#lifejournal

"Kuatkan hatimu sekali lagi. Barangkali tinggal satu langkah menuju tenang dan damaimu"

Ada hal-hal yang tidak bisa di ungkapkan dengan baik, meskipun saya mencoba untuk menuliskannya dengan ribuan pilihan kata. Perasaan sesak saat bernafas. Beban berat di dada. Air mata yang mengalir tanpa alasan. Hanya itu yang menjadi cara untuk mengungkapkannya. Perasaan kecewa yang selalu coba dianggap "hanya fase" nyatanya menjadi beban tanpa disadari. Beribu rasa marah yang harusnya terlontar ternyata menjadi dendam yang menumpuk. Dan banyak rasa lainnya yang perlahan menjadi bola besar di dalam dada ini.

Sungguh tidak enak rasanya, setiap nafas terasa sesak dan berat yang menahan. Apalagi di tengah hari, ketika tiba-tiba tubuh seperti sedang menangis, padahal bibir tersenyum riang dan mata masih memancarkan sinarnya.

Maka, di suasana seperti ini, kita tidak perlu mencari alasan untuk menangis atau merasa marah. Coba biarkan tubuh membawa semua rasa yang selama ini dipendam, biarkan ia lepaskannya satu per satu. Pada akhirnya, hidup ini selalu tentang mengikhlaskan, bukan ? Mengikhlaskan jalan hidup yang tidak sesuai dengan keinginan kita. Mengikhlaskan mimpi-mimpi itu tetap menjadi angan. Mengikhlaskan bahwa ternyata kita butuh lebih banyak kesabaran dan waktu yang panjang untuk menemukan hikmah.

Namun, bagaimanapun keadaan kita, saya harap kamu memilih untuk kuat dan tetap percaya bahwa ikhlasmu akan berbuah. Semoga kamu tetap tabah dan tegar menjalani apapun yang terjadi, hingga malam-malam seperti ini hanya akan menjadi cerita penguat.

Back in the livejournal days, I wrote a lot more posts that were long and involved, more thought out, and more personal.

I think all of us-- fandom and nerds and geeks specifically, but along with us everyone in the world-- I think we have been immeasurably harmed by corporate social media.

We have been harmed by conforming to an arbitrary word count, by the pressure to post short, “content” multiple times a day, for that content to be “relatable”, tepidly ‘family (advertiser) friendly’, and in the service of getting as much shallow ‘like/share/reblog’ attention to this “content” as possible. In service to our own egos, yes, but beyond that, in service to the desires of the vast, money hungry corporations who graciously allow us to provide free “content” for their vast, money hungry machines of social media.

We have been harmed, too, by the social pressures these corporate machines of mass communication create. The pressure not to be too cringey, too weird, too arrogant; the anti-intellectual pressure never to be “pretentious”.

Well fuck that my posts are not “content” and they are not created for the money hungry corporate machine, and they are not for it to drip feed to a mass audience like baby birds with their mother’s heavily digested pap.

My posts are weird, they are pretentious, and they are not fucking advertiser friendly.

They have contorted our minds to demand constant attention of the mass-communication money making machine they’ve created, and I don’t want to be part of it any more.

Back on Livejournal we were thrilled if a post made it to a few dozen comments.

And you know what? A few comments is leagues and lightyears better than hundreds of nothing-interactions. “Likes” and “reblogs”.

Shallow interaction for the machine to fill a few more milliseconds of scrolling for a few more people.

My posts are worth more than that.

YOUR posts are worth more than that.

I’m in the middle of a vast self-exodus to my own hosting-- as twitter is destroyed from within, and reddit eats itself, and AO3 is the victim of mass campaign of canibalization by fucking normies who are the front of useful idiots for conservative christians, and for terfs-- I am leaving.

Social media is a corpse on the ground, and we “””content creators””” are the soul of it. That soul will not die, we will simply all find new bodies to inhabit and infuse. 

But until that corpse is gone, I intend to be one damned annoying poltergeist for the scavengers to deal with while they rip apart the corpse of social media.

Fuck corporate interests. Fuck the money machine. Fuck the christian conservatives and the TERFs and everyone else who wants to hold you down and make you conform and lay still while they eat your corpse.

I’m pretentious. I’m long winded. And I’m not safe for advertisers.

Rattle those chains, baby. Rattle those chains.

appendix beneath the cut

It is a note to myself.

I had conversation with my brother recently. We’re discussing about cognitive vs empiric experience. Cognitive is when you plan and finally decide something from your know-how. Your know-how is coming from the book you read, the discussions among people, more importantly it’s not coming from you--your own experiences, your own story. While, empiric is when you plan and finally decide something based on your experience, either failure or success. 

He always told me that I am a cognitive person--while I never care about the judgement he given to me. Until the day when I was in the middle of making decision that influence my future years, I finally came up to him. That time is when I realize how cognitive I am throughout my life. And, this impacts you on shaky commitment in the decision you’ve chosen. This lead to less impact to be the real ultimate you in the meantime.

And this learning mindset is I think very valuable that I should note to be not forgotten. The mind you set before you start decide something for your life, work, business, personal, or any other issue.

**

To be more practical, I will give example how my decisions is derived from cognitive vs empiric reason and how this impact me and my future benefit. To note, that this is based on my personal believe and experience--other case’s may have different result.

First, when I entered Senior High School, I was amazed by the senior joining OSIS management team--they’re the chosen 16 out of hundred students in their batch, look cool in their blue coat (the very exclusive one since only those 16 who own it and wear in every school’s events), having responsibility in designing, executing, and monitoring programs for all students in school. That’s just cool and challenging--to me at that time. Quickly recalled, I was nominated as the 16 OSIS management team on my batch after a monthly leadership training with other fellow students. My goals checked. Alhamdulillah. But the feeling you’ve got was plain. 

Second, at the same time I was also facilitated by my muslim seniors to invite me actively involved in muslim youth activities. The reason behind not because to look cool--not at all. It’s simply I need that as prior to enter senior high school, my parents whom living 80km far away from me, advised me to do so--to prevent me from the hedon Jakarta. And, I just love that. This lead me to joining actively and feeling of fulfilled, challenged, and satisfied. 

From those samples, I would say my motive in first case was derived from cognitive aspect--outside my history experience, external factor (cool perception among students). Frankly speaking, the impact on me was plain. It was a great time to be there but you’re not seizing your own self as you expected.  While, the second case was derived from empirical aspect, derived from my internal factor--need to protect yourself, follow parents advise. This lead me to feel more aspired, challenged, and fulfilled. 

**

Back to what my brother has discussing with me, it sparks an awareness for me to re-question every decision I’ve made--what’s the foundation made on my ‘why’ statement, either it derives from internal factor: internal value, calling, experience, history (empiric) or external factor: trend, community’s perception, other’s experience (cognitive). This lead to how strong you commit in executing the best you can give into the decision you’ve made. 

Well at the end, what I believe talking about ‘why’--is not a point of time statement. It’s a journey statement. We might start something with wrong ‘why’, but we can always refresh our ‘why’ by keep questioning them.

__