Ignorance is Bliss?

"In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow."

Is it fine if we live contently in this piece of land we supposedly rightfully belong, blissfully ignorant that in the past, in this very area there are bloody struggles and unjust undertakings done to make it lawfully rightful for us contemporary citizen to have?

Is it acceptable that we just live our respective civil, relatively trivial life without the knowledge that in the past, the value of humanity had become so severely degraded that brutal repressions, tortures, and massacres happened, in the pretext of creating a peaceful state we have presently arrive to?

Is it actually sounds right that you are now happily leading your life by making use of facilities and provisions readily available, that hides the ugly backroom full of corrupt plays, ruthless overthrows, and sly deceivings that are so disgustingly full of hypocrisy that they defy all the good values that you are taught all this time? 

There's a beautiful passage I have stumbled upon from the novel "The Island of the Day Before" by postmodernist semiotician Umberto Eco:

"To speak always seriously provokes irritation. To be always witty, contempt. To philosophize always, sadness. To jest always, uneasiness."

Ignorance is bliss indeed. By the price of losing our humanity, that is.

There's a Black Winged Gull With a Broken Back

Just endure it. Bit by bit... until there's nothing left.

Reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuOPRfq-q6U

A Delirious Man, A Thought, A Plea

Dear Esther. I have lost track of how long I have been here, and how many visits I have made overall. Certainly, the landmarks are now so familiar to me that I have to remind myself to actually see the forms and shapes in front of me. I could stumble blind across these rocks, the edges of these precipices, without fear of missing my step and plummeting down to sea. Besides, I have always considered that if one is to fall, it is critical to keep one’s eyes firmly open.

That was an excerpt (actually, the opening line; scratch that, one of the opening lines) of an art game made back in 2008, and remade in 2012. You can see it here.

The premise of the game is that, first, it is not actually a game. It is some kind of interactive novel; a visual poem; nope, maybe some different kind of art altogether. I won't explain the mechanics or reviews here, there are already tons of that in the net, but what I will focus here is the story.

Have you ever meet a man; once a lover; once a husband; once having a beacon of his life, guiding his love, now all shattered? It was the base of all the monologues and walking done in the game. Shortly; a man who has lost his beloved, his wife. Beneath the surreal atmosphere and the cacophony of colors presented on the sky and deep in the caves of the island he traversed, is the mind of a man who is trying to cope with the grim fate the world has given to him, hiding in the forms of electrical diagrams and chemistry formulas painted with luminescent paint all over the island.

Nope; I can safely say I have never meet such a man; I have never met a widower in my life. But from what I have gathered in my experiences living in this world for 22 years, I can perceive that it must be a lot, a whole lot, to deal with. Many survives the pain; some cannot handle it, and decides to join their sweetheart as soon as possible to the afterlife. In the case of the game, this man took the latter. Esther was his beacon; and so he chose to climb the beacon of the island himself (in this case, the aerial) and join her in the bath of light. No more empty guidance. No more lost ships. No more pain.

I won't ever judge his decision; this is a game that present his way of thinking, his battle with despair, his efforts to make sense of all the happenings in his life. And for that intentions, it was beautifully made.

And this game does pique my mind. It's not sudden realization; it's not a new idea. We must have done it more than once in our life. In fact, we always do it. Do what? Trying to make sense of our life.

We born. We are taught to walk. To speak. Then, to the environment around us. We are sent to educational institutions. We make friends. We create links. We find what we loved to do, we find our interest. Within the frame of available courses of formal education. Then we graduate. We search for jobs, we search for soulmate. We find both. We settle in. We have children. We rose up to the ladder of our occupation. We nurture our children. We sent them to schools. We guide them to choose their way in life. We then see our children graduate, marry, then having a job. We resign our job. We play with our grandchildren. We live a peaceful retired life. We die.

That's the life of idealized Average Joe or Jane; one that is pursued by many of the middle class individuals.

Then the cliche comes in. It's not that easy.

Some will never have a chance to get formal education; some will have to help their parents' business or jobs all their lives. Some will find their interest outside the frame of formal education; some struggle for acknowledgement of their disregarded talent. Some will find their neighborhood or family circle disagree with choice of their love; some hit the unflattering boundary of religion, culture, race, or group. Some become the very agent of hatred in that subjects. Some will find their progress always hindered by their jealous seniors; some will find their own ideas ridiculed by the proper. Some will be stuck doing something they don't like all their life for the sake of their family; some will have to witness their family crumbles.

And as if the preliminary conditions are not enough to twist the ideal, fate comes up with a basket of bad lucks.

For example, an automobile accident in a bright, clear day which took from us our beloved's life.

At which point, one can not avoid to stop and think: what is the meaning of all this?

What is actually our life's worth?

Why all that happens, have to happen?

Why do we live?

Why?

Then we begin to try to make sense. Some find their answers in religion. Some finds no answers in science and became nihilists. Some dedicate all their thoughts and life for some other ideas. But the fact remains: that we need some reassurance that all of our struggles, all of our decisions and actions in our life means something in the end. And if we think further about it, the idealized life of the Average Joe above is actually void of meaning. At least for me.

For Esther's husband, his conclusion is that the reassurance is no more. It's that simple.

For many choices we have made in our life, then, I ask you not to doubt your resolution, if you already have any; but to always wary about what the world might still have for you behind her sleeves.

This game actually has no real conclusion; no lesson underneath. One just have to let himself feel the heart of the protagonist and let himself thinking in the protagonist's mind. And then, make his/her own conclusion. That's the part that I find neatly done, and one that you will hardly find in any other entertainment software out there today. 

Out there, for each and every man walking through their lives, they do that for a reason. Some just have to adjust their bizarre fate with equally bizarre actions; such as that you will find uncommon in everyday facade of life. And at the end of the day, you will question their choices; some will dismiss even the early attempt to understand; and just state that they are delirious, lunatic, ignorant. But who is the ignorant one?

And finally, my conclusion for this game all comes down as just another call to understand; a plea to dismiss ignorance; an invitation to ever question our paradigms, to never rest trying to reach out others' way of thinking, to stubbornly reject our own tendency to label others easily.

To never cease to try to understand.

This world is bigger than an Hebridean island, anyway.

Where Will I Go From Here?

"...dan pasti lo jalan dengan tas lo cangklongin cuma sebelah, dan jalan agak ke pinggir ya? hahaha.

Bener loh, men! rasanya pasti beda antara lo make tas dicangklong semua sama cuma sebelah. Dan di psikologi itu benernya punya arti sendiri-sendiri.

Dan kalo selama ini lo merasa wajar, itu berarti emang itu yang paling enak buat lo, dan itu berarti lo orangnya emang kaya gitu bro! Haha"

"Kaya gimana sih so? Aing kaga mudeng.."

"Gw yakin pasti lo benernya ngerti. Hahaha"

Itulah secuplik percakapan gw sama sohib karib gw yang emang suka ngomong hal-hal yang aneh (meskipun gw akui dia orang yang ga bisa ngebohong), yang sempat bikin gw pusing tujuh puluh tujuh keliling, penasaran akan apa yang dia kamsud.. till I thought I have finally have a lil' grasp of it.

Sebenarnya minggu lalu udah sekitar tiga kali gw keliling Bandung, nyoba cari-cari objek buat sketsa yang baru. Dan karena pencarian ini ga mungkin dilakukan diatas motor, maka gw jalan kaki. Dan kadar jalannya barangkali bisa dibilang ga kira-kira: pada kesempatan terakhir gw jalan dari stasiun KA sampe deket Tegalega, mampir jalan Cibadak, menyusuri Otista back and forth. Jalan.

Dan pada kesempatan gw cerita ke temen gw mengenai perjalanan itulah, cuplikan percakapan diatas terjadi. Harus gw akui, akhir-akhir ini gw jadi sering jalan. Dibanding naik sepeda atau motor, gw akhir-akhir ini lebih milih jalan. And only after I talked to my friend about that, I finally realized why.

Dengan naik motor atau sepeda, setiap pemandangan yang terhampar didepan mata dapat dengan cepat melesat begitu saja. No chances to notice something unique, no chances to see something that makes us think, no chances to observe different kinds of humans, walking with their own life...

Tapi dengan jalan, semua itu dapat kita amati, dan sambil jalan itu juga kita punya kesempatan untuk mencerna dan memikirkan hal-hal yang kita temui di sepanjang jalan. Dan temen gw juga menyadarkan gw:

"pasti waktu jalan, pikiran lo kemana-mana kan!"

That's damn right. Ya, ini bukan sekedar soal cari-cari objek buat di sketsa. Dengan jalan, gw merasa lebih leluasa untuk memikirkan berbagai hal, gw merasa bisa lebih dekat dengan diri sendiri, gw merasa lebih.. independen. Dengan jalan, gw merasa seluruh kenyataan kehidupan bisa terhampar di depan mata gw, tanpa gw harus merasa terlibat di dalamnya. Yeah, just like a distant observer over a different world, every moment I can notice something new.

Bagian yang aneh dari percakapan dengan temen gw ini adalah bahwa cara gw memanggul tas sedikit banyak mempengaruhi juga. Dia membayangkan gw waktu jalan make tas dicangklong cuman sebelah, dan itu benar. What I can't comprehend is that he can associate this with my personality, my state of mind right now.

Argumen dia adalah, betapapun kondisi beban yang gw pikul dan pilihan cara membawa yang ada (misal kalo emang relatif berat, ga ada pilihan lain selain mencangklong di kedua pundak), kenyataan bahwa gw lebih memilih cangklong tas di satu sisi aja tiap kali keadaan memungkinkan, sebenarnya menggambarkan sifat gw, sadar ato enggak.

Dan lebih jauh ia mencoba mengkonfirmasi, bahwa dengan mencangklong tas seperti itu, gw merasa lebih mudah memikirkan berbagai hal dan mengamati berbagai hal sepanjang perjalanan, dibanding mencangklong tas di kedua pundak. Dan harus gw akui gw rasa hal itu benar, betapapun absurd kedengarannya.

Berkali-kali gw tanya sifat atau hal apakah dari gw, kemudian, yang bisa digambarkan dari sifat memakai tas itu, dan berkali-kali dia bilang bahwa, jauh di dalam, gw benernya tau, karena gw yang merasakan sendiri. Dan saat gw berkutat dalam kepusingan mencerna premis yang absurd ini, dia memberi dua kata kunci:

"Journey" dan "Loneliness"

Bahkan kedua kata kunci itupun menurut dia sebenarnya kurang menggambarkan juga; salah satu analogi yang dia tawarkan adalah "the feel of being alone in the crowd", bahwa dengan memakai tas seperti ini gw bisa dibilang suka wandering, suka dengan perjalanan sendiri; "loneliness" sendiri bukan artinya merasa kesepian, tapi justru merasa enjoy dengan diri sendiri: kesendirian dalam perjalanan yang nikmat, sebuah perasaan akan tranquility; peace in mind because of the silent journey amidst all the noise of the outside world.

Bahwa gw suka membiarkan pikiran menjelajah ke berbagai tempat, sebenarnya sudah bukan hal baru; gw menyadari hal itu sejak lama. Dan setelah percakapan itulah gw baru inget akan suatu gambar yang sebenarnya telah gw buat 4 tahun lalu, gambar yang ada di bagian awal post ini. Judulnya ialah "I Still Can't Beat the Great Wide Open", dan gw gambarkan si pengembara membawa tas di sebelah kanannya...

Terlepas dari ide absurd bahwa cara memakai tas menggambarkan keadaan hati seseorang, nggak bisa dipungkiri bahwa gw, more or less, a wanderer dreamer.

Inside this lazy body is a wanderer..who just can't stand to take a break from a fast journey to walk with calm paces, to be amused by whatever scenery the world have it laid upon his eyes. And, deep inside his eyes, is a desire to roam the world and see as many truth as he can.

I dream of Saami tribesmen living their life in the deep woods of Sweden; I dream of Khitai families, with their yurts, herding their horses in the vast plains of Mongolia; I dream of Basque people of the Pyrenees; I dream of Tunisian Berbers riding their camels through Northern Saharan Desert; I dream of a Bushmen hunter taking aim of a gazelle in the wilderness of Kalahari; I dream of Caucasians herding their goats in the southern end of Ural Mountains; I dream of European explorers roaming through Taklamakan desert in search of Silk Road's hidden cities; I dream of an Ute scout running through the woods of New England; I dream of Andean farmers offering their goods in a busy market in one of those highland towns in Peru; I dream of some Inuit fishing a whale in the ice-cold waters of Arctic Ocean; I dream of nomadic Cossacks riding their horses in the great tundra of Siberia; I dream of a tranquil Buddhist monk feeding a tiger on a veranda of a temple in Tibet; I dream of an Iranian Sufi living a secluded life on the mountains of Transoxiana; I dream of a Highland Clansmen blowing his bagpipe on the edge of one of those rugged inlets of western Scotland; I dream of a group of Icelandic people partying, eating their shares of fermented shark's meat; I dream of Ainu people with their elaborate handcrafts in rural Hokkaido; I dream of ancient cave-villages which are still occupied in the rocky region of Cappadocia; I dream of many Polynesian canoes sailing on the waters of Pacific Ocean; I dream of lonely, desolate, wide Route 66 Highway across the American Midwest; I dream I'm on this neverending journey to see all this world, all alone, all by myself; always an observer, never a participator; always perceiving, never judging; forever amused.

I think, as much as I am an idealist is as much as I am a dreamer; no matter how hard I want to keep myself real, in some chances, this mind will always makes way for a wandering; though only in a dream.

If only it was real.


Where will I go from here?

Poem for the Day

Everything will be sorted out in the end.

                          If it's still messy,

                                              it's not the end...

                                                                           ..yet.

                                                             Hm.

                                         Well,

At least I believe so.

The Moon of Resolution Shines So Brightly Tonight

This afternoon I have done a terrible deed.
Terrible, but necessary. Not to mention inevitable.

Terrible, because it hurts.
Necessary, because if it's not done sooner, the wound will be too great.
Inevitable, because I can see no other way to get my point across.

I might be too worrying a man; I might also too heartless a person. But I really can see no other way.
Twenty two years of my life, that's the amount of wisdom I have gathered.. to actually plan this.

I kind of understand what a particular person had felt about this; how some words can be very heavy for us to utter, how some feelings just can't be that easy to be expressed, how finally that person mustered all the courage needed.. to tell those words to me.

Might this be a fiendish cycle? It sounds too far-fetched. But then again, I already have a resolution; that I will carry all my life. And no, I'm not the kind of person to betray my own oath so easily like that.

Only time will tell if I have made an unwise decision; only time will tell if my oath only make me miserable.
We will never know. Besides, isn't life an adventure?

And so, another bluesy mood. Play along, Jimmy Rogers..

Boogie Blues to Blame

I took refugee in blues, only to find out that it backfires.

Because every time I hear that twelve bar tunes, I remember that boogie rhymes.


I'm such an idiot.

Some says life is an adventure.

So I think, it would spoil the fun if it's planned beforehand, right?

To enjoy an adventure is to push ourselves toward uncharted lands, unknown seas, primeval forests, undocumented ruins, and so on, and so on.. Challenging our own sense of fear to instill wonder and awe every time we stumbled upon something new. Ever wandering, ever in awe.

And thus, life is too. Provided the first sentence is an acceptable statement..

When Son House began his supposedly life choice as a pastor in a Baptist church around 1920s, he wouldn't expect to be "expelled" several years later because of his bad habits. Further little chances he expected his life would be turning again, this time since 1925, when he decided to grab a guitar and began learning some blues, the kind of music he had been adamantly hostile to in his preaching years. Now, he is primarily famous as a blues singer and guitarist, and mostly noted for his emotional singing.

When Buckminster Fuller began his early school years, struggling in his seemingly incompetent mind to understand geometry, as he couldn't understand the basic abstraction to imagine a chalk dot on the blackboard represented a mathematical point, he wouldn't expect that years later, he would be renowned as an innovative architect, designer, and visionary. His most famous creation that last until this day, and has been seen as a pinnacle of modern architecture, is his geodesic dome: a lattice structure that could maintain his sphere shape and sustain his own weight without practical limits, lightweight, and stable.

And you must have known, albeit a little, about a particular patent clerk, which had his job provided by his relative because he had been jobless for years; a man, who wouldn't expect that his thoughts and scribbles he occasionally pondered in his free time at work, would be the key to unlock the ability to develop the most devastating weapon of mass destruction in 20th century. A weapon, that definitely ended World War II. That man would also, in his later years, be considered as one of the greatest physics scientist in this world, and his name would become somewhat an idiom of genius. You know that man.

And I, I wouldn't expect that when I first blowing my dad's harmonica, back then on my elementary school years, and then leaving the instrument since my high school years, that I would eventually going back to that instrument and eventually getting a (just a little!) proficiency in it.

Up until my third year in university, I have been listening to a diverse genres of music, but mostly easy-listenings and bossa nova. I did have a little collection of blues, but I wouldn't expect that I would be so passionately absorbed by that genre, up until the beginning of 2013. 

How did that happen?

The first momentum is in not so far a past, at the last quarter of 2012, when I heard one of my friend playing Robert Johnson's guitar licks some night in the terrace of HMM's base in campus. I asked him if he ever know about Robert Johnson, and he surprised that I know of him too. Been a not-that-close friends since we knew each other when we get to the same undergraduate program (which is mechanical engineering), we had been playing some Robert Johnson's songs together, he with a guitar, I with my dad's harmonica. 

And he did pique my further interest in blues, and further revelations that blues, since its early beginnings, have been incorporating the sound of a particular kind of harmonica, the "blues harp". As I further dig into the subject, I found that my dad's harmonica is actually commonly used in folk musics and Asian musics (the folk thing actually have been known by me for some time, as I had been listening to Bob Dylan before that), and it is called tremolo harmonica. But to play blues, you have (not really that strict, actually) to play blues harp, or diatonic harmonica. And so away I went, to Gramedia book store (yeah, a book store) to buy my very first, Blues Harp, in the key of A.

I honed and honed my skills playing the harp, learning some tricks, bending, warbles, wah-wahs, etc, initially only to satiate my curiosity with this instrument, and the many dimension of blues sounds I can create. About the genre itself, at first I only focused in making some cool sounds and a particular "blues" tunes, as it basically quite a simple chord progression to learn: the "twelve bar blues".

But then, the second momentum happened.

I don't really want to elaborate the story behind this momentum, and I don't think I really need to. What is clear is this: because of that second momentum, I feel like I finally getting (a tiny bit of) the soul, the driving force behind the blues tunes that makes it a distinctive genre of music. And because of that second momentum, I was drawn more intimately about the true value, the true face of blues.

Blues emerged sometime around 1890, and had shaped itself, maturing around 1930 to 1950 as a particular genre. Coming from, and primarily played by black folks in the United States, as a mean to channel their lamentations, distresses, and frustrations as a shunned minority and their hard roles as workers mainly in plantations, burdened by poverty, even after slavery had been abolished and peace returned after the Civil War, primary (and even to this day, in some cases) blues songs' lyrics has never strayed too far from hard day's working, love lifes turned bad, living penniless, or desperation living as a whole. That, and blues tunes, incorporating mainly "blue notes", really created a sound of wailing, despair, yet always struggling to keep head's high and trying to be able to smile at one's own misfortunes, a kind of irony.

The name "blues" itself derived from more than one source, primarily thought to be from "blue devil", the term of evil spirit in old African myth, that harasses men's life with sufferings and despair; and the second is from the feelings of despair itself; sadness, feeling blue.

And so, blues is mainly about feeling blue, with style.

A particular thing happened in the past. 

Basically a sensitive person, I couldn't stop my feelings to turn blue.

But I'm a man.
I would not wet my cheeks with tears.
And so, I began playing my harp.
This time, with the true soul of the Blues.

Because I can only admire the beauty of the moon from afar, with no ways possible to reach it with my hand.

But enough about the second momentum.
I surely would not expect that.

This time, I have six harps; all primary keynotes, with the key of B absent. I don't yet buy that one.
Right now, I have a chance to play alongside an emergent indie band, which has been submitted their songs in SoundCloud recently.

It's really a wonder; I have never ceased to be fascinated by the fact that some events could really turned a man's world upside down.

I'm basically a man that's living in the now. I don't really like spending my time wondering about the future; it's all vague, a mix of gray, white, and black; never really crystallize into a particular shape.

But now, already deciding something, and evaluated all my emergent options and interests this past two years, I find myself at a crossroad. Not that kind of Robert Johnson's Crossroad Blues, although some elements may be the same ..

But a crossroad, that whatever path I choose, I would always be sure to have that feeling linger, because, looking from a point of view, they're all the same.

And I would set the blues, again, as my guide.

It actually has been quite a while since I drew that picture, which is on the cover of a notebook I bought from TOKEMA. But it is definitely some time after the second momentum. At that time, all I thought was about crossroads; as a representation of my indecisiveness and gloomy future, ever wondering how this story of mine would end.

It will always have a special place in my heart, nevertheless. 

However it will turn out. 

However lame or dull the ending.

However painful it was.

However beautiful it was.

And so, to end this post, I give to you a Skip James' song, with his overwhelmingly deep, ever saddening minor E tuned guitar's sound.

Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues
by Skip James
1931

Hard time's is here
An ev'rywhere you go
Times are harder
Than th'ever been befo'

Um, hm-hm
Um-hm
Um, hm-hm
Um, hm-hm-hm

You know that people
They are driftin' from do' to do'
But they can't find no heaven
I don't care where they go

Um, hm-hm
Um-uh-hm
Mm-hm-hm
Um, hm-hm-hm

People, if I ever can get up
Off a-this old hard killin' flo'
Lord, I'll never get down
This low no mo'

Um, hm-hm-hm
Hm, um-hm
Hm, hm-hm
Hm, hm-hm-hm

Well, you hear me singin'
This old lonesome song
People, you know these hard times
Can't last us so long

Hm, hm-hm
Hmm, hmm
Hm, hm-hm
Hm, hm-hm, oh Lord

You know, you'll say you had money
You better be sho'
But these hard times gon' kill you
Just drive a lonely soul

Um, hm-hm
Umm, hmm
Umm, hm-hm
Hm, hm-hm-hm

(guitar)

Umm-hm
Hmm-hm-hm
Umm-hm
Hm-hm-hm
Hmm, hm-hm-hm

(guitar to end)
~

A Quiet Time in the Morning

...And just another sketch-less entry posted again.

While it's safe to assume that I have some readied sketch in the shelf, I chose not to post them here, because it would really be out of context with what I'm gonna talk about.

It's strange with what just a few encounters can do to a person. It would, I think, be stranger if the said person is not changed permanently by it. For rare moments could make much greater impressions than occasional meetings, is how it will dearly affect the individual.

For right now, it has changed me much. It has changed how I view the world, it has changed how I perceive other people's intentions, it has changed.. my motivation.

The old me would never dreamed to be in this place, faraway from home, alone, in a big house owned by somebody I have only met by a week.

                But now I'm here, savoring the solitude, savoring the moment when I can get real.

The old me would never really dare to pursue something so far fetched, so diverging from the path I take now.

                But now it's never get out of my head, it's like I have directed all my mind and energy to pursue it.

The old me would never really get past the ability of occasional harpist...

               ..while right now I have several instruments that I've played daily.

while it's true that I've experienced some hard times, some moments I've thought I was broken, but now it's feels like it is just an exercise.. some grand remark, but I do think now, that I was only bent down.

The base now is getting firmer by the bending; it's like I can finally take on anything now that I have experienced those moments.

Right now, I'm on an internship in some mining company on different island. I have no relatives here, no colleagues here, I'm here on my first time. I am exactly a stranger here, and the people around me were strangers.

Some might wonder, what kind of a mind would go that far from the comfort zone..? What drives it? At what cause? And what cost?

Those questions might be too overrated, that these kinds of things is actually quite ordinary; and the root cause itself couldn't be much simpler, to the point of laughable when you think about it in a serious tone. What's special about it is that it's my experience, it's exactly my synapses and dendrites inside my brain who caught these sensations which built up a memory; and then, a motivation.

A motivation that someday, somehow, I will be free from all dependence. Someday I will be able to walk without any fear, stepping without get distracted by pebbles, seeing without being irritated by the flash of lightning, hearing without being disturbed by noises, tasting without antipathy of rottenness, feeling.. with no fragility to parting.

A motivation that someday, I will be able to hold on by myself, walking tall amidst the hubris, all supported only by my spine. A feat that right now is far from being achieved, because this meddling brain still have some petty issues to take.

For there are no greater satisfaction in my life other than being able to love and life freely, with frugality, with no one else to depend upon but myself. Right now, I'm pursuing that ability.

And this quiet, alone time in the morning, I shall face all my fears and anxiety, uncertainties and probabilities, from taking on such a big leap from my comfort zone, to the realm of the real world, without anyone else. I have never done this before, which is all the more reason why I have to do this and see it through. By the time I've finished, I will be able to take on everything.

So that's how's my mind doing right now. Having a big house all by myself on foreign neighborhood without any friend around really is like some kind of retreat. Some kind of solitude. Some kind of.. meditation.

And I think it really help me coping with my bent state right now. It gives me resolution.

It gives me something worth fighting for.. freedom.

Paper Plane

http://vimeo.com/63120994

As cheesy as the premise possibly look, I can't deny that this short film offers genuine enjoyment that's nothing short of incredible.

No words, no hue, except some red color. No mind-blowing story, just a heartwarming spectacle. But that's enough. Director John Kahrs and those animation guys at Disney really did a good job showing only what's important, gouging unneeded gestures and effects without making it too simplistic and shallow. And Christophe Beck could not have created a more fitting music; it fits perfectly, it dances along with the progressions; an exceptional consumption for the ear.

What's left is a strong impression of an idea, a small quite-possibly-surreal episode of someone's life in this 50'esque era, about a little story around a paper plane (or planes) and its' relentless pursuit of achieving what it intended to do: sending a message.

Someday, I will be able to create artworks of this level; and more, however my life's work ended up to be. Don't ever let your career hinder your passion; I will not let that happen.

Someday...

Welcome to London

...And here's just another ramblings I just have to write this day.

A rambling borne from a wild mind running through the day, a rambling about wandering. Yeah, wandering outside again, sketching, just like old times (though what I said old times maybe actually means not older than two months ago).

A wandering borne from exhaustion from taking so many jobs these past weeks. Not to mention daily curbs of sleep time. And then there's multitude of administration works I have to take. Something I've never like. One might wonder what I'm doing, I'm already in my fourth year of college, yet still I'm bound to these.. campus social businesses. Yeah, one might wonder. I wonder myself. 

A wondering borne from my inability to reject responsibility, however dislike I have to be on charge on something. Guess I really am the hard-type to say no to be asked something. If I can do it, then I have no legitimate reason to reject it. Then there comes a heap of commitment, and higher stakes of integrity. 

It's not without its benefits. With these piles of tasks, my mind keeps occupied. Just like what happened before, to another person. The irony is, it's creating a cycle. One can only break free from this cycle by letting go. Right now, there's still many works demand attentions. One by one I will finish it, then I will go somewhere. 

It's not necessarily far, not necessarily beautiful the destination. What I count more is the journey. That's why I always prefer taking journey by bicycle or foot. The least choice is public transportation. Then I will always have a sketchbook and a set of pencils in my bag, ready to be taken whenever chances presented itself for me taking a sketch.

Yeah, but right now I have to be patient. It's not about breaking free from the hectic routine, it's about finishing what I have started. Taking responsibilities from my choices. The consequences is standing on the end of the tunnel, waiting for the train I drive to reach it.

..Catching the train to London.

Whiiiiteeeeeeeeeeee

Because I'm shamefully transparent right now.

Keep Walking

Humanity has been roaming this world for more than 200.000 years.

In-between those times, they spread out, grow, built civilizations.

They nurtured their offspring, building marvels for the future.

Some of the times, they clashed at each other, they waged wars.

And brought despair and sorrow upon themselves.

..

I am just a small boy.

A tiny little light on the sea of candles.

My story is just one of many stories other lights have experienced.

I have but one soul, one pair of eyes to see, one heart to feel.

I am not God, I can't perceive the feelings of all people over the world.

My eyes can only see the world how my mind would want to see.

And my heart is frail, receiving only single input from my senses.

And now, I must be honest, inside me dwell despair and sorrow.

The world around me seem to collaborate and dance with the misfortune I have gained

but of course, it's because I am just a small, tiny soul.

Who are unable to see beyond his earthly shell of flesh and bones.

But over time, I could have guessed, this will dissipate.

As one man couldn't said it better, there is no way to defeat despair.

All you can do, is keep walking.

And by the end of the day, I will be stronger.

...

I have left the red carpet. The flower of change awaits me beside the desolated road.

And I won't look back.

Just a Crude Comic I Made on New Year's Eve of 2013