Journey to Happiness

Most of Philosopher agree that humanity's goal is to be happy. We want success because it makes us happy. We want to find that significant others because we think we can be happy when we found them. Happiness is actually the ultimate core to live your life to the fullest.

We want happiness because it feels good. It nurture our life quality, it nurture our friendship and relations to others. Happiness is something that genuinely motivate us, enlighten us from fear. It help us to think clearer and find a better way out, better outcomes.

As a child, I used to read books about biography of the famous inventors in history. Most of them have difficult life, misunderstood, and dealing with depression. At first I thought to be a famous inventor or great renown people we must live a suffering life. That thought leads me to trust karma's existence. I embrace sadness unconsciously, believing that the more I suffer the happier I will be later. Of course, I will learn that that's not the way to happiness. The only thing that suffering do to our happiness is to make us realize how precious happiness is, how important it is to live a happy life.

So I learn that happiness is not a goal, it's a reaction and choice. We can be happy right here right now. When bad things happened to us, we can choose to react impulsively or walk around it to see the bright side and keep our happiness alive.

I found the real happiness by learning more about myself. Knowing what makes me unhappy and what's my problem, and appreciate everything that happens in my life. Even if it's the smallest thing, we should appreciate it as gift. The greatest power in this world is love, and love is happiness. When we love something, we fight for it. We won't give up to something we really love. We always stay and looking for a way out. That's why so many people suggest us to love ourselves first before loving something elses.

By loving myself, I learned to talk nicely to myself. I learned to be my own best friend. I begin my relationship with myself, I marry myself! But that love are not included white lies. I'll be true if I really did something wrong, that way I can correct problems and find solution. One day my friend told me that going to a psychiatrist is a waste of money. But experiences told me that it's not wise to receive any help (advices included) from anyone who don't really listen. By listening, people understand, when they don't listen but perceive what's going on with their own head, they judging subjectively. Any help they give will not ends well. That's why I don't listen to his advice and talk to my psychiatrist.

It appears that the root of all my problems was ADHD. She gave me drugs and I already have my medication for more than a month and a half now. That decision change my life, because it build a bridge between me and my parents. It connects me to people that supposed to have close relationship with me. It calm my anxieties and help me to focus well. No more misunderstanding, and I got respect that I deserve.

So I conclude now, that key happiness is finding yourself, and embraces it kindly. When you already did, it will open a way, little by little.

Reckless thing I do today

Well, it's not a secret that I want to be a writer. A good one. I always get entertained by my adventures in my own imagination, and I really want to share the entertainment to others. One hardest thing to do is to publish it. It's really hard for non-romance writer to get their novel publish widely. Indonesians don't really love to read, not to mention write. People don't value education as they value religion. So there's a little joke about publishing in Indonesia, if you want to be rich by writing books, go write some romance and Islam.

I had received so many rejection letters, sometimes I don't even received any. I had proven how hard it is to publish fantasy and especially sci-fi story. First reason, people don't really care about imagination. Second, people thinks that fantasy is story about ghost, vampire, werewolf, therefore it's actually a variant of horror (this I found out in an open readers forum, I know, they shocked me too). Only after Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games explode in book store, then people begin to care about this two genres. But once again, no one thinks being a writer is a serious professional job, so education don't support anyone who wants to be a pro writer.

So here I am today, publish my sci-fi script, by print on demand system. So far I had promote the book on facebook, I planned to promote it more after I really print some. My friends said that I'm so reckless, I agree when they said that there will be time where people will appreciate writers and these genres we are writing now. But I think, it took one generation to change society. Sometimes it took about 20 or 50 years for a generation to change, but sometimes it just took several years. So I decided to do this reckless thing, and publish my book independently. I really want to share it for free on wattpad.com, but if I do that, I don't have something to eat. I work hard for this piece, I do the cover design by myself, I edit the draft by myself (because I have no beta readers who can help me at the moment), the story had entertain me so much, I believe this story can entertain the others too.

Sadly, not much appreciation or response on this courageous yet reckless decision. But I'd say that I'm proud of it, I don't care if it's a mistake or correct thing to do, I do what I believe I must do. Even no one appreciate it now, someone might find it one day, and I'll be ready to share it. I just want my stories to be heard, and I know I'm not good at writing romance. At least I do something and took action to achieve my dream.

My Mom and Bronis

Look at this little fat round chubby puppy. Isn't she cute? Her black mouth area made her looks even cuter. I named her Bro Nietzsche, but let's just call her "Bronis". Even with this cute appearance, my mom scared of her. Mom confessed that she had a dream where this little cute puppy turned into a monster, and gets freaked out when this fur ball runs into the house. For my mother, dogs are scarier than rats or cockroaches.

I want to share a story about my mom and my dog, but it's not inspirational one. My mom really hate dogs, she complain everyday about my dog. I caught her took picture of Bronis, and asking if she change her mind to dogs (that she loves that amazing animal now), but she answered "I'm gonna upload it's pictures on facebook so someone might interested and come to adopt her."

The other day, my mom finally give up her hope to make this dog go away from her sight. But don't get me wrong, she still complaining about Bronis, about how stink she is (ordinary dog scents), how noisy she is (when barking on bugs or strangers), how hyperactive she is ... everything Bronis do is wrong to her. But aside of that, my mother actually has a kind heart. When I forget to feed Bronis, she would cook fried scramble eggs, mix with rices to feed Bronis. She said, "it's a living creature, I would feel bad for her if she gets hungry".

Because of this, Bronis thinks that mom is an angel who never forget to feed her. Bronis loves mom very much she would welcome my mom whenever mom get home, and chase her few blocks when mom leaves. But sadly for Bronis, her affection to mom didn't change mom's perceptions to dogs. She still afraid of dogs, so ... it's a one sided love.

Life in Jakarta

Hi, my name is Bing, and I live in Jakarta. Today I'm gonna tell you some general thing about this city, in case you curious about it, or you just want to know things in a place you never been before.

1. Giant Oven
One first thing that crossed my mind about Jakarta is heat. The city very hot and dry, sometimes dusty and full of traffic pollution. The temperature is usually around 28-36, but it could be 38 in some crazy days. If you missed summer, or hate winter, this place is right for you. Come to Jakarta, you don't need to pay much for sauna.

2. Traffic Jam
I know, it happens in most of busy city. The problem in Jakarta with traffic is because too many bus, too many cars, too many motorcycle. Even with thousands buses robbing serving the city, traffic jam still is a problem. Based on my personal experience, one of the cause is too many people live in west area, working on east. That's why in the morning, everybody go from west to east region, and after the work done tired people going home to west. And probably wrong construction of roads could be one of the reasons too.

3. Forget about park, go to Mall
Yep, don't even think about finding a good inspirational park here, Jakarta is about mall. And they will suck your wallet to dry. If you are poor, get ready to date with your lover to the nearest stinky giant trash hole called "Ciliwung".

4. Street Food sometimes contain poison
No kidding. People might poison the other to feed their own belly. Even some local channel on television had their own show to discuss this issue. The price keep rising, some people might lose their job because they can't buy basic ingredients to the food they selling. As an alternative, some street food seller you might find on the side road might kill a rat to make a meat ball for you to eat. I know we used to eat rats too, but you don't wanna know how rat lives in Jakarta's sewer. More rumors about that, they mix some preservative substance as borax or formaline into those food. Sometimes to make their fries crispy, they melt plastic into the frying oil before they fry tempe, mendoan or batagor.

5. Some Street Singers are actually thugs
When you eat in tent restaurant in Jakarta, big chance that street singers approach you. They sometimes sounds awkwardly loud, harsh as if they rob you with their tone. They will not leave until you give them one or two thousands, and will get upset when you keep your cool and ignore them completely. I'm not very sure, but I think they are thugs. Because some of them even threaten bus passengers to give them money without actually doing anything. If the driver report this to police, they will be in danger.

Okay, those are my 5 lists about what you might find in Jakarta. I hope you find this informative and useful. Welcome to Jakarta!