Passing 16 days of July 2006, several unexpected things happened. Generally, I dislike the 16 days of July 2006 ‘coz three people I knew had someone in the family struck with stroke. Like or dislike, ain’t up to me after all. ‘coz when the time comes, the time comes. No use bitchin’ over it, even if it happens to me, as it did in the past.
I said this before, and I say this again. I won’t be nobody’s fool for no good reason. Even for a good reason, I won’t stand being someone else’s fool. If it comes to a point that I have to be someone else’s fool or walk away from it all, then I choose the latter.
Experience is one of the best, if not, the best teacher out there. Wise words from the dead, from dead thing (i.e. books), or from the living don’t mean nothin’ if you can’t compare, contrast, and apply ‘em. Wise words would simply be like rubbish or nonsense garbled by whoever, akin to the stuff I wrote before this blog.
The stuff I wrote before this blog, titled, "the left over," can’t be deciphered. I don’t even know what the heck I was writing about, ‘coz it wasn’t meant to be deciphered, for it meant nothing but rubbish. The fanatic guru or sage of writing might even criticize and sez, "what a waste of empty blank space; writing simply rubbish." Perhaps, they’re rite! Anyway, if you so happen to read it, and got confused, don’t be, ‘coz there’s nothing to be confused about it in the first place.
Here, I’m testing something. Maybe to know my limit, but so far, things are ok, generally. I think I am doing the right stuffs, but it got people confused and a couple or so misinterpreted. But it wasn’t meant for those few individuals to decipher my inner intention in the first place.
I sorely wanted to learn new skills, new techniques, from those better than I, and/or elsewhere. But in the end, I am learning to use old skills, old techniques, in combination, and in a somewhat innovative way. A hybrid. But, I don’t believe they’re anything new at all. Then, it so happens that as I proceeded with the hybrid, something else happened. Actually a few things happened. Outside of my expectations, even if there is a single expectation to begin with. I think some, maybe many of us encounter this, too, ja?
Why the desire? It’s just a challenge. The mind works, the brain works, and putting those to work and to see it materialize in some sorta shape in reality makes me goo-goo and gaa-gaa. Like a child seeing his/her first fireworks.
It’s the 17th of July. New things will be happening soon. Actually a few new things are already in motion. I’m looking forward to August 17 to August 21. It’ll be high time I visited Lake Toba. Got a campin’ and hikin’ trip there. My first ever visit to North Sumatera province, Medan to be precise.
MR was surprised why I was so estatic after receiving her gifts. Well, I just like her gifts a lot, that’s all. And I really treasure ‘em! Haven’t get the chance to checking them all. No worry. Good stuffs are meant to be delighted in patiently. Music, especially cool music, imho, should be appreciated that way. Savouring and bidding one’s desire to be calm, bit by bit.
If uncommon music to laymen’s term is metal, acid, satanic, country, punk, or whatever. Then, mine’s slightly uncommon. Those that in the global consumerism market deem uncommon or underground are still heard of in the global sense. But there are music, some semi-global, the rest available only in the most limited sense that struck me as interesting. Meaning, generally, elsewhere in the world, someone might have heard of satanic music, acid jazz, metal, punk, or whatever (even the Asians have heard that). Yet, music from the East are generally not common to the Western ears. And I don’t meant Chinese/Hong Kong/Indonesian/MalaysianKorean/Japanese/Vietnamese/Thai popular music. I meant something more micro.
But, music, like art, is a subjective delight of the ears, soul, mind, and taste. Yet, music, too, is a universal language. This starts from the beating of mom’s heart when we are just a really fragile lifeform inside mom’s womb.
Perhaps, I, like you, don’t really belong to the MTV generation. I don’t belong to the VH1 generation, either. I don’t belong to the flower sub-culture of the ’70s, nor the hippies and yuppies. I don’t belong to the rock-’n-roll ’80s, nor the pop culture of the ’90s, less yet the trance culture and club music of the ’00s.
Every individual makes his/her own choice or choices. Decision, decisions. To know that you have the power to choose, the power to decide, that is real knowledge. That is empowerment.
To exercise that knowledge, by consciously and conscientiously choosing or deciding, is power, too.
If you so freely allow yourself to be swayed left and right, up and down, back and forth by whatever or whoever around you, when and whence could you claim yourself free? If you wanna claim yourself free, understand and know that you as an individual have the power to choose, the power to decide. Then, understand, know, and accept it in its entirety. What follows next? Understand, know, and accept that there are consequences that follow your decision. We have power to decide, the power to chose. But we don’t necessarily have the power over the reaction, the consequence, the chain reaction, or the effect/s caused. Yet, through wisdom, logic, and experiences (and maybe something else), we could deduce several possibilities that could arise following our choices/decisions. We may perhaps induce several possibilities, too. But we can’t always anticipate and induce everything. We are human after all.
The media so often forced the message to conform. Not to conform means to be an outcast, maybe, a derelict, or a vagabond. One good example in Indonesia, is a recent advertisement from Telkomsel, the so-called #1 mobile-cellular phone operator. The ad said, more than 18 million people chose Telkomsel, so why do you have to be different?
Is there a pressure? Yea, part subtle, part forcible. Part conscious, part unconscious. But, you can make a difference. You can choose Telkomsel’s Simpati or Hallo product not because you are convinced or pressured to conform. Heck, I don’t even think the consumers are that stupid to switch over to Telkomsel after seeing the ad. But, there’s a fool born every second, and one will never really know for sure… (the one writing and/or reading this might just very well be that "fool born every second…" ::LoL::)
That is the nature of consumerism, and global consumerism. Driven by profit-taking and/or profit-making, it’s a game that’s normalized and commonalized to the point of banality.
To be unique, to be different is to be an outcast. How many youngsters today suffer from inferiority complex syndrome? Let alone adults?
Yet at the same time, the media got sly, and the theme of uniqueness and ‘dare’ to be different is commercialized for one objective. Consume this product. Consume this product, ‘coz unique and/or ‘dare’ to be different type of individuals also consume this product.
There’s a cigarette advertisement that do that. Actually there are several cigarette advertisement and beauty products ads that use that strategy.
What’s the difference between consumerism and conservism? Many people of the past, in human’s history, learn what is conservism. You’ve got naturalists, or those who believe in the balance of nature that conserve (recycle, reuse) and replenish after they take stuffs from nature.
In present day society, the wave of consumerism is so powerful that it touches, engulfs, and at times drowns everyone, everywhere. Perhaps where the media can touch, that’s where, too, the media rolls out its dice/s.
Would it be funny or cool to look at a cigarette advertisement that uses cartoon characters, sayin’ that it’s cool to smoke? Would it be funny or cool, too, if the cartoon characters are, what certain sub-culture or part of the society would consider, as handsome/cool/charming/sexy/beautiful? Well, audience of the billboard ad or TV ad may say, "wow, that handsome/cool/charming/sexy/beautiful cartoon character/s smokes this brand of cigarette, and look at how popular and/or cool that character is in the TV/billboard/magazine"?
Where does it hit? Identity. Peer-pressure. Teenagers’ insecurity. Conforming. Conformity.
How many more victims should fall? (is it even correct to use the term ‘victims’?)
Ain’t saying that consumerism is a bad or a good thing. Just sayin’ that the effect, after effect, the chain reaction will be more than what’s expected initially. The sum of the total effect way outweighs the tiny little material profit gained. The harms done to today’s youths or youngsters would weigh heavily, if not upon the society as a whole, then upon the burden of the nation/s.
Well, enough babbling. Random thoughts kick ass. And I need to pee.
14 days in front of me, plus 1 day today. I wonder what life would present to me. How the present-future would unfold as I go through life makes me enthusiastic and curious. But, I don’t want to know too much about the future, ‘coz curiousity can sometimes kill the cat. And I, absolutely-definitely ain’t a meow-meow!!
Meow…………………………………………………..!!
Barf barf, Worf……………………………………………………………!
Summa-Shienna-Tola-Lee-Tola-Laa-Bula-Bhu-Lala……………!!!
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Andrias Y.
July 17, 2006
