Simulate Mine, Would You?

There is perhaps, nothing more frustrating than being unable to deliver a piece-of-mind in a very precise manner. And I don’t merely speak of telling someone else a story, or an information, which they may have hard times in understanding the context. I believe what is even more difficult is to communicate an understanding, a comprehension, a vision.

It is often a desperate pursuit, at the end of the day, you are only successful in transferring to someone else a fragment of your thought. And it may lead to misunderstanding, or backlash, or downright rejection where the partiality of their integration of your thought is to blame.

And this happens all the time, often not because they are intellectually incapable, or less engaging emotionally, but because there is this un-bridgable gap. Normally communication is only capable of facilitating the passing of simpler ideas, of concrete concepts, but when it comes to a full and intact biased perspective, it requires a certain leap, a jump, a process in which some of the details would unfortunately be left behind unable to find itself reaching the receiving end.

Just like those times where saying “I love you” is just not enough anymore. When the word “love” is too simplistic to fully explain what we really experience. Or when you don’t have the right word to tell someone who is mad at you that you didn’t mean it that way.

I have always lamented at how apparently no one really understand how I think—how the world appears from my perspective. But after meeting Selvi I started to realize, it is not really because I haven’t found someone whom I can share it with, but because of our own limitation to really experience the bias of others, despite she or he being the closest person to us.

I often tell her that I see colors from time to time, that in my rapid but very random and decentralized mental processing, it’s like I can see a pattern, so abstract I cannot reproduce into something else more concrete. The best I can convert them is into words. And because of that I have always envy her . . . And I think sometimes love can originate from envy; that she has always been good at artistic reproduction: into colors, into drawings, into songs, into photographs.

Me? I can only put them into words. I may call myself a poet, but sometimes poetry is my half-ass excuse at being unable to replicate the exact manure of my mind. No praises for my writings can ever console me enough for my failure of creating a feasible or satisfying reproduction. And where transcendence and metaphysical consolations have failed, there appears to be barren wilderness where remaining solutions are scarce.

But the true journey of relationship is arriving at the realization that not every understanding can be mutually shared. Some are of unique encoding, exclusive to a person, and not even your partner can quite grasp your vast methodical imaginations or your excessive sentimentality.

Still . . . why would it matter? The lament on my face, the worries in her expression are more than enough happy signs. That each of us care for each other, that we are desperately sorry for ourselves and all our limitations, for being unable to dive into the depth of thought that replicates the mind of our lovers.

As long as we try our best to put on our virtual glasses to experience the life of our dearest. That’s it, while we can’t really live the thought of their head, our appreciation can find its farthest extent in trying to put ourselves in others’ shoes. In their condition.

Because in every polite plead to request an understanding, in every desperate cry of lovers who want to be understood, for strangers who want to be acknowledged, for children who want to be noticed by the parents, for greenhorns yearning for recognition, we are all holding the same thing by the tip of our tongues:

“Please simulate mine, would you?”

That is, the desire for the most basic need of our being: understanding.

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JC

Room to Grow

If there is a single aspect from myself worth bragging, well . . . apart from being repeatedly mistaken as gay (how do I manage to get a girlfriend again?), it would be my English proficiency, which ironically is far better than my command over the Indonesian language (No, I’m dead serious; I suck hard when it comes to writing in Indonesian—every piece I’ve ever attempted so far are like excerpts torn from parking tickets).

With such proficiency, my day-to-day task often revolves around writing, translating or reviewing documents for grammatical errors, in which I recently realized that I’ve become my own worst editor.

This blog serves a good example. I find myself coming back again and again to a content for revision even when it is already published (don’t be surprised if a sentence you’re reading on this blog suddenly deletes itself). Sometimes my times spent on revision exceeds the time spent actually writing something.

And because of that a question came to my mind: “can you ever be too critical of your own performance?”

By working, I really mean this

Now, while spotting your own mistake before anyone else can prevent a future disaster, it is important to know what to improve before going straight for a revision that can potentially ruin what’s already well established.

But how to be sure whether an aspect of our work is already well established? After all, it is very difficult to be objective of our own work.

As an example, I may think that sophisticated words nourish my content with elements that may better appeal to those with delicately mature taste; so does elaborated albeit long winding explanation, that comes, in not one, but so very many, numerous, frikkin, commas. My readers on the other hand might find them repulsive, distracting, discouraging to even follow through.

This bias, this preconception of our own product makes it impossible for objective assessment on our part. And at times when it does seem possible, it often leads to an over-correction that only replaces a problem with a completely different one instead of solving it.

Also, even though we can always take our time off the pen and let the thoughts sip for a moment, that won’t completely disregard our bias. After all, this bias is also the center of excellence that conducts the production–we shouldn’t resent it entirely.

The only option left for improvement then is to put aside our ego and let the assessment be performed by a third-party.

But third-party evaluation generally sucks, and more than often it feels like “How can this mediocre mind even comprehend my genius? He should be honored to even get the chance to read this masterpiece. Oh look, he is not even laughing at the line where I put my amazingly crafted joke—THAT VERY AWESOME JOKE!! HOW DARE HE *&(%%$^&$#$@#^&*(??!!”

However, no matter how annoying it may feel, the cold hard truth is that it is our best bet. It is okay not to take the advice on what to buy as a hobby—duck plushies or RC cars, how to properly take a shower—sing or no sing, or what to read during pooping time—shampoo bottle or The Economist. But when it comes to producing something for others’ consumption (be it writing, crafting, anything), feedback is a crucial element of consideration.

What? You still need us to tell you that this sucks??

Now to reconsider the question “can you ever be too critical of your own performance?” The answer depends. But in the end, after putting our best effort at the producing, improvement means leaving the evaluation to anyone else but ourselves. Peers sometimes notice flaws better than you—customers, often.

At least the HR department hasn’t filed any complaint on me being a bad boyfriend

The View from Our Windows

It is December already. It’s been raining a lot recently where I live, and the window these days presents view-after-view of drizzles, droplets, occasional lightning flashes, and folks running right and left for cover.

In all the times I spend by the window typing articles, working on translation projects, and browsing for porn or scrolling down 9gag writing my thesis, I find it odd how the view from the window seems to transmit varying mood. I swear the view was depressing yesterday—somber, sad, and kinda made me want to cuddle with my duck plushies collection all day.

Not that I possess such sort of collection obviously, that’s just a . . . err . . Metaphor.

Haha . . . ha . . . They are Selvi’s  . . . Obviously . . . Right?   No, that’s not my room. Shut up!

Yet today, upon gazing at the same thunderous glooms of the graying image through the glass, I am feeling this emanating upheaval of spirit—the sort normally accompanying the storm of inspiration which initiates my writing.

What a phenomenon–a festive mood of cheer today, a haunting restlessness tomorrow. While this alternating impression seems nothing less than a magic (remember the time you look through the window and feel like you are in a video clip of a gloomy song? Magic), it is a mere illusion—the view may stay static, but to the spectating end the only thing constant is change.

And within this delicate process of change, underneath the ever-morphing flux, we apply selective criteria to capture only details of the view that associate best with our emotions. It doesn’t matter if grey dominates, a single spot of white would be the only thing noticeable during times when joy thrives.

For anyone wondering, we supply our own photo and image. This one is taken by Selvi.

And just like the projection of our image mirrored by the glass (if not, it obviously needs a scrub), our window doesn’t only reveal the outside. If the presented picture seems so distant and cold, we may have dwelt too long in solitude. If the gust outside appears so vicious and cruel, we may have relied too much on suspicion and distrust. And if each moment of the window-theatrics is a fleeting race we can barely capture, we may have forsaken much for the sake of routine to even appreciate.

At the end of the day, through every view, we are only getting lost deep in our own thoughts. And it’s not really independent of control. We have all the options to be positive and sweet when we sit together with our lover looking at the rain from inside the cafeteria window or being creatively engaged by the sound of droplets while typing down that document for a client. We choose the mind we live and work with, regardless of the weather, regardless of the environment. Optimism is always beyond being predetermined.

Then again, if you only enjoy staring into hard platform of wooden or concrete surface, you are totally missing out on the chance to be a hopeless romantic.

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JC

November’s Highlight

This month’s highlight went unplanned (one of those random encounter). But it was still as fun as hell.

Here are our gang: Enda, Esthir, Jeremy (me), Selvi (my cuddly, curly adorable little girlfriend, the other counterpart of this blog’s writer), and Dita.

We are graced by the presence of Jojo!!! A very cute little poodle brought to the premise by Dita. He is so adorable, playful, yet calm dog. We took the risk of bringing him into Coffee no. 27–this cafe where me and Selvi are regulars. Thankfully the baristas let Jojo in XD.

Isn’t he adorable?

We spent the night laughing, playing with Jojo, and taking a handful of photos and videos.

Everybody wants a piece of Jojo!!

Thank you for the highlight everyone. And thank you for Coffee no. 27 😀 (oh by the way, it is a really pleasant place to chill if you are around the vicinity).

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JC & SA