The World of Mine

This is an amazingly ridiculous news story I found on the internet...

THE JAKARTA POST/BALI: Villagers from Julah in Tejakula, Buleleng, Bali, tow (see photo) a pregnant cow behind a boat into open sea as part of a local traditional ritual.

The cow, which is five months pregnant, was thrown out to the sea about 3 kilometers from land Monday. The villagers believe the animal was impregnated by a village elder.

During the ritual the man, who was caught red-handed having sexual intercourse with the cow two months ago, joined the boat trip in order to throw away his clothes to to symbolize him discarding his sins.

Julah customary village head Ketut Sidemen said the ritual, called gamya gamana, or freak weeding, and had been conducted there for generations. The decision to perform the ritual was made a local residents meeting.

In line with customary regulations, the perpetrator, identified only as PS, 70, was sanctioned to fund the expensive ceremony, which aimed to cleanse him of any bad influences.

Luh Ketut Suryani, a professor and activist, deplored the sancation against PS.

She said drowning a cow was baseless because sexual intercourse between a human being and am animal could not cause pregnancy due to the different chromosomes and genes of the two.

"The cow is not guilty, why shoud it be drowned? Why don't just use a symbol like what was done by the perpetrator?" she said.

Suryani's said she was concerned dealt with the financial situation of the owner, who lives below the poverty line.

"The cow, which has a high price, had to be thrown away. It will be a pity for the owner, who is already poor and is now forced to lose his priceless belonging." -- JP/Alit Kertaraharja

Publishing date: 10/23/2008

Forgetfulness, what a gift

Isn't it a blessing, the ability to forget?

As a person growing up without proper tips on socialization matters, I have used to develop my own ways in getting connected with people.

And, as during my teenage days I chose to disconnect from almost everybody around me (you know that maddening "identity search" in teenage, right? Well, that's a part of it), I learn about socialization stuff only in the last few years, after turning twenty something.

And the result is, I have ever since so frequently done stupid, embarrassing errors when getting in touch with people, including friends and lecturers, family members, and now the important source persons or government officials I have to be continually connected to for the sake of my journalism job (these are all not an issue, indeed, when I chose to disconnect from people on high school days).

However, I've surprisingly forgot about those embarrassing, timid behaviors I've done in front of those important people when meeting them in different occasions. I remember I once made mistake and that helps me not to repeat it, but I can't remember how embarrassing it was, nor how the embarrassments felt like. This is more than enough to keep myself confident when talking with them, when staring at their eyes while listening to their answers to my inquiries, the very materials I need for my reports.

So it's not that I completely forgot about the errors. What I forgot, to be exact, is the sensations of the very embarrassing situations, of how they felt like, of how embarrassing they were, all of which indeed help me get along with important source persons.

Okay, they perhaps remember my stupid doings, my amazingly awkward timidity, bla3x. But, their remembrance upon those flaws of mine would never do me any bad as long as I don't feel anything about it, which is enabled with this ability to forget.

Well, well, well, this is just one of so many lessons I've learnt from life; that forget about something, though could be very annoying sometimes, can be indeed a blessing, too, on the other times.

Imagine if you keep remembering those bad memories; how foolish you were, how hurt it was, how embarrassing, etc, you'll be surely going insane. You'll be engrossed with thoughts that this person or that person know your stupidity, know your flaws; which is enough to make you lose your sanity.

So, enjoy your forgetting something! Just be careful, though, if things you forget are much more than things you remember, maybe you're lacking nutrition and hence concentration to remember, or you're suffering from early Alzheimer, if you're still fairly young.

Most Indonesians, if they could vote in the upcoming U.S. elections, will surely vote for Barrack Obama.
Most Muslims, if they could and wanted to vote, will perhaps, too.

For Indonesians, the fact that Obama spent some part of his childhood in Jakarta's elite residential area in Menteng, including studying shortly in an elementary school there, gives them somehow a little pride.
Indonesia, although the fourth most populous country in the world, the biggest Muslim country and an archipelago of 17,000 islands, is very little known to most Americans, and surely most the world's citizens, too (Bali, which is just one of its islands, is much more famous, though).
So, it is this senator Obama's entering to the U.S. presidential race's stage that make Indonesia a little known than before. Cmiw.
A very naive reason for attachment, don't you think? But, it is what's happening anyway; and that sort of attachment, which is rooted in nationalism, I guess, is quite irresistible.

Secondly, about the Muslims. Of course we Muslims here cannot vote for Obama; I maybe trying to talk about Muslim voters in the United States, or at least trying to explore their minds, in regards to their possible decisions in the elections day.

The number of Muslims in the US surprisingly reached millions. I remember, back to years ago, before the Sept. 11 tragedy took place and before George W. Bush was elected as president for the first time, Bush was reported in mass media, over and over, as trying to woo the Muslim voters.
As a naive Indonesian (also Muslim) high-school student, who uncommonly followed the news of the past U.S. presidential elections, I preferred Bush to Al Gore. The reason is simple. First, Al Gore's running mate was a Jewish, and it looks like we Muslims, especially in Indonesia, tend to prefer Christians to Jewish (perhaps it's the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts that help us develop the tendency).
And secondly, Bush's conservative view resembles that of us, more or less (you know those abortion, gay issues, etc).

But, well, who would have ever thought he would ever turn his back against us, betray us and hurt us Muslims, particularly (perhaps) the U.S. Muslims that voted for him. In fact, that stupid (@#*#@!!!) Bush has hurt us very severely, with all his Islamophobic hate policies post the Sept. 11 attack, which is then followed by widespread Islamophobia, prejudices and hatred against Islam and Muslims everywhere around the world.

Why are we hurt? Because most of us Muslims still can't believe that those stupid terrorism acts were committed by our Muslim fellows. Because we hate to be forced to admit that the terrorist attacks were committed by one of us and then told to compromise, if not to slowly change our faith, just because of these ill-accusations.

However different and varied interpretations of Koranic verses and hadeeth (Prophet Muhammad saw's sayings)are, we know none of them ever suggest such ill-acts of killing the innocents, whatever the reason is.
And these so-called Muslim terrorism had never been known before the suspicious Sept. 11 attacks.

Most of us still believe that what has happened must be a systematic, high-profile conspiracy, which puts us as suspects in this ill-drama of global terrorism.
The actors might be our Muslim fellows, but the directors are never. Those Muslims, like Osama bin Laden and the gank, must have been brainwashed or something.

The conspiracy theory, which, of course, is always denied by pro-Western people, either the non-Muslims or the Muslims themselves.

I can say this because I have seen and talked and got in touch with many of the so-called fundamentalist Muslims and know them pretty well to judge them fairly. Yet the so-called fundamentalists-terrorists were not even known among these fundamentalist movements, who usually know each other very well even though they act separately.

Back to Obama, using an instinct, I, as I'm sure also most of Muslims, will prefer him to John McCain, the latter of who, with his running mate Sarah Palin, have campaigned that the Iraqi war is a duty from God (that makes the war sound like a new crusade to these presidential and vice presidential candidates, don't u think so?).
Thus, although Obama is labeled as very liberal, our instinct makes him sound better than his rival.

But, that's if we use our instinct.

If we use or sense, our rational thoughts, I don't think neither should be voted.

I'm not sure Obama can benefit Muslims, and even Indonesians, if he is elected. He has so far said nothing that indications such good will.

It is just our naive thoughts that make us, some Muslims and most Indonesians, think he can.

Credit crunch. Stocks slump. Global economic crisis. Recession.

I hardly have any idea how these stuff would do me any bad. As an ordinary person in an ordinary developing country, I am not (yet) affected by the gloomy crisis days.

The only reason why I also felt depressed about two weeks ago was simply because I read too many stories on this issue, which has been continually making headlines in almost all newspapers during perhaps the past month.

Later on I find out, after some discussions with some friends, that the U.S.-led financial crisis only took direct effect on Indonesia's stock market, which means only the shareholders would feel the impact.

Poor people like me can only pity the panic stock players and thank God the same maddening stuff doesn't hit us as severe as the skyrocketing oil prices did us several months ago (even the oil prices are slumping now; isn't that a good news for ordinary oil consumer like some of us? I just wonder why our government seems so reluctant to cut the prices after increasing them a few months ago).

Back to the economic crisis, the only impact I can feel directly on me is the rising prices of laptops.
The credit crunch and all those sorts of stuff, including the U.S. bailouts, have somehow made the rupiah plunge deeply against U.S. dollars, and subsequently prompt the notebook price hikes (most of our laptops are still imported; that is why we're badly affected with this currency issue).
I've planned since last year to buy a laptop, but have always delayed the plan because I needed the money for everything else. And now the prices are rising, and I have to wait until they slump again, which could be never =(.
Of course, some observers have predicted that most Indonesians will start feeling the impacts of the global economic crisis next year. But, somehow I'm not so worried about that.

Anyway, even though I and many other people here hardly felt the bad impacts of the crisis personally, I had had no idea it could bring any positive impact before I heard a lecture from an Australian economics professor last week.

He said the crisis, while is on-going, may reduce greenhouse gases emissions, which mean a little slowdown of the global warming. Well, well, well, isn't that a good news?

I have earlier talked lengthy about the negative correlation between economic growth and environmental sustainability efforts in this blog. Yet I have no idea how the world will ever be ready to prefer saving the environment to slowing economic development. Every country is too selfish and too greedy to give up their growth prospects for the sake of saving the environment.
So, there's no other way to make these countries reduce their emissions but by slowing down their economic growth and therefore their production capacities.

And it is these credit crunch, financial crisis, stocks slump and things as such that makes it possible.

You know, I don't think the recession is that bad either. I think it can teach us to spend our money more wisely instead of continually wasting it for unnecessary stuff. And believe me, that can indeed slow down our carbon emissions and,hopefully, cool down the warming globe.

Have you ever felt like losing some part of you? It's a strange sensation, but you can immensely feel that. You can feel the painful emptiness, as if there was a very deep hole in your heart, but no matter how hard you've tried to fulfill the emptiness, you fail. Like people having asthma, even though you've tried to breathe all oxygen in the surrounding air to fill the spaces in your lungs, they’re never really fulfilled. You have to find the losing part; or you’ll never feel complete.

I've been experiencing such sensation every once in a while since I was perhaps 16 (I'm almost 26 now). Previously, it was very poor defined. I could only feel the painful emptiness, without being able to explain it in any sort of way. I only knew it resembled the desperate feelings of someone has just lost his/her most beloved one, an experience I’ve never gone through myself. Only in the last few years have I managed to well define the sensation.

Defining the sensation, however, doesn’t mean that the problem’s gone. Like an unexperienced doctor, I can only diagnose the disease, but know not what has caused it nor how to cure it.

I know that listening to certain music, reading certain books, looking at some beautiful views and being in certain conditions could make me feel like the hole is being fulfilled, like the thirst is being quenched. But, unfortunately, these things don’t last long.

When I get bored with the music (which are particularly some classical and oldies singles) and the views (on pictures of beautiful places I’ve collected in the internet); when I’ve finished with the books (I can’t enjoy the same book twice, while so few books can do my heart the 'thirst-quenching' effect); and when I have no idea how to get myself into the certain conditions… my heart is again painfully empty. And it just feels so hurt.

I also used to be able to burst all the deep, painful emptiness through my fiction or poetry writings, which somehow fulfilled the hole. But, I’m now losing the ability to write both.

If I could only play piano, I would play Beethoven's Fur Elise; if I could play violin, I would not waste time to do other things but playing his Violin Concerto in D Major or Pachelbel’s Canon In D; or, If I could play all the classical music instrument, I would play Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of Flower, and all other music that could help me burst the longing.

Or, if I were German author Novalis, I would write my own novel on die blaue Blume, and finish it.

But, I’m not them all. I’m just an ordinary girl who can do nothing but continually feel the painful longing for my blue flower; the losing, scattered pieces of me. If tears are indeed a way to burst the restrained emotions and make oneself feel better, very unfortunately I can’t also shed my tears.

I can only feel the pain, which is now seemingly never ending (hope not).