and held human life cheap. It all makes sense. My previous reading on Taiko and Shin Heike Monogatary has proven that loyalty was not their best quality. Nobunaga Oda died by betrayal of one of his own retainer during the Sengoku. Ieyashu Tokugawa rise againstToyotomi descendents after Hideyoshi’s death,thus

happened the Edo period. We also know that most samurai are sex addict. Yes, u heard me right, that hentai and JAV idol that you watch are not negative influences of the western world to the Japanese. It is all on them. Taira no Kiyomori has a fascination of molesting young untainted geishas. Toyotomi Hideyoshi has many adolescent concubines which gives the impression of a pedophile. The geisha culture is just a masquerade to make it sounds more civilized and stupidly artistic. During the World War II, bushido is also abused by the Japanese government to brainwashed and control the people. After all, they do need pilots of human missile to blow the Americans. And even now, bushido and samurai culture are abused as money making trademarks, rather than a noble code.

Now am I disappointed? Yes and No. Yes because one more code of honor is happen to be a masquerade. And no because it is to be expected, the latest book only confirmed it and gave the fact that I need to establish a thorough understanding about bushido. It also relieves me, because I once thought that it is possible for a human being to live up to such a perfect code, and a failure to do so while you cling on the ideal is kind of depressing, but, now I know that it doesn’t. After all, humans tend to create rules and codes that they can never fully lived up to. The samurai is not an exception. To make it simple, you must separate samurai and bushido. Samurai tries to live up the bushido code, but few actually success.

And I haven’t stated yet, that spiritually, bushido are actually derived from Zen Buddhism. The teachings within it are not exclusively for the samurai. Since brought by Rinzai Zen master to japan many centuries ago, Zen soon serves well to the need of the warrior. The meditation offers mind stillness and attitude that is needed during the battle. The samurai practice martial arts and Zen meditation simultaneously. Combine the Zen teaching all together with what is relevant for the samurai, thus born Bushido. Vulgarly speaking, perhaps there is no such a thing as bushido. Bushido is just a Zen Buddhism that is adopted, and then applied to the life of the Samurai.

Artist of Life

2009-09-14T15:48:00.008+07:00

Just recently, i revisit my old-book collection and found "Bruce Lee - Artist of Life". A book which bought by my father at 2007...I opened the first few pages, then read the foreword, and found this quote by Bruce:

"To know yourself takes a lifetime"

And I Thought "Heh??sounds damn familiar"..and i remembered something...

"Memahami diri, gak cukup seumur hidup"

This phrase once posted by me in my facebook status update...that is just funny..and weird..hahaha...but I'm also excited, because a man of his caliber could have the same thought as I am..well this book gives me a broader view about Bruce Lee..

People tend to think of him as a martial art master, strong punch and kick, able to fight numbers of opponent at one, macho, strong, etc..but few realized that he is more than that..his martial practice has led him to understanding about the importance of philosophy, and understanging about the life itself...thus years of study at University of Washington in philosophy...Plato, David Humes, Rene Descartes, Thomas Aquinas and other philosophers has influenced many of his philosophycal thought...perhaps I'll write something about it in near future...

SLAP!!

2009-09-09T02:57:00.011+07:00

I need a SLAP in the face, plus a scold "GO READ SOME CARDIOLOGY YOU DUMB ASS"...
But since the first who slaps me will get a taste of my boken's tip perhaps I'll slap and scold myself...
well certainly not this kind of slap..

Thus Said By The Romans "Demi Jupiter"

2009-09-04T01:39:00.007+07:00

Has any of you read Asterix?A comic by Goscinny and Uderzo that tell stories about the almighty but silly Roman versus the limited number but strong Gaul (Now Frenchman)...It is described that every time the Romans were in such situation that made them swear, they would say "Demi Jupiter"...Well Jupiter is worshiped as the King of Gods in Roman Mythology...it is like people now days say "Oh my God" in a certain situation...Now that Italy is a Catholic Nation, such worship is nothing but a myth..So Jupiter is either a character of Roman mythology or just simply a planet...

But wait a minute...what you don't realize is that perhaps Jupiter (the planet) does deserve at some certain degree worshiped even not as God. Perhaps just noticed and appreciated, so that you guys don't have to accuse me for blasphemy..hahaha..

On 21st July 1994, Jupiter had been hit by a comet named Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) and resulted in an explosion that is greater than the size of our beloved tiny planet called Earth...Although rarely mentioned, some scientists speculated that had the comet not been blocked by Jupiter, it may came straight to Earth and kaboooom...In fact Jupiter, being the largest planet in our solar system has experienced countless collisions with either comets or asteroids (our solar system has thousands of these), owing to its large size and therefore, large power of gravity...Over millions of years Jupiter has act as a vacuum cleaner of our solar system, and has kept some smaller helpless planet like ours to survive...but since it is not an absolute protection, we humans are considered very lucky that such impact just happen to Earth every several million years...But do we always get that lucky??No, not at all...as times goes by, we will one day out of our luck...it is just a matter of when...

65 million years ago Earth does out of luck which resulted as an asteroid wipe out 90% of life form on earth, thus extinct the dinosaurs and came the humanity...As we know that asteroids do came to contact with earth's atmosphere, but most of them are small in size that it burned out before it could reach the ground...Four telescopes operated by the US military are searching endlessly for any object in space that presents possible threat to the earth, object that is large enough to penetrate Earth's atmosphere and explode...And surprisingly, about four threatening asteroids can be found each month...

As a conclusion, or you can say a stupid analogy..Do pray "Demi Jupiter" sometimes, so that it keeps us away form those nasty asteroids....Amen...

Source:
1. BBC Knowledge - Space
2. Asterix
3. Wikipedia - Jupiter (Roman mythology)
4. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=8136108
5. http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/2cl/ch01/ch01.html

Well That is An Odd One

2009-09-04T01:08:00.005+07:00

I have taken my test this afternoon, and it sure is an odd test...no one is assign to watch over me while I do the test, so that I can freely do the "stunt" that FKUI 2002 are famous for...hahaha...thanks to the great role model Madame Tisya to had done it before...

Can you imagine that after finishing the structure and reading parts, I actually have to get out of the class, go down to the receptionist, and says "permisi, udah selesai nih, mau test listening"...perhaps with more courage or u can say recklessness, I can even take out my laptop and make a copy of the listening CD...but of course I'm not that crazy...hahaha...but it is possible, and at the same time pointless...

Why pointless?because I don't think it is necessary...seriously, the only part that you should study that hard is structure...I spend weeks and months finishing Sukur's TOEFL Grammar, and only two days working on Barron's listening and reading test, but still feels that I did much better on the later..

The result can be taken on Saturday or Monday...hopefully I can score above 600...Just a wish...Amen..

Vocabulary: Peculiar

2009-09-02T00:49:00.004+07:00

It has two roles. As an adjective:
1. Of only one person, thing, group, country, etc; distinctive, exclusive.
2. Particular; unique; special.
3. Out of ordinary; queer; odd; strange.

As a noun:
1. Something belonging to one only, as a privilege.
2. A church or parish under jurisdiction other than that of the diocese in which it is located

Synonym: Strange

Source: Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th ed, 2000

Lest Practice Some TOEFL

2009-09-01T16:18:00.008+07:00

A sachet of Good day Moccachino plus two tea spoons of chocolate, served chilled, and I'm ready.

Having finished 77 units of Sukur's "Comprehensive English Grammar For The TOEFL Test" which took me several month (with many interruptions of course), I will now continue to lots lots of grammar practice tests. And after get bored enough by the grammar test, I'll step further to Barron's reading and listening test. Hopefully by Thursday I'll be ready for the real test at ILP. It surprise me that ILP and Cardiology TOEFL Test doesn't include writing test. Well that is a good news.

Just wish me luck.

Genesis, Miranda Bailey MD version

2009-08-30T12:26:00.000+07:00

Thought I'll do a little copy paste from my fossilized Blog at Friendster...A funny prologue at one the episodes of Grey's Anatomy...not that i like to watch this series tough...

"In the beginning, God creates the heaven and the earth. At least that is what they say. He created the birds of the air and the beast of the field, and he looked at his creation and he saw that it was good. and then God created man, and its been downhill ever since.

The story goes on to says that god created man in his own image, but there's not much proof of that. After all, god made the sun and the moos and the stars, and all man makes is trouble.

And when man finds himself in trouble, which is most of the time, he turns to something bigger then himself to love or fate or religion, to make sense of it all."

Hallo World..

2009-08-30T12:09:00.001+07:00

Simply put..Hello world...its my first post in this under-construction blog..do it just so the blogger.com stop bugging me with the request to make a blog every time I've signed in...well of course I intend to write something in the near future...but just not now...kinda busy...so that's it...c u...

Just Some Footnotes

Pity and Fate. From the Fellowship of the Ring

Sang Pelihat Dunia

Stairway to Cardiologist At Last. Stairway to Happiness? We'll See About That

Goenawan Mohamad

Divergence

Loha

Eksistensi dan Citra Allah

The Indescribable Experience of Consciousness and Existence

The Teaching of Diogenes

The Teaching of Diogenes

The Harsh and Restless Teacher

Return To Innocence

My Personal Journey from Martial Art to Spirituality

A Quotation for the Disciples of Truth

Thus the Way of the Cow

Thus I Honor the Wisdom that is spoken by the Ancient

The Wisdom of Old India

The Vows of a Bird

My Chemical Romance - Helena

The Son of Man, the Son of God

ISO VS Shutter Speed - Night at Kendari

Dusk at Kendari

Kendari's Trivial Things

My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Okay

Kendari Morning Stroll

Desperate Attempt.

"A Journey" Landscape Photographs Slideshow by Yadi Yasin

Rabbits, With Canon 18-55mm II

And Thou Who Never Stop Searching Shall Find The Way to Him

Around the Garden

Priscilla Ahn - Dream

Canon EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS

It is Beyond Humanity, It is Godliness

Photoshop, First Attempt

Orchid

On Human, Human Race, and Humanity

Bliss

Quote of the Day

An Absolute Sense of Awe

Whatever

Turtles

More Experiment about DOF

Flowers, Day One

New Year 2010's Firework

AHAAA!!!

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

Roverandom from Tales From The Perilous Realm

37.61 + Right-sided Sore Throat - A Possible Source of Depression?

Idle is Misery

F*ck You...With * = U..hahaha

Psychic Ladies

The Way of the Giant Panda

Bushido: Truth or Myth

Artist of Life

SLAP!!

Thus Said By The Romans "Demi Jupiter"

Well That is An Odd One

Vocabulary: Peculiar

Lest Practice Some TOEFL

Genesis, Miranda Bailey MD version

Hallo World..

Fck You...With = U..hahaha