Some of My Favourite Quotes

"If I fight, I conquer." - Confucius

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

"I don't compete with them; they compete with me." - jqL

"I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me." - Cao Cao

"Truth is a fruit that can only be picked when it is very ripe." - Voltaire

"Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing, and dancing sooner than war." - Homer

"a man can cry one time and one time only: when his mother leaves him forever."

"Go out to the world, learn that you are a loser and learn how to become a winner." - jqL

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." - Lau Tzu

"Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved." - Niccolo Machiavelli

"You are just a man." - Marcus Aurelius appointed a man to remind him about his mortality by whispering to his ear whenever he was praised.

"He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss." - Niccolo Machiavelli

"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win." - Zhuge Liang

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend." - Bruce Lee

When the Moon is Hiding

In every depressing moment
You are the one I look for
Your light shines my mood
It lifts me

But when you are not around
When you hide
I don’t know where to look
I don’t know where to hide

My insanity grows as if I am exploding
I have to depend to myself
My weak and fragile self
Hide behind my ego

I hope you are around
So I can just let it go
And uncover the new page of my life
And write down a new story

Several days to full-moon
I am ready to let everything go away
For the sake of my sanity
For the sake of new chapter

Until then, let it be

let it be

Reinvented under Fire

Last November 2009 was a rebirth for me. It developed and made me into a better human. Somehow, I start to understand the fundamental concept of how life works. Yet, I don’t know Who made us and why we are here. But, I start to see what my life should be about. I see my goal and I have a new vision of my own future. I am turning into a leader who soon would lead a family. His death was painful that I haven’t been able to fully get over it. Yet, his death has a meaning. The death was a new invention entering my life; it shows me the meaning of living in this world. Never have I thought I am turning into a caring man. Using horoscope, I am a rabbit and Sagittarius at the same time. I was born under the year of fire. I am full of adventure spirit and always want to be a loner. However, somewhere along the road, I long for home; I long for a family.

His death has reinvented a new me. And now, I don’t like rabbit being in between of tiger and dragon. A rabbit that tries to outrun a tiger is called a prey, and a rabbit that tries to outmatch a dragon is called a dreamer. So, I would like to be a phoenix that is reborn under fire instead.

Four-legged Table

Before reading further, readers should first imagine a four-legged table

Alright, now you have imagined it. I am going to explain my theory – the four-legged table theory. However, I am not sure if there is anyone who has made this theory before. Anyway, the theme is “family.” I want to describe a family as a table. I was inspired by Elisa Prajogo’s idea, my Indonesian friend from UW. Elisa talked about a family being a ship in the storm. If a member falls down from the ship, the rest of the crews will fall with him/her. Elisa opened my eyes into my new viewpoint on caring for and protecting my family.

Let’s go to the four-legged table theory. I suppose parents are bottles of wine on the top of the table and children are the legs. Children would be there as legs to support their parents as they aged. Supposedly, the older the wine, the better it tastes. Thus, that’s how I will describe parents: we give them more love as they aged. As for children, they are the legs. Say there are two children, one child will hold two legs. Those children should work together in preventing the wine from falling. If a child happens to be missing, two legs are gone. Suppose now you know what happen to the table and the wine.

Often, children have different traits that they adopted from their family and social lives. Same case as the legs, each leg may have different feature to it. One might be heavier that another and another might be longer by several millimetres than others. Yet, their purpose is of one; to prevent the wine from falling. Without working together as a whole, the legs will be disabled.

Thus, a family is a four-legged table. If a leg goes missing, then the whole family has to be rebuilt by readjusting the table into three-legged. Changes applied might often be painful and unsustainable. In conclusion, whether a table will fall is all depended on the legs.

The Art of Apology

Some questions that sometimes come to my mind are such as:

"Why do people apologize?"

"Why don't people apologize?"

"Why some people wouldn't apologize even when they are wrong?"

and

"Why some people would still apologize even when they aren't doing anything wrong?"

I start surfing internet and finding quotes as my first research into the theme "apology." There are many different opinions from people around the world. Some says apologizing is important and some says apologizing isn't a good idea. I wonder, which one is correct? to apologize or not to apologize?

From how I was raised, I should apologize when I do mistakes and hurt others' feeling. From my perspective, apology may be the quickest or the slowest tool ever to fix relationship with someone I harm. Personally, I believe that apology is important when one wants to maintain his/her relationship with others, and the delivery of an apology should be sincere. Sincerity plays important role for other to see how truthful we suffer from our wrongdoings to them and how we want to reconnect with them.

When someone doesn't apologize, it might look like he/she doesn't care about the relationship anymore. But, does that always the case? Apparently, some people don't want to apologize because they don't want hurt their own pride. (need citation) Some people choose to maintain their pride by not apologizing. Yet, I think this isn't a wise thought. After experiencing many things in my life, I come to believe that pride isn't the only thing we need in this world; it is not the most glorious trait ever too. Pride is based ego, yet reputation may make someone a divine. They aren't the same. Especially sometimes pride/ego may fool one into misunderstanding the fundamental concepts behind human relationship.

In relationship, it is important to take care of each other's feelings. Feelings are fragile, they are metaphorically a glass. Once it is broken, it is hard to repair. Even with the gluing, there are cracks and scars left over on the glass. When problems occur, apology can be one of the most important tools for preventing the glass from breaking further. As I have mentioned in the earlier post, mouth is one of the most important sense and it is simple to use. I don't see the difficulty in saying a word "sorry."

Offending people usually leaves scars in their brain and heart. It is dangerous especially when the hatred peaks. Human can do roughly anything when he/she lost control of the hatred. Especially, some people may take more offense when no apology is delivered by the ones that do mistakes. Without apology, the harmed ones may think that they have been looked down so bad that no one cares about what they really feel. They may sometimes feel that they are just simply a trash in the garbage bin; they can be spat on and ruled over. This feeling is dangerous because hatred grows from it. It won't be long before outburst when sincere apology is never delivered. How awful can the hatred outburst be? I suppose the end of relationship may be one of the awful things. Worst comes to worst, physical abuse may occur. Hatred often leads to madness in the end.

Yet, some people apologize a lot. Sometimes they also apologize when they don't commit anything wrong. Thus, I start to wonder, why they do so? I first thought it would be stupid to apologize when one doesn't do anything wrong. It is because one might also be looked down because he/she apologizes too much. Because, now people may see he/she as a weak and harmless person. However, somehow from some events in my life, I start to understand why these people do so. I might as well be one of these people, ones who apologize when they don't do anything wrong.

I let go of my ego for a while now, I try to maintain good relationship with people. I say sorry when I am not wrong. I understand why I do so. It is not because I am weak and harmless; it is more because I care about the relationship. When a relationship is broken, apology doesn't have anymore effect on anything; it will no longer solve anything and hold any relationship together. I choose to have some people look down on me and I apologize. It is also because I know that only the wise can see the truth behind the delivering of apology when not doing anything wrong. To me, it is more like saying "let me take the blame, let me be the one to do the mistake, because I care about our relationship above this conflict of ours."

Personally, I know that it might be one of the hardest thing to apologize when you are not doing anything wrong. I was a man with ego and high pride. But somehow along the way, things changed and I start to care about the relationship I have with people around me. People do mistakes and hurt one another. Using logic, if everyone doesn't apologize for what he/she had done wrong, there will be no mutual understanding and love created in this world. Everyone might as well be against and harm one another.

Thus, apology is one of the important tools for one to consider when one wants to repair relationship. It is only when one no longer cares about the relationship then he/she will not deliver any apology. It is also important to remember that it takes two sides to agree on each other, as it takes two hands to clap. Apology can't just always be delivered by one side. It sometimes takes two sides to apologize for each other's mistakes in maintaining relationship. Yet, some people never seem to understand this concept. I still wonder why people tend to apologize to and forgive each other right before they close their eyes and sleep in eternity. I wonder why people can't apologize just right when they do mistake. I believe we don't need to build a mountain of mistakes and then ask for a forgiveness just right before the mountain explodes. It is better late than never apologize, unless one doesn't care about the relationship anymore.

The Art of a Tongue

There are many ways to communicate among people. Talking, texting, writing, and body language are some of the examples. Talking involves the movement of tongue and mouth. It is phenomenal for human to able to speak with one another in a very sophisticated way.

Tongue is one of the most unique human body parts. There is much usefulness in every way especially for transmitting language between humans. Words are transmitted as tongue spins. And most of the time, words are transmitted without clear conscience from the mind as humans communicate. It is a crucial part for mouth to function. In everyday life, mouth is a very useful organ for telling story, calling, and mimicking sounds etc.

In this entry, I am going to give opinion about what I think about mouth. First thing first, mouth is useful in transmitting idea from mind and soul. Whatever people see and think, they can always depend on mouth to tell to the rest of the people about what they see and think. It is one of the most important communicating tools for daily life.

Second, there is a saying: your mouth is your tiger. Meaning, without being used properly, whatever words came out from our mouth can end up making others turn against us. Thus, controlling what we say is very important to maintain peace our life. Mouth can be a blissful gift and it can also be a cursed gift. One word “attack” can pretty much flood the whole land with bloods, as we have learnt in the history of warfare. That’s the first thing about mouth.

Third, mouth can also be used to spin words around for turning imagination into reality and blinding people in their euphoria. That’s what we call lies. Eyes are the sense used to justify and see reality, yet mouth can be used to change the reality by spinning the words. “It will be alright”, for example, is used to back up the reality where we know it is not alright. “The school is so good and it provides one of the best education for Canadian boarding school”, as the agent’s tongue spin and I listened, and my head started to imagine my beautiful life in this school even before I visit it. While in reality, it might not be the best place ever or it might even be the worst place to be.

Lastly, mouth can be used to cover up mistakes, flaws, and sins. Voltaire once talked about truth can be picked only when it is very ripe. To me, to prevent the truth to ripe takes one’s ability to use his mouth to delay the truth from coming, or even better if the truth can be brought to the grave using the mouth. The idea came to my mind today where subject and object just need to be replaced to create a totally new meaning. “I love her” and “she loves me” sound different. “I hit you” and “you hit me” as well. It depends on how one’s mouth capability is in order to create a good lie.

My point here is, it depends on a human on how he/she uses the mouth. Telling too many lies causes a person to lose trust from others. Telling a bold truth causes a person to be hated. It all comes back to the saying “your mouth is your tiger” eventually. Someone might suffer if the mouth isn’t well used. It is indeed one of the most useful tool of human body, but may cost life if misused.

Parts of Me

Everything we do carves our road to the future. The road, or path, then interdependent from our actions - daily activities to crucial decision. This path of ours then lead us to the justification from community of whether we are good or bad. For myself, I have been walking paths of madness. Many interesting events (or what my friends would address as "drama") have taken place in my life. Of many paths that I can choose, I have always tried my best to stay in what people call "the good one". Some people who met me from before, they gave me an opinion about me saying that I can either be a super good guy or a super bad evil. There is nothing as ordinary for me these people said. I didn't really want to believe such thing because it might cause a placebo effect.

But then, recently, I have been so obsessed with reading war and power books, leaving my philosophical books behind. Every action I did, I somehow calculate it even further, afraid if I made mistake. Thinking become my priority and somehow I am becoming evil. I realized this before long when my friend addresses my actions have changed and become more evil.

Now, Confucius talked about how a thought without a moral can become a disastrous weapon. I somehow think I am lack of moral to study those war and power books. There is indeed a difference between a genius and a mad man. I am turning into a mad man.

Oh well, at least, at the bright side, my friend addressed the problems to me and I start to change to the way I used to know. I think I don't need to read these books first. I have to firstly learn more about morality before I should know these warfare thoughts. As Confucius might have studied Sun Tzu's thoughts, he said only "if I fight, I conquer". To me, it means that Confucius knew how to deploy tactics really well, it is just that because he didn't want conflict to happen, then he chose to be peaceful.

I guess I am back to my sense now. I wouldn't imagine what I would become if I don't realize my change by now. Good thing that I can still turn back.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Nothing lasts forever, that's what people say. Apparently, they made this sentence after the changing nature. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said something similar to this sentence of mine: the day fades away after sunset, and the night follows. Seasons are involved in a cycle; spring is after winter, and summer is before fall. The wind that blows from early morning will last long but eventually will stop blowing, same case as night blowing wind. The wind will rise again after a while, same case as the day will come after sunrise, and the seasons will repeat themselves on the upcoming year. Thus, he kept mentioning that a good strategist should take this fact to his/her advantages. And yes, I am indeed still claiming myself as a strategist, studying under Sun Tzu =) (since I read his book) - Mencius ever mentioned that he is a student of Confucius even though he just study his books and thoughts without ever meeting him in person.

Thus, nothing lasts forever indeed and that includes human's lifespan. We were born and we will die one day no matter how long we have lived. Isn't it quite painful to accept this fact? Death are something that most of the people would say they are really afraid of. It is their nemesis, something that they want to skip and keep living in this world. But, would that be possible? Even a leaf will become dry and fall, and will be replaced by another leaf. Trees, no matter how long they live, eventually another tree will take their place sooner or later.

But then, during his funeral, I went to this Buddhist temple and chanted for his soul there in afterlife. And this nun was talking, she talked about life and death. She said, according to the teaching, life and death can be addressed as number one and two. One comes before two, and, she asked, what's after two? She said, there is no end to changing and there is always another chapter of life. Everything works in a cycle. Then she continued, what if you put death as number one and life as two? Death comes first and then life is afterward. I come to think about it and somehow I see a logic in it. "Maybe that's right", one day we will go back to the soil and we become part of the Earth and we become another living entity for once more.

The story doesn't end here. My mom brought me to see her nephew, who is a preacher for one sect of Buddhism. Her nephew told me about how people nowadays listen to their mind more than their heart. By heart, he means our feeling and where God lives in our body. He said that heart will eventually close itself when we don't listen to them for a long time. He told me that people try to fight pain for long time and somehow pain will turn people into people that use only their minds. He continued with his talk about life. He said that everyone that we meet and interact in our life, is everyone that we have met before in our life before this one (related to reincarnation). Parents and children meet because they owe one another. Husband and wife owes each other the most. And enemies are because a party has deeply hurt another party. So, he urged me to listen to my tiny heart, do the best in my life, and not forgetting about doing good deeds.

Talk about doing the best in my life, I remember Min/Sky lend me a book before, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, his favourite author. This book gives me inspiration about what I should do when I am still alive. I never know the day when I won't wake up forever. This book also teach me about what the author addressed as "the living funeral." It is a funeral for someone who is still alive but the time of death is really close. It is a special occasion where someone ill will invite his/her friends to say what they want to say before he/she passes away. This character of Mitch's book wants to know about what people think about him. Somehow, it is true to me because you probably would never know about anymore comment that people will say in front of your coffin.

So, when my grandfather was told that he won't live longer than a year by doctor before in April 2008, I chose to go back as soon as possible. I don't wanna miss a chance for not able to say whatever I haven't said before. During that moment, we met and talked everyday. I accompanied him. He told me about everything that he never told me before. We talked as adults and we shared what we had never shared. In the end, before I left back to Canada, we waved our last goodbye, he told me "ping an" and I left. I can't explain my emotion as I walked down the stairs. My steps were heavy. My breaths were the same weight as my steps. He passed away in peace last year November, on my birthday. To me, my birthday and his death are the day we met again. I went home, I didn't said anything anymore, I just knelled down praying. Apparently, I think he knows what I want to say anymore. Tuesdays with Morrie has given me such a chance to not regret what happens in my life. I just thought about our memories, good ones and bad ones.

Man, I still remember you are the first guy to ever give me a small shot glass of X.O. cognac when I was five years old. You know, when I drink that every time now, my mind led me back to our memories. I miss you.

Now, I am still walking to the future of mine. I won't stop unless my heartbeats stop. I don't want to regret so I will do my best. Apparently, my body is still young and my mind is becoming sharpen with time. I will keep my heart alive as well. Somehow, I am an adult now...