Desirable difficulties

Warning: profanity (idk why I feel the need to give you all a heads-up lol)

Have you ever felt like your life is extremely fucked up but you seem to enjoy it?

When a mentee of mine asked me how I did seem so composed and unaffected despite all the life problems that fucked me up altogether (am I being... gangbanged lol), I told him that it wasn't true at all. I am deeply affected, and it was actually painful for me despite the tremendous support from my closest ones. However painful it is, the emotions I have been feeling in these past 4 weeks were kind of strange in a surprisingly positive way. Yes, I was sad for a couple of hours. In fact, there was a time when I couldn't hold back my tears at all and just let them out, heavy although quietly, in the middle of a busy cafe attracting so many eyes. But then, I went to the gym for two hours straight and all the negative feelings disappeared into a thin air: it transformed into excitement instead.

Is it the gym? Or am I in denial?

Adil sejak dalam pikiran.

Ada ngga sih satu kutipan dari buku yang pernah lo baca dan itu sangat powerful—se-powerful itu sampai lo mengingat kutipannya hingga bertahun-tahun kemudian? Kalo gue, kutipan ini dari buku Bumi Manusia-nya Pramoedya Ananta Toer:

“Seorang terpelajar harus berlaku adil sudah sejak dalam pikiran, apalagi dalam perbuatan."

Entah gimana makna sebenernya yang dimaksud Pram, makna yang gue tangkep adalah sebagai manusia yang bermoral, tindakan kita harus merefleksikan apa yang kita pikirkan. Misal, gue bertindak adil supaya mendapatkan validitas dari masyarakat alias pencitraan, tapi sebenernya gue ngga bener-bener pengen adil. Gue pengen korup misalnya, tapi karena satu dan lain hal jadi ngga bisa. Meskipun gue tidak korupsi pada akhirnya, gue tetap tidak bermoral.

Tapi berlaku adil sejak dalam pikiran ini sulit banget ngga sih untuk dilakukan. Seringnya gue melakukan sesuatu simply karena dianggap desirable aja oleh society atau pertemanan. Bukan berarti itu sesuatu yang buruk sih. Bagus malah, kan jadi desirable. Tapi akan lebih baik ngga sih kalo kita ngga perlu lagi memikirkan permasalahan ini? Kayak udah otomatis aja gitu pikiran dan aksi kita merefleksikan sifat-sifat baik yang desirable?

Mungkin pada dasarnya gue memang tidak desirable dan bermoral ya WKWKW, tapi gue berharap bisa selalu adil sejak dalam pikiran. Ngga cuma ke orang lain tapi juga ke diri sendiri. Kadang merasa sering kali membohongi diri sendiri: apa yang dilakukan tidak mencerminkan apa yang diinginkan. Awalnya berpikiran bahwa itu yang terbaik buat diri sendiri dan orang-orang lain pun merasa demikian. Tapi setelah dilakukan kok kenapa painful banget yah...

Tapi memang ngga ada jaminan bahwa sebuah pilihan itu baik atau buruk ngga sih? Bisa jadi dua-duanya baik, atau sebaliknya, dua-duanya buruk. Dalam hidup, kita sebenernya hanya memilih sebuah pilihan yang less painful di antara pilihan-pilihan painful lainnya sih ya biasanya. Tapi gimana jadinya kalo akhirnya mulai menyadari bahwa ini bukan rasa sakit yang ingin dialami? Menyesal pun jadi sebuah pilihan yang lebih painful sehingga tidak diambil.

Ngomong apa gue.

Tau ngga apa yang lebih painful? Ketiban beban 20kg di gym. Gue sumpahin orang yang naro plate 20kg di rak paling atas ngga akan bertambah massa ototnya!!! Ngga considerate banget sumpah dia pikir upper body orang lain se-strong itu buat ngeluarin plate 20kg di rak paling atas?!?! Pasti dia mau pamer ke pengunjung lain pas naro plate itu kek "nii liat nii gue strong banget lohhh bisa naro beban 20kg ini di rak paling atas" 😡

^ ini contoh tidak adil sejak dalam pikiran. Padahal pas ketimpa beban itu gue terlihat chill padahal di dalam pikiran kayak 😡🤬😖‼️

Monsterating

People who experience menstruation may understand this feeling in which we basically become a massive crybaby in addition to being a cranky bitch we never thought we were. No wonder why Luke from Modern Family called it "monsterating" because even I sometimes felt scared while thinking of my past behaviours and decisions I made during my period.

Still, our hormonal changes within some stages of the period cycle shouldn't be a justification for our bad behaviour. I can totally understand when some people including myself are sometimes fallen victim to it, but we also need to own the consequence. We shouldn't get away with our actions just because we have a fully-functioned uterus, girls.

For those who never experience menstruating, don't you ever tell us that our poor actions are the result of the hormonal changes we might experience because: 

1. Everybody is built differently (literally) so not everyone in their period experiences an emotional rollercoaster ride;
2. It shows your ignorance by somehow invalidating people's feelings. Just because we're on our period, doesn't mean that what we feel is not real.

It's also valid for you to feel exasperated with our irrational conduct and feelings. You can feel angry with us, but to confront us while we are at the peak of our emotions is pointless: it's just adding fuel to the fire. If you understand the concept of hormones, you might as well understand that on account of it, we are not in control of our emotions like usual days: our rationality is taken hostage just at that exact moment.

My advice is just to retreat from the scene and reassemble while everybody is in their right mind. Communicate each others' feelings and solve the problem afterwards.

Also, not everything that we do is as extreme as making stupid conflicts with other people. Sometimes it is as harmless as crying on the night bus ride without any reason, or crying over abang-abang gojek yang videoin air mancur Senayan Park lol gue sih kalo ini.

Huff, I wish making essays would be as easy as rambling nonsense like what I wrote in this blog ya.

The death of the Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.

The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/VfxpXro22W

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 8, 2022

I had this post written very early in the morning (it was 1 a.m.), deeply saddened, after figuring out that the former British monarch had died.

You may think it's exaggerated of me to feel such a deep emotion towards someone who was practically a stranger to me. She didn't even know I existed! And I didn't even know what kind of person she was in real life. The news, documentaries, and articles on the internet gave me an idea of her personality, character, and life, which weren't quite reliable sources to get to know a person.

I felt so silly, but I couldn't help it. The news kinda devastated me.

For some context, I've been a huge fan of the British monarchy ever since a very young age. My mum used to be a fan of Princess Diana, so she somehow introduced me to the matter. I remember making an essay about Princess Diana in my 4th (or 5th?) grade with her help. Also, for that essay, I was required to read many articles related to the British monarchy and ended up loving every bit about the United Kingdom afterwards.

There's a reason why I used to name this blog the United Kingdom of My World you know (which sounds silly now almost 12 years later). It's an obsession, I would say, with the United Kingdom and its monarch. Also about its culture, history, and even with their accent.

My respect for the late Queen has been growing in recent years after watching Netflix's The Crown. The series made me do the fact-checking from the articles and documentaries on the internet. As a result, I found myself admiring the Queen even more. She was the symbol of duty, dedication, and loyalty who possessed a witty kind of humour, which I found very charming. 

The fact that during her long remarkable year, she led the greatest nation in the world throughout the darkest moments such as World War II and the Covid-19 pandemic; drove a jeep in her 90s; trained as mechanics during the world war; she was indeed the definition of a strong woman leader (and quite a cool grandma too). Truly inspirational for every woman around the world including myself.

I'm fully aware that the Queen actively participated in modern colonialism (and many had died under her name to this day). It's a fact that we shouldn't sweep it under the rug. However, we couldn't ignore that with the passing of the Queen, the world is going to be affected greatly. People basically are uncomfortable with big changes, so I can understand why it's such a shock for some people. Especially the people of the United Kingdom.

It is the end of an era indeed.

Open minded.

Open-minded itu apa sih sebenernya?

In everyday use, the term "open-minded" is often used as a synonym for being non-prejudiced or tolerant. From a psychological perspective, the term is used to describe how willing people are to consider other perspectives or to try out new experiences (source)

Alasan kenapa gue berpikir kembali terkait definisi open-minded karena somehow open-mindedness identik dengan orang yang liberal dan sebaliknya, orang yang konservatif dianggap close-minded. Tapi di kejadian nyata, banyak banget orang yang mengaku liberal dan open-minded tapi judgemental dengan budaya, agama, atau sistem yang udah established, dan juga orang-orang yang masih mengikuti sistem tersebut. Di kepala gue, kalo mereka berpikir kayak begitu bukankah jadi mereka yang close-minded karena ngga "open" dengan pemikiran lain? Atau mereka sebenernya bukan open-minded tapi rebellious aja?