Seeking Refuge in Nature

I am on a boat being pushed out to sea on the East coast of Bali. The wind is strong here, partly due to being in a bay and partly because it's winter in Australia, making the current somewhat choppy. But the cloudless blue sky promises a good snorkelling morning, even though I can imagine in these parts, close to the shore and the many 'jukung' boats anchored nearby, the corals are most likely denuded and lacking in variety.

Nevertheless, it's good to get away from the noises and the news that normally steal a big chunk of my attention. The thing about news is, its demand for constant newness renders it impermanent even as it is being generated. In the news business, human events, like human thoughts, are doomed to obsolescence and instant forgetfulness. Yesterday was a pie in the face story, today, the ambulatory bread man's musical chime, a while back something about a wig and a hotel chambermaid; no doubt tomorrow more scandalous, corrupt and criminal behaviours await. All making up the sorry tapestry of our human life. Which is essentially just a lot of noise. Noises that often make us feel significant, involved and part of this enormous world of information. But they are still noises all the same, without which we're hardly any poorer.

Nature however, reminds us of the existence of the Permanent. That is, if we bother to cease our navel-gazing for a second and actually look up and around us. There we will encounter an intelligence whose creative power goes back billions of years and at the same time whose every visible manifestation carries with it memories of the past.

Nature is the refuge I seek when the pettiness and shallowness of human concerns threaten to drag me down into the quicksand of useless thoughts. Nature gives us the true meaning of profundity, the real concept of vastness and a genuine display of patience. I feel this especially more so with the sea.

The first time I saw the sea I was already eight or nine years old. Though an avid traveller I must confess to being a late starter. As a child I used to suffer terribly from car sickness, which did not make me an attractive travelling companion, particularly to my impatient parents. Thus, my memories of childhood was waving good bye to the others as they packed merrily into the family Volkswagen beetle to go on yet another picnic, leaving me to amuse myself at home with my paper and crayons and wait until they came back with their stories.

I didn't know what possessed my parents to finally take me on holiday to the sea side. Perhaps they realised they could not keep me forever in the dark about how big the world was. Perhaps because it was the university faculty's outing and there were many obliging students at hand who could also help keep an eye on me so I would not be too much of a bother to them. In any case, there I was, a child among adults, on a bus heading towards Pangandaran, on the south coast of West Java.

Needless to say I was miserable throughout the journey and filled many plastic bags with the contents of my breakfast and lunch. I wished I had been left behind or dead; whichever was the less painful. What was worse, the whole bus seemed oblivious to my suffering, as they sang the entire trip away.

When the bus finally came to a stop, almost the whole day had gone. My father told me to get off the bus. I was drowsy from the many car sickness tablets that I took and my legs were unsteady from too much sitting down. My feet sank into something I had never felt before and for a moment I thought the ground had shifted beneath me. It was sand. Like an invalid I allowed myself to be led to the beach.

'This,' announced my father, as if a magician revealing his greatest trick, 'is the sea.'
I blinked my eyes, for the burnished sun was blinding. There before me, beneath a fiery ball of a sinking sun was something that I had never seen before, not even in the wildest of my dreams. It was vast, it was dark and deep, tinged with red here and there, the surface brilliant with dancing sparkles. It was solid and yet it wasn't. And there approaching the toes of my poor wobbly feet, were frothing foams that chased one another like children. Over and over again.

I was speechless. The fatigue and nausea of the miserable journey dissolved with every lapping of the water around my feet. I had never seen anything so huge, so alien and so dominating. Nor anything so beautiful. I was torn between fear and awe. And there was the sound so new to my ears. That of the rolling of the waves. It had a rhythm, like a pulsating heart. And it was incessant. Over and over again. Never ending.

I realised I was looking at something very old. And I knew that my life until then had been nothing. Had been small and insignificant. Like a grain of sand upon the shore that was as fine as my after bath talcum powder.

And until now, when the noise of life is too much for my ears, I seek out the sea. For it never fails to put everything in perspective.


(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Learning By Playing

For the past week I've been at MIT Sloan Executive Education to learn. I'm not yet exactly sure about what, but I have an idea that it's about learning to learn, so I thought I'd share with you some of my observations and impressions of what I'm experiencing.

Now, being in MIT is an awe-inspiring experience in itself. The place is the seat of learning for just about the smartest people in the world: a pantheon of scientists, inventors, innovators, thinkers, Nobel prize winners and individuals instrumental in shaping the world as it is. I have in my notebook a leaf of an apple tree that is a descendant of that famous apple tree where Sir Isaac Newton sat when he discovered the theory of gravity.

It is also a place with some quirky-looking buildings designed by star architect Frank Gehry and students known for their ability to push practical jokes, called hacks, to an art form. There is a building called the Media Lab, an incubator of ideas and the birth place of creative inventions, laid out more in the spirit of a playroom rather than a research lab, complete with a Lego pit, a pingpong table and a seating area where people can doodle on and draw graffiti.

Fun is the first thing that comes to mind as my colleagues and I, a bunch of somewhat sceptical and world weary participants with little clue as what to expect, take in our surroundings and turn our eyes to our professor in the classroom. Those who come with the expectation of being taught and provided with answers to their problems, soon realise that this is not the kind of learning they will get. The professors, Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge, rather than teach, facilitate and prod us to see and think in different ways through asking questions and paying close attention to the responses in a way that is both humble and respectful. It is as if they are holding the door of learning open for us but it is entirely up to us whether to enter and what our intention is.
Because lesson number one, learning is a journey. It is an experience. A process with intention and attention. Of deep observation, of deep listening and of deep reflection. Not quite the idea of learning we get at school, of right and wrong answers, of grading and of passing tests.

According to Peter Senge school is a system of socialisation, not education. Certain things and skills are taught but in an environment that does not allow differences. This is because originally the concept of school was created to produce factory workers to work on assembly lines during the industrial age. The system was set up for efficiency, productivity and standardisation and uniformity. To produce workers who could do whatever task they were assigned to in a particular way and with a particular result. Somehow the system is carried over until today, where educational institutions still focus on standardisation, on test results and the right way of doing things.

But this is not real learning. Real learning is what children do and what we do when we are still open to it. It is doing and making mistakes. Peter gives the example of the way that children learn to walk. They don't need to be put in a class, taught how to stand up and move their foot one in front another, corrected, tested and then told that they now can walk. They just do. After a lot of falling and stumbling around. You know the child can walk without the need for testing. Soon the child is running and jumping around. Or talking and telling stories.
Every child has a natural capacity for real learning. Every child has a natural curiosity. Every child is different in character and in what he or she likes to do. No child is afraid of trying things out or making mistakes.

It is only when they are at school that they start to lose their capacity and love for real learning. When they are graded, tested and have to conform. When they are taught to avoid mistakes and give the wrong answers even though they cannot make much sense of the question or the point of the answer. Because school is a place where they are socialised and taught to know certain things, behave in certain ways and be a certain type of person. School is an assembly line of individuals that are ranked by their grades, an A grade student, a B grade student or a hopeless F grade student with little prospects for the future. That is, a future of a workforce based on factory assembly line type of organisation where innovation, creativity and uniqueness are neither required nor welcome.

This for me is a real eye opener. To think that the greater part of our formative years are spent in classrooms not to undergo any meaningful learning journey of discovery and creating things, but to be graded and tested on subjects that are soon forgotten and have little relevance to our lives and what we want to do as people, is quite depressing. Indeed for a lot of children now, the real learning that they do is during those limited times when they are allowed to play, do extra curricular activities, take up hobbies and hang out with their friends to do and create things together. Even now, the best memory I have of school is not the fascinating topics I learned from textbooks in the classroom and the good grades that I got, but writing short stories, making a magazine with a bunch of classmates and performing a school play. All without fear of criticism, of judgement and of failure.

Imagine the amount of energy, creativity, inventiveness, skills and ingenuity that could be tapped and harvested during those developing years, instead of waiting for certain individuals to become scientists and conduct research and experiments in their university years. Because every child is a potential inventor, a dreamer, an explorer and a creator of new ideas whose imagination has no boundaries. Every child can make a rocket, a robot and a spaceship out of Lego. And I imagine every child can dream up of innovative ways to take care of the planet and solve the world's many problems.
What strikes me most about my brief MIT experience is the approach to learning which takes us back to our natural childlike capability. Learning by observing, doing, coming up with ideas, making things with sticky notes, coloured pens and rubber bands. All the while keeping our mind open, our thoughts free of judgement and our hearts free of the fear of failure.

(Desi Anwar: First Published in The Jakarta Globe)

The Vision Thing

I'm a great believer in visualisation as a tool to fulfill an objective. When embarking on a project, I close my eyes, visualise the result that I want to have, and try not to allow doubt or scepticism get in the way of the picture. Then it's just a matter of allowing the path to open up and following it until the thing is done. And unless my heart is not in it to begin with, or I'm beset by a sudden fit of self-sabotage, events would normally unfold and result in more or less I imagine. From creating a program to securing the guests in the show, visualising how I want the final product to look like is an effective way of ensuring the wheels are put in motion and that the project takes shape.

But then, if you think about it, this is how all human endeavours materialise; from the simplest thing as baking a cake or planning a holiday, to building a space ship, we begin with some image or a vision of what we want to achieve, and then set about cooking, creating and constructing it. The things that we have, the resources, the tools and the ingredients, are there to help us realise this vision. The key is to stay focussed at all time and not lose sight of the objective, or be distracted by thoughts of failure and lack of motivation.

This applies not only for short term objectives, but also for how we wish to chart out the course of our lives as a whole. In this river of life, each one is a boatman undertaking a journey that has to have a destination in order for it to have a meaning. Otherwise we risk going round and round in circle or ending up the creek without a paddle; all hard work without a clear purpose of where we're going and how we will get there.

A vision is even more important for a country to have; the dream that we all strive for as a collective. The kind of place that we want to have and the sort of people we want to be. Once before its birth, Indonesia dreamt of one country, one language, one nation. Now, decades after achieving the oneness, there needs to be a review of this dream and what it means. When we talk about nation building, we need to have a clear vision of exactly what that nation is about before we could even attempt to know what we should be building.

Unfortunately in the course of our journey as a country, things got lost along the way or got chucked overboard. The country's motto of Unity in Diversity more and more seems like a faded roadsign than a beacon that lights up our journey, while those noble principles of justice, equality, prosperity for all and pluralism are like distant echoes carried in the wind of the past. In the meantime, we sail more and more into uncharted waters.

That is not to say the current reality is not a good place to be. On the contrary, we bask in our wealth and whatever achievement we have: our natural riches, abundant resources, our unique democracy, admirable growth, large population and stability etc. And yet, the journey is still long, and without a clear vision of where we want to go, without a captain that focusses on steering the boat in the right course and reminds the passengers of the destination, it will be hard to put our wealth, resources and energy to proper use.

Where is this country heading to, is the question that we often ask ourselves. We vaguely remember that once upon a time it was built upon some ideals, though for the majority of the young people it is not part of their collective consciousness. Stuff out of history books that have no bearing in their present world of global culture and social networks. And like an angst ridden teenager, we find ourselves fraught with vague yearnings and a pent up energy we know not where to channel; with an awkwardness that oscillates between petulant pride and embarrassed lack of confidence.

Yes, we want to be rich, we want growth and we want to take our place amongst the developed countries. But these are not ends in themselves, but means. Without a clear vision, they are part of a process that could as much take us towards destruction as towards prosperity. To be sure there are many plans and blue prints strewn about, on what to build and what target to achieve. But without the cohesive and overriding objective to keep them together, they are prone to the chopping and changing of every passing government and have as much use as misleading dead ends and side roads that lead nowhere.

And yet we don't need many roads or roads with alternatives. We only need one path to follow, with one destination. A destination that will determine how we steer ourselves, employ our energy and resources, and influence the decisions that we make. With meaning and a sense of purpose. What we need is a revival of the Indonesian dream; a collective visualisation of who we are and what we want to be. Whether as a land of opportunity for all or a melting pot living in harmony, with each other and with nature.

Without the collective aim, we are doomed to going round and round in circle, getting nowhere, constantly bickering and always tinkering. Never acting, always reacting. Never fully understanding what we're doing and why.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Spare Me The Beef

I can’t remember the last time I ate a piece of juicy beef steak. It was probably around the late eighties or early nineties. In any case it was around the time when mad cow disease broke out in Europe. Prior to that, student poverty had imposed a more or less vegetarian-lifestyle on me anyway, although I would happily revert back to being a carnivore whenever my budget allowed. However, the thought of ingesting diseased meat from diseased cows fed with with diseased food was enough to put me off the stuff for good. Beef had been off my dinner plate ever since.

Along with mass produced chickens; you know, the ones that grow really big and fat in a very short space of time, that spend their days in mass confinement and most likely injected with all kinds of weird hormones. I actually liked the taste of chicken, but again, the thought of consuming the meat of some unhappy animals, was a real turn off. Until now I can’t look at a chunky fried chicken drumstick in the eye without losing my appetite.

Some might put it down to preciousness or plain pickiness on my part, (for example, I wouldn’t say no to a carefully massaged and beer-fed Kobe cow’s beef or sample the meat of some happy hens should they come my way) however, giving up beef and chicken was a conscious choice I made one day as I reviewed the relationship I had with my food. And I can’t say that my health has suffered from the lack of these two animal proteins in the past two decades, (if anything I’ve been blessed with a robust constitution) though the impact on my mental health is questionable.
My point is, when it comes to the food that you put in your mouth, one can exercise some form of control. You have a choice. If you eat junk, then you treat your body like a garbage bin. And I am of the notion that eating too much meat is not good for you, and for all sorts of reasons you might think quirky.

For a start, the awful treatment of poor, innocent Australian cows at some Indonesian abattoirs recently only highlights the cruelty that humans could go to in order to satisfy their desire for meat. If I hadn’t given up eating beef two decades ago, I would certainly start now. Why anyone would want to eat the meat of an animal that had died an agonizing death is beyond me. If you don’t have much sympathy for the poor animals, just think about the impact on your body. Consuming all that bad energy can’t be good for anyone.

And why there should be Australian cows on Indonesian soil to begin with, strikes me as rather strange. All that moving the animals about must be expensive, uses up a lot energy and bad for the planet, not to mention terrifying for the poor animals. There’s no two ways about it: cattle animals are subjected to cruelty, in the way they are raised, fed, shipped around and slaughtered. If people can’t do without their daily meat then they should ensure that local cattle farmers are encouraged and provided the means to raise healthy, happy farm animals which, when the time comes, will meet a quick and dignified death for having sacrificed their lives to please the human palates. Otherwise, we would do well to eat less meat.

Besides, we all know that eating too much meat is not good. Being able to eat supersize hamburgers is not a sign of increasing wealth but of ignorance on how to take care of the body. If anything, people should be educated to eat less meat in general. It’s good for the health, easier on the wallet and kinder to the planet. Land used to grow feed for the cattle could actually be used to grow food crops for humans instead.

I know this will sound gobbledegook to some people, but I do think it’s high time that we took a really good look at what we put on our table and the whole chain of food system behind it. Mass production of food is important to feed an increasingly higher number of people in the world, but we can choose on an individual basis what food that we should eat more and what we should eat less. Global trade means we can now practically eat any food produced in any part of the world at any time. As countries get wealthier demand for more exotic and expensive food also goes up. People become further and further removed from the source of their food production and become dependent not on the local farmers and producers but on supermarkets selling imported goods flown half way across the world.

Not only have we lost touch with our food source, we have lost all respect for the food that we put on our plate, consuming it with no thought or consideration of how and where it was produced, manufactured and distributed and what long term impact it would have on our bodies and our environment.

Already the food we eat is killing us. Even being a vegetarian these days is not safe. From the mad cow disease there’s now the e-coli outbreak in vegetables in Europe whose source is still a mystery. Now I look at the vegetables in supermarkets that have travelled a long distance with suspicion. What dangers lie beneath those cherubic tomatoes?

If this continues, it looks like I might have to live on a diet of bread and water.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Creating Time

Recently I have decided to review my relationship with something that has so far and so strictly ruled my life: the concept of Time. Call it the fruit of spending too much time sitting around getting stuck in incessant traffic jams, but it must be said that one of the impacts of living in a messy and disorganised city like Jakarta is that one ends up having a distorted and rather unhealthy relationship with this thing called Time.

I hardly know anybody who lives here who doesn’t have some sort of time management issue or in control of their time keeping, and while I myself never claim or aspire to be a Miss Punctual, but when it gets to a point that one ceases to apologise for arriving late or think it a bit strange when people turn up to meetings on the nose, then there must be some underlying mechanism in my system that needs tweaking. Beginning with my understanding of Time itself.

More often than not Time emerges as the menace or the enemy in our lives, sabotaging and ruining our efforts to get things done. At the root of all our excuses, failures and inability to improve ourselves, often lie the words: ‘I just don’t have the time’.

Maybe this is the problem: my looking at the concept as an external phenomenon. Time is a hungry tiger, forever chasing us and hunting us down until we succumb to it, either in sickness or in death. It is constantly running out like water in an unplugged bathtub. Like will o’ the wisp it eludes our grasp, and like sand it trickles between our fingers. They are the jugglers’ balls that go all over the place when we fail to catch them. It is at once something that we don’t have and something we cannot have enough of; something that we hanker after and something that pursues us at the same time.

So I thought, what would happen if I decide to stop playing this cat and mouse game with Time? Instead of playing by its rule I create my own rule where Time could take part in it if it wishes to, or it could go and plague someone else. After a few decades of wrestling with it, it was time to give myself a break.

The first thing I had to do was to identify what exactly were the things that I found most time consuming. Amongst a list of things such as long office meetings, crawling to get from A to B in congested streets and getting work done on time, I discovered that the one most time consuming activity of all was wasteful thoughts.

When I say ‘wasteful thoughts,’ I mean exactly that. The amount of time I’ve spent in any given day repeating the same thoughts, going over the same things in my mind, not for any enlightenment purposes but out of a pathological propensity for worrying or merely out of sheer laziness to turn off my mental tape recorder, is quite substantial. Add a mixture of regrets, guilt, suspicion, feelings of offense, fear and dislike, then the thoughts become a toxic cocktail that eat up a lot of our space-time dimension - into days when I could barely remember what I did, but I remembered as not particularly good nor productive.

Wasteful thoughts often give way to ‘wasteful words’ - the verbal garbage that pile up for instance, in the office meeting room where words are loped back and forth like rotten tomatoes merely for the pleasure of throwing them rather than to convey any meaningful message - often in the forms of needless arguments, pointless debates and worthless discussions.

The ill feeling generated from these wasteful words would no doubt be more fuel for wasteful thoughts, leading to that feeling of constant harassment that leaves you very little time and energy to do anything else. This feeling of being constantly busy and yet barely remembering what was achieved; of never having enough time and yet never doing enough with the time.

So, without sounding like one of those self-help motivational books, one morning I decided to stop going over the past or worrying about the future for a bit and just focus on what I was going to do in that particular moment. And Time began to shift, changing shape from my daily tormentor rushing me to do this and that in my head, into one of those floppy clocks in Salvador Dali’s paintings. Brushing my teeth (which was what I was doing) when done with full awareness and complete attention, without your mind wandering, could suddenly seem forever.

A set of gleaming teeth later, I focused on what to do after. I could of course agonize on which of the projects that I’m working on (whether in real life or in my head) I should start with, but this time I just picked the one that I had to complete on that day. The rest I would neither think about nor even look at until the time came.

Treated this way, Time seems to magically stretch itself in the way it does when you watch a kettle boil. When I had to make every moment accountable, then the possibilities of doing more suddenly open up, whether it is to read for an hour, to take up swimming lessons, go bike riding, play my game of Angry Birds or finish my projects on time.

And I realised that much of my problem with Time until then was not that I was ruled or harassed by it, but because I failed to pay it my full attention and actually did something with it.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Fading Faculties

When my father was still alive he confided in me that his biggest fear in life was losing his faculties: in other words, his intelligence and capacity for sound thinking and reasoning. To stave off that possibility, he continually invented new mental challenges for himself in his spare time, such as teaching himself Japanese - wrestling to form the intricate kanji characters in his exercise book at an age when other professors would be quite happy to sit on their laurels.

He never did lose his mental faculty until the day he died. As a matter of fact he was in the middle of teaching his class one morning when he suffered a stroke and passed away that same evening with very little fuss or preparation. The legacy that he left me was the belief that death is not the enemy, but the impending threat of a failing brain: a legacy that increases in relevance with the inexorable advancing of one’s years.

They say to stay mentally sharp it is important to keep one’s brains active throughout one’s life, particularly through mental exercises that give your grey matter something to chew on. I read that crosswords, puzzles, sudoku and other mental games have been scientifically proven to prevent memory loss and protect mental functioning.

With this in mind, lately I started conscientiously arming myself with a handful of brain fitness applications on my smart gadgets, downloaded all manner of IQ tests on the Internet and buying brain games and puzzle books designed to improve the brain’s function. While others splurge on dumbbells and fitness balls to workout their muscles, I was more interested in giving my brains a good workout with a series of mental exercises. After all, if you don’t use it, you lose it, right?

To motivate myself I recently even spent a pretty penny on a book that purports to be some sort of brain gym, working out the different parts of your brains to improve and strengthen the different mental functions such as focus, speed, attention and memory. ‘Targeting the six systems in your brain that do all of the really hard work - short and long-term memory, the ability to learn faster, mental math skills, memorization and planning skills - “Brain Games” will whip your brain back into shape in no time,’ the book says. I got my pencil and paper out.

I started on the first puzzle of the page which is to improve the brain’s ‘executive functions’ situated in the prefrontal lobe. The Executive Functions, the book says, perform the most uniquely human cognitive tasks that include ‘planning behaviour and control of instinctive responses to achieve goals set for the future. It also coordinates sophisticated physical movements such as those needed to speak words.’ Should be easy enough, I thought. So far I don’t have problems with either goal setting or speaking words.

The puzzle consists of some simple math symbols that I had to solve. According to the book it is best to start with the easy ones first and work your way up the ladder of difficulties. Chomping on a handful of dark chocolate covered blue berries (brain food) and downing cups of green tea (full of brain enhancing antioxidants) I embarked on solving the puzzle. There are 180 of these games and puzzles and the objective is to do one a day so that in three months ‘you’ll soon have the biggest, fastest, brainiest brain around.’

Four days later and after much chewing of the pencil and several salmon sashimi dinners (packed with brain friendly Omega 3) I finally managed to crack the puzzle. Perhaps I just needed to get the hang of the system, I thought to myself. I started on the second puzzle. That was three weeks ago. Until now I haven’t managed to solve it. Not only that I’m beginning to have serious doubts about the state not only of my prefrontal lobes, but my entire brain function. Am I losing it?

Science says that your brain begins to slow down when you get to your mid-twenties and continues to lose its capacity at the same rate every year until that time when you enter that ‘twilight’ zone of forgetfulness and mental incapacity; that fearful humiliating stage of lost faculties my father was always afraid of.

The book claims to help slow down that slowing down rate. In my case however, I am starting to question whether I ever had those six cognitive systems working to their peak performance to begin with and to possess enough of those ‘executive functions’ to lose in the first place. I racked my brains to remember if in my younger days I managed to solve The Rubik’s Cube or conquered one cryptic crossword puzzle, and found no such happy recollection.

What chances do I have now, with my brain capacity no doubt significantly diminished, of being able to complete a Sudoku or a puzzle in one sitting?

The Brain Games are supposed to whip your brain back into shape in no time, but I suppose in my case, my brain was never in shape to begin with, so any whipping would be like flogging a dead horse. The book now joins the fate of other objects such as the stationary bike and the cellulite massager: lying around filling the room but rarely touched. A testimony of hope over hopelessness.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Manipulate Me

When I'm in the US I always love to watch those paid advertisement programs on the television. You know, the long programs that are commercial in nature, and so addictive to watch because you start discovering all the problems you have with your body, your face, your life and other horrific things which, prior to that moment you never knew exised. But now you know you have them, life seems incomplete of you didn't get your hands on the solutions being offered. From things to fix your house with to products that transform your bodies, these ads come complete with testimonies from satisfied customers, a convincing before and after comparison and scientific explanations from experts, that it wouldn't surprise me if everybody on the land didn't rush to get them after watching them. They are that persuasive! Or maybe I'm just gullible.

For example there's one product that purports to change the shape of your body and make those with wide girths drop down a couple of sizes in their clothes. Just by putting tthis so called 'body shaper' on, people with huge, unsightly bulges at the most unwanted places like stomach, waist and behinds, which is quite the majority these days, could suddenly become svelte with an attractive silhouette. Yes, by just wearing this little piece of garment, fat people with big paunches and butts that stick out like a the rear end of a bus could suddenly shave off a good few inches from their waists and wear their favourite clothes again. And all for a mere $39.99 or your money back!

Not only that, but if you call to order within the next ten minutes they would throw in extra garments in different colours. If you order within two minutes they would send you half a dozen for free! I could feel myself physically yearning to reach out for the phone and wallet for my credit card. I mean, those big people with ugly bodies that suddenly look presentable are real proof that that the stuff works. And everybody has a problem with unsightly bulges right?

Changing the channel however, there's an offer for a thing called the 'genie bra'. Immediately I'm all eyes and ears. Are you unhappy with your bra? The attractive lady who was a former news anchor asks on the television. I never thought about it, but go on. Do you struggle with hooks and do your bras make you look lumpy, not give you a proper lift and show off your back fat? Back fat? Some ladies unhappy with their regular bras are shown airing their grievances I didn't know bras could produce. And now looking at it, why yes, my bra does indeed enhance the back fat I didn't know I had and is definitely not giving me the kind of lift that I'm entitled to.

The magic bra on the other hand, not only gives the wearer a smooth appearance even with the tightest and flimsiest piece of clothing, but could actually give you the perkiest and gravity-defying silhouette. Without the slightest hint of lumpiness and back fat. Now, what lady on this planet doesn't want that? I certainly want one, or even two or three in different colours. Especially if they are only $29.99 and if you call to order within the next three minutes they will give you extras that will live last for three generations. Plus, throw in a garment that could make your backside look perky for good measure.

My instinct protests. Magic underwear? Why didn't they make a whole ten minutes spiel on the wonders of those underpants that could show off the curves of your behind in a flattering way without the dreaded visible panty lines? I want them. I need them and I must have them. None of my underwear could do any of those things. And here is something that could answer the problems that I have. I'm convinced that with the body shaper, the magic bra and the magic underpants I would henceforth go through life with increased confidence. I make a mental note to have my wallet near me next time. You have to be fast in order to take advantage of the amazing special offers.

But what's this coming up now? It's ex super model Cindy Crawford. And who doesn't want to look like Cindy Crawford, the ex-anchor turned saleswoman on the screen asks. (So that's what happens to news anchors. Old anchors never die, they become TV product endorsers!). Cindy has looked the same way since she was in her twenties. A picture of Cindy at 28 comes up, next to the present one at 48. Yes, indeed, she hasn't aged one bit. I nod in admiration as do all the ladies gathered and clapping in the studio on the TV. So, what's her secret? By this time I have no desire to change the channel.

I want to know Cindy Crawford's beauty secret. In comes the still glamorous model. She's more than happy to share with the world her fountain of youth discovered by her skin doctor. Who happens to be French and rather good looking. Whatever they're using I want it too. The doctor, with his irrepressible smile and irresistible accent, tells the audience the secret lies in the melon. A special melon grown in the south of France that doesn't age. Pictures of juicy looking melon rich with anti-oxidant properties flash on the screen. I want to be that melon! It's the very same melon that has kept Cindy Crawford a real life, female Dorian Gray. And now you too could be like Cindy, because she is sharing the product created for her by the handsome French doctor for you, ordinary mortals, at a price you could afford. Something that ends with .99 and if you call within the next few minutes they would throw in other amazing extras etc.

By now, I've caught on to the pattern of this method of advertising. A bunch of testimonials, a before and after, expert comments and satisfied customers and bingo, I am completely convinced that these are products that would change my life. As a matter of fact, watching these things I could feel myself emotionally manipulated and even physically feel the desire rise within me for these incredible products. What is saving me from reaching for my wallet fortunately, is the sheer number of incredible stuff being offered at the same time.

I change the channel. There's a product called the 'body contour'. It's a belt that gives you the perfect abs...

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Hooked on Memories

I have a pretty bad memory, especially when it comes to remembering names and faces. I don’t think it has anything to do with age, although I’m sure that’s not helping either. I could be introduced to people several times or bump into those I’ve often met before and draw blanks when it comes to knowing who they are let alone remembering their names.

So when I meet people, most of the time I put on my biggest and friendliest smiles and hope that they take it as a sign that I recognise them and happy to see them again. Complete strangers might mistake me for being a friendly soul, but for those whom I’ve met before, the vacant look in my eyes is often a dead give away, and the embarrassing ‘you don’t remember me, do you?’ would follow.

I don’t know whether it’s my partially shortsighted eyes or just sheer laziness on my part, or even the lack of capacity in my brain to store this type of information, but for the profession I’m in, forgetting people’s names and faces is a real handicap. The number of times I’ve sat next to some ministers, parliamentary members or other high ranking public officials and had absolutely no clue what their names were and even who they were, is just too numerous.

Thus, when I came across a book given to me by a friend called ‘Moonwalking with Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything’ written by one Joshua Foer, an American journalist, I devoured it like a longterm sick man who’s finally found a cure. The book recounts the journalist’s experience of attending a Memory Championship (I didn’t even know there’s such a thing), became fascinated by how some people were able to remember just about everything, from reeling off lists of hundreds of random words and tens of digits of numbers, names and faces as well as remembering the order of decks of cards.

The interesting thing about it is that the people that took part in the championship are not geniuses as such or born with any particular talent or have peculiar-shaped brains. At least, not more so than people who have a great interest in sports, games and other activities that require continuous and correct training in order to be good at them. As a matter of fact, the participants of the championship (mostly relatively young and obviously with a lot of time on their hands) call themselves mental athletes, and in Europe this type of championship is taken very seriously.

Memory grand masters could memorise and reel off an impossible list of things, numbers and facts accurately even if it takes them hours to do it: all using a method that anybody could learn.

The writer’s own interest grew from a journalistic curiosity to the desire to know how the human brain and how our memory worked, and then as an experiment, to see if he himself could become a US Memory Champion in one year through daily practice. Which, by the way, he did. Which just goes to show what my high school teacher had always told us, that if you apply yourself seriously enough, you could do anything, including memorise and recite hundreds of fifteen digit numbers in five minutes.

So, how does this wonderful thing called our memory work? Our brains are actually very good at forgetting. Especially things like numbers, shopping lists, random facts, and in my case, names and faces. Most of you probably know already that the way we remember things is through associations, whether through remembering the experience, the emotion, the sight, the smell and the taste. A waft of perfume could suddenly make you recall a long-forgotten friend or the time when you visited an aunt’s place when you were young.

In the case of the French writer Marcel Proust, the taste of the little ‘madeleine’ cakes transported him back into his childhood and gave birth to volumes of stories and recollections under the title ‘Remembrances of Things Past.‘

Usually the more unique the experience, the stronger is the memory. We might find it difficult to remember what we had for lunch the week before and where, or even the day before yesterday, because the event was unmemorable; lost in the sea of other unmemorable lunches. However, the chances are we would remember that terrible meal in that awful restaurant back in the last century when you walked out of your girl or boyfriend because s/he confessed to have cheated on you.

Improving the memory, therefore, is a matter of creating associations of the things you want to remember, using what is referred to as mnemonics. The stronger the association or the more vivid the imagination involved, the better you will remember it. With things like shopping list or the dates of the kings and queens of England however, you have to mentally create the associations in order to have perfect recall as most of us cannot remember beyond a handful of things or anything longer than seven numbers. This, one does by creating what the book calls memory palaces - familiar places that you conjure up in your imagination, where you stick the things you want to remember and then retrieve them like mental Post-Its.

For example, if you need to remember to do list items such as shopping for smoked salmon, a bottle of wine, a pair of socks, a Paul Newman DVD, picking up the dry cleaning etc, you put the said items mentally and vividly in specific areas of your memory palace and recalling them is a matter of retracing your step and mentally encountering the objects.

Numbers can be remembered in more or less the same way, that is encoding them into letters, personalities, actions and objects or other associative images that your memory could happily hook on. One could do the same with people’s names; for instance, to remember a certain Mr Fisher you could imagine the person fishing or have a fish for a head.

May be that’s why I have problems remembering names. Unless the person is called Hotman Paris or Cinta Laura, with a lot of Indonesian names it is not that easy to find a hook to hang your memory on.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Meditating on Meditation

Since the Universe has been kind enough to give me opportunities to meet many interesting people, I thought I’d share with you the recent chats I had with two well-known Buddhist monks who are currently visiting the country. One is Mingyur Rinpoche, a young and fine looking monk from Tibet with a beautiful smile, fine teeth and a happy countenance. The other is Ajahn Brahm, an Englishman who lives in Australia, had his Buddhist teachings in Thailand and extremely witty.

Both monks have a lot in common. Other than the tonsured pates and the flowing saffron robes, both have a ready sense of humour, plenty of anecdotes, personal stories and both are generous with their laughter and sincere smiles, which to be honest are lacking these days especially in people who command a religious respect and influence among their followers.

But then maybe it’s precisely the fact that they don’t dwell much on the formal and religious aspect of Buddhism that allow them to have a place in people’s lives all over the world, whatever their beliefs or cultures, despite the monks’ distinctive appearance and bearing. What they impart, whether through books, public lecture and workshops are stuff that one would normally find under the philosophy, psychology and self-help sections in the bookshop rather than the religious.

Armed with knowledge and the tools on how to achieve peace, lead a joyful life as well as attain wisdom and happiness, all with a fluency and articulacy of a career coach or public motivator, it is little wonder that both monks are frequent global travellers and much in demand, whether in the boardroom of highly stressed executives, amongst emotionally-charged urbanites or multi-tasking young people finding difficulty in focusing.

In short, they are a source of knowledge and skills that we all need to cope with life’s ups and downs without the religious strings attached to get tangled and knotted in. And what they are offering is an ancient and time tested tool effective in solving human problems as well as increasing awareness and understanding of the self, whatever one’s religion, race or gender: A tool that has now been scientifically tested and acknowledged by the medical practitioners.

That tool is Meditation, which according to Ajahn Brahm with a twinkle in his eye, was invented by Buddhists but which they don’t have a franchise on. It is free for anybody to use and moreover you don’t have to become a Buddhist to learn how to do it or really benefit from it. Meditating on a regular basis, says Mingyur Rinpoche, is good for your health, make you a happier person and peace of mind. Who in this world does not want to have that? He should know as Mingyur Rinpoche is an expert on the subject, having accumulated over ten thousand hours of meditation behind him and will soon go on a three year retreat to deepen his practice.

As a matter of fact, Mingyur Rinpoche has undergone several fMRI scan where doctors stick his body in an enclosed capsule for hours to video how his brains respond to various influences such as pain, viruses, shocks and other disturbances. Why he was willing to be subjected to what sounded like torture was beyond me, but the results showed that his meditative mind has a positive effect on the health of the body in the form of better immune system and faster healing process. Looking at him I have no doubt about his constitution. He looks the very picture of health.

According to Rinpoche, even as little as ten minutes of meditation a day has its benefits, if only to help calm down the monkey mind that most of us has, which loves to jump around, stirring our emotions in the process. Our mind is like a pool of water that is constantly being muddied and disturbed by our thoughts. When we meditate, we still the muddy water, enabling us to see through the clear water deep into the pool. There we will find revealed the gold of wisdom and the nugget of understanding that we all have within us, but until now obscured by the naughty monkey.

Ajahn gives an interesting example of what meditation is and why it’s important. He picks up a cup of water in his hands and holds it. The cup is light, he says. We have no trouble in holding it. Try to hold it for five minutes and it gets a bit heavier. Ten minutes and your arm hurts. Any longer and the weight becomes unbearable. When you finally put the cup down you give a sigh of relief.

Meditating is like putting the cup down and giving yourself a break. Imagine carrying all those thoughts, worries, emotions, anxieties, hopes, regrets and fears day in day out, for months, years, an entire lifetime without a break. No wonder the body gets sick, the thinking not straight and the emotions uncontrollable. The burden is too heavy for the mind and body to carry without reprieve.

When you meditate you set aside all those burdens for a few minutes by focusing on something else, something simple like your breath. Give yourself regular breaks from carrying all the stuff in your head and you will find that everything becomes a lot lighter, a lot less unbearable and your emotions much more in control. You will become a calmer, more focused and emotionally stable person.

I nod in agreement. From now on I will take up meditation on a regular basis. But before that I’ll take a little break and have a cup of tea. Aaah…

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Kitaro: Man of Nature

I spent an entire day with Kitaro recently. You know, the legendary long-haired Japanese born musician and composer who’s been prolific for the last three decades creating New Age music and whose distinctive synthesiser sound had provided soundtracks to many a film, not to mention becoming the background sound of many of us who had lived through the eighties. Even those who’ve never heard of Kitaro would have heard and recognised his distinctive music, which by the way, is great listening especially when you want to meditate and contemplate about the Universe.

And what a nice fellow he is too. Even though he’s lived in the United States for the past thirty years, most of it in the freezing mountains of Colorado, he still retains a strong Japanese accent and assumes the deference and diffidence of his native country. Being around him and his humble manner, his soft voice and his reverence for other people, I could not help feel that compared to him most of us seem rather rude and imposing. It’s not just the bowing and the hand clasping, but there is something within him that is definitely Zen, that gives a sparkle in his eye and a radiance to his affable smile.

I asked Kitaro about music and how he started his musical career. Actually he wanted to be a tennis player. He never had a musical education. One day his friends asked him to muck around with some instruments and he found that he could play music. And he could play any instrument. Once, when the band’s guitarist was sick he picked up the guitar and started to play. It was the same with other instruments. Just like that? Without anyone teaching him? When I watched him at his concert, he was certainly the busiest out of the group, playing the guitar, the keyboard, the wind instruments, the drums with an energy that belies his age.

So where did the music come from? He must have picked it up from other bands that he used to listen to, or other musical influence? Not at all. He didn’t really listen to other people’s music. Some classical perhaps. But he finds his music from nature. From the falling snow, the sound of a leaf falling from the tree. I didn’t know that a leaf falling could make a sound, but nature is the origin of Kitaro’s music. That’s why he loves the mountain and the open air. Not only does nature inspire him, it provides a whole musical score for him.

His music then, does not spring from within, but from without, from the natural world around him that finds its voice within the harmonious synthesis of the composer’s musical arrangement. Kitaro’s compositions indeed are nature’s expression synthesised and made accessible to the human ear. The titles of his work include ‘Heaven and Earth’, ‘Silver Cloud,’ ‘Gaia,’ ‘Spiritual Garden’, ‘Full Moon Story,’ ‘Astral Trip’ and ‘Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai.’ Little wonder his aura is calm and meditative. When nature gives birth to music through you, I suppose you can’t be anything other than Zen.

So, over three decades later since his first album, Kitaro still performs and composes his unique sound of New Age music; a constant in this era of fickle musical tastes. His is an oasis of repose and meditation in our world of cacophony and in life’s continual journey full of distractions. He is a believer in nature as a healer. Man could only destroy. The recent Tsunamis and earthquakes in Japan showed the power of Nature. But with them came the possibility of healing and rebirth. Nuclear power according to him, however, is manmade at it will prove a bigger destruction to people than any afforded by Nature’s force. Listening to Kitaro speak I feel as if he is voicing the concerns of Mother Nature herself.

I often hear people of great talent, when asked about how they developed their skills and who taught them and so on, would say that the music or the art or the urge to create came from around or above (pointing to an invisible Deity) and they were merely vessels to express something which was already there. For a lot of people struggling through hours of trying to pound some melodious notes out of the piano keys or squeeze a recognisable tune out of the strings of their violin, the ‘natural’ talents that some people have might seem painful. The pain that Italian composer and music teacher Salieri might have had perhaps when having to witness the effortless virtuosity of the young and precocious Mozart.

But then there is a reason why such talent is called a ‘gift’ I suppose. Everybody is put on this earth for a purpose, though for most people that purpose is yet to be discovered and remains the Universe’s secret, but some individuals’ purposes are clearer than others obviously. And when that purpose is made manifest, that gift could only be expressed and in so doing, shared with the rest of the world, the way it was intended. What Kitaro shares with us through his gift is a reminder that the world is so much bigger than our petty problems and woes. And that Nature is infinitely strong and beautiful.

(Desi Anwar: first published in The Jakarta Globe)

Minding the Brain

These days we are constantly bombarded with a deluge of information from a plethora of sources, whether Online or Offline, real or virtual, Facebook, Twitter and mobile chats, with different degrees of quality, importance and verifiability vying for the same space in our brains. While all this access to information is great to keep us updated on what’s going on in the world and helps increase our knowledge and understanding about things, a study in a recent article I read says that too much variety of information at the same time coming from different sources actually impair our decision-making ability, especially when decisions have to be made quickly.

According to the article, our brain has difficulty in sorting through the huge amount information received and the different options presented in order to produce the best type of decision at the quickest time. The more things our brain has to consider, the poorer the quality of the decision, if any could be made at all. All those expert opinions and analyses at the same time, instead of making us smarter and better thinkers, could end up with confusing us and making us choose the wrong decision.

It is as if our brain gets overwhelmed in some kind of ‘embarras de choix’ - I suppose a bit like how I feel when I have to buy a tube of toothpaste in a huge chemist. With all the array of different brands of toothpaste claiming to be doing different amazing things, I often end up either not buying any because I’m afraid of getting the wrong one, or choosing something which is not exactly what I need and a lot more expensive. Choosing which toothpaste to buy is actually easier from a little shop selling just a couple of familiar brands. I would just choose the same one I’ve been using without thinking too much about it.

The study goes on to say, that better decisions and good insights usually come when you allow the subconscious to rise to the surface, which is when we are not stressed and the brain is relaxed. We all know that some of our best ideas come when we’re under the shower or on our backs daydreaming. The bath tub ‘Eureka’ moment of Archimedes or the Newtonian gazing at an apple tree. The brain, quietened from the noises of thoughts and conflicting information, suddenly has a clarity that enables us to see things as they really us and hence better able to solve our problems.

Of course, monks and people who understand the objective of meditation know that the best way to look for answers is to still your mind and look within. Even the word ‘reflective’ itself, meaning to be in deep thought, reminds one that thinking is a process of reflecting what is in essence already there. You cannot find the answer by tinkering endlessly with the problem, but by putting the problem in a different perspective where you could look at it for what it really is, which is no longer a problem but a situation with many sides to it.

I find the article interesting because when it comes to studying the human mind, science tends to approach it with trying to figure out how the brains work, which part of the grey matter deals with what and which senses, and how the circuits are all wired up so that when things go wrong, like the person not able to do certain things or when the brain is impaired, we know what happens inside the brain and how to fix it.

I feel that when science tries to analyze how the brain works, it still confuses the mind with the brain: our thoughts and how our mind works are the product of the workings of our brain and the brain’s capability to process information. Press this you feel pain. Cut that and you’re no longer depressed. Without the brain there is no mind. When it speaks of the unconscious it’s more likely to refer to hidden information that lies in the bottom of our mental iceberg captive somewhere within the circuitry of the brain matter.

We would never have this confusion when trying to fix a computer or a Television for example. A computer consists of both the hardware, the tangible bits and pieces, and the software, the information, knowledge, ability and capacity of the computer depending on what software and programmes are put in it, whether to calculate, to edit films, to write documents or to browse the Internet.

When a TV set is broken for example, we open it up and fix it so that we could get a clear reception, good audio and sharp pictures. We don’t expect it to show better soap operas, higher quality entertainment or more educational programmes for the children. A television set is merely a receptacle or a channel for information generated elsewhere. In order to do that, the apparatus has to be tuned to the correct and exact frequency that the information is broadcast in. The better the ability to capture the frequency, the better the quality of the transmission.

In this way, I am more inclined to see the human brain, or the human being for that matter, as receptacles that are designed to capture specific frequencies much like a radio or television. To really access and understand (or reflect) the full meaning of the information and knowledge available in the universal software, it is important to sharpen the ability to receive the signal and strengthen the reception.

Otherwise what we’ll get is just blur and a lot of noises.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Aflockalypse

Birds fell dead in thousands from the skies and millions of fish died mysteriously recently in parts of the world. Fireworks, sudden change in temperature and stormy weather had been blamed for these strange goings on, but an approaching Doomsday sounds like a more plausible explanation to this Aflockalypse. After all animals are a lot more sensitive and prescient to impending events and planetary rumblings than humans, normally being the first to make a dash for it when some natural disasters are about to take place. No doubt those birds that died en masse in mid flight, or the fishes that suddenly went belly up in the millions all suffered massive heart attack at the sight of the pale horseman casting his shadow in the horizon or the signal of an Alien attack.

Scientists are trying to make light of these events, saying they were not such rare occurrences, but then that's probably typical of government cover-up attempt in the face of weird phenomenons. Having dead birds raining down from the heavens is about as natural as the Biblical plague of locusts. For all we know the mass deaths of these poor creatures were the works of some mischievous Aliens or a scientific experiment gone wrong. Or of course the End of the World, which if we follow the Mayan calendar, is due to come the end of next year.


I don't want to frighten myself with this gloom and doom, but closer at home, my pet cat has also been showing a noticeable change in behaviour these few weeks. Little Ben, generally a pusillanimous and anti social creature, for reasons best known to himself, has taken to shift his zone of comfort for the past few years of his short life, from his mat near the water pump to the sofa in the TV room. This might not appear as cause for alarm, except for the increasing presence of fur and the occasional smell of cat urine, but for a creature that had up to now shown only autistic nature that is immune to human caresses and suspicious of company both two legged and four legged, this sudden transformation in character and habit is quite disturbing. Is this the result of Ben finally realising that the sofa is an infinitely nicer spot to have his catnap or portends a more sinister happening? Like the end of the world. Which scientifically speaking, is not unnatural either. Difficult to document perhaps, but not impossible.

Throughout the ages species on this planet had lived and had gone extinct with regular frequencies. Creatures that had walked, flown or swam in this earth for thousands and millions of years could suddenly disappear without as much as a by your leave, including our ancestors, leaving future descendants to puzzle over the mysteries of what exactly happened and why.

Moreover, it's only recently that modern humans have colonised the planet and in terms of time we could only trace our history a mere few thousand of years back (Twitter by the way is only four years old and Facebook seven), while theory holds that our specie 'homo sapiens' had actually been around two hundred thousand years ago in Africa. Which means that between the numerous planetary catastrophes and climactic changes that went on in beween, the melting and the freezing of the continents, there were no doubt a bunch of strange goings on that we could never know for sure.

Such as what were the sabre toothed tigers and hairy mammoths doing when they suddenly became extinct? And what were the Neanderthals up to and thinking about before their entire specie was wiped out the face of the planet? May be they were praying or planning the best way to defend themselves against the upstart Homo Sapiens that were encroaching their hunting ground? Thinking about it, what prompted some of our Homo Sapiens ancestors to leave the African contintent and populate the world some forty to fifty thousand years ago? Perhaps because birds fell out of the sky too and the fishes died?

Even the discoveries of our human origins continue to surprise us. So used are we to thinking ourselves the product of the only superior and intelligent being that roamed the earth, recent revelation about the Neanderthals, with whom Homo Sapiens shared the planet tens of thousands years ago and deemed to have crossed path with and even exchanged genes, is making us rethink about our history and what constitutes the human species. Apparently we were not the only smart being around. The Neanderthals too, contrary to our beliefs, developed their own tools and even cooked their food.

And then there were the Denisovans, an ancient human type whose remains were found in the caves of Siberia recently, who were thought to have lived alongside and even bred with our Homo Sapiens ancestors some fifty thousand years ago. Throw in the 'Homo Florensis' Hobbit and the world seemed to have been a lot more interesting place to live in those days when the planet was somewhat younger.

These are all silly musings of course, but there's nothing quite like looking at things in perspective and trying to see the big picture to make life a lot less alarming and keep our hubris as the dominant species on earth in check. The world is always changing and coming to an end in one way or the other and will continue to do so. Civilisations and cultures rose and fell, different human races thrived and disappeared, beliefs grew and changed as knowledge developed and evolved. Nothing is permanent even as night becomes day. The one thing that we need to do is continually deepen our knowledge and find answers to the question Why.

(Desi Anwar: First Published in The Jakarta Globe)

The Beautiful Game

Just looking at the reaction that the Indonesian national football team’s shining performance in the Asean Football Federation cup is having on the nation’s psyche, I find it amazing how a few victorious games on the field could transform the spirit of a people worn down with life’s disappointment, hardened by cynicism and dogged by pessimism into one of delirious joy and overwhelming sense of pride overnight, like finding an oasis in the middle of an arid desert. But hey, success, as they say has many parents, while failure is always an orphan.

Of course, having drop-dead handsome players to represent the team and the country helps a great deal, never-mind that some of them are not even of Indonesian origin. Foreign-born Indonesian team star players Irfan Bachdim and Christiano Gonzales have become overnight sensations in this part of the planet, not just for their skills on the turf, but also for their comparative good looks, that will no doubt raise the standards for both these qualities for the national team in the future, and the game’s appeal to the female population.

In just a few days, both players have reached national heartthrob status and the darlings of the media, much to the consternation of the team’s coach, who was anxious that all this sudden attention is unhealthy and distracting to the team’s performance. Meanwhile, when Indonesia won against the Philippines in one of the semi-final games, the national team managed to become one of the top Trending Topics in Twitter global conversation, as the reaction to the victory was met with a palpable national triumph.

It is as if each goal scored, each game won, carries with it so many emotions, so laden with significance and so filled with pride and joy able to transport the spectators, nay, the entire nation, to the level of spiritual ecstasy. Football is no longer just a game, and the team’s national colours are not just a uniform. It becomes the embodiment of the human drama with the players on the field running around chasing after a ball, symbolising each and every one of us trying to create a meaning of our existence.

Each score is our triumph, each missed goal our anguish, and each loss becomes our despair. When a game is well played it is a tribute to our collective endeavour; while a bad performance, a vindication of our basic weakness, our pathetic inadequacy and everything that is wrong with this country.

This is the reaction that most countries, if not all, have towards football, as can be seen each time the World Cup comes around every four years: A fervour that grips all with equal frenzy and a fever that infects everybody, young and old, male and female.
Which makes me think, that perhaps football is the only true and genuine human religion on the face of the earth. The game is followed with passion, conviction and fanaticism, with the players elevated to transcendent heights, assuming the roles of the gods of the Greek Pantheon upon which all the worshippers place their hopes, dreams and expectations.

As a matter of fact, football has many positive features that any religious denomination would envy. For a start, the human passion towards the game is natural, instinctive and universal. There is no need for tedious indoctrination, complex rituals and abstract understanding required from its followers. Give a toddler who is learning how to take its first step a ball, and its reaction would be to kick it.
Even for most of us, who generally have no interest in the game, could, when the game represents the things that are most important to us, such as our team, our region and our national identity, easily match long-term football fanatics in terms of zeal, passion and excitement.

Talking to veteran world football star Zinedine Zidane recently, I asked him what it is about football that is so important. Indeed, for him, it is precisely because those positive qualities that the game has. Qualities that celebrate the values that we humans should have that make us noble, such as participation, cooperation, team spirit, hard work as well as a sense of unity and togetherness.

That is why for Zidane it is important to encourage children to play and compete in the game. It teaches them the importance of having a goal in life, of doing their best and of being part of a team. What’s more it allows them to experience in a very real way, the vicissitudes of life, its triumphs and its disappointments and the courage to pursue their dream. Also, to have joy in what they do, which is the basis of all human happiness, which at the end of the day, is the aim of every religion.

In a world where the human faiths often divide us and where systems of belief polarise could polarise people into the fanatics and the sceptics, football, appropriately dubbed The Beautiful Game, when played on the international level, is probably about the only thing that could unite the world, fix our attention and transport us to spiritual heights.

(Desi Anwar: First Published in The Jakarta Globe)

On Mothers

Indonesians often says that paradise lies beneath the sole of a Mother's foot, a metaphor that I still don't quite grasp or an image easy to imagine, but I suppose the idea is that a mother's position is so elevated as to be quite divine and cursed is anyone that shows disrespect to her or treat her with less than complete deference and adoration.

The fact is, as the saying goes, 'a man's work is from sun to sun, but a mother's work is never done.' Mothers, far from enjoying life's bounty and bask in the sunshine of her offsprings's affection and spouse's devotion, often end up taking on life's many trials and tribulations, with more work, more responsibilities and more blames heaped upon her when things go wrong, whether it be her ne'er do well children or her philandering husband. A mother is not only the source of never-ending and boundless love. She is also the repository of all the worries, anxieties and miseries of life.

The burden of responsibility is heavier still if she feels she has to live up to certain expectations, whether her own, the society's, her husband's or even her in laws' - and if she has them, her children's. Paradise may lie at the base of her feet but she herself inhabit a universe that only a being capable of bearing another human being could dwell in. An esoteric universe full of secrets and mysteries that a mother could only pass on to her daughters, the would-be mothers of the world.

Or so I would imagine. Despite being a daughter I felt and in many ways still feel, that I was never privy to those secrets and mysteries that mothers and daughters share. And for this I readily lay the blame on my dear late mother, who never had neither the interest nor the inclination to share with her daughters the joys of motherhood and the bliss of a harmonious domestic life devoted to keeping the fires in the hearth going until dad comes home to bring the bacon.

Far from instructing her daughters on the sorts of married life they should aim for and the kind of mothers they should be, she was more concerned with pointing out the various downsides of a wedded existence, often using her friends as sorry examples. Once while still in elementary school, I broached the subject of childbearing. I remembered at that impressionable age I rather fancied the idea of having eleven children and even conjured up names for them. Her answer was curt but the message was clear.

'Imagine being cut to bits with a saw,' she said. 'It was painful.' I tried to imagine and I was horrified. I wondered what made her go through the torture three times, but concluded that she was made of a tougher material than me. The image however, stuck in my mind. There was no romance, no description of the beauty and joy of producing a life and nurturing an infant.

No, my mother was never really into the role of the motherhood thing. She used to think that Mother's Day was an insult. A day in which children make their mums breakfast in bed and spoil her? My mother would never stoop to prepare tea for her children, pack their lunch, make our beds and ensure that we're well wrapped up before going to school. Those things were for me to do as the child of the house and therefore the lowest in the pecking order. My mother was not there to serve anybody. Because her role was not a mother, but a matriarch.

My mother might not have taught me a thing about motherhood, housekeeping and domesticity, but throughout the years as I grew up, she taught me something that I find equally if not more valuable in life. That is how to be a capable and independent human being. To be sure she had her own expectations of me, but they were based on her desire to see her daughter make the most of her life with as minimal limitations as possible, including those imposed by gender and social stereotypes.

Because she herself refused the constraints of stereotypes typical of the times that she was brought up in. In an era when most women defined their lives in terms of their role as wife, mother, daughter and woman, my mother was none of these. She was working even well before the word career woman was coined. At home she was the handyman, who could fix anything broken from a leaky tap to a noisy carburettor. She was a whizz at whitewashing the walls and designing the house extension. She was too busy socialising and organising events to spend her time and energy to make sure the children did their homework.

Once, as I grew up, I talked about love and relationships. Again, here answer was short, but forever etched in my brain. She didn't think I would be the type to enjoy washing somebody else's socks or spend a good part of my life carrying a screaming baby. Certainly she wouldn't expect me to waste my good education just so that I would sit around at home without a career.

Love is all very nice, she said, but it wouldn't guarantee a roof over your head. Go out in the world, make something of yourself, be independent, was her message. Don't rely on somebody else for your happiness. I berated her for her cynicism. She gave me that look as if she knew what was best. My Mother's idea of motherhood was to make sure that her happiness and fulfilment came first before that of anybody else's.

Looking back, my mother was right. The gift that she gave me was the gift of what an ordinary human being should have, regardless whether one is male or female. The freedom to purse one's happiness in one's own unique way.

For you could only make other people happy when you yourself are happy and fulfilled.

(Desi Anwar: First Published in The Jakarta Globe)

Chased By Time

More than ever I feel chased by time. Hounded like a quarry desperate to find an escape hole, away from the merciless fangs biting at my heels. And yet time is relentless, coming in many forms, like the news of a sudden and premature death or in images of a stable country disintegrating into social chaos, reminding us constantly that nothing ever stays the same: that sooner or later we all succumb to the inexorable force of change.

Meanwhile, nothing manifests the working of time more than the Twitter timeline, the repository of practically all of human's activities, events, thoughts, opinions, hopes and dreams in uncountable, simultaneous and constant conversations. Once connected Online, you're part of that journey that measures existence in terms of neverending updates, giving us the impression that we're all heading somewhere and very fast, like suicidal lemings.

So it's nice once in a while to hop off the speeding train of the virtual world and travel in the fashion where your feet actually scrape the ground and the space you breathe in is not crowded with incessant chatter but has the aroma of fresh air that only nature could produce. Of course, here time too still moves, but when you're on the slopes of a mountain or picking your steps along the edge of a lake, the most perceptible change you can discern are the movements of the clouds or the lengthening of the shadows as the sun travels across the sky. The mountain and the lake on the other hand, have a permanence that are more or less infinite, at least as far as you're concerned.

Brought out in the open air, Time no longer chases you with unfinished business, and half-uttered sentences. It doesn't catch you unaware with plans that are never realised and dreams that will never see the light of day. Nor hopefully will it trap you in the embrace of a sudden and unwelcome death, when you're least ready or willing. Because when you're out in the midst of nature, not cloistered in some artificial air conditioned cocoon, physically confined yet mentally dispersed, something falls into place and you realise it is the balance that you've lost all this time. A life of constant connection that ironically disconnects you from truly living. Where time is not a brutal hunter bent on devouring you, but a faithful companion who keeps you in good cheer.

And what is this true living? It is easy to find out. The body will recognise it even if you yourself fail to do so at first. It is putting yourself in the arms of Mother Nature, the places where human hands have had least the least intervention in their shaping, building and constructing and where the turbulences of human passions and emotions have their least pollutive effect. Lose yourself in the majesty of a mountain for instance, as you hike or scale the slopes, following the narrow path between the pine trees and see how long your daily anxieties last before they evaporate with the morning dew. While turning your face towards the sun on a clear day, feeling its gentle rays upon your cheeks, is the only remedy you need to soothe a troubled mind or chase away that angry thought.

You realise then that the fresh and clean air that enters your lung is all you need to keep you healthy and in good spirits and nothing beats a couple of hours of vigorous walk outdoors amongst the fields, the flowers and the trees or on the pebbles by a lake or the sand on the sea shore to give you a renewed lease on life. Because at the end of the day, we, our human body and soul actually need but only simple things to sustain us and keep us balanced. The body is made to be moved while the soul craves for nothing more other than peace. Even when it comes to nourishment our stomach desires not for fancy refined or processed food, but wholesome, fresh and nutritious things.

And yet the irony is, we have to forcefully extricate ourselves from our normal surrounding in order to regain what should be our true state of being. To pause in the midst our daily life that consists of constantly defying what is most natural for us, in cities such as ours that grow less and less fit for human habitation and take us further from the simplicity of our life's needs. The best things in life are free, they say, but not so anymore. These days you have to pay quite a bit in order to be able to breathe air that is unpolluted, stretch your legs in spaces that are unconfined, enjoy views unblemished by human debris and swim in waters that are so clear you could see the bottom.

For simplicity is alien in this sprawling metropolis where people have to jostle for the smallest space, where being outdoors is to choke in polluted air and where we're in constant danger of being drowned in our own waste products or consumed by our self-inflicted diseases. Here, even nature is unfriendly, coming in the forms that destroy and overwhelm us, becoming not our guardian but our enemy, where even the very air itself is toxic, the waters dangerous, the earth untrustworthy and the mountains angry. While nature's silence becomes a prison that breeds mindless chatter, idle thoughts and pointless emotions.

While life itself becomes menacing time that chases us, pursuing us relentlessly and hounds us to exhaustion until at some point, no longer able to escape, we succumb to it.

(Desi Anwar: First Published in The Jakarta Globe)

End of a Decade

This December is the last month not only of the year but also of this decade. This time ten years ago, at the turn of the new millennium, I was getting away from it all by doing a ten day Vippasana meditation in central Java in search of enlightenment and looking for the meaning of life. Ten years down the line I’m not sure whether I’m anywhere closer to finding the answer, but one thing I’m sure of. I’ve stopped looking and I no longer have the desire to look.

I have ceased to be a seeker in this life’s journey, like some forlorn troubadour in search of that elusive Romance. Thoughts about what being on this planet is all about, where I come from, where I’m going or whether God exists no longer keep me up all night. The questions I have, I’m happy not to find any definite answers for, as long as they are asked.

What then have I achieved in the last ten years? I’m not sure. As a matter of fact I can’t even remember much of what I’ve done these past years. The days seem to dissolve into one another in monochromic images too fast to settle into my long-term memory. Not exactly the stuff that enlightenment is made of I suppose, though that is no longer my concern. But these days I’m quite content with the realisation that sometimes things happen because they happen, not because I’m the centre of the universe or because the world is out to get me.

Moreover, I’ve found myself lightened by the burden of existentialist angst that I had dragged around me throughout my life like a ball and chain. I’ve shook off the burden of various beliefs that might or might not be unfounded, including the egotistic belief that there is a deity out there taking notes of what we do, what we say, what we wear and what we eat so that he could dispense some arbitrary rewards or punishments in some after life: That our foibles matter in the grand scheme of things.

In a universe where our planet is but a grain of sand in the shore of infinite hugeness and timelessness, any product of the human imagination could only be limited by our own capacity as mortal, three dimensional creatures unfortunate enough to possess a sense of self-importance that is enormously out of proportion to our physical size. As such, we would never be able to fathom or make assumptions about the workings of divine spirit let alone claim to be in possession of such truths.

We could only accept that certain things are beyond our ken and that truth is relative depending on the time, place and perspective of seeing it and nobody, no group, no country, no religion could appropriate it and pass it off as an absolute by which the world is measured.

There is no meaning of life other than life itself is the meaning. We are part of life and as such life is can only be to be enjoyed and spent in a fulfilling way. What will happen to us after we die is immaterial, as we will cease to be humans. No need for us to second guess what God or other imaginary beings have in store for us or expect us to do.

On the contrary, while alive I believe we are better off and happier if we develop and practise our humanity, celebrating those very qualities that make us humans and different from other creatures on this planet, namely, our capacity for love, kindness, compassion, our endless ability to create, invent new things and utilize our intelligence to the maximum for the good of our own kind, the human specie of which we are all one, despite our superficial differences.

There is a sense of freedom in acknowledging one’s ignorance and fallibility. And I do feel a lot more contented and more able to face life’s vicissitude with equanimity. After all, what have I lost other than some beliefs that I picked up purely arbitrarily through some accident of birth? I could have easily been born Jewish or Chinese or African and in another era for that matter.

For now, I am here, at this time and place and it’s almost the end of the year. Time to discard more unnecessary burdens and the clutter that one has accumulated over the months. And, as this is also the end of the decade, it includes the bad habits or attachments that one has made over the recent years. Indeed, a life without burden, whether real or imaginary, is so much easier to live.

I’ve known people who are so attached to objects that to be parted from their things is tantamount to an assault on their identity. I knew someone whose kitchen cupboards contained nothing else except empty jam jars and the enormous house one big storage room of old useless possessions. She clung to objects with the same passion as she clung to her belief system. Neither served her well in her life made heavy with the weight of existence and fear of loss.

Sometimes to really live, you have to know when to let go and say goodbye.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Can Do Spirit

Recently I was a jury for Danamon Award, an award that recognises the spirit of can-do amongst ordinary individuals who, despite their physical, economic and social inhibitions, emerge as heroes in their community and able to make a difference to themselves and to others.

When things go wrong and don’t go the way we want them to, often people would find it easier to lay the blame on other things, whether other people, their parents, the government, their situation, fate or even God. So once in a while, it’s heartening to meet a bunch of people who, despite their personal challenges, do not waste time to bemoan their sorry lot in life or wait for others to lend them a hand, but actually look around and see what they could do to improve their lives and that of others.

And the men and women selected for the award are indeed extraordinary in many ways, not least because they themselves, in a society that normally measures success through material gain and achievement in status, are simple individuals with minimal education and financial means and some even with physical disabilities.

These are individuals who one would usually regard as disempowered, vulnerable and dependent on others. And yet their courage, motivation and concern for the well being of others on the contrary leave us, more fortunate members of society,, at awe and ashamed that we ourselves couldn’t contribute more with the means that we have.

There is one Masril Koto, a farmer, hailing from Agam, West Sumatra. Clad in simple farmer’s clothes and wearing sandals, Masril has an infectious laugh and a sophisticated sense of humour. When asked about his educational background, he said he had achieved S3, which stands (not for PhD, as it normally stands for) but SD, SMP and SMA (elementary, junior high and senior high school.)

Small farmers like Masril, often find it difficult to get a loan from a bank to buy fertilizers and other farming needs. According to Masril, not many formal banks wanted to deal with them because they had no collaterals or bank guarantees. They were not desirable as customers or trustworthy.

But Masril was not put off. After lengthy discussions with his fellow farmers, Masril was given the task to find out all he could about banks. Not to access the credit. But to actually set up a bank.

As it turned out, Masril was quite the banker. And, according to him, after understanding the principles of banking, which is collecting funds and then lending them out as credits, (which he learnt by visiting banks and reading their brochures) setting up a bank was not that difficult. As the bank would be owned by the farmers, to give credit to farmers and run by their children, they could more or less create their own rules according to their own needs without too much paperwork and bureaucracy.

Masril’s first step was to raise the funds by selling shares at rp100 000 each to the farmers in the area. His power of persuasion was admirable. The first bank set up (which is in effect a micro-lending body for farmers), managed to gather 15million rupiah in funds. Farmers could borrow from as little as rp100 thousand (9 dollars) which they need to pay back after a given time.

Since the first bank in 2006, there are now over 300 micro-banks in the region with funds amounting to some 90 billion rupiah, with credits used for anything from developing the farms to financing the farmer’s children school fees. According to Masril, there are very few cases of non-payment. Farmers who are tardy in paying back the loan are reminded first verbally, then in writing, and if still recalcitrant, would have their names called out during Friday prayers in the mosque. That always worked to get them to pay back their debts.

He also takes pride in the fact that he was actually invited to discuss his idea with the Minister of Agriculture, who visited his bank when it was first set up, and who decided to adopt the scheme to help thousands of farmers on a nationwide scale.

These days Masril no longer has the time to attend to his farm. Instead he is busy thinking up of ways to expand the micro-banking further to set up insurance and pension funds for farmers as well as a loan scheme to encourage organic farming, as well as setting up the farmer’s banks around the west Sumatra region and training the farmers how to set up the banks themselves.

Still, wherever he goes, the 36 year old farmer wears his faded black farmer’s clothes and dons his rubber sandals. And yet beneath this modest appearance and deceptively simple demeanour, lie an indomitable spirit and a belief that anyone with better means would do well to emulate – the belief that nothing is impossible as long as you’re willing to learn how to do it.

The Award also recognizes the achievement of Kiswanti, a woman from Bogor, who was born to a family so poor that her parents could not keep her in school beyond sixth grade, and yet it did not prevent her from pursuing her passion for reading and to share her love of books with others. Like many poor women in Indonesia, hers is a familiar story of a lifetime of menial labour, selling ‘jamu’ and becoming housemaids.

Except in her case, every penny she earned, she saved up to buy books until, now in her forties, she has an impressive collection of books that she lends out for free to children in her area, from her house that she had turned into a simple library, encouraging literacy not only among the children, but also the adults.

And when I meet people like Masril and Kiswanti, doers who do not rely on the charity of others or expect a handout from the government, despite the country’s never-ending setbacks, I could only have optimism for our future.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)