The question Mumu and friends from Kopdar Budaya asked during the #lifeisgood session, breeds different answers when the discussion ended.

For some people, a good life consists of happiness that comes from simple things in their daily life. That time when A was able to scare the shit out of his friends by showing them violent and graphic pictures and/or videos. That time when B was feeling extraordinarily bubbly, and thought that by being that way her mood affected the people around her, making her a doubly bubbly person. The fact that coffee could always boost C’s mood in the morning, and how a friendly traffic and a nicely-behaved boss could turn a day into a shiny one. The way D’s daughter and husband amused her to no end every day, with their cute and silly verbal exchanges.

Karmin believes that everything will be alright. Although there are times when his life seemed so unsure, when a few days before the next payday and the money in his pocket was barely enough for whatever he was trying to do, he still believed that things would be alright. And for some crazy reasons, it did. At least for him, and according to his standards.

Now, he’s willing to put that credo to the test by resigning from work and to see whether life would, after all, be alright for him. He’s a braver man than I am and I wish him well.

Mumu is a lot like him, although he didn’t go out of his way to go leave his job. For Mumu, emotions in life are not something that needs to be taken too seriously. Of course, he experienced ups and downs. He gets bored, he becomes happy, angry, and in love. But for him, feelings are not something that are in control to his daily life. So what if he’s bored? Does that mean he should do something? What’s so wrong about being bored? So what if he’s happy? Does that mean he should shout to the world and let them know how joyful he is?

Mumu kept his feelings to himself and he considers himself a fairly emotionally flat guy. The guy smiled a lot and his Twitter updates showed controlled anger here and there.

For me, a good life is a combination of good days and not-so-good days. A good day consists of a number of good anchors that will help me getting through the day in fairly sane state of mind.

My morning routine, waking up real early to write only for myself, and when I feel especially healthy, going to the gym. Finishing a half-hour, and sometimes an hour, session at the treadmill, the shower afterwards, reading a chapter or two at the gym’s lobby, before walking to the car for a very short commute to the office. A few hugs from best friends in the office, more so when the day became especially busy and stressful, and the brief coffee getaway to the cafe downstairs where I could jot down a line or two in my journal.

The playlist of pointless gloomy songs I kept on playing on and on and on everyday no matter what mood I am in.

Small things.

That time when I felt especially cocky and announced to the whole wide world that #lifeisgood for yours truly.

I’ve been using #lifeisgood hashtag on Twitter for years. But when a friend asked me to discuss what it means to me, especially in the context of my digital life, I’m not sure what I can say to that.

Life is good when you can work, and do your work well. To love what you do with your work, to the point that it no longer feels like working. I haven’t reached this stage. I’m still in that I’m-doing-well-with-my-work, doing what I can do best in terms of what’s expected of me in my line of work. I make good money, my career is moving upwards, I get noticed by important people in the company and in the industry. Sometimes, I can go home on time, or probably around 7 or 8 pm, which is fine considering my workload. If the work is too much to handle and I have to stay up late in the office, I don’t really mind, because it is something that is somewhat given, something that is expected from people working in this industry, the communications industry.

Photo by @grolano.

Life is good because although I’m busy and can rarely see and meet my friends, I can still keep in touch with them, update myself on what my friends are doing. I am never completely out of the loop. If I can finally meet them after a month or two, which is good, it’s as if we’ve just met yesterday. The things me and my friends talked about, it’s like we hang out all the time. Yes, some jokes kept on being retold, some topics continued to pop up in every conversation, but these are anchors in our relationship. These are the things we cherish. The memories, the lame jokes, the same references, the old old old stories that kept being told on and on and on and on again.

Life is good because now, more than ever, I get to travel more often. Not somewhere fancy. But who needs fancy places? It’s the idea of moving when you need to move, when you no longer can stand the thought of staying at the same place. When the air that you breathe feels like iron, the steps you take day in day out don’t take you anywhere. It’s good when you can finally make plans to disappear once a month, to become someone  else, or still be you but hopefully a more interesting version of you. It’s good because you will lose yourself and go back, maybe not renewed, but recharged. Because these journeys will leave your mind clean and ready to be polluted again by the city you love to hate.

Life is good because every now and then you can sit down in a coffee shop sipping an over-priced hazelnut latte, browsing through a mundane list of unimportant things that somehow you need to look at again and again and again. It’s good because all these acts make you feel whole and empty on and on again. You throw away those dying cells in your soul and renew your thoughts, your existence, and in the process of that you continue to recreate yourself.

Maybe not into someone new but into someone that is you.

Life is good because although you can’t really write, you get to exercise your writing muscles by typing furiously on your office-issued laptop, or when you feel like it, to pour your heart out into your lovely white MacBook because hell yeah everyone knows an Apple product has a soul and it can understand what you’re saying without you having to utter a word. It’s good because when you need to, you can always buy an expensive Moleskine notebook, and sit down in an obscure coffee shop in an upscale shopping mall or a laid-back cafe by the beach somewhere far but not too far away and scribble your life away like dear old Hemingway.

It’s good because you know what doesn’t kill you will kill you anyway and that’s the way life works. So you feel content, in line with the universe, with the good and the bad elements that make up life as you know it. As told by people who claimed to know it.

Life is good because you can finally think of buying that Feist concert ticket, any ticket, that used to be too expensive. It’s good because yes it’s all materialistic but who would deny how fulfilling it can be? It’s good because you can always say it’s good, and confirm it publicly, and be sure that it really is good because you are brave enough to say it out loud.

It’s good because let’s face it, it is because you said so. It’s good, because I told you it’s good. And a cute little hashtag, #lifeisgood, is all that it takes for you to believe in it.

Back in August 2005, I started a Multiply account and blogged about things that I like. Its closed platform suited my needs to write and share personal stuff with close friends. Sometimes I wrote in English, but mostly in Bahasa Indonesia.

Later, I bumped into Blogger and WordPress. I liked Blogger for its simplicity and decided to create cubicleuniverse.blogspot.com for English rants, and malamkemarau.blogspot.com for poems in English and Bahasa Indonesia, as backups for my Multiply treasures. After compulsive-obsessive Anya showed me what could be done with WordPress, I created my fourth blog, duniahitam.wordpress.com for non-poetry writings in Bahasa Indonesia.

One Multiply account, two in Blogger, and one in WordPress. Not to mention accounts in Stumble Upon, LinkedIn, Livejournal, Friendfeed, and I don’t know what else. It didn’t take a long for me to realize that keeping my blogs up to date or actively joining the conversation in social networks is more difficult than struggling with grammar and vocabulary. So many ideas, so little time to think clearly and put them into writings. Especially since Facebook and Twitter came along.

I couldn’t free myself from the fast lane, but decided to take some control of my online self and roll out a spring-cleaning program. Starting with re-organizing my blogs.

Now that this post’s done, let’s go back to tweeting.

(A more pathetic but similar in spirit post in my Bahasa Indonesia blog, two months ago).

Five meters from where we were sitting, four women giggled and pointed their at something on the floor.

Something green and limp. A balloon.

For a second there something in me screamed ‘bomb!’. Why not? With Amrozi and his asshole gang members about to be executed any time, we’ve been getting SMS about how the Bali Bombers friends are planning an attack in Jakarta.

What a fucked up country.

And now we have to live with this moronic Pornography Law recently passed by the equally idiotic House of Representatives.

]]> http://blackuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/saturday-afternoon-balloon-bomb/feed/ 0 duniahitam http://blackuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/reinventing-yourself-101-be-brutally-honest/ http://blackuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/reinventing-yourself-101-be-brutally-honest/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:25:00 +0000 Waraney Rawung http://blackuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/reinventing-yourself-101-be-brutally-honest/ ]]> Honesty is never an easy thing, especially when you have to apply it to yourself brutally. But what I’ve learned lately is that once you’re able to do that, you’ll see things in a totally different perspective and that things will have a way of working itself out.

The reason I moved out from IndoPacific Edelman to Maverick was to see whether I could refresh my interest in the industry. For the past few months I have come to realize that public relations consultancy is really not my thing. I could not picture myself doing this kind of job for the next one or two years.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved ‘meeting new people’ (now an overused phrase like a 100-year old slut thanks to hordes of models, actresses and pageant queens reciting “I want to work as a PR person coz I luuuuuuuuvveeed meeting new people. Fuck them you would I guess), traveling to faraway places, and writing. I get this from working as a PR consultant. But I can also get this somewhere else for sure.

I would like to spend more time and concentrate on irisPUSTAKA that me and some of my friends have established since last year. This could not be done as a side job. It needs my full attention.

Which leads to the decision of resigning from the Associate position in Maverick, effective May 1, 2008.

I was actually planning to take a month or two before hunting for fresh grounds, but hey, Ong offered me a job as an Editor. A great package and suitable working hours (Mon-Fri, 6.30 – 10.30 AM), is all that I need to say yes. I will begin my editing days on June 1, 2008. That means a whole month of freedom.

I may have sucked at client servicing and consultancy, but I’m fucking good when it comes to writing and editing.

I’m broke, but I’m happy.

Another step forward to my vagabonding days.

The boyfriend is having a side effect from some ‘mineral’ drink he had recently. The girlfriend is trying to find something.

I’m here typing sipping coffee. The one that she said was made from leftovers in factories.

We were here to discuss about a job. To brainstorm some more after our initial one last Saturday.

But our sleepy eyes and bulging stomachs are enough proof that it’s going take more than a lake of coffee to keep ourselves awake through the night.

I should be going now. I might come back and write here some more.

Oh, one more thing. Menadonesse Tinorangsak and sayur kangkung for dinner before a brainstorm is not really a fantastic idea.

Sunday, April 13, 2008. 8.37 PM. Anya’s attic.

I do believe in the whole Trinity concept, Father-Son-and-the-Holy-Spirit. But that’s just about it. Ever since I was a child, I have questions about the concept of Heaven, which even now can make me unable to sleep.

I’m not afraid of the fires of hell. I’m only scared of being sent to oblivion. To have your soul no longer exist, in any form, in this universe, earth, heaven or hell.

I barely went to church last year, and have gone there only once this year, and that was on the Good Friday. I didn’t even go to church in Easter. And forgot to sms my family happy Easter.

And this morning. Out of the blue. My brother gave me a small picture of Jesus. It now sat on my keyboard, half-resting on the monitor.

A picture of Jesus.

You see, we toiled for hours doing stuff that (admit it, people) most of us hate or would gladly avoid if we could afford it. How do we make ourselves keep on waking up in the morning and jump into that river of bodies in the streets of whatevers?

Money? Self-satisfactions? Self-improvements? Loneliness?

This question came up to me lately as more and more workloads arrived on my lap, depriving me from doing what I loved most. What am I doing here in this office? What kind of satisfaction, aside from financial or, perhaps, intellectual ones, I’m getting from spending 8 to 10 hours each day behind the monitor?

I remembered that I dealt with this problem differently from time to time.

My first job was at the Trijaya Radio as an intern. Back then in 1998, I know that I need to get past the job in order to graduate. Boredom and whatnots are just part of graduating.

Then followed the 9 months in Gran Mahakam Hotel as a Telephone Operator. The pay sucked, but I somehow believed that by starting my career as a grunt (telephone operators are one of the lowest in a hotel front office’s career ladder). I was right. I got to know lots of people, great people. real people. I learn to appreciate all kinds of work. I matured. A bit.

After that I went to work in Indo Pacific as a Media Monitoring staff. The pay still suck, but at least I got to learn stuff about the PR industry, and got a free access to a great collection of local magazines.

Then I started to move up the ladder. Despite several setbacks (I had to prioritize my study in UI) and procrastinations, I finally become a full time staff (an Account Executive) and worked on real cases for ‘real’ clients.

The hours are long and the assignments challenging. During this time I barely have time to try to make sense of anything. Things were moving so fast. One moment I’m this ignorant brat who knows zero about the world, the next day I was ‘advising’ clients on this and that.

And then came the ‘consultant’ title. This was after months of island-hopping in East Nusa Tenggara and later in South/Southeast Sulawesi and Papua. Again, I got too busy absorbing stuff. No time to try to make sense out of my job. Let alone my life.

But after a while, things got ‘routine’. The travels got too long, the people I met on the road got too annoying.

Strangely enough, during this time I discovered that one of the things that can make me refocus on work is to watch the West Wing series.

Why, you may asked. First, because the script was fucking awesome. Aaron Sorkin is simply a great scriptwriter. Second, because the story involved the White House Communications Director, Deputy Communications Director, and Press Secretary.

Note the ‘communications’ part.

The characters in the series are idealized images of what a professional political / communication operator could become. They brought to life what I can only gather in pieces from textbooks and blogs. What it means to be a real communicator. A true manipulator.

Thus, in those days I often crawled back to bed after a long day of dealing with clients and stakeholders (this word could really make me crawl out of my skin), in an ancient hotel room somewhere in Papua or Rote Island, fired up my laptop and tried to catch up with the next episode of Mr. Sorkin’s creations.

Back then I used the series as a charging tool for my routinely decreasing spirit.

I just finished (again) the 1st session last night.

You see, lately, every time chances permit, I found myself glued to the screen again, following every move of President Jed Bartlett’s senior staffs in saving the day for the U.S. of A.

Why now? Trying to make sense out of my work? Maybe. I resigned from my previous office because I got tired of public relations. I got into the one I’m in now because although it is still public relations, it provides more challenges and opportunities. And of course it gives a fucking awesome package.

I am happy. I got to learn new stuff. Meet new people. Brave new challenges.

But why oh why the shores of Neverland kept calling me? Again, and again. And again.

Am I really happy?

Or what?

Govt plans blueprint for creative industries

Aditya Suharmoko , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 03/10/2008 1:19 AM | Headlines

Stealing the show Saturday night at the Java Jazz Festival, Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu proudly announced the government was preparing a blueprint to guide the creative industries.

The industries, she said, not only contribute significantly to the country’s GDP but also help project a positive image of the local business climate to the rest of the world.

Most importantly, she said, the industries “define the national identity.”

The blueprint, she said, was due for implementation next year, and aims to encourage people to be more actively involved in creative industries, to help drive the national economy.

Creative industries contributed an average 6.3 percent to Indonesia’s GDP between 2002 and 2006, according to the latest data from the Trade Ministry.

The creative industries comprise some 14 areas; music and musical instruments, advertising, architecture, handicrafts and art festivals, antiques, design, fashion, film, video and photography, interactive games, performing arts, printing and publishing, computer services and software, and radio and television.

Since 2001, Mari said, 50 percent of the total consumer spending in G7 countries has been spent on creative industry products.

The upcoming blueprint, she said, would follow on from another initiative launched last year, called “Indonesia design power”, which basically aimed to redesign and improve creative products manufactured by small and medium businesses.

“The initiative aimed to reduce the stigma that our creative products are ‘cheap’,” Mari said.

“Most people are interested in buying products for their design, as a priority over quality,” she added.

Most creative businesses here, she said, were dominated by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, she said, SMEs did not need to expand their business to succeed in creative industries.

“Many SMEs in other countries succeed by producing a limited range of custom-made products,” she said.

Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Muhammad S. Hidayat, also present at the festival, said Indonesia had good creative products.

“Indonesian products sold out at exhibitions in Japan and China. The two countries even ordered more products,” he said.

“However, our creative businesses cannot always produce enough products to meet demands, so we must improve this,” he added, affirming the need for the blueprint.