Men changed Nature in his own image, Nature changed Men in her own image

Debat-debat Yang Seharusnya Sudah Kadaluarsa Yang Kita Harus Move On Secepatnya

1. Ateisme dan Teisme

2. Kearifan Lokal/Tradisional/Adat dan Sains

3. Kapitalisme dan Komunisme

4. Hayek dan Keynes

5. Hirarki dan Anarki

6. Logika Rasional dan Logika Batin

7. Urban dan Rural

8. Nutella dan selai-selai lainnya

9. The West dan The Orient

10. Primitivism/Environmentalism dan Technological-Determinism

Sweet, Sweet, Apathy

Some lyrics made 2-3 years ago.


Remember when you're a kid?
You used to like to hide
Under the blanket sheet
Invisible ride

Imagined pretty things, like Biker Mice From Mars
Desire in anything, that blows your eyes

     Now you're 23
     Oh sweet apathy
     Oh, c'mon

Remember empty streets?
You like to chase and run
There might be playground parks
Behind the sun

Ridin' your three-wheels bike
Nowhere's too far
Waiting the time to come
To own a car

     But now you're 43
     Oh, sweet apathy
     Oh, c'mon

As it all had passed and gone
delusions faded away,
away,
away

Substance takes it form
Would it ever deluded again
ever
again

Remember when you're a kid?
You used to like to hide
Under the blanket sheet
Invisible ride

Imagined how you'll die
between the backyard's stars
Oh, everyone you knew
realized the missing part

     It ends at 63
    Oh, sweet apathy
    Well, go on

My Overly-done 1000-words Description of Frank Ocean's "Bad Religion"

A friend introduced me to this song and, until now, it keeps crushing the left side of my chest. If it were only true, that people are made of drawers, then the termites are already eaten up most of the insides of the left-side drawer on this chest.[1]

Many people took offense of this song because it contains “Allahuakbar” in the lyrics—thinking that this song is attacking Islam. Those who seek deeper into the lyrics, finds that it’s somewhat criticizing all religions.

Yet, there are those who found that attacking religion is not even the point here. The only thing that is related to religion—or God, so to speak— in the song is the desperate longing, the inescapable feel of defeat in surrendering oneself to that one-way devotion.

[Verse 1]

Taxi driver

Be my shrink for the hour

Leave the meter running

It's rush hour

So take the streets if you wanna

Just outrun the demons, could you?

He said "allahu akbar", I told him don't curse me

"But boy you need prayer", I guess it couldn't hurt me

If it brings me to my knees

It's a bad religion

[Chorus]

This unrequited love

To me it's nothing but

A one-man cult

And cyanide in my styrofoam cup

I could never make him love me

Never make him love me

Love, love...

[Verse 2]

Taxi driver

I swear I've got three lives

Balanced on my head like steak knives

I can't tell you the truth about my disguise

I can't trust no one

And you say "allahu akbar", I told him don't curse me

"But boy you need prayer", I guess it couldn't hurt me

If it brings me to my knees

It's a bad religion

[Chorus]

This unrequited love

To me it's nothing but

A one-man cult

And cyanide in my styrofoam cup

I could never make him love me

Never make him love me

No, no

[Outro]

It's a bad religion

To be in love with someone

Who could never love you

Only bad

Only bad religion

Could have me feeling the way I do

Frank Oceans starts with surrendering himself to the ‘heterotopic space’[2] inside a taxi. A unique ‘space’ which many of us took granted because of the temporary relation between us, the passengers, and the taxi driver—which Jim Jarmusch already explored in his film, “Night On Earth”. The anonymity and the temporality between the front and the back seat that enables unique or even absurd situations, where, for instance, we as the passengers could just tell “all of our secrets and lie about our past” to the driver.[3]

We could say nothing at all and just let the driver takes us where we want to go; we could also be completely honest—honest in that naked-confession way; or we can become anyone we want, act as a whole different person, and lie about everything in front of the taxi driver.

Ocean, in the song, seems to let himself drowned in confession to the taxi driver, yet, not fully open or honest (“be my shrink for the hour”, “three lives”, “can’t tell you about my disguise, can’t trust no one”). What makes this more interesting (and it kicked the right door inside my chest) is that, Frank Ocean’s bisexuality adds the “chemical X” to the ingredient of this song. I’m not that huge of a fan enough to know more details about his sexuality—or his favorite colors and film references in his other songs—but what the story tells: this unrequited, one-way love towards a person that would never gives back the same way he does, is really what crushes my bones.

“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.”

-Jorge Luis Borges

As the song goes with its ‘inside-taxi-confession session’, the taxi driver suddenly say “Allahuakbar” and Ocean reacted with “I told him don’t curse me”. This, for me personally, is what I like to call that funny situation when two different cultures meet. From what I know in Islam, ‘Allahuakbar’ (‘God is the greatest’) is a sort of praise to God that usually Muslims (especially Indonesian Muslims) use when they’re in a terrific situation—both in magnificently good situation or bad— which either they want to be grateful or they are utterly shocked by a thing and thus enounce this praise to claim that ‘God is greater’ despite whatever situation that they’re facing.

Then the lyrics go into Ocean that seemingly agrees to the suggestion made by the taxi driver, that we all “need prayers”. This, for me personally, showed the tolerance and the rejection of [insert any religion name]-phobia in Frank Ocean’s world or point of view. Again, I don’t know much about Frank Ocean’s background and such, but this is the feeling that I get. On another note, him agreeing to the driver also shows the feeling of surrender and defeat—a weary Ocean leaning on the back seat with his head a little bit drooping while having this conversation.

Now, the part where he compares his situation with Religion is what really makes this song divine for me. Ocean starts his comparison by stating “If it brings me to my knees, it's a bad religion”. His statement made really sense for me, for it triggers these things that different people said and recorded (or hiding) inside my head. About how “religion should not make/be burdens for you, because if it does then what’s the point of having a religion?” or “what most of them are teaching out of religion is about fearing the after-life and all that heaven/hell shits, where I found a few is them who teaches how religion liberates us and give us inner peace or serenity in this life”, despite whatever the religion is.

One-man cult

The chorus and outro should have explained itself what I’m trying to get here.
[Chorus]

This unrequited love

To me it's nothing but

A one-man cult

And cyanide in my Styrofoam cup

I could never make him love me

Never make him love me

No, no

[Outro]

It's a bad religion

To be in love with someone

Who could never love you

Only bad

Only bad religion

Could have me feeling the way I do

The fact the person that he’s in love with; the man that he adores; the subject of his one-man cult, where he points all his adoration and devoted all of what is fragile of his crushable heart—would never loves him back, is what a ‘bad religion’ is all about. Using “one-man cult” or even “bad religion”, as a medium to express this feeling of desperation is what makes the song undefeatable for me personally. This connection between the two—the love between a person to God through religion and the love between two people— parallels to what Borges said about love and its “religion of fallible god”.

Among with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (especially Jeff Buckley’s version of the song) and Nick Cave’s Into My Arms, Frank Ocean’s Bad Religion adds my list of—forgive me for keeping on repeating, due to my lack of inventories of words—the undefeatable, divine songs that touches back-and-forth the notion between God, the personal, sex, and love. To what Jeff Buckley had said in some of his interview (that I can’t really remember which one), these songs have somewhat, their own feet and that it could sneak into our head at different times and bring different stories and meaning according to our feelings, conditions, and longings at the time.

---

[1] Check Dali’s Anthropomorphic Chest of Drawer

[2] Even though I’m using it inappropriately for my own selfish use, check out Michel Foucault’s Heterotopia for the proper concept

[3] Tom Waits’ “Tango till they’re sore” reference…

Collages of Truths

Truth is, I’m kind of scared about the Truth 

And everybody wants to make the sense out of it

Some, with rationality

Others, with pure—if not blind—faith

Some are enough with what’s here

Others are craving for what’s beyond there

I believe in both, the so called

Rational-logic

And the ‘inner’-logic

A logic that enables you to see beyond

We tried, and it makes sense, for us

Despite the limitation that we have (for now)
in seeing and understanding the beyond

And honestly I’m a little bit scared

Because we would keep on asking

And deep inside I’m scared if we come

to the point where we understand

the Truth

and that it all makes sense

There was a writer (I think it was Borges) who was talking about another writer (yes, I’m bad at remembering names for references) who wrote this story about a person who met God.

God offered him two things: The Answer on the right hand; and paths to find The Answer on the left hand.

(Let’s just all assume that this God is an anthropomorphic god)

That person chose the left hand.

Reza Aslan, a brilliant scholar on Religion, said this beautiful thing in his interview with Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, which is accessible on Youtube:

Q: "As a historian and a scholar, as you read all of this… How can you still believe in any of this religion?"

A: “I don’t believe in religion— I believe in God. The only reason why I call myself a Muslim, is because the symbols and metaphors that Islam uses to talk about God are the ones that I like, the ones that makes sense to me. It’s not like Islam is more true than Christianity or Christianity is more true than Judaism. They are all equally true, equally valid ways of expressing what is absolutely inexpressible.

If you believe that there’s something beyond the material world, that there is something truly transcendent, then you need some kind of language to talk about it—to make sense of it. That’s all that religion is. Anyone who says ‘I believe in Christianity’ or ‘I believe in Islam’ misses the point. Christianity and Islam are not things to believe—they are signposts to God. They are a means to an end, not an end in itself.”

“It’s a simple proposition. You either believe that there’s something beyond the material world or you do not. If you do not, fine.

If you do, then do you actually want to experience it, commune with it or do you not? If you do not, fine.

If you do, then you need some help. You need a way to express what is fundamentally indefinable.  And that’s all religion does—it gives you language to express it. Anything more than that, then you’re missing the point of what religion is.

The great Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, once said, ‘if you focus too narrowly on a single path to God, all that you can find is the path.’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL6E4eMX-4k (near the end of the video, about the last 3-4 minutes, where the rest of the video is about his book, which is really interesting as well)

Menolak #MenolakLupa: Sebuah Catatan dari Generasi Tanpa Nama

“Masa kini lahir dari rahim masa lalu”

Sebuah ungkapan yang saya dengar saat saya berada di sebuah kedai di bilangan Pejaten.

Logikanya sederhana—kita semua sudah tahu dan mengerti artinya dari awal tanpa harus menemukannya dalam bentuk ungkapan, quotes, atau kalimat-kalimat motivasional bijak ala ‘Jalan Keemasan’ yang teguh.

Dan itulah mungkin yang kita, sebagai sebuah kesadaran kolektif, masih terus tak bisa selesaikan. Kita masih bergulat dalam pikiran kolektif kita, mencari pembenaran, kebenaran, dan keadilan atas masa lalu kita bersama.

Seperti bayi yang setelah lahir mencari tahu siapa ibunya. Mencari mengapa dan bagaimana Ia bisa terlahir menjadi seperti dirinya sekarang—mencari akarnya.

Namun sang bayi juga tentu harus sadar. Bahwa dengan lahir berarti Ia juga ‘memisahkan’ diri dari sang rahim yang melahirkannya.

Saya lahir sebagai bagian dari generasi yang sering mereka sebut sebagai generasi Millenial. Generasi yang lahir seiring dengan salah satu perubahan di dalam sejarah Indonesia.

Yang tak turut serta membuat perubahan di saat itu; yang tak bisa yakin apakah merasakan perubahan-perubahan yang muncul atau tidak.

Udara yang kami hirup mungkin sudah berbeda dengan kalian, generasi sebelumnya—dan perubahan yang kalian bangun pun kita hirup mentah-mentah dari udara. Mungkin dibanding yang sebelum-sebelumnya, kamilah yang paling ‘terima jadi’.

Sedikit dari kami yang tahu soal 1965 jika tidak ada ‘The Act of Killing’. Sedikit dari kami yang tau soal mereka yang hilang, jika bukan karena musik-musik kontemplatifnya Efek Rumah Kaca. Sedikit dari kami yang tahu, bahkan mencari tahu siapakah mereka elit-elit yang kita anggap sebagai ‘pemimpin’ —yang selalu memakai hak suara kita semua sebagai properti-properti panggung kekuasaan mereka.

Karena mungkin, di satu sisi, kami hanya terkena ampasnya. Ampas dari apa yang kalian pernah lalui. Kami pun tak pernah benar-benar merasa terikat dengan apa yang kalian selalu ingin tolak untuk lupa. ‘Menolak Lupa’ menjadi sebuah inisiatif yang kami setengah hati untuk berkecimpung di dalamnya. Diantara kamipun yang ikut menyuarakannya, jatuhnya seperti anak kemarin sore yang sekedar ‘ikut-ikutan’.

Masalah kita adalah masalah lama; masalah sejarah yang belum ada juga progresnya. Dengan para aktor-aktor panggung politik sekarang yang masih didominasi oleh pemain-pemain lama. Mereka yang menjadi bagian dari perlawananpun (seperti inisiatif semacam Menolak Lupa) tak “beda” dengan apa yang mereka lawan — dua sisi dari satu koin sejarah yang tidak berprogres.

Dan apa yang kalian bisa petik dari generasi kami tentang hal tersebut?

Bahwa kami adalah generasi yang kosong. Kami tidaklah yang lama, tidak juga yang baru.

That we’re not a part of those who’re against the old establishment. Yet, we’re not them neither—who goes for something new.

Kami bukanlah bagian dari yang ingin meruntuhkan tiang fondasi lembaga-lembaga yang sudah busuk. Kami juga bukan bagian dari Mereka yang akan membangun fondasi-fondasi yang baru —yang akan meneriakkan kepada yang sebelum-sebelumnya: ‘persetan kalian semua!’ dengan lantang sembari menancapkan tiang-tiang baru tersebut.

Mereka, yang akan memutuskan tali pusarnya tanpa mengacuhkannya. Mereka yang menolak untuk Menolak Lupa —yang bukan berarti tidak paham akan rahim masa lalunya. They, who’ll bring themselves up not against something, but to go for something—something new, something else, and better.

Catatan ini bukanlah ajakan untuk membenarkan kejahatan-kejahatan yang sudah dilakukan di negeri kita. Kejahatan yang ingin dilawan oleh kalian yang menolak untuk lupa.

Catatan ini hanyalah gambaran tentang raungan ‘gema–dari–gema’ yang kosong yang mengisi sejarah kita saat ini.

Sebuah catatan dari generasi yang tak bernama.

10 Mei 2014

Aku akan pulang cepat malam ini (karena kiamat datang esok pagi)

Berikut adalah sebuah cerita pendek yang tadinya ingin saya buat namun lalu menjadi sebuah lagu pendek dengan judul yang sama. lagu tersebut bisa didengarkan di link berikut:

https://soundcloud.com/mallakapost/aku-akan-pulang-cepat-malam-ini-karena-kiamat-datang-esok-pagi

Semoga berguna

***

Aku akan pulang cepat malam ini.

Dan akan segera kurapihkan mix-tape yang sudah aku buat khusus untukmu. Memutarnya di laptopku yang layarnya sudah retak dan kotor. Mencoloknya ke amplifierku, berhubung aku belum punya cukup uang untuk membeli speaker yang pantas.

Aku juga sudah beli tiga bungkus ayam kremes, satu untukku dan dua untuk kamu—walau aku tau kamu bisa makan dua bungkus lagi—juga dua gelas bubble tea kesukaanmu.

Dan saat kamu sampai, tepat di depan pintu aku akan menciummu. Kecupan kecil di bibir itu. Akan kupastikan ciuman itu penuh akan cemburu pada jarak dan waktu. Kamu tahu aku jarang mengucap rasa rindu dan kamu tak pernah pertanyakan itu.

Akan kuambil tasmu dan membiarkanmu duduk di sofa dan menikmati santapan malam terakhirmu. Aku akan memperhatikan kamu melahap ayammu itu sampai ke detil-detilnya—kremesan yang menyangkut di pinggir bibirmu dan akan ku tertawakan mulut blepotanmu itu.

Lalu kita akan sedikit berdansa. Lagu yang terpasang adalah lagu-lagu aneh yang mungkin kamu tak mengerti kenapa aku pilih untuk dimasukkan kedalam playlist mixtape itu. Tapi kamu tak mengapa dengan itu.

Kita berdansa, gerakanku canggung, sementara kamu lebih luwes. Kita berdansa seperti dua orang yang mabuk dan kegirangan mendengar lagu-lagu ballad Guruh dan gipsy-gipsynya—namun terlalu letih untuk berlompat-lompat.

Dan sampai akhirnya alunan lagu semakin melambat, kamu akan terus membiarkanku memelukmu. Menghirup tengkuk lehermu sembari terus berdansa kecil. Meski aku tau kamu sudah sangat letih.

Waktu akan berhenti beberapa jam lagi. Sebelum Pagi kembali, kita sudah merebut semuanya dari Semesta. Tak ada yang lebih penting dari ini. Tidak berakhirnya dunia, tidak hancurnya peradaban manusia, tidak berhentinya sejarah.

Kita akan berhasil membuat akhirat dan mereka semua cemburu.