Thank You, Everyone!

Hello, everyone!

I really like the fact that most of me writing things in this blog is an act of escapism from the assignments or studies that I have to do. I love the fact that maybe I can do something more productive than writing blogs though, like practicing things that I used to be good at and now not so much. But then again, maybe it's not so good after all, since I really have to do my assignments and study for final exams next week.

I went through photos again today. I went through old photos a lot.

Just like this blog, I love seeing them again and again to remind me of what of me that has changed and what of me that stays (I am very concerned with my personal growth so please excuse me). But other than that, I'm also very happy that every time I saw them, I realized that there are more lovely people that has entered my life and made my days even brighter and more fun to live in. I realized that there are more people that I come to treasure and whom I prayed their happiness for. I'm so happy.

It flies very fast; the time. Well. Then again, I guess it just seems so because I'm spending it happily.

It's really funny that everything is so very fun and the people are so very sweet--I feel like the universe is trying to spoil me (to the fact that I'm scared that it would crumble one time and then throw me into a pit of despair just like how the universe can be very cruel but let's not get into that). But I think that in a way the universe is a little bit cruel by letting everything ends--making you experience parting with the moment you cherish and people you finally come to love, even when you feel like you own it--but I guess it goes hand in hand with it giving you unpleasant things and letting you part with it and become stronger, cooler, and more mature as it pasts, so... okay.

I just wanted to say thank you for everyone who has been generous enough to smile at me, talk to me nicely, hear my incessant noise, share stories and views with me, laugh at my jokes, wave at me, hug me tightly, kiss me on the cheek--despite all of our differences in everything. Thank you for giving me invaluable life lessons and thank you for making me feel welcomed, happy and loved.

I'm so happy. I hope all of you can always be happy and for all of your dreams to come true. I wish for all of your health and fortune, and for your life to be filled with lots of love.

Kisses!

Haven't Really Change

- Me, three years ago. 

Artists

I have a theory that some artists are actually mediums.

(By mediums I meant people that practice mediumship.)

You know, I think it's common for people to feel moved by a certain work of art or music--and that there's a saying here and there about a certain work of art or music having a soul. And how it touches one.

I'm starting to think that it probably because some piece of art or music are actually souls. And the artists are mediums of which delivering the soul into one piece of painting, or song, or dance. Every great artists are those who are able to mediate the soul properly and wholly. And a great piece of art actually a soul of one great--strong, remarkable, important--people from the past. For example, one piece of art is probably a soul of Nikola Tesla, or Mother Theresa, or Cleopatra or maybe soul of Genghis Khan or Adolf Hitler. It's embodied in a form where it can be seen and heard--with colors and strokes or tunes.

And I think some other artist, instead of mediating other great souls that float around in the universe, they are mediating a piece of their soul into a piece of art. It's an incentive for them and when they died, people will always recognize them from what they did--because those paintings or music are actually their soul in other forms. Like how Michael Jackson's and Bach's soul probably stay in their music, or how Van Gogh's soul probably stays in his paintings.

Some other artists may create enjoyable and great art yet might not have a soul in them. But some of those soulless works may then have a soul after a while--it usually because they absorb joy, happiness and pleasant feeling or fear, disgust or realization that comes from other people who heard or saw the said work. It basically absorbs feelings and emotion that it evoked and lives from that. Maybe if it's that wonderful, it'll be embodied in a human after a few centuries.

I like this theory. 

Déjà vu

Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet. - Dr Manhattan (Watchmen, Ch. IX, p. 6) 

I have experienced déjà vus. A lot of people does, I suppose. It’s a common occurrence. It’s less intense now–when I’m in junior high school the déjà vus came often and in full force, to the point that shouting “This must be déjà–!” is part of the déjà vu. (I have more vivid and lucid dreams at those times as well. Must be the amount of sleep I had back then). I have a déjà vu recently, about me talking to my friends in the McDonalds, them both sitting across me.

It got me thinking.

What if Doctor Manhattan was right?

There is no past. There is no future. The notion of time is just a term to refer how humans perceived reality–linear.

Things are already happening.
No.

Things happen. And it all happen simultaneously. It’s a chunk of solid object that has no concept of appearing “before” or “later”. It’s… you know. It just exists. All of them exist. Not in a way that one thing affects the other, but in a way that the whole thing is already set to be that way.

And déjà vus are the times in sleep when humans are seeing time in its real form. Déjà vu is the moment when instead of looking at time (reality) as something linear, you are peeking other part of time–a time you perceived as “future”, when there is no future. There is just reality that you have experienced in other time. If I’m using Dr. Manhattan’s analogy, it would be that déjà vu is the moment when instead of seeing the jewel clockwise (or whatever wise) in a fixed angle, you turn it upside down or turn it counter-clockwise or just see from another angle. If I’m using my analogy, it would be that time is a book, and déjà vu is the moment when you are flipping through a few pages after the part you’re reading. A moment that, unlike flipping through books, we seemed to have no ability to control of (at least consciously).

A very thick book at that (maybe not so thick for others). 

And boom.

Of course déjà vu ”will” happen.
It already "happened".

And if that’s true, then the concept of time can be more simpler. Of course people experienced time in different manner, that it’s different in variety of locations–it’s probably because time is not universal.

And if that’s true, then the term “fate” can never be truer.







(But hey, it's not that I'm an expert in physics or anything.)

p.s. it turns out that there IS a term referring (sort of) to this notion! It’s called Eternalism.
p.p.s it says nothing about déjà vu, though.

Some friends I made

For more or less two months I've been in Singapore, I made some more friends. I'm trying to make a list.. sort of like this one.. but it won't be discontinued (I feel sad about that, those who haven't been mentioned are all nice and special also) and I won't mention all of them. Just some. None of them are Indonesian on purpose.

(Just so you know, they're in alphabetical order)

Amanda

She taught me how to tap dance.

Fer

I think she's very pretty.

Jay

His face is always pleasant.

Kay

She recommended cool picture books to me. She has a very cute voice.

Louis

He gives warm hugs.

Maria

She didn't know (until I mention it) that China has the biggest population in the world. 

Navy

She's very pretty and witty and funny. She doesn't have a boyfriend yet.

Nay

She told me "I love you" in Bahasa Indonesia and taught me how to say "I love you" in Khmer.

Ryan

He is the first friend I made in class.

Shen Yang

She insisted to have a colorful template for a presentation because her topics is politics and she doesn't want to make it gloomier by having such dark template.

Other note: we komedians (term describing those people in my study program) are making a dictionary. Dictionary is needed because our jokes are painfully internal and usually academic-related, and there's unusually lot of us who is going on an exchange program. It'll be handy for those who just got back from a semester or year away to get the jokes when you have a dictionary, right? 

It's really funny.

There are something else I want to talk about regarding friends. I have a lot of friends; friends whom I close to because a lot of time spent together with them, friends whom I close to because of the same interests, friends whom I not very close with, and friends whom I close to because we share the same idea. But there are friends that I made, magically don't really belong in those categories. And those people are mostly those who got a very special place in my heart, I'd say. (Not that those in the said categories don't have a special place in my heart).

They are people that I can comfortably share my ideas with, even though we don't know each other for a long time, even though we don't even meet regularly, even when we don't share the same idea. Even when we are so very different that the only thing that brought us together is the fact that we can share  thoughts and ideas, that we find each other nice to talk with. And then again, I can't tell if they're my close friends (because we really don't interact that much; in a year, I can count times when we meet to sit and talk together with one hand--sometime none in a year's time) and I'm very sure that they have their own important friends to whom they confide with lots of times (me too), but I just know that they are just special.

Other than that, I think if these friends have anything in common, it would be that they don't think my ideas--or me in general--silly. Or even if they think so, they love me for it.


But having said that, my sister is still the person whom I share most of my playlist with (and the bed, of course). Hard to beat her for that.