Coffee Black and Egg White

By a guy who likes grey

I walked my self to the bus station this morning,
I saw people smoking their cigarette, sipping their coffee, and putting on makeup
But I couldn’t smell the smoke, or the coffee, or the cosmetics
I smelled pain
I smelled sadness

Unfamiliar faces
Gather for a moment
In a melancholy ceremony

Watching TV
Thinking things they never can be
Wishing their life as colourful as their dreams

Because the colours they know
Are coffee black and egg white

A Pencil Story

Life is always in equilibrium.
Action is always balanced with reaction.
One thing happened for a reason.

I still can remember vividly, some years ago, my grandpa asked me questions about a pencil. Yes, a pencil. I was thirteen. It was late afternoon, around 5pm. I was visiting his house that was in the neighborhood. His house was around five minutes walking from my house. We were sitting on sofa watching cartoon on TV. He was wearing his usual clothes at his house, pajamas. While I was excited watching cartoon on TV, he grabbed a wooden yellowish pencil that has eraser on top of it. He asked me, "Joe, what do you see from this pencil?" I felt annoyed. I looked at him in confusion. "Why in the world he is asking me this question," I asked my self. Then, he repeated the question, "What are the materials?"

“Oh, OK, it is made from wood, an eraser, and the black carbon thing,” I said. I know it was carbon because in my class, the science teacher discussed about the black carbon that we use in pencil.

"OK, what else?" he asked me again. I looked at him in a great confusion. Then suddenly he replied, "Listen Joe, you were right, it was made from wood, rubber, and a black carbon, also the yellow paint. That’s good." He said again. "But what you see is only what your eyes can see." He said.

I looked at him with a blank face, but I was listening carefully. I was wondering why he’s asking me these questions. We didn’t have a very close relationship as a grandpa-grandson like what I often see on TV. We talked once in a while, but that was it. He never played jokes on me nor treated me some ice cream.

He held the pencil near to my face and examined it very carefully as if he wanted me to observe the pencil too. "Do you know how to get this wood, rubber, and the black carbon? There are a lot of process involve in it" he said. "The wood was cut from a tree in a jungle somewhere in Kalimantan. Then, it was brought to the factory, preprocessed with some chemical to make it stronger, and then shapes it like this pencil. How about the paint, the eraser and this black carbon? There are hundreds of processes that need to be done in order to get this very pencil that I hold in my hand. Do you realize how many people involved in making this pencil? Do you know how many people that can earn money and live life just because this pencil?"

I was still confused. I know what he was saying about some process and the bla bla bla. But what I don’t understand was why he was asking me these questions? It took me years to understand what he meant.

"You have to see beyond what our eyes can see. See beyond the problem. See what’s behind to see understand what’s in front. See the past to see the future. Look at what’s below you and what’s above you."

The sentences above were inspired from a movie, Patch Adam. The dialogue between "patch" and "the crazy old man" strike me like lightning. It reminded me of my grandpa. He passed away a year later after the incident. I’m hoping that I can learn some more from the story. I’ll think about it some more. May God bless you grandpa, grandma, wherever you are. I really miss you guys.

Are you lost?

Because we don't know when we will die,
we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well.
Yet everything happen only a certain number of times.
A very small number, really.

How many more times will you remember
of certain afternoon of your childhood?
Some afternoon that so deeply part of your being
that you can't even see your life without it.
Perhaps four or five times more.
Perhaps not even that.

How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?
Perhaps 20.
And yet it all seems limitless.

Excerpt from "The Sheltering Sky"
A movie by Bernardo Bertolucci

Conversation

"When your wish is my wish, there's nothing else you need to worry."
"But my lord, how's it possible?"
"Convince me."
"How?"
"By convincing yourself. Believe in yourself!"
"I wish I believe in myself."
"When your wish is my wish, there's nothing else you need to worry."

Hey Jude

Hey, Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better…

And any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
Well don't you know that its a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder…

So let it out and let it in, hey, Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you, hey, Jude,
You'll do, the movement you need is on your shoulder

Hey, Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

By the Four Wizards of Liverpool

You're welcome

Thank you emptiness
Thank you insecurity
Thank you ego
Thank you stupidity
Thank you insomnia

Love letter

Dear Perfection,

I believe in second chance.
What I don’t believe is third chance.
That is just plain stupidity.
I gave you third chance, but you still blew it.
I’ve told you that I forgive.
But I didn’t tell you that I don’t forget.

I miss you too.

Love,
Mr. Ego

The Matrix

"The oracle, she told me I'm..."
"She told you exactly what you needed to hear, that's all. Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize, just as I did, there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path."

Neo and Morpheus from "The Matrix"

The Last Frontier

“General! What have you done?! Why did you let the enemies know our weaknesses?!” Lieutenant Lee angrily debated the General during the morning briefing before they’re going to war. “We need a new approach and reexamine our strategy, Lieutenant Lee,” the General replied calmly. It was very unusual for General Wang to behave so soft and polite since he is known as an iron fist and very temperamental. “But, general, we’ve been great! We’ve been knocking down new territories, we’ve been admired, and we’ve been feared! Look what you have done to the troops! They are loosing confidence!” said Lieutenant Lee again. His face reddens. He couldn’t sit still.

There has been some awkward moment lately during the morning briefings. Especially these past few weeks, the General seemed to have lost his mind. He looked as if he is having a mid life crisis, or probably because it has been too long for him to live in the middle of war far away from home. There was one last kingdom to be conquered by General Wang to build his great kingdom, the Wang Kingdom. Last month the general visited the enemy’s head quarter and requested to speak to the emperor himself. Emperor Chin.

Instead sending a threat letter and a dead-bloody-cow-head, he was sending gifts, beautiful stones, silver and gold, asking permission to see Emperor Chin. Emperor Chin, a great warrior himself, accepted the invitation.

They talk for hours over tea in the courtyard surrounded by beautiful garden and soft music in the background. They seemed to have known each other very well. May be it was because they share the same problems or may be even the same dreams. “You know, you are the last kingdom for me to conquer before I could have a one-world-one-country, completing my dream,” says General Wang. “However, lately, I have questioned my purpose,” the General says softly. “To me, it seems there’s something else greater that I still need to fulfill but I don’t know what.”

“General Wang,” says Emperor Chin. “You are a great warrior. You have proven yourself to the limit. No one have doubt your ability to win a war. Even I, myself, would have surrendered to you to avoid mass casualties,” says Emperor again. “Emperor Chin, you are too kind. But you only know what you have heard. You don’t know the real me. I am weak. I can only give order to my troops to fight and fight. But inside, I am trembling,” says the general.

Surprised with the sincere statement by the general, Emperor Chin didn’t have any clue what to say. A great warrior feared by all was literally crying in front him begging for mercy. The conversation ended with silence.

Month after month, year after year, the Chin Kingdom was waiting in fear from the General Wang’s aggression, but the attack didn’t realize until today. It was a decision made by General Wang to keep the world divided by two countries instead of one country like he has been dreaming of. It’s been thousands of years after the conversation between the two great warriors. The story has become legend. Some still wonder what make the General to unrealized his dream when it was only one step away. Some believe that he had gone crazy. Some believe that he was just afraid of the Emperor Chin’s war skills. Some believe it was only the general's way to keep his dream alive.

Crawling

I couldn’t see.
Not because I was in the dark,
But it was too bright

I couldn’t hear.
Not because I couldn’t hear any sound,
But it was too loud

I was thirsty.
Not because I didn’t have any drink,
But it was saltwater and sugar

I was hiding.
Not hiding from the crowds,
But hiding from myself

Groovy kind of love

“Groovy Kind Of Love” by Phil Collins played on the radio. I’ve heard the song so many times, but this morning it seemed as if I heard it the first time. May be it is true what they say. When you’re in Love, everything seems so sweet. I think I’m falling in Love again. I do. Thank You for giving me another chance. Don’t leave me hanging, alone in the dark again. I want to be with You forever.

Fate and Equilibrium

Everything in this world is predetermined. Everything is predictable. But yet, since human intelligence is limited, we cannot make sure of what is going to happen the next day or next week. We can only assume.

Life is all about equilibrium. Action is equal to reaction. With this rule everything is predictable. Computers have inputs and outputs. We can predict the outputs of the computer program when we know all the inputs. It's the same with human being. We can predict what will John do today if we know what is the input he has got all over his life: how he was raised, what food he ate, what newspaper he read, people he talk to, the weather, the car accident, the heart break. Some of these inputs may become habits. Habit is one of the outputs. Habit can later become input and personality is the output.

To control the output, a personality or a person-of-who-we-become, we can control the input. There are some variables that already given to us as human living on this planet. One of them: we are living on a 24-hour day. This is a fixed variable, called time. Everyone is given this same fixed variable. However, the magnitude from using this variable is magnificently different from person to person. One second could mean a new world record for runners, one minute could mean life and death for doctors in operating room, while three hours could mean nothing for couch potatoes.

I believe that it is true that life is predetermined. Some people call it fate. However fate is not like a single dimension line that predetermined and fixed. I believe fate is multidimensional lines that has branches. Which branch we chose depends on ourselves. We have the ability to choose (i.e. choosing the inputs). Each branch has its own consequences. It’s all laid out (fixed) for us. The trick is finding out which branch can give the best consequences. Not just short-term consequences, but long-term.

Some branch may offer a better outcome but it’s not going to be optimum in the long term. Mathematicians call it local optimum. Our goal in life is finding the global optimum (the ultimate output). It is not easy. But that is the beauty of it. We sometime have to go down hill to get to the highest peak. We sometime have to go backward to go up front. We sometime have to get hurt to be happy. That’s life. It is predetermined. It’s always in equilibrium.

There’s an old saying: you always have to pay the price (hard work) to own something (happiness).

Pausing for a moment

It’s been eight long years I’ve been out, pursuing a dream 10,000 miles away from home. Eight years ago, my youngest sister, with her curly hair and pony tailed, was still wearing her white-and-dark blue junior school uniform. She couldn’t drive a car yet. My second-younger-sister was still in her senior high school. I still remember the way she comb her long wavy dark hair, giggling with her school friends who often visit our house. Those days seemed just yesterday. I can still remember vividly how we spent our weekends at the mall for windows shopping and having brown rice in front of Masjid Istiqomah. I missed those days, where life seemed so easy and beautiful.

Today is different. They are all grown up. My second sister is married to a guy that used to live in our neighborhood in central java 25 years ago. The youngest sister is still studying; she is in her senior year at one of Bandung’s private university. She really can drive now. Sometimes I regret that I was not the one who taught her how to drive since I was the one who taught her how to ride a bike.

Today, life seems so urgent, real, and provocative. There’s some level of urgency to find the meaning of life, to find the person whom I suppose to be. My dream is still the same even though it has evolved in someway giving priorities and importance adding spices to my life.

Most of my high school friends are married, having children and having a promising career. They seemed to already have found the purpose of life: the person whom they suppose to be. Their attitude may still the same when a bunch of us meet again at a coffee shop at the mall the other day. Some are still talkative and joke with their usual dry humor. However, behind their high school attitudes, clearly they are all progressed in a lot of ways. I feel proud for them. I’m really glad that I still have them as my good ol’ friends.

To me, tomorrow may still seem uncertain. But hey, that’s life all about right! That’s the art of living. We all know that the direction is nothing but up, but the trick is figuring out if we are climbing the ladder that leans on the right wall. I think it is time for me to pause for a moment and analyze if I am leaning on the right wall.

It’s been eight years. Everybody seems to have racing ahead of me. I somehow feel blinded with their dusts, but yet I’m pausing for a moment.

Yes, pausing. For a moment.

Vanila Sky

"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it around"
Vanila Sky - Sofia

I'm nobody's slave

I'm affraid to work. Work. In my dictionary, work means slavery. Because you work for someone else. You work from morning till night. From 8 to 8. From Monday to Friday. Sometimes Saturday. You work harder. They pay you a little more. You work even harder. But then, you loose respect. Respect to your self. Your life is only work. You don't have social life. But then you fool your self. You may say, "I am OK. I have money." Wrong! That's a lie. You're a slave damn it! That's it. Nothing more. Sad? Yes. Sad but true.

I don't want to get into this rat race. You try to run faster and faster, but you don't get anywhere. They may give you a gold platted rat race. But you're still getting nowhere. You're still a slave working for food and pride. Pride. Huh! This is what I call a false pride. Proud to be high ranked slave. A slave that has a gold platted prison bar. So what?! You're just another tools that can be replaced anytime. Funny huh? Sad but true.

One day, they stop giving you food and pride. You get mad. "Why me?" Yeah. Why you. No. You should ask: "Why not you?"

I don't want to fall to this satanic loop. I want to be free. I'm nobody's slave.

Life is a process of becoming

"All of life is a process of becoming," says Myers,author of The Pursuit of Happiness and Intuition: ItsPowers and Perils, "From womb to tomb, we'redeveloping. So we can, at any time, reshape ourfuture."  

Happiness

When asked, "Why happiness is considered tobe 'hard-wired' or genes related". He replied, "It's rather like our cholesterol level -- genetically influenced, yet also influenced by our habits and attitudes."  (David Myers, PhD, the John Dirk Werkman Professor of Psychology at Hope College in Holland, Mich.)

Source: www.health.msn.com

Impossible

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it.

Impossible is not a fact. Its an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration. Its a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
Impossible is nothing.

Source: Adidas Commercial

Predictable

I like things to be predictable.
I like my life to be predictable.
Predictable means that I always hold the ace card.
I wish I can always live my life like this.

So far its been OK.
I have control over what I really want to achieve.
Control over how I want to behave.
Control Over what I want to concentrate on.

But then, there's still something missing in me.
I want what a lot of people have.
They call it "Love". With the big L.
Through Love they complete each other.

Here's the thing.
When I try to involve myself with this "big L" thing,
I can't hold the ace card anymore.
I'm not in control anymore.
Things become unpredictable.
Its not only what YOU want. Its what YOU TWO want.
I just can't do this.
I'm not sure if I'm ready for this.
It seems too complicated.

But somehow, there's something inside me that keep calling out.
I'm not sure. Maybe I'll be ready when I'm ready.
I just need to concentrate to whatever I am doing now.
I need to focus on my future.
But wait! What is my future anyway?

May be its OK to have a little unpredictableness.
May be its the beauty of "the big L" all about.

I don't know.
I'll just wait and see.

Life

You were born.
You learned to walk.
You learned to talk.
You learned to read.
You went to school.
You went to highschool.
You graduated.
You went to college.
You fell in love.
You got a job.
You got married.
You got children.
You retired.
You died.

Is that it?
Is that life all about?
I honestly question the purpose of my life.
Should life be complicated?
Should life be simple?
What is the purpose of life?
Tell me.
What should I be?
Can anybody teach me?
Can anybody guide me?

I don't want to be average people.
I don't want to be just another Joe.

Predictability

Bonabeau, the author of Swarm Intelligence, on the interview with O'Reilley Tech talk, said that his “swarm intelligence” algorithm capability is still doubted by the industries because of lack of control by his algorithm.

The swarm intelligence is an emergence behavior where there is no leader in the community of agents. However with the collection of the community or group capability, these agents become highly intelligent on solving a NP-hard problems and its ability to solve dynamic problem where the optimal solution always change with time.

In my opinion, there's nothing in this world that we can't predict. However with the shallowness of human intelligence, it makes it difficult to predict an event that occurs in the present or in the future.

Let's take a look at two obvious examples. First case, people now can predict how long it take me to drive from point A to point B with several given information (speed of car, distance, traffic flow, weather, accident, etc). Another example is when a dishwasher in a restaurant tries to predict the income of the restaurant owner for that night. He can predict the flow of money with information that available for him: the number of plates he washes, the type of plates, number of glasses of wine, the weight of the garbage bag at the end of the night, etc.

In the first case, if we take the assumption that the traffic is empty and no accident on the way, and we have the information for continuous speed during the acceleration, and deceleration (or say constant speed), and the exact distance from point A to B, we can predict exactly of what time we will arrive at point B. At the second situation, we can also predict exactly the income of the restaurant owner that night if we put a lot of assumption, for example the type of one plate correlate with one type of food so we can predict the flow of money on each plate the dishwasher guy washes. In real life situation, we can always predict anything if we know all information given. The problem can be easily solved by if-then-case or rule based method. The more we know about the rule the more we can predict correctly.

Men are stupid compares to another power that creates this life, the ultimate all knowing in to every detail things that occur in this world. Einstein comment on a scientist about unpredictable movement behavior of neutron on an atom: “God never play dice”. Few years later another scientist proved that Einstein was right. Everything is predictable in this world. The only problem is the shallowness of human intelligence.

Quote from Seabiscuits

"Appreciation comes to a man who won't give up.
Even when live beats him by the nose.
But, hey, everybody loses a couple.
It's either you packed up and go home, or you keep fighting."
Seabiscuits - the Movie