It was a gloomy night, and a drizzle, the kind of rain that would most likely lasted for an entire night, has been pouring down right since we had our feet planted on Jogjakarta’s soil a couple of hours prior. We had no reservations for the show thinking that we could just wing it and completely oblivious to the possibility of any shortage whatsoever. Of course, the night happens to be a school’s day off and there happens to be a bus full of junior high schoolers who went to see the show as well. Naturally, we were informed that there were no tickets available for the show and we had to wait for a couple of minutes to see if there’s any seat left due to cancellation or a confirmed no-show. Fortunately, a last minute cancellation net us a couple of front row tickets which actually costs (way) more than we had anticipated. But since we’ve gone this far already, and we would’ve missed the show entirely had we not done so, we bought it anyway.

It was well worth it. Every single penny of it.

The show started, and us in the front row. My wife later said that she had never seen me this excited since we saw “Inception” for the first time a couple of years ago. Oh, I’m actually easily excitable but I also had a very short attention span and easily bored. Furthermore, there’s a slight but obvious difference between me being excited and me being Excited. The case with “Inception” and this Ramayana Ballet show was me, being Excited. When I’m being Excited, I would sit at the very edge of my seat, a hint of a half smile, almost a half grin even, and tried to see and See everything all at once. The show was that good and it later turns out to be the only highlight of my entire trip to Jogjakarta (and its surrounding areas). The one thing that I’m willing to suffer another inconvenience of travel in order to re-experiencing it once again.

I was named after one of the principal cast of the Ramayana tale and therefore, I had a hint of familiarity with the tale. Just a hint though, because it turns out that I had a small to no recollection of the tale when it comes to its secondary characters as they played out at the show. But, needless to say, I was enamored with the sights, the sounds, and the movements of the dancers. Some are simple steps, slow swirls that conveys grace and beauty, rough steps showing an aggressiveness of a character and the conflict it entails, and many more that I don’t think would be fair to put words into. It is something that should be experienced by oneself in order to have an understanding that eventually led to semblance of appreciation. During the two hours of the show, I had completely forgotten about my exhaustion and my foul mood was entirely lifted away. The dancers told a story, and even if there are some elements that does not fit with the narrative (the intentional comedy sequence, for instance, although it wasn’t entirely unacceptable), the story went through with a relative ease even if at times, I have no idea on who was the character on the stage without glancing to the show’s synopsis pamphlet at hand.

At one point of the show, I had a passing curiosity about the dancers. About how they are doing what they really love and must’ve been very proud of keeping and delivering one of our cultural treasures. And I got a bit jealous because they are doing what they love and in the process, must’ve been paid very well. This train of thought proves that I’m still a naive in believing that the world works in an ideal manner. After the show, my wife had a chance to see one of the dancer from a close and she immediately recognized her from a feature she saw on a TV once. This is, at best, a second hand story but either way, I could very well easily imagined it to be true. According to my wife, the TV feature showed that these dancers are not a pro and they are not paid as well as I had thought before. The dancers were coming from a working class and sometimes, from a kind of working class whose members are in a constant daily struggle to put food on the table. In fact, the only sensible thing that kept them going rehearsing and held a two hour show thrice a week, as cliche as it may be, is their desire and love to keep the heritage from being forgotten. My wife had told me about this on our way back to Jogjakarta after the show and as I look outside the window, spotted a couple of youngsters, heads down toward the tiny glare on their hands, or hanging out in group with what I had assumed to be the latest fashion trends, I was saddened. One could argue about keeping the past in the past, living in the present and embracing the future, but there has to be an effort to keep a heritage and passing it down for our future generations to enjoy. And if the dancers’ welfare is of any indication, we are not trying hard enough. In fact, our taxi driver doesn’t know anything about the show beside the site on which it was held. A couple of acquaintances, one who had lived in Jogjakarta for years, and another who is currently living in the area, had never even seen the show. I mean, if we wouldn’t care, who else? Believe me, next time you go to Jogjakarta, make time to see this show. But, if bustling around streams of human beings, shoulder to shoulder with peddlers and customers trying to haggle one another is your thing, Malioboro is perhaps more to your liking. Me? I hate Malioboro. I really really loathe the experience that you had to pay me a significant amount of money to go there again. Seriously, what makes people wants to go to Malioboro? I’m completely dumbfounded by it.

I only had one tiny qualm with the show. I wish we had seen it on May – October period when they held the show outdoor, beneath the yellow washed light of Prambanan temple. Beyond that period, as it was known to be a rainy season, the show is presented indoor, thrice a week every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, beginning from 7.30 pm. Tickets are priced between IDR75k and IDR200k. But trust me, you don’t want to settle less than a first class ticket.

We’ve already make plans to see the show again when it is scheduled for an outdoor show. Further, I’m going to time it in order for us to have a full moon experience as well. And by then, I’m certain, as certain as Sun that I could put an adjective “Magical” into the already mesmerizing show. If anything, the show makes one thing clear. Though I’m still inherently fettered out with the inconvenience of traveling and nine out of ten would opt to stay at home in front of my laptop than to go someplace new, there’s one thing that could make me willing to give traveling a second thought. Performance Arts.

All I could say that, well, there are some very fundamental reasons behind this decision, and I won’t bore you with the details.

There was a time in my life, when I’m simply lost. Without guidance, sailing a black sea, on a moonless night heavy with clouds, with naught but a black sail, black oar, and nothing but a broken lantern to light my way. It was the bleakest time in my life. One that I would like to think as one of the lowest during my chalked-off years. It was between 2003 and 2006, I think, and I tend to exclude those years as much as I can. From my résumé, from my conversations, from my biography, and for everything in between. I was reborn in 2006.

As anyone who knew me more than a skin deep could attest, I have been, and probably still am, a driftwood. “Flowing with the currents,” I used to say, “Going where the wind blows,” borrowing from that song from Mr.Big, on another or, “I like to think myself as a stallion. A destrier. Running wild, free, to wherever I damn well pleased.” Oh, who am I kidding? It was so wrong, and not to mention, a wasteful of my youth. And I stand corrected, nine years too late, yes, but I’ll stand corrected anyway.

It’s definitely not a coincidence that my wasted years had ended in 2006 and I had met my wife on the very same year. Call me what you will, but she has been the rock of my life. She saw my ship and out of pity (at first), she fixed it, manned it, and steer it to a distant port, promising wealth, fame, and all the better life has to offer. For the first time in years, heck, for the first time in my life, I had a purpose imposed by a much stronger character than me, but also the only one that mattered.

In 2007, she urges me to join this company. I wasn’t very interested. But, she made a point that with working here, I could have had an ample of spare time to do whatever I was damn well pleased, and *still* have some sort of safety net. She was right, of course. I’ve had had a generous spare time it’s a crime. Worse, I’m starting to enjoy myself almost to a point where I”m simply spoiled by it. It made me lazy. Fortunately, at the end of 2009, my path of life crossed me with another, who gave a harsh, but a very necessary wake up call. One thing led to another, we finally (me and my wife) decided that it’s time for me to stop lazying around and get a move on.

For most, high school was lots and lots of fun. Three years of doing nothing but play, never (much) worrying about anything, and small to no responsibility of life whatsoever. Well, to be quite honest, I’ve never had much fun in high school. Something always irked me about that particular time, I just really can’t say what it was. My wife had pointed out that deep down, in subconscious level, I don’t want to remember those time and therefore, I had always refused to talk about it. Probably she was right, again, but honestly, I couldn’t go beyond the vague level of abstraction to describe what was wrong in that particular time, only that it was, simply, wrong.

Anyway, as fun as high school was, it only lasted three years. And all the fun must come to an end.

The last four years I had in this company was probably the equivalent of that kind of fun. I had spent perhaps ten thousand hours idling, never doing much, only playing and fooling around, and shouldered small to no responsibility. It was fun. So fun, that each time I got paid, I was immediately ashamed because I was paid for doing nothing. But well, finally responsibility calling, I’m thirty now, and the fun must come to an end. This old soul need food for thoughts and the last four years has proved vain to have much, if any, of it and therefore, for the greater good of all, I need to show myself to the door. And I did.

Moving on, July 9th, 2007 ~ May 4th, 2011.

PS: The image has nothing to do with anything only that it was from the best underdog story that I’ve ever seen, that whenever I’m down, or having a steep hill to fight, my mind had wandered off to it and lo, and behold, the music start playing. “Gonna Fly Now.”

I listened to this album again last Sunday (and by listen, I mean, really listen, as in, doing nothing but just sit and listen the album through and through. Because, you see, that is the only way to enjoy an album such as this, or Dream Theater’s “Scenes from a Memory.” An entire album, unbroken through and through), and a pang of rage, sadness, guilt, and above all, disappointment, hit me squarely in the chest as the album plays this track.

“And then the one day you find,
Ten years have got behind you,
No one told you when to run,
You missed the starting gun.”

It’s been nearly twelve years since I graduated from high school, emerges from innocence, break free from small confines of a city where life is slow, and good. I’ve been wasting most of it away, not really knowing what I really really wanted, tried several things but failed (at various levels) in (nearly) everything. As the song spun its magical psychedelic lullaby, my brain rakes, as the faces I once knew, who had left me behind to bite the dust of their wake, swam by, taunting me, mocking me, and worse, regarded me with eyes full of pity. It made me angry to myself with the lack of accomplishments that I’ve got, to a point where I could, and would, simply chalked-off the last twelve years of my life as if I’m not even existed.

The song, however, marches on.

“And you run and you run,
To catch up with the Sun,
But it’s sinking,
Racing around,
To come up behind you again.”

I found that most people would content to what I’ve already got right now. Ridiculously easy day job that pays the bill and more, a relatively peaceful and little to no conflict work life, and a comfy life of a middle class, I could gorge myself everyday with a Strabucks and a plate of fancy dinner once in a week to a cost that would definitely sent my mom, as savvy as she was to a simple, low-cost living for all her life, to a wroth. I know I should be grateful. But at the same time, I was looking out, wary to the world outside of my cubicle, wondering aloud, “is this my Sun?”

“Sun is the same,
In a relative way, but you’re older,
Shorter of breath,
And one day closer to death.”

Well, if I have to ask, then the fact was damn clear, this is not my Sun. If this was my Sun, then why do I have to drag myself out of bed every single morning to get myself to work? You and I would probably have a different notion on what was my Sun and what was your Sun, and why they can’t be compared Sun to Sun, but I think, the moment I asked the very question, the more obvious the answer was. As much as I wanted to shove it away, ignoring it, and pretend that life is business as usual, the question was feeding itself with my growing doubt until it grows large enough to gnaw my conscience and left me, unsatisfied and very much uncomfortable.

I’m not getting any younger and I have wasted most of my twelve years doing nothing I could admit to myself with a smug grin and air of confidence. As a friend of mine had once said, no matter how bad you think of yourself, just fucking publish something and let your audience decide, if this is your Sun, you’ve got nowhere to go but Up. Closer to that damned Sun of yours.

So here I am, thirty, with a wife in tow, erasing most of my twelve years past and started anew. Folly? Jolly? Time will tell, but I’ll tell you this one, and you could laugh at it, wrote it as a Clam Chowder, or attributing it as a fool’s words, as useless as your morning’s fart, whatever. But, in five years from now, I’ll have myself and my wife a mini-retirement. We’re going to have a full six week vacation, from Auckland/Wellington, to Santiago, attending a festival in Rio, an European tour that begins with Hannover and ended in Istanbul, and then trekking down Japan from Sapporo, Hokkaido up north to Fukuoka, Kyushu down below. Yeah, shove it in an archive somewhere, and come five years, let’s see who will have that last laugh.

That is my Sun, and although I’m shorter of breath, and closer to death by a day, I’ll fucking chase it.

I, had a so-so life, so far. Not complaining, but there’s definitely a vast room for improvement. An obvious one, at that. I’ll be thirty this year, and I had just stopped from a career, well, an illusion of one, to be precise, and started another anew. A big decision, yes, probably the worst decision that I have to take, but that would be a writing for another day. I’m married to a woman that perfectly fits my every nook and cranny. Has been for the last three years, and would be for another three hundreds if God’s willing. Yet, it is only five years ago, after an engagement went awry, that I’m almost certain that I would forever sailed away the rest of my life by my own self. My wife and I are currently living on a separate islands and only get to see each other once in a month. We’ve spent quite a fortune on airplane tickets and logistics and as a result, we’re rarely, if ever, had a chance of saving some money. But, on a contrary, our investments, pension plans, and everything in between, had seen a steady growth which comes as a pleasant surprise because I’m so used to see only five digits of number (in Indonesian Rupiah) on my ATM screen. No kidding.

That besides the point, actually. And I had a writing skeleton about how we planned our investments on a separate post, anyway. What I’m trying to say is, well, if I had to stop and think about it, life hasn’t very kind to us. But who the fuck are we kid? All we need was just a look outside our window, and we know that life has been too kind to us and that, annulled our right to complain about life in general.

Yes, sometime life is shit. You hate your job, you hate your boss, you hate your coworker, you hate that extra hour, and you just hate the way that lazy cat stretching after her afternoon nap. But, remember, someone out there had it worse than you. You complained for a three days business trip so you don’t get to see your wife or husband for the whole three days? Well, I haven’t seen my wife in more than a week and someone out there don’t even have the privilege for a paid business trip. Someone out there, had lost the fire in his eyes, selling something that nobody really wants to buy (think traditional foods, alphabet posters for toddlers, traditional games), for a measly profit that’s probably not enough to buy your plate of last night’s dinner.

So, really, if next time you find yourself in a heap of dung, remember that someone who had lost the fire. Also, you might want to sing this song, whistle this tune, and perhaps life is a bit better afterward. Even if you may had to sing or whistle through a gritted teeth. Well, it works for me, maybe it will for you, too.

(1)

(1) YouTube video is from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (1979), one of the funniest comedy I’ve ever seen.

Best Picture

My pick, obvious, “The Social Network.” Most likely to win? “The King’s Speech.” I personally took the manic energy on how “The Social Network” had presented itself than the relatively tamer and more friendly “The King’s Speech” on any given Sunday. But, “The King’s Speech” was probably more preferred in general because it was sympathetic, ended in a high note, and featured a compelling character that was actually lovable as oppose to a quote, “an asshole,” end quote that has been attributed to the other film’s character.

Best Director

David Fincher. I’d completely lost faith to the Academy had they pick another. Well, Darren Aronofsky might become an exception but until I see “Black Swan” for myself, it’s David Fincher.

Best Actor

For once, I felt that this year’s nominations for Best Actor was rather uninspiring. Colin Firth was the obvious choice and I don’t really care if he or any other nominees who will win this award.

Best Actress

Again, until I see “Black Swan,” I’d go with either Annette Bening from “The Kids Are All Right,” or, with a slight inclination, Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone.” Both Jennifer Lawrence and Annette Bening had given me something to remember about a character that, as circumstances has it, had to be strong as they waged their respective inner struggle. However, my favorite leading lady from the year’s past wasn’t even nominated. My favorite leading lady from the year’s past had been Chloë Moretz from “Let Me In.”

Best Supporting Actor

For this year’s award, I loved every single performance that gets nominated in this category. My pick would be Christian Bale from “The Fighter” who was once again, disappeared into his character, that you had to see it to believe that this crazy and skinny dude was and still, (arguably) the greatest Batman.

Best Supporting Actress

My favorite of this category, Helena Bonham Carter. The one who gets to bring home the trophy? Melissa Leo from “The Fighter.” The duality of her character in “The Fighter” was intriguing and perhaps even, hate inducing. But, as I’ve stated in my review of “The Fighter,” it’s rather impossible to in the end, not to sympathize with her character. That’s why she’s going to win. A little foot note, I hadn’t seen “True Grit” but I heard that Hailee Steinfeld was pretty awesome in it.

Best Original Screenplay

My second favorite screenplay of the year (the first one is going to win Best Adapted Screenplay) is “Buried.” But it wasn’t even get a nomination. Thus, my pick from this category? “Inception” for it’s logic shattering layer of dreams landscape. However, “The King’s Speech” will win because really, if you could take a relatively boring subject of an autobiography into an enjoyable two hours feat, that was a great storytelling at work.

Best Adapted Screenplay

I will personally hand write a hate letter to each and every Academy members if Aaron Sorkin didn’t win this one.

And that’s a wrap. Actually, there are quite other categories as well but by the exception of Best Documentary, I honestly couldn’t care less about the other categories.

As it was, the talks were still ongoing and we won’t probably see an update until next week. Meanwhile, say goodbye to “127 Hours” and “Black Swan,” two of my most anticipated films in the year past, both scheduled to have a release this weekend, and say hello to whatever local films had to offer. Well, they were mostly consist of girls with skimpy outfits, running away from whatever “ghosts” they were chased by. Congratulations, government, you manages to put this country backward in a single swoop. Imagine how many people would’ve lose their jobs if this boycott were realized. What’s next? Games? or *gasp* Books?

It is my fear that this country would turns like the iron curtained Iran. The government might think that we’re like China, self-sustain, currently the second strongest economy in the world, but who are they kidding? If my fear materialized, I promise, I’ll find a way to relocate myself and my family somewhere where I could still see films on a big screen, legally. Heck, I’ll cook, I’ll clean dishes, I’ll do whatever. I promise.

Save the Movies.

But that was before, when I’m still leisurely careless about anything that goes into my mouth. As of late, I’ve been obsessed with Tim Ferris’ book, “The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman.” Other than that I’ve been intrigued previously with Tim Ferris’ way of life and his previous book “The 4-Hour Workweek,” this particular line from its Amazon’s product description had won me right away.

“Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?”

I considered myself as a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy with interests ranging from Math to Cooking, from Astronomy to Chinese kanji, and everything in between. Contradictorily, I’m prone to boredom quite easily but when I’m interested on something, I tried as much as I could to learn everything that there’s need to know on that particular subject even up to a point where I don’t care about anything that should be of more importance such as, well, my day job. Therefore, sleep is always something that beguiled me because really, there’s so much to learn out there and why must we succumb to an eight hour of sleep?

I sleep for six hours a day, by the way. But if I could sleep for two hours a day and could still perform better than on eight hours then really, I’m sold. I could use that extra four hours to, well, learn about something that had occupied my mind at the time.

Anyway, back to the topic. On one particular evening after I had read few excerpts from Tim Ferris’ book, I went down (my office is one floor higher) to had an evening gossips with the girls. Barely ten minutes had passed since I sat down with them, exchanging few sentences that merely peeled a half skin of a particular gossip, not even the juicy part just yet, I had gulped a piece of Astor chocolate, three pieces of Lemonia biscuits and two bars of KitKat. Ten minutes, few sentences, three different snacks, and less than twenty bites. It’s decidedly only a small amount. Out of curiosity, I calculate the amount of Nutrition that went into my mouth during this very short time.

At first, it would seems as a harmless feat. I mean what could went wrong with just a few bites of snacks that I don’t even realize when I’m taking it? And then, I had my result.

In total, I had an extra 17.7 grams of Carb and 143 Calories from these snacks. A hundred and forty three Calories. As a perspective, using RunKeeper I had recorded an activity where I had burned a total of mere 234 Calories by walking for 2.16 kilometers on a path that climbed 52 meter, with a pace of 11:58 minutes per kilometer and ended up drenched in sweat. And everybody complaints about obesity. Small wonder given the generous amount of Calories from a meal (snacks) that doesn’t even close to relieve the hunger should you have it and the small amount of Calories from a workout that most of us hadn’t even bothered to take willingly. Good luck in losing that five pounds, dear.

Now, I had taken up a great deal of interest with diet nowadays, and planned to, as Tim Ferris has it, have a weekly self experiment. I had finished the first week though not as a wholesome as I would’ve expected (i.e. I’m still prone to breaking the rules of these experiments). Here’s a little table on how well I did on this first week.

First of all, I had managed to not eat Rice for the whole week with the exception of one particular evening and I feel great. Usually, I was drowsy right or within a couple of hours after lunch as if someone had chained a siren to my ankle and she sings a lullaby too beautiful to ignore. This week? Never. Despite of no change on my sleep cycle. Meaning that the only changes I had was eliminating Rice from my menu. Net effect? Rice makes you drowsy, eliminating it from my diet proved to eliminate the need to sleep after lunch as well. Argue me if you will, but I’ll stick to this conclusion for the time being.

Secondly, on a rough estimation, based on frequent visits to Google and livestrong.com right after every meal, I ate less Calories than what I needed for a day. Now I’m using this formula to calculate my Calories daily requirement.

Total number of Calories per day = BMR + Physical Activity + Thermic Effect of food.

BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate is the minimum amount of Calories needed to oil the machine that is your body to work. The formula to calculate this BMR is as follows:

Adult male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs) + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years).

Besides BMR, I’m also counting the amount of Calories for my daily activity based from this chart and after obtaining the amount of Calories for thermic effect of food, which is a fancy way to say how much Calories my body used to digest the food I had eaten, I managed to get roughly 2600 Calories per day.

Now I’m not sure whether I’ve made a correct calculation on my diet, but, I think it was fairly easy for me to eat less than 2600 Calories per day. Easy. So therefore, given that I didn’t lose or gain any weight during the week, it’s either I’m way off on my diet calculation or the general notion of spending more Calories than you eat to reduce weight is wrong. Or, and this is what I’m inclined to believe on, there had to be some factor that I hadn’t know about. More on this later.

The third item is I think the most interesting part. This is where I had failed miserably. Eat less Carb than 150 grams per day. Again, I had learned and believed that eating between 150 ~ 300 grams per day will give you steady, insidious weight gain while more than 300 grams simply said “Danger Zone!” With this information, I had put a target of my daily intake of Carb to be *at most* 150 grams per day and as I’ve said earlier, I failed miserably.

Even without Rice, I managed to gulp on average, 171.02 grams of Carb in the first week. Interesting fact, most of my daily dose of Carb came from Fruits. Particularly Banana which I ate daily and then of course, from twice when I had a midnight snack in the form of yummy fried Instant noodle with egg, and once, a plateful of Coconut Rice, and a healthy portion of shrimps and crabs.

Actually, come to think of it, when I say diet, I actually ate more frequently. Before, I never had any breakfast. Never. My first proper meal is usually at noon. A full six hours since my waking hour. With this self-experiment I took, I had finished my meal within one hour of my waking hour. Whether it’s a protein bar, or a cup of yoghurt, or even once, a tall Starbucks whole milk cafe latter, I’ve always had my hunger satiated within an hour of waking up. Lunch is just as usual, but with no Rice, and more in variety. They always consisted of a Chicken breast, and a vegetable among other things. Sometimes it’s potato, legumes, tofu, corn fritters, tempe, or even another form of vegetable stews. Then, three or four hours later, it’s another meal. Usually fruits, with a protein bar, or another chicken. Yes, another chicken. Afterward, it was dinner with my wife whose diet says “I cannot live without Rice,” and another meal at midnights. Four or five times of meal a day, up to strictly twice of meal a day and I didn’t gain any weight.

Some say, that results are important. Sure enough, when I say that I didn’t gain nor lose any weight during my ordeal, everybody laughs but of course, they didn’t felt what I feel. I feel leaner, happier, requires less sleep, and healthier. Even if it’s just a placebo, at least, to have that feeling of being a better and a healthier man is something that I couldn’t share to them. More yay to me, then. Granted, most likely I’ve made an err in my nutrition counting and had made an inaccurate assessments to many numbers that had plagued my notebook titled “Diet.” But, there’re actually things that I can’t measure without professional helps such as body fat percentage and the like that gaining none in terms of weight could actually means that I’m actually losing some fats and gaining some muscles.

In short words, I considered my diet as a success and I’m intended to keep this type of diet for several weeks longer. Next week, I’m going to further experimenting with myself, added some new twist in the menu. I think I’m going to cook my breakfast. Not everyday, just a couple of days on that week, and see how it goes from there.