We and our thousand faces


Every now and then when I meet old friend of mine, there always be something new from them that keeps surprising me. No matter how good I think I know them or get at working out the plots of their lives, there always something new that will surprise me or something I didn't notice before. And it sometimes makes me wonder what else I'm missing.

But perhaps I'm not missing anything. Perhaps, I just get fooled on the details. Because sometimes I, like other normal people, am like prisms, with thousands of facets, where my eyes and minds are geared to seeing only a few at a time. It's funny how most of the time, we miss people's personalities altogether because we see them solely in terms of the functions they are performing for us. In other circumstances we also tend to see in each other largely what the other person wants us to see. And not what we really are.

Things would surely be much simpler,if we know who we really are. While in fact deep down, we all are mystery stories waiting to be solved. And likewise, we also are all detectives eager to solve other people's mysteries. The fact that we house several variations on our core personalities makes things more complicated. Subconsciously we play different person to others--the person our dearest friends rely on, casual acquaintances know, the person our families know, and the person we allow ourselves to be when we're anonymous. None of us becomes generic when all of these personalities blend together. We are all one-of-a-kind specialty brands with our thousand faces. And perhaps that's what makes us interesting.

Pada Setumpuk Kartu Pos


"Mak, pernahkah menyesal kawin dengan Bapak?" tanyaku iseng suatu hari.
"Hmm...tidak, soalnya kalau tidak, saya tak bakal dapet kamu", jawab ibu sambil tersenyum.
Ibuku mungkin orang yang sangat sederhana dan berasal dari kampung, pikirannya jauh dari semua kerumitan, tapi jawabannya itu bagiku jauh lebih brilian dari semua teori derivasi yang kompleks.

Dulu sewaktu kecil ibuku memberikan setumpuk kartu koleksi gambar-gambar dan klise-klise film dari berbagai tempat sebagai hadiah ulang tahun. Setumpuk kartu itu membukakan mataku untuk pertama kali pada dunia luas jauh dari dusun terpencil tempat kami tinggal. Diam-diam dalam hati aku berniat suatu hari menjelajah tempat-tempat itu dan membawa ibuku.

Sekarang, lebih duapuluh tahun kemudian, ketika tempat-tempat pada gambar kartu perlahan mulai terjangkau, impian membawa ibu justru sulit terwujud. Ibuku sudah sangat tua dan mulai sakit-sakitan. Kini giliran aku mengirim kartu. Pada setiap tempat dan kota yang kusinggahi, kantor pos dan kartunya jadi tempat kedua yang kucari setelah penginapan. Betapa terkejutnya aku ketika tahu bahwa ibu menyimpan semua kartu dan membungkusnya rapi dalam sebuah album foto. Walau kadang tulisan yang tertera pada kartu sangat sembarangan, "Mak apa kabar?" atau "Mak, masak apa hari ini?" (aku tak pernah tahu mau tulis apa di kartu pos).

Mother, I thank you for everything. But above all, thanks for helping me dare to dream.

Kalau Colek Bisa Bicara


Sekarang banyak yang bilang besar kecilnya sebuah perbuatan itu tidak terlalu penting, yang penting adalah niatnya. Iseng-iseng saya bertanya dalam hati, lalu bagaimanakah niat seorang itu bisa diketahui? Apalagi diukur. Bukankah perbuatan adalah pengejawantahan dari sebuah niat?

Mencolek mungkin satu contoh yang sangat pas untuk menjelaskan credo aneh ini. Tidak seperti meremas atau meraba yang melibatkan secara aktif kelima jari bersama telapak tangan dan bisa ditafsirkan sebagai sebuah gesture negatif, mencolek hanya melibatkan satu atau dua jari. Dilakukan secara sedemikian cepatnya hingga kadang tak jelas niat yang terkandung di dalamnya. Apakah iseng, ketidaksengajaan, gesture merendahkan atau hanya sekedar tersenggol.

Namun seiseng-isengnya mencolek, pihak yang menjadi objek penderita dapat menyamakan tindakan tersebut sekurang ajar meremas atau meraba. Sialnya lagi, dalam mencolek, pihak penderita tidak pernah merasa diuntungkan sama sekali. Jelas ini menambah kecurigaan dan memperparah kesan negatifnya. Mungkin ini juga yang membedakannya dengan meraba atau meremas yang sesial-sialnya masih mendatangkan "sensasi tersendiri" pada obyek yang disentuh. Singkatnya colek selalu berada dalam posisi yang serba salah. Ia akan selalu digolongkan sebagai perbuatan yang egois, nakal dan merendahkan derajat orang yang dicolek.

Kalau colek bisa bicara, mungkin ia akan protes keras. "Hey! Bukankah saya hanya sebuah ekspresi spontan? Lagipula tak banyak kenikmatan yang terkecap di dalamnya. Lalu mengapa saya disamakan dengan meremas dan meraba?" Begitu mungkin protesnya. (Saya membayangkan Colek berdiri protes sambil berjoget menyanyikan I can't get no satisfaction-nya- Rolling stone).

Tapi sekali lagi, inilah sulitnya melihat niat yang tersembunyi di balik sebuah perbuatan ketika tak ada indikator yang dapat digunakan untuk secara jelas mendefinisikan dan mengukur ketulusan sebuah niat. Apalagi dalam tindakan yang spontan, cepat dan tak terduga. Colek dikit ahh.

When nothing is Taken for Granted



Dear ...

As I read your mail, I have to admit that your idea of a taken-for-granted life really amazes me. And I'm truly fascinated by your belief system, where you view reward and punishment as something that works automatically. Well, there is no such thing. In the perfect world it might exist, but not here, where people needs and ego still cross each other.

I understand how confused you are when you realize that all your hard works do not turn up they way you think they should be. When all the sudden you start questioning 'The perfect plan' you believed had been drawn for you as a believer.

The truth is, there is no such thing as heavenly-drawn perfect plan. And if I might say, there is no such thing as taken-for-granted life either. Not even when you think that you've paid your dues. You might say this is cynical, but I'd rather phrase it as being realistic. Am I against all the concept of utopianism? You may say so. The Shangri-La thing, the soul-mate thing, and particularly the heavenly-ordered life thing the way you perceived. I believe that all those ideas are invented in and by one's perception as the ways to deliberate their powerlessness. While in fact, they work more like fantasies that refrain one from persistently thrives with his bests.

Do I learn this from my lessons, or from all those crappy books you hated, does not really matter here. The important is, there are times in one's life when he or she will eventually come to his or her senses, giving up the ideal idea, be prepared for the worst and stop whining. I am sorry that you've learned it in the harsh way as much as I hate to be the one who burst this taken-for-granted bubble for you.

God knows who'll turn up to be right in the end. I would be more than happy if it won't be me. But for the time being, if it's up to me to choose between asking the life to be kind or be prepared for the worst of all kind, then I'd rather choose the later. And I have no shame for that. Now, the choice is yours.

Sincerely sorry,

Single and Winner

Single and childless women in their 30s or older are makeinu, According to novelist Junko Sakai, who coined the phrase with her bestseller "Makeinu no Toboe (The Howl of the Losing Dog)," It doesn't matter how successful, beautiful or happy they might be. They're all "loser dogs." The book sold 150,000 copies--a big hit, has created a big buzz in offices, cafes and sushi bars, as well as on the net and in the media; everybody suddenly debates if loser dogs are really losers.

Loser dogs are a social underclass from the way they act. Without a family to care for, or a husband to order them about, they enjoy sizable disposable incomes and lots of free time. They shop lavishly, travel and adopt sophisticated and expensive hobbies like collecting kimonos, attending Kabuki theater or studying the tea ceremony. You might say loser dogs nourish culture instead of babies. Married women with children, on the other hand, don't feel much like winners. In fact, most feel like losers, says Sakai, and envy their single friends

The truth is ever since the Equal Employment Opportunities Law, kicked in 20 years ago, generations of professional women have been coming to the same conclusion: that marriage, at least in the Japanese social system, just isn't worth it at all, not even for sex. It's no secret that many married people in this country just don't sleep with each other. In fact, if we're to believe the recent surveys in one prominent magazine, more than 80 percent of couples refrain from intimacy after a period of anywhere between 6 months to 2 years after the wedding and remain that way for, like, years.

Both blame each other for this loosing-dog phenomenon, women bemoan the lack of ii otoko (lovable men) in this country --it is a common perception that Japanese men are indeed awkward and romance-less men, while women are dying to get romantically involved. On the other hand, losing-dog men are mainly saddled with an inferiority complex. Many of them say that strong and independent professional women have come to frighten them. And complain that instead of dating an available, "nice" (meaning boring) man, thirtysomethings women go for the dangerously attractive married one.

In her essays collection, Sakai, 37 (who is a "looser" herself and in many ways reminds me of Ayu Utami with her "Parasite Single") for the first time calls out loud and questioning the hypocrisy in Japanese patriarch society to label a woman a winner just because she's married. Marriage, she said, is not a competition and single is as honorable choice as married, and therefore any single makeinu woman should be proud of her choice and come out to declare herself as a winner.

After all, it doesn't matter what people think anyway does it...or does it?