the restlessness of things

The restlessness of not writing.
The restlessness of having too much in your head, but you're not writing.
The restlessness of the stubbornness of sticking with the idea that you can live and breath well and not writing.


I know that that's what happens when I worry too much of what people might think about my writing. Or rather, what I myself might think about my writing. That's what happens when I rely too much on the perfect inspiration to come to me. 


After tossing and turning with the restlessness for about a week, I came to realize that the only thing I can do to get rid of all doubts and uncertainties is by walking through them. There's no point wondering on ways to get around them. Doubts and uncertainties, dearest Self, is as certain as everything else in this universe. The sun rises and sets, the earth spins, the clouds come and go. Uncertainties stay around.


I finally learned, through the painful mental struggle of insisting on not writing, that things will only come to perfection when they are made and created. 


There is no perfect timing, or perfect surrounding, or perfect situation, or perfect mood, or perfect ideas, to turn something into a perfect piece of art. 


There is no perfectly shaped ideas to be written. It will only become perfect if you dig it, mold it, write it and toss it and write it and toss it over and over again. 


There is no perfect mood for the day. It will only become perfect if you decide to seize the day, pull yourself together, blow the dark clouds away to oblivion, breath after breath, until the sky becomes clear. That's when you finally have the perfect day.


There is no perfectly developed skill for a job. It will only become perfect after you take the bumpy ride with all the ups and downs, the happiness and the humiliations, the tears and the laughter of victory. That's when you finally have perfect skill.


I've learned, that things become perfect through hardships and endurance. That the only way to get there (wherever you want it to be) is to take the first step, to take the plunge and falling freely, to walk further until there's no turning back. To think of what you're going to miss at this moment if you don't take the first step, instead of wondering what the future might hold or not, if you don't take the first step.


We just need to keep going. Keep going until that's the only option we have. 






South Jakarta, 1.11pm
I should read Julia's Cameron The Sound of Paper once again. I need to keep on going.

The kind of empath

So it is.

happiness is a choice?

It's funny how there are things that you've heard so many times and you thought you know what it means, but the fact is that you never really absorb what it means until it happens to you.


The most recent one happened to me was about how happiness is a choice. Happiness is your choice. You choose whether you're going to be happy, or miserable, regardless the circumstances. I've heard about it so many times. And though it never really clear to me why and how, I've accepted it as the truth. I don't know how it would felt but I've accepted it as the way things should work.

And I have to say that I'm thankful to be able to actually experience the feeling. 


I've been under the weather for about a week, having bad cough and fever that goes up and down. Yesterday it got really bad; my body was felt like a shipwreck, my head was spinning, the cough was getting worse and it caused me headache. All I wanted to do was sleep on my bed. At home. But there I was at the office, facing the computer screen, doing my works. I wore a thick jacket with a hood, and carried a tumbler containing hot tea everywhere I go. Every now and then I put my head on my desk and closed my eyes, not really sleeping, just trying to ease myself.


What surprised me was that despite everything, I was feeling happy. I found myself dancing on my seat while typing words and numbers into the screen. I looked at the sky outside and it was black, a sign that heavy rain would come down. And if you know the traffic in Jakarta, you'd know that that shouldn't be a good sign. But I was feeling okay. I danced with the body that felt like a shipwreck, I sang with a cracked voice, with a prospect of having to spend no less than 2.5 hours in the road just to get home. 


That's when it hit me, that this is probably what it means when they said that happiness is a choice. 


I could choose to be unhappy that day. I had all the reasons I need to be unhappy for the rest of the day. I don't think I'd consciously made a decision to be happy but perhaps somehow I did. Because I couldn't see anything wrong with the day and I couldn't think of any other reasons why I shouldn't be happy. 


It's a choice you could choose. It's what you choose to feel, regardless the circumstances.


Being a person who carries clouds above her head, I'm sure that choosing to be happy is not an easy thing to do. It requires skill, and skill requires practice. But at least I now know what it really means, and I think that should be a good start :)

I need to

I'm tired of being sick. 
I'm tired of fighting and struggling so hard to stand firm and tell everyone that I'm ok.
And I'm tired of explaining why. 


I just need to lay down and close my eyes, forget the world outside and sleep. 


I need to be lost.

on broken heart

In the process of growing up and growing old, I learned one important lesson that I'd never thought I'd overlooked.


The lesson I learned, is that it is very important to keep the heart in one piece.


Because it requires a rather complicated process to put everything back together once the heart breaks into pieces. Whereas it needs nothing more than a glue to put the pieces of torn or broken things back together, that’s not the case with the heart.

In putting back the pieces of broken heart, one has to undergone a complicated procedure, which involves a thorough examination of one’s deepest part of the heart and one’s reflection in the mirror. That, is never an easy task since it requires honesty and a strong willpower to stand whatever one finds there, at the heart, and in the mirror. Small steps are to be made following the examination, and they are completely depends on the cases one has. One should not copy the steps others made in putting back the broken pieces of the heart, because it’s a different heart. Forcing similar treatment to two different hearts may lead to a failure and sabotage the whole recovery process. In worst cases, it breaks the heart even more. Thus it is very important, on top of everything, before developing any recovery plans, to appreciate and accept the heart one has, the way it is. Flaws are to be acknowledged only and not to be judged. Judgment and logic are to be used at minimum, since the two tend to have nonconstructive effect on the heart, especially during recovery process. Only by accepting the uniqueness of one’s heart can one understand the way to mend it.

As for the timeline, it is better not to set any. Unmet deadlines will cause another potential wound at the heart, which is highly unwanted because the newly recovered heart have not gain its full strength yet and is rather fragile. Thus, avoid deadline. Let the heart decide. One should be able to tell whether the heart is fully recovered or not, from the way it beats in certain occasions or on meeting certain people. This is a knowledge which only the owner of the heart has access to. Thus, it is also important to keep other people’s advice at minimum. It’s a work one has to do alone, or rather, with one’s own heart alone, without external influence. External influence is also to be kept at the minimum in order to maintain a healthy sense of self confidence and a healthy dose of trust needed by the heart, which can only be given by the owner itself.

Now, I think I should end my musing on the importance of keeping a heart in one piece, and leave the conclusion to you. Is it really that important to keep the hear in one piece? Or is it really that difficult to mend a broken heart? Or should we all just plaster our heart, lock the doors and throw away the key and seal all the windows?


It would be greatly appreciated if you could share any conclusions you have made, since I haven’t been able to make any. Oh I've tried. Really. But none of them seems to make sense, I wonder why.