To my dearest cat...

24th September is the day when my cute-spoiled-arogant-funny-loveable cat passed away beacuse of disease...

I know this is the best for him because he suffer for weeks, but I'm still crying almost all night. he still five y'old, he's not suppose to die now, but who am I to complain God decision...

I just wish I could hold him much longer, have him at my house as a part of 'home'...

Facing The Bridge

I’m standing at the edge... facing the bridge in front of me, the bridge that lead me to many opportunities, but also contain many risks.
I’m standing and thinking.... should I cross the bridge or turn away and leave?
I don’t know what lies ahead... I don’t know what I will encounter when I cross the bridge. I might be astonished by the venue or I will fall to the depth underneath and crushed into pieces.
But if I turn away, will it be better for me, or it just another form of destruction? The dull and slow-motion destruction with series of questioning myself.

So here I am still standing…
Facing the bridge…

Thinking…

Narcissus and the lake

Prolog of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who daily knelt beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus. But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the Goddesses of the Forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the Goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."

"But..... was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the Goddesses said in wonder, "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally it said:

"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the alchemist thought.

when changes occur

One day I sat alone in my living room and thinking about things that recently happen in my life.

Many changes occur during the past month, people that I care making decision without my consent, people that I need to ask their approval before deciding something important. I feel useless, meaningless, and powerless upon things that happened.

Who are they and what they do to them? Please bring back the real them that I know, the rational and logical people as they used to be. The people that make me believe the real thing, people that make me believe in my own judgment based upon fairness and reality. Now they demand me to be what they want me to be, demand me to understand, but how? We all talk different things right now, care upon different things now.

Am I being left behind while all of them are moving and changing? Then why I feel like they’re chasing ghost?

Oh, how I wish to be careless, to be ignorant, to shut my eyes and ears and live my own clamshell world. To be selfish and walk away, leaving all this only to be dealt by the weekend. But I can’t…

I just can’t.

And here I am hold on to things that was real, as a shade of memory and fruitless hope of good things that may come if I stay a bit longer.

“To see the world as so conniving, you cannot take pleasure in the
appareance of something good... because you suspect...
it is only a painted drop behind which other troubles lie.”
Madeline Bray (Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens)

Second Front (Medan Tempur Kedua)

Dalam kesempatan ini, gw memutuskan untuk berbahasa Indonesia. Mengapa? Karena pekerjaan gw adalah mem-bahasa Indonesia-kan buku ini. Medan Tempur Kedua oleh Ken Conboy yang karyanya telah menjadi semacam kamus bagi orang yang pekerjaannya terkait dengan spionase, terorisme, militer, dsj.

Sejujurnya ini bukan jenis buku yang lazim gw baca. Gw bukan penggemar literature spionase dan terorisme (kecuali Jason Bourne :D). Tapi ternyata selama menerjemahkannya, gw menemukan kisah ini sangat menarik. Kenapa? Karena ini nyata. Ini merupakan bagian dari sejarah Indonesia yang penuh dengan rahasia dan misteri.

Buku ini menceritakan sepak terjang Jemaah Islamiyah mulai dari kelahirannya di Desa Ngruki, pengasingan kedua pendirinya di Malaysia, hingga aksi-aksi pemboman yang mereka lakukan di Medan, Bali, dan Jakarta, serta kaitan mereka dengan Al-Qaeda.

Nama-nama seperti Abu Bakar Baasyir, Hambali, Dr. Azhari merupakan nama yang akan sering ditemui di dalam buku ini. Dan tidak hanya sekedar menyajikan fakta belaka, Ken Conboy (yang senang mempersulit hidupku dengan menggunakan analogi dan istilah aneh) menceritakan latar belakang orang-orang tersebut yang mendorong mereka bergabung ke dalam Jemaah Islamiyah. Misalnya Dr. Azhari yang dulunya tukang main saat masih sekolah di Australia, yang kemudian bergabung dengan JI setelah istrinya sakit parah.

Menurut gw, kita sebagai warga Indonesia perlu untuk lebih memahami sejarah dan apa yang sesungguhnya terjadi di Indonesia. Ironis sekali orang yang menulis sejarah kita berasal dari luar negeri. Tapi terlepas dari asal sang sumber, sebuah buku berisi pengetahuan selalu pantas untuk dibaca. Meski tidak lupa untuk menelaahnya sendiri saat selesai membaca nanti...

Medan Tempur Kedua. 2008. Ken Conboy. Alih bahasa: Syahrini Dyah N. Jakarta: Pustaka Primatama.