Religion as a Manifestation of Human's Essence

Majority of people think about their religion as a static dogma, opposed to a dynamic spiritual journey. This definition makes most of them mentally underdeveloped, either too close-minded and fanatic or too carefree and careless. A religion is more than just a standardized light house. Instead, it is a distinctive ship, which one could freely custom with experiences, ideas, core values, and many other things as one matures. With this thought in mind, a religion will be a personal guideline which would boost one’s discovery of one’s true self.

It is quite a pity to see people who claim to be religious but not spiritual. Their actions are full of wrath and hatred, though they consider themselves to be the foremost followers and the truest of their own creed. Their live is fully on the physical plane, with no regards to the law of the divine, and their heaven is full of greed and lust. They blindly follow their superior as they have no personal reason of doing anything they are told to do, and they are hopelessly seeking their own enlightenment in the darkest corner of the earth, only if they could just realize. As their wickedness is contagious in societies they live in, they are the bane of humanity.

 Unfortunately, there is plenty of this kind of societies in the world, in developed and developing countries, either loosely or tightly organized. In the United States, there is Westboro Baptist Church with their extreme, foolish ideologies to the point they are widely described as a hate group. Another example would be most capitalist, banker, and merchant class. They falsely believe that they are doing the God’s bidding by creating jobs and making profits, when all they actually do are exploiting the nature, oppressing the people, and altering the belief of the people by aiming in making global capitalistic, hedonistic civilization, which actually is very unspiritual. They don’t even consider raising the minimum wage! In the Middle East there are Taliban, with their infamous assassination attempt of a little girl called Malala, just because she wanted girls in Pakistan to get educated. And lastly, in Indonesia there are a group commonly known as FPI (Front Pembela Islam/ Islamic Defenders Front) which are famous of their sweeping operations and violence acts. Another example would be the Indonesia’s ministry of religion and culture, which is infamous for being one of the most corrupt ministries in the government. It is just sad to think that these kinds of people still exist in the 21^st century.

“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.”

A quote from Alan Ashley-Pitt is perfect to describe the nature how the relation of a person and religion should be. To say it roughly, a person in the same religion group should be heretic to each other and there would be no problem as long as the core values of religion is kept intact. Because people have different backgrounds and different missions living on earth, the slight difference is tolerable since religion is the manifestation of a person’s unique essence. Moreover, a religion should be more and more personalized so it would not be intertwined with civil, politic, economic and social matters. Ideally, everybody could freely interact and work together with no boundaries and sense of discrimination caused by religion.

To Act like a Lady and Think like a Man

Courtesy is wholly good when done with sincerity and perceived with tolerance. Sincerity and tolerance are the essence of courtesy to the doer and perceiver respectively. Without sincerity, the culture of courtesy will lose its purpose as means to promote kindness and will only be a meaningless act. Tolerance is needed so that suspicion, arrogance, and other negative attitudes will not emerge whether or not an act is courteous. I believe that the doer and perceiver need to cooperate to create a courteous situation.

Stereotype of a lady in classical society is the one who acts gently and virtuously, in other word, courteously. Their courtesy is complex, not only based on norms but also feelings so that their actions would be flawless in any situation. For examples, in Siti Nurbaya novel, we could see how a lady is constantly trained with rules and manners since their early days and there is “pingit” tradition in cultures of Indonesia. Unlike soldiers, a lady is not trained for the sake of discipline, inempathy and tough mentality. The purpose of the training is somewhat elusive and not a thing that could be explained briefly, but in broad outline, it is to give a lady an insight to paradoxically merge opposite ideas: courtesy which is purely restrained and feelings which came from heart, which is free-willed. It results in the true, proper act of courtesy which is not just a cold custom that bring inefficiency through fake interactions, but a refined action that is not as simple as it sounds.

Stereotype of a common man in our “friendly tropical islander” culture is someone who is merry as well as flexible who could accept with positive attitude. For example, most indigenous cultures in country, which have been dominated by men for centuries hence patriarchal, have developed variations of welcoming dances and welcoming parties which symbolize openness, trust, and tolerance to strangers. Men are also thought to be undemanding and not to be concerned with little things. For example, at modern party, when two women wear same outfit most likely that they will avoid each other and become foe. On the other hand, when two men stranger to each other wear the same outfit will most likely to instantly become buddies. At the party, men also tend not to think too much about other’s accessories and outfit. Men are simple and undemanding; making them easy to believe that courtesy have no ulterior motives and that there is always a reason behind every impoliteness. We should think like a man when perceiving everything in everyday life so that we could live merrily in warm and trusting society.

                In the end, to create a courteous situation is like the process of giving and receiving something as a birthday present. To the giver, courtesy is like the wrapping which could conceal and make someone happily accept the object; regardless its quality. In most situations a good packaging will raise the value of an item but sometimes, the packaging is more valuable than the item itself. To the receiver, trust and open-mindful is needed to accept any kind of gift and to maintain positive thought when the gift is not a sought after one or not wrapped good enough. To be more ideal, we could take the positive things from the two concepts of masculinity and femininity and merge them, always strive to be true and thoughtful when initiating a courteous act and to be tolerant when perceiving others.

Friendship and Trust

Friendship and trust are two inseparable things. You can only obtain both or not at all. Furthermore, after thinking quite deeply, I found that it is hard to differentiate one from another as both need time, repetitive interactions, and commitment and understanding to grow. One of their unique relationships is when the friendship ends; the bond of trust is likely to melt away too and vice-versa. So, I assume that it is safe to say that both of them are indeed two side of a same coin.

To befriend someone without trust or to trust someone without befriend the person is quite unlikely or in other word, risky. Through million years of collective socialization, the human race has developed a strong intuition in terms of reading the mind from body movement and expression. Research state that the first seconds of the first encounter is likely to give an impression that lasts for ages. Also, whether to trust and befriend someone come in a packet that your logic never ever tells you to befriend someone you sense as suspicious and untrustworthy from the first place.

“I’ve known these old lads for a very long time. They are my buddy and I trust them with all my live”.  Those words cross my mind every time I see myself in a photo with "the inner circle” of mine, in other words: “the gank” or “kawan-kawan lama”, which consists of no more than ten carefully selected people whom I have known for at least five years. There were continuous mutual evaluation between me and them concerning inner motives, potential, traits, habits, and most importantly, the chemistry itself. Through years of commitment and watchful observations, now I am proud to say that I have found people who are as close and trustworthy as a family to me.

Personally, time together is vital for the making of rapport as I am afraid to grade a person easily from the first glance as I am aware that my intuition sometimes misdirects me. Every now and then, I found someone whom I know would be a good company before the person even start talking to me. On some rare occasions, I found wallflowers whom at first I thought as clumsy, useless, or even a bit odd whom turned out as one of the most imaginative, creative, and unique people I know. Whatever the case may be, quality time would provide everything needed for the lingering growth of the tree called relationship with trust as its xylem and friendship as its phloem.

sources:

 Boothman, Nicholas. 2008, How to Make People Like You. New York: Workman Publishing Company, Inc.

Carnegie, Dale. 1952, Zo Maaktu Vrienden en Goede Relaties. Den Haag: N.V.Maandblad Succes

Love

Love is an uncontrollable force with a strength that could make anyone traverses any boundaries. It could help lovers overcome differences and hardships but on the darker side, it brings pain of possessiveness and even sets eclipse to the sanity of those who have been too much intoxicated in it. Around the world, there are happy stories and tales about the power of love because it has been the primary source of happiness and the reason of life of so many people, but there are also sad ones when pain and death follow.

Recently, I have just read a love story of an American-Indian woman with French ancestry and a White-European man. It is the twisted version of Pocahontas which ends with the heroine killed her lover instead of being with him happily together. I always wonder why Esther, the Halfling, does not give Lawrence enough time to settle his choice. Although it hurts, she should be able to hold it for a month or two, so Lawrence has the chance to point out where actually his heart belongs to. Or maybe, she cannot simply bear the pain in her heart after hearing that she is rejected because of things that she was born with. I don’t know much about the life and philosophy of the American-Indians at that time but I speculate that because Esther simultaneously lives with Europeans and American-Indian culture, a killing to preserve honor which is one of the chivalric code and killing because of lovesick that is considered natural, would be justified in her eyes.

The nature of love as a whole is like”The Chaos” in Greek mythology, huge, powerful, formless, unpredictable and neither entirely good nor evil. Love manifests in variety of forms and spectrum of colors, from the dark and possessive, to the colorful and cheerful. When it manifest in its dark form and binds someone into doing thing which is to be lamented, it cannot be helped. I would personally rather see it entirely as the work of nature, even if there are casualties or worse, because it is entirely unpredictable and uncontrollable. Or alternatively, a person should be labeled temporary insane when doing malicious thing for love. Who am i to judge the phenomena which I do not even understand?

The form of love that has aspires me is on the other side of spectrum which is known to the Greek people as agape. Agape is unconditional and self-sacrificing love at its purest form, which has loses all its ability to darken human heart. It is entirely altruistic and thoughtful, also with some property of healing. Saints, monks, and only the people with pure soul are the ones who are often thought to be able to produce agape. Agape have since helped people who want to heal the world, like Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa, by providing them with energy, enthusiasm, and hope. I believe, when there are enough people who have the ability to produce the agape, this world would be healed and we could turn earth into paradise.

“The world does not need more successful people. The world desperately needs more peacemakers and healers, restorers and storytellers and lovers of all kinds.” - Dalai Lama

The Insignificance of Birth Order

My opinion about one of Forer’s essay from her book about birth order and life adjustment is generally negative. I doubt that the essay is backed up with trustworthy data based on intensive research. The information there is presented in very broad and subjective expressions that bear little or no empirical value. Honestly, I feel that the essay does not give me any fresh insight nor useful information, the very same feeling as reading the horoscope section on monthly magazine.

“Older or oldest brother or sister tends to develop a self concept that includes the belief that he could do many things better than his siblings and that he is more adequate than other people in many situations.”

“The youngest tends to think that he is less able to do many things than other people but need not to be concerned because there are always others around to take care of him.”

I consider that Forer’s theory of birth order is about fifty percent accurate, the same as pseudo-science products. Traits that are brought to the discussion, such as being capable or relaxed are very universal to the point that everybody could see himself possessing the said qualities. This phenomenon, which is known as “Confirmation Bias”, are the reason why so many people still believe in pseudo-science products, such as tarot cards interpretation of personality, palm reading, and astrology. It occurs when someone is presented with general ideas as the description of himself, then he agrees with some and lightheartedly overlook or even stretches the false notions so that the whole description seems to be true. 

 The reasoning of self concepts is also a bit shabby, more like a myth to be frank because it challenges logic and general statistic. I discard the belief that a great number of human, for instance, the first-borne, which accounts for about thirty percent of the entire population, have similar qualities and fate. From my personal experience, I have never seen a large number of people with the same birth order possess the same personality, reason of life, and dream. They are all unique. Oddly, I believe that Forer took her data from media such as folklore, classics, and popular movies because those are the places where one could see Forer’s theory commonly applies in general population of the characters. I cannot decide whether the author discussion applies to the typical United States families or anywhere else in our reality because the discussion is mostly formed from myths and therefore irrelevant.

From neuroscience perspective, at first wealth and genes have more influence than the birth order, then gradually shifting to culture and environment as the child grows. In the golden period of brain growth, genes and nutrition which is determined by wealth, have enormous influence. After that, it is more to the family atmosphere that decide the plasticity of the brain and the behavior of the child. Furthermore, interactions between the child and the family have far more factors, mostly more significant than the mere birth order of the babies and the number of the baby’s siblings. For example, a trauma or a phobia could ruin someone personality severely regardless of his birth order, especially when it happens before the child's brain is fully developed. The personality of the parent too is a great factor because parents are adults who are the closest to the child in that golden period. As a conclusion, I conclude that birth order has a very small impact on the growth of the personality and the life adjustment of a person.

picture taken from: www.teamplayergaming.com

A Humble Introduction of A Recluse

"Hello, I am Ricardo. What is your name? And the meaning?"
"..." (insert your name here)
"But I will definitely forget it in an hour or half, so introduce yourself to me again when the time comes, please?"

These are the combos of what I always say when meeting someone new. Not a very good first impression, eh? A geeky nerdy dork or an absent-minded self-absorbed professor? Irritating for some and annoying for the others? I swear everyone that I've came personally to discuss about this weakness said that I just need some more time to socialize and be the butterfly or that everyone else is just like me, so "no worry be happy". Bullshit.

Luckily, about 2 weeks ago, I've got across something that could explain it all. I am just a  visually oriented person, in the simplest term: I can remember your faces but not your names. In addition, I am very very visually oriented, to a degree that my brain is addicted to visual stimulus such as a vivid imagination and a well-made picture (I could stare at a drawing for hours, enjoying every pixels of it!). But that's not all.

For some unbeknownst reasons, at early age my brain linked every other senses to the visual cortex, making me a synesthetic product of nature. I could literally see the colour of Beethoven's Symphonies, the colour of a touch on my knee, the colour of the sourness of a glass of orange juice, in short: the colours of most sensations. Confused? Me too! It just quite hard to say it all in one go. It's like explaining a colour of a cat to a born-blind person, that other than the meowing voice and the softness of the fur, actually the cat have "colours and a 3D-shape".

Personally, I'm grateful to be living in this condition. I could enjoy and memorize most of everything better than other people do (other than names of course haha!). In fact, I could rarely get bored because I could always find something good in any condition. There are drawbacks of course, but I consider them minor, such as my solitary, frantic, and head-in-the-cloud attitude, which are the fruits of my silent reveries when sitting alone in a bench and absorbing the colours of nature.