Kamis, 30 Desember 2010

End of Year...End of Hope ??

New year is always common with everything new, new clothes, new resolution, new day and even new hope. We let go the hopes that we held on in the past year, especially those which failed to come true. Well, as we see, some hopes are sometimes irrational, non sense, wrong and even impossible. For example, a husband who hopes his dead wife will come back to life or a kid who hopes to invent a time machine. So, by the new year comes, it’s time for us to let go the old hopes. What we fail to realize is that those hopes never really go away, those hopes never really leave us. They stay in our deepest part of heart and mind where we bury them and pretend that they have gone. But when it comes to something that will bring back our memory, such as photograph, toy, picture, places or people, those hopes will come back to the surface and we will notice that after all this time, we still have those hopes inside of us. No matter how many new years have passed, those hopes haven’t gone away from us. For some, these old hopes can be so frustrating. We want them so badly but at the same time we can’t get them. Furthermore, when we can’t take and hold the feeling anymore, we find ourselves being an ignorant people. People who are afraid of hoping because we are afraid of the failure and the depressing feeling that comes afterward. Living without hopes is like a bland life. We no longer have the purpose in our lives and we continue living our daily activities without knowing why we’re doing those and mostly without enjoying them. This kind of living will lead us into hating the life itself and unwillingness to continue living.
For some others, we have find the way to cope with these old hopes and brace them fully. Bracing old hopes means that we can open our heart, accept these old hopes and stop regretting them. When we open our heart, we brace all kinds of possible ways that can lead to the success of our old hopes, even if these ways are ways that we never expect or think to happen. We also brace these hopes to happen at any time. If they don’t become reality this year, we don’t have to forget them at all, we can still hope for them to come true next year and the year after it. For example, the husband who hoped his dead wife would come to life might find his hope come true by finding another woman who becomes his perfect and loving wife or by making his wife live in his heart and mind. And the kid who hoped to invent a time machine might find his hope come true in a form of novel, books, or movies. He doesn’t literally invents it but he does in fictional form which may lead to a great success.
Bracing old hopes is no easy thing. We humans have a huge ego and arrogance. We like to think that we’re always right and things will work out just in the way we think. We sometimes don’t consider that we can be wrong and the ways things happen can be millions. This becomes a problem with the concept of  bracing old hopes because we might be faced with the success of our old hopes in a different way but since we only think our ways are the best, we will still consider the success as failures. Timing is also matter of our ego. We set ourselves to think that these hopes should happen at the time we predict. When they don’t come true on time, we think that we’ve failed and therefore refuse to continue hoping. But once we open our mind and lose the ego and arrogance of ours, we might find those hopes can still happen, maybe not on time but another time. So, in order to make hopes come true, we don’t only have to work it out but also be modest and more open minded. Everything is just the way we look at it.
Now that we will face the new year of 2011, it’s our time to both preserve old hopes and find new hopes. Just remember, both will come true in any possible way and any possible time.        

Minggu, 12 Desember 2010

Midnight Sale, Midnight Fun

People love midnight sale. Even if it means they have to stay late at a place full of other people where they can easily bump their shoulders, yes, they will still do it. It’s proved at the midnight sale held by one of noted mall in South Jakarta area, Senayan City or Senayan Plaza, on Saturday, December 11th 2010 from 08.00 p.m. until midnight.
People had started swarming the mall before eight. Even the line of cars which were about to get in to the mall was longer than usual. And of course, finding a parking spot was also getting more difficult than usual. Well, it’s very reasonable since those who participated in the midnight sale were some of the famous and wanted brands, such as Armani, Guess, Gucci, The Face Shop, and other brands you can name. Unfortunately, for some brands such as Gucci, the sale didn’t offer much for normal people since the price was still out of reach. They did give 30 % discount, but even with that, a shirt still cost something end up with million. But that’s for normal people, in fact, for rich people, that kind of offer was quite promising since those stores were also swarmed by few people.
At the centre of the mall itself, a performance of two ladies hitting drums loudly with heart beating music was held. It seemed to not had anything to do with the midnight sale because around the hall there was a nickelodeon sale held. Lots of stuffs of Spongebob and Dora The Explorer were everywhere, from a water bottle to the doll. And around them, the swarming of people did focus in there too during the show. And, in fact, the performance lasted for quite a long time, at least enough to make your ears felt a little deaf after walking away from there.
With so many stores offering a great deal, the centre of the midnight sale, from beginning to end was definitely in the Debenhams. No wonder since Debenhams contained almost everything, from clothes to housing stuff in every brands like Giordano, Pierre Cardin, Les Cantino,etc. And they all do offer a great deal, from 10-50 % discount to buy one get one free, even a buy one get two free. Lots of people, from young to old, swarmed the all floors of Debenhams, but the most crowded were second floor that sells man’s wear, man’s accessories, and travel bags and third floor that sells woman’s wear and accessories from all kind. The line of people waiting to pay in the cashier was quite like a worm, not long enough to be a snake since there were lots of cashier spot but still long enough to cause a traffic. Walking was not easy, there were people everywhere stopped to check out this and that. And bumping to one another was not uncommon, sometimes not only with others but also with their bags of items. And the condition around was quite messy at some point, especially around woman’s flat shoes and prasmina. There were some shoes lying on the floor and prasmina on the rack were definitely not longer neat. The first floor where they sell cosmetics and some woman’s accessories were quite neat and less crowded. Everything was still on the place except at some shoes point. Shoes were on top of one another just like sardine. The fourth floor where there were only kid’s wear and housing stuffs was the neatest. Although there were still people who seemed to be fighting for pillows which offered a quite discount.
Even at five minutes to midnight, the end of the midnight sale, Debenhams still quite alive with people waiting on the cashier to pay and some others still looking for the right choice. But that’s only Debenhams. Outside it, the sign of a closing mall started to appear. Some stores were already dark and close. However, there were some restaurants and small counters still open and full of people. It seemed that shopping makes people tired, hungry, or thirsty.
After all, the midnight sale brought fortune to everyone, the stores, the customers and even the restaurants where the sale was actually not applied.      

Kamis, 09 Desember 2010

Writing and Thinking

What's the difference between writing and thinking ?
Writing is an action, it’s doing something, it’s something more like a water, flowing away smoothly without knowing where to go or end but will eventually end at some point, the ocean. While thinking is more like doing nothing, or doing thing with our mind. Writing does need to be thought of so that we can lead our writing to the way we want. But thinking it too much is just going to create disaster for it.
When we write, it’s common to get stuck in the middle of the writing. What we don’t know is that we don’t get stuck because of the lack of inspiration but more because of lack of formal / polite / beautiful words to communicate our thoughts. The idea and inspiration is there, we know exactly that what we want to write in our mind. It’s just that we don’t know how to form the thoughts into beautiful, formal words. Another thing that we might not realize is that when people read our writing, they read our thoughts, our inspiration, our idea in the hope of being inspired or acknowledged by it. They do read our form of words, but those form of words is just the media and not the core of the writing. So, actually we really don’t have to get stuck in the middle of writing because of that. Furthermore, a too beautiful or too formal form of words will only create a boring and tough reading for readers. And as we know, those kind of readings are not really popular. It’s right that some people do read those things, but it’s only like 1 in the scale of 1 to 10 and usually for purpose of particular education. For us, we actually write to be read by all kinds of people from different social status. These people hate tough and boring reading. Yes, they want to get knowledge by reading but they also want to get it in a relax and enjoying way. That’s why if we look at the newspaper now, the language and form of writing in there is no longer the formal and boring way. Because they do realize if they continue doing that way, their newspaper is only going to end up dusty in the attic or even in the agency itself.
Once we think too much about our writing, we change our activity from writing into thinking. We no longer do activities and flow like a river, we get stuck like a mud, thinking, trying to speak up our thoughts which actually can be done in an easy way. Writing is suppose to be a relaxing activity, something we do because we like to do it, our hobby, and not something that only gives us pressure while doing it. If writing is actually giving us pressure, then we might have to look inside ourselves and find what’s wrong. Maybe we still get stuck in the idea of forming beautiful words instead of communicating idea. Whatever the reason is, solve it, unless our writing will always be the dull and boring one. Writing it won’t give us any satisfaction or pride. We will always look it as something not good enough, not perfect enough. And this kind of thing might result to unwillingness to publish it  which furthermore make our writing even more useless because why would we write something if no one reads it, why would we write something if it’s only for collection. Our idea or inspiration in those writings is not going anywhere, is not giving any knowledge or inspiration to anyone, even if we have worked too hard in forming those ideas in beautiful words.
So now, if we want to write something, first, write down your idea and don’t think of the idea. The evaluation can come after the writing but not during the writing. Second, release ourselves from having to produce a beautiful form of word, write it in our way. Because actually that’s what will make it special, different from others. Third, be proud of it because no matter how it is, we actually succeed in communicating our idea and with that people can learn from it. And finally, always open to suggestion. We’re not perfect and because of that our work don’t have to be perfect all the time. What we can do is to always make it better while still keeping it in our way.