One Last Dance With You, Before I Die.

Sunday, August 6th 2006, 10 pm.
Song: ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down’ – by: Fall Out Boy

Am I more than you bargained for yet?
I’ve been dying to tell you anything you want to hear
That’s just who I am this week..



Hey y’all, what’s bangin’?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve been away for a while… I create the idea. Where have I been, you ask? I was visiting an old friend’s graveyard. It’s the old friend that I’ve been with for many years, and guess how he died? I killed him. Shot him right in the head with a few back-stabbing and all that (sorry dude, sh*t happens)… it was so much fun. All the things you won’t care and you don’t want to know. Hell, you wouldn’t even know if I lie…

Or not.

Anyway, the first thing to mention here today is that I am so stupid. Here’s how it all started: One day I went to this bookshop. As usual, I looked around at the literature shelves and I found this new thick novel by my favorite author. The story is great and quite provocative but the cover sucks, and my money worth more than just a great story. The cover sucks big time so I didn’t buy it. I continued perusing around AND my eyes stuck on this small, thin little white book. Sometimes big thing came in a small package, right? Well here’s what I’ve learned: if you’re not ready for the big thing, don’t even bother to try your luck. I’m telling you, if you’re an avid reader but your scale is, say, Rowling or Albom (not meaning to degrade you guys. You’re both outstanding writers, but in the end of this paragraph you’ll know who had beaten you up and you’ll agree with me) , or on higher note Atwood or Plath, and then one day you wake up and decided that you want to step up a little by reading Nietzche… let’s just say you might want to reconsider.

Yes, I bought that small, thin little white book by Friedrich Nietzche called ‘Why I Am So Wise’. And after I read what Nietzche had to say, I felt like I’m the stupidest creature on the planet. Back then when people say he’s a genius, I really didn’t believe them. I couldn’t blame myself, I’m hard to impress. BUT after I read that book… they were right, Nietzche is a tad genius! A Brilliant author, really. I need about 10-15 minutes just to understand a page of his book. Every words matter. Every phrase has important meaning. Every line was wisdom wrapped in intelligence. If there’s anything that makes me likes him first, it’ll be the fact that even the foreword of his book blows me away! What kind of insanity could a book held when even the foreword could put its reader to such amazement??! Moreover, Nietzche denied what I believed in. Yes, he denied everything that I thought was true.

On my previous posts I’ve mentioned over and over again how I needed a teacher right? I felt so lost that I wanted a teacher so bad. Someone I could look up to, someone to give me the answer I’ve been dying to get. Well, here’s what Nietzche had to say to his pupils that respect him so dearly:

‘The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels? You respect me, but how if one day your respect should tumble? Take care that a falling statue does not strike you dead. You had not yet sought yourselves when you found me. Thus do all believers, therefore all belief is of so little account. Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves, and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.’

*shook her head*

His brain is damaged for sure… that notion could last till the next millennium! And that’s just the foreword, ladies and gents.

Oh yeah, I forget to salute some of my (possibly) new visitors! The famous Tjahaja Tjhicks! (^o^)/ One of them you’ve known, Nunu, and the other two, Chiwi and Muti. *Oryx mode off* --> Hai, Haiii…finally you read my blog jugaaa! Btw nu, seharusnya sekarang gw nyiapin bwt DTM drg. Yuli bow buat besok… tapi what can I do apa daya? Tiba-tiba aja pengen yang gelap2… (alah, apaan coba?) Huehehew… moga2 besok lancar, amiiiin! Chiwi, Muti! SD baru pegimane ceritanya bu? Yang terselubung deket pu’un2 udah gw datengin bareng Chiwi, tapi pagi semua… ndak ada yang petang. Gimana dung?

*Oryx mode on*

Oh yeah, there’s a sequence of events, starting with the discussion I had with Tjahaja girls, that made me… I dunno, think more lately. About everything, y’know… me, my life, what I want to do, what I don’t want to do, who I am, who I could be, how things are, how things should be, my future and all that jazz. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m scared of my future. It’s blurry… I can’t see how I’m gonna be good at what I do. Lately I just don’t feel like it’s my field. I don’t belong there. Every morning is painful, and I hate it when Sunday’s over. I’m not excited and passionate at what I do. It’s just another task, another job, another home work for me to finish. No enjoyment, no dedication, and even no interest. How severe is that? It’s wrong, I know it’s wrong. Maybe you think ‘So you hate Monday, so you hate work. Well, so does everybody!’ But I only live once, don’t I? Can’t I have it perfect, the life I have? Just like those Souljah people. I wonder if they’re happy now… Can’t I have it my way?

Everything starts from here. This, education and work, is my basis. Since I was little, my perfect grade is my value. Everyone sees me through that… my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my neighbors, my parents’ friends. And now that I have these doubts, I wonder if they’re still gonna love me if, say, I quit doing what I do—which is what they’re proud of the most out of me. If I quit, if I do something else that they won’t approve but I’ll really enjoy doing, will they still accept me? Because acceptance is what we I need. This, I know for sure. Ignorance could kill, and so we need acceptance. Everything that we do, every descent job existed on earth, their main goal is so that we can be accepted… by the society, by the culture and its people, by a group of superficial hypocrites, it doesn’t matter by who, we just want to be accepted.

This job I’m doing? I do it--and my parents want me to do it-- because it gives you a lot of money. You’ll be rich. Being rich means being easily accepted by various society genres. You get to choose, that’s the power these money will give you. That’s why parents told their children to do this kind of job, to guarantee their future. Good deed indeed, but is it wise though, to tell the kid what to do and not really listen to what the kid might want to say?

My issue here is that what I’ve written above is the thing that I believe in. I could be wrong.

I want to be accepted, but I also want to enjoy life. But if I switched to another job that I’d enjoy, I won’t be accepted. Plus, me doing that equals to me destroying my own base (good education, good grades, all that academic stuff)! And I’m a spoiled brat, how do I know I could handle that alone? My parents surely won’t support my crazy ideas.

*sigh*

What a mad circle, eh? Life could be so bitter… The reason I came up to this, the whole future life issue, is the discussion I had with Tjahaja chicks. It wasn’t really a discussion either actually, more of a gossip… something we do really well that I believe it’s actually in our genes! ;P It’s about earthquake and the signs that indicates the earthquake. It was said that if you see a cloud in a shape of vertical white thin line in the sky, that means the city under that cloud will be having an earthquake. There’s no explainable theory about this, as to what’s the relation between the vertical line-shaped cloud and the earthquake, but statistically, 7 out of 10 cities that were suffering earthquake had this signal on their skies before the earthquake happened! And lately, this weird-shaped cloud was noticed above Jakarta! Hence the rumor that there’ll be an earthquake in Jakarta anytime soon!

And a few days ago, concerning this so-called gossip, my mother went to me and said how I should do Shalat right on time. Because earthquake is coming soon, and we could be dead, and you want to be ready for what’s coming after. And so I thought about death. And so I thought about making my life meaningful before I die. And there goes the connection to the whole future thing that I’ve mentioned above… because really, I don’t think what I do now is meaningful enough to me. I do not enjoy it, how can it be meaningful?

Then I came up with this new question: So I could be dead anytime soon, right? Then, what is the one thing that I really, really want to do before I die (so there’ll be no regret afterwards)? What will be my last dance on earth? I was thinking of traveling, y’know, go out, see the world and escape the boring routines… but then what? Is it really worth your last minutes on earth, traveling? Yes, you get more perspectives of the continents and cultures around the globe, but it’s for your own personal advantages. You couldn’t share it with people ‘coz you don’t have the time you need (because the idea is you'd die after the trip, since--in this case--it's the last thing you do before you die), so what’s the use of that? Ralph Waldo Emerson said ‘you could climb the highest mountain, but if there’s no one beside you to share the view with, then it’s pointless.’ And I agree with him.

Then I think about Morrie’s perfect day. That one perfect day when you gather around with the people you love and do the things you love to do… I like this idea. Togetherness and warmth never failed me, so I thought, ‘Wow, this is what I want to have… one perfect day. This is my last dance on earth.’

As to how I’m gonna start this Dance, I really don’t know. It’s hard to decide who you want to spend your last day with. Your parents? Your lover? Your friends? Or all of them? But here’s the dilemma: if you gather all of them, there’ll be too much distraction. Your love for each one of them is different. Won’t it get divided? Won’t that puzzle you?

My last dance has to be perfect. It must be able to break down all the differences’ wall between generations and genres. When you’re able to sit next to your 60 years old grandma and your 5 years old cousin and having the time of your life, when you’re able to sit next to the pretty-boy-cousin-who-thinks-of-nothing-but-pretty-girls and to your education-goes-first father and the three of you are having so much fun together, that’s when my last dance begins.

But how am I supposed to make that happen? Ah well… I guess (and I hope) I’ll figure things out before the Lebaran day. I caused the chaos, so maybe I’m the only one who could fix them up.

Anyway, that Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer bit has been bugging me since this morning. It keeps ringing on my ears like some annoying mosquito! I can’t get it out of my head!!

‘Ooooh iiiit’s aaaa…Lazy, hazy, crazy days of suuuuuhmmmeeeer…’

AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!!! Stop it!!!! I’m gonna die!!!! You know what I really want to hear? This old audiophile called ‘Misty’. It’s a great jazzy tune, very classic, very timeless… another swingin’ old sound that I need to collect.

Alright then, adjourn for now.

Oh and, p.s. I have my eyes on Arthur Schopenhauer’s ‘On the Suffering of the World’ lately. I mean, what can hurt after Nietzche? So no, it’s not Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Haunted’, but it’s Arthur Schopenhauer’s ‘On the Suffering of the World’. He got a smart, hard-to-spell name, his book was on the same shelf with Nietzche’s, and the title he chose for his book kind of indicating that he was quite depressed when he wrote it. That’s enough reason to buy his book, right? From what I know, depressed people tend to create big thing…

For a more sensible reason, the line Arthur chose to describe his book, the one that is written on the cover, is a gem. And it goes like this:

‘A quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten.’

Watch out all politicians, once this book got read by many people, you really need to create plan Bs.

Adios!