A Certain Dream

 I couldn't believe that it took me years to get back to this place to write something.

The last news from me was my graduation from college about 6 years ago. I was so happy back then, so proud of myself. But this life keeps pushing and drowning me. 

Not long after graduation, the pandemic hit and ruined everything. I spent my days doing as much as I could, from improving my painting and gardening to selling some snacks. I don't want to stop doing something, or I will go insane.

In 2021, I got my first full-time job, and I headed to Jakarta to start my journey. It was a turning point in my life. I left everything in my home and went to another city with no plan. All I wanted was to keep moving, as I do not want to stop doing something. My mom came with me; it seemed like she just opened the cage so that her dove could fly. I saw her crying on the plane we were on. I pretended to see that moment because I didn't want to regret my decision at that time. And you know what, I truly never regret it to this day. 

From that day I left my home, I never really had a "home" anymore. Every time I have a chance to get home, I can stay for a long time. Everything feels so strange, but the silver lining is that our meeting always feels so precious to me. I respect my parents more, listen to them, and never yell at them anymore. I also noticed that they get older, so much older. Their hair turns grey, their skin becomes more wrinkled, and their stamina is not as strong as in the old days. 

From 2021 to 2026, I faced a lot of things in my life. I even survived the 27th of age. But the same thing as when I first stepped into this big city, I don't have any specific plan, I just want to keep moving, but the road where I'm driving on now becomes more confusing. My friendship starts to keep distant and move forward with each other's life decisions, and I become more lonely than usual. The world I recognise is becoming bigger and bigger every day, making me realise I am just a small fraction of this world. 

I need to light the fire of my ambition once again. So this year, I just made a big decision in my life to keep 'moving'. I still can't write it here, but I hope that every decision I make is the right one, as people say that the firstborn daughter is never wrong. I also hope that the next writing is always about the good news.

That's all!

 Hola!

Quarantine days make my day seem longer than it seems. We all know that we have to be thankful for everything that happened and always take the positive side, like what I do during this quarantine, which is reading books. 

Yap, I have a plenty of books and I don't have much time reading those books since I was too busy with my graduation matters (fyi I'm unemployment now, still looking for a job that fits me, believe me, being an adult is suck). Fun fact is that I don't buy any new books at all, I just re-reading the books that I have. and guess what happen to me? Reading the old books but with a different age creates a different perspective. 

I decided to read my old books such as Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and the last one is Everything is Fucked by Mark Manson. 

It contains 273 pages, there are two parts: Hope and Everything is Fucked, with 9 chapters. Here's the look:

Okay I will just go directly to my favorite parts:

Feeling Brain vs Thinking Brain

The first phase of the book, it tells us the story about uncomfortable truth. He describes about what makes us keep hoping on someone or something which actually suck. It tells us about how feeling and thinking brain are inseparable but can not be combined to make a harmony. Thinking brain is accurate, rational, effortlessly, and make a quick decision, while feeling brain is inaccurate, irrational, a bit queen drama and overreacting. However, thinking brain can't change the way a feeling brain works. The feeling brain has a bigger power than thinking brain. We are moved into action only by emotion. 

In fact, the feeling brain has its dark side and can lead us to dangerous thing. That's why, we need to do something with the feeling brain. But what we can do? Well, the only thing that feeling brain can feel is an 'empathy'. So instead of bombarding the feeling brain about the hard questions such as mathematics, politics, economics, about homework, about the punishment, or about the failure, it's better to ask "How's your feeling today? Are you okay?", meaning that thinking brain can 'suggest' the feeling brain to change its bad decision by pleasuring it with comfortable way. 

The Differences between Child, Adolescent, and Adult

I think that this is one of the best parts of this book, how he perfectly distinguishes between children, adolescents, and adults. Here's how he differentiate it:

- Child              : doing something for pleasure

- Adolescent    : doing something base on the principle for his/ her pleasure

- Adult             : doing something because of his/her principle.

he illustrates by using a stolen ice cream.

Child stealing ice cream from refrigerator because it feels good, kids love ice cream. stealing ice cream even your mom knows it, it's still a pleasure. 

Adolescent decides to not to steal the ice cream because he/she afraid about the consequences that might happen such as punishment.

But an adult decides to not to steal ice cream because he/she knows stealing is 'wrong'. That's all.

He says that life can't be gained through bargaining. It's like when you force someone to respect you, they will never respect you. If you try to convince someone to trust you, they will never trust you. Being an adult is about doing something right because of the simple reasons that it's right. Not because for other things, or other rewards. It's like when you love someone without expecting anything in return because you know that it's the only way to make love real.

if you want to be respected, then respect them. if you want to be trusted, trust them. If you want to teach someone to love, love them. 

Immanuel Kant stated that what makes human differences that other species is that we are able to make reason, we're able to decide what is 'important'. He creates "the Formula of Humanity" which states that: "Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means"

means are something we do conditionally. end is something that is desired for its own sake. If we do something for our desire such as buying a bag, new smartphone, or new clothes to makes your wife happy, that's a means. But if you buy those things to make your wife want to have sex with you, then you treat her as an end. It's dangerous. 

The problem now is that people treating people as a mean to some other end. This is the example of immaturity. Something that we face today, as we know that today is no longer the debate between communism and capitalism, no longer about wars, but it's about how human crisis of character, means versus end. 

Pain is the Universal Constant

what if there were no crime in this world?

imagine how a perfect society would be formed. But, this kind of world just make thing gets worse. Protecting people from problems  or adversity doesn't make them happier or more secure; it makes them more easily insecure.

This is really an uncomfortable truth. As I read this part, I realize that I can't avoid pain in my whole life. Even the sun bright all day long, everyday, there will be a moment there is a cloudy sky. It tells us about pain is everywhere, we can't deny pain. The pain itself that form us to become 'antifragile' which is stronger than the strong itself.

Pain makes value. If people don't die, get immortal life, how can be value the importance of life? Failure in exam makes us put a value to study, it's like a mainstream quote: "sometimes you don't realize how important someone until you lose her/him". Being an antifragile is an adult: they benefit from the unexpected. The more problem they get, the more value of work hard they get. 

This part has taught me about how being a real human, being wealth is not about having a fancy car, luxury house, golds, jewels, and other shining things, but we can define a real wealth is through our character. The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our character, and the quality of our character is determined by our relationship to our pain.

and in the ending phase, it tells us about the technology. How technology changes us, how dangerous is that if we can't control it properly. Technology gives what we want, not what we need. It makes everything so efficient, the intention is good. but they forget that world runs by feeling. Human acts by feeling. and feeling can't be wrong. 

Overall... this book is incredible! This book is as good as the previous one (The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck). 

It suggests us to change our behavior, not be better human, but more human. 

there might be some parts which are too sensitive since he discusses about religion and dark humor. but the moral value is executed well at the end of the book. We seem to follow how Mark Manson collecting his references, interpreting those references, and showing his arguments but with a fun way. Seriously, I can't deny to not to laugh since some parts of the books contain a joke. 

My rate: 8/10