Showing posts with label the roads and the inertia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the roads and the inertia. Show all posts

Saturday, October 05, 2013

Remember, remember


We are landed with fallible, frailty, imperfect memories. Nonetheless, confusion over sources or indifference to them can be a paradoxical strength: it allows us to see and hear with other eyes and ears, to enter into other minds, to contribute to the common mind. Memories are… unlike Proust’s jars of preserves in a larder, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled with every act of recollection; they are dialogic. Hence perhaps our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each other and ourselves—the stories we continually recategorize and refine.

In Lewes, the town where the country’s biggest annual bonfire festival commemorating the Guy Fawkes night is said to take place, the local societies’ banners read “we burn to remember”.

(Photos taken in Lewes, East Sussex, UK, 2013)

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Zeal



There is no way to explain an edge, because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others — the living — are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between the 'now' and the 'later'.

(Photos taken in Mt. Merbabu, Central Java, 2013)

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pentas Bebas

Jika betul bahwa hidup adalah pentas, maka segala visualisasi yang hadir hendak menegaskan adanya bukanlah sebentuk ilusi tentang realitas. Pentas adalah tempat di mana realitas diproses dan penonton pun turut dalam arus pembebasan dari ilusi: aktif merenungkan persoalan momentum dalam lini masa sebagai gerak ke arah pembebasan.

(Demi aksen yang terberi pada simbol sosok orang ramai, pada gerak, pada detak, atau justru pada ketidakhadiran.)

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Arrive



We have to live with the certainty that we will get old, our bodies decline, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude. There will come a time when we ought to be making the most of joy in the final hours in boredom and bitterness, endlessly revisiting memories. That, and tell ourselves that it is now that matters, to construct and deconstruct, to surpass ourselves everyday, to make everyday undying, and to do them in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. 

That is what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.


(Photos taken in Huangyao, China, 2012)

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Continuum



Only a fanatical will to make a vanished world endure despite the passing of time can explain this belief in the existence of an 'always within never' -- an entire world that had disappeared, a mixture of flavors, smells, scattered fragrances that has left its sediment in ancestral rites and local dishes, crucibles of illusory memories that seek to make gold from sand, eternity from time.

(Photos taken in Sapa, Vietnam, 2012)

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Systematic Wonder



We march through the world armed with intuition and rationality to conquer the unknown, the two in near-constant friction in a culture that frames them as opposing forces. Then we turn to science and scientific method as the ultimate bastion of rationality in our quest for truth. But science, is not merely reason; science should also be culture. It is a poetic and practical sensemaking mechanism for the universe and our place therein, the totality whose machinery is greater than the sum of its logical parts, an inherent contradiction--systematic wonder--applied to the natural world. In its mundane form, the methodical instinct prevails and the result, an orderly procession of dried leaves or fabrics, advances the perimeters of knowledge, step by laborious step.

(Photos taken at the weekly cultural Bac Ha Market, Vietnam, 2012)

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Kampanye


Ketika dalam politik ada potensi atau klaim filosofis mengenai pengetahuan tentang realitas politik yang secara ontologis superior terhadap – atau secara epistemologis lebih pasti ketimbang – penampakkan (appearance), maka dalam politik ada klaim metafisika.

Padahal politik ada di dalam era pengakhiran metafisika (the closure of metaphysics), ketika tidak ada lagi klaim-klaim terhadap realitas yang superior dan melampaui penampakkan, sehingga konsep manusia sebagai zoon politicon dapat ditafsir ulang secara tanpa batas oleh manusia itu sendiri, sesuai dengan konteks keberadaannya secara fisik di dunia harian, namun melampaui ruang-waktu dan asal-usul historisnya.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Stolen Time


Aku ingat saat waktu yang tercuri berarti rasa tenang yang menggebu, terpesona oleh ruang yang akan terus ada. Di Ta Prohm, tepatnya. Di kompleks itu, tahun-tahun terlepas dari masa. Diam, beku, kegagahan yang mencemooh para turis yang hanya berkeliling 30 menit saja karena harus mengejar matahari terbenam di Phnom Bakheng. Pokoknya yang rasanya alami untuk dilakukan di situ adalah berusaha lupa dan alpa, menikmati yang jadi. Jangan berlari-lari, apalagi menggali-gali.

Nikmat adalah menyaksikan waktu yang menyelinap pergi. Sayang dalam keseharian yang banal, justru aku yang ingin sembunyi dari detik yang tidak berhenti.

(Photo taken in Siem Reap, Kingdom of Cambodia, January 2010)

Monday, April 11, 2011

Tetap Muda


And the sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes ironically enough not from the protagonist's defects but from his virtue.


Menyadari budaya yang sakit adalah tidak dengan menjerit, tidak dengan mengibarkan bendera. Dan barangkali sejarah terdiri dari penemuan-penemuan yang separuh benar, separuh salah, sehingga kemajuan terus terjadi.

Pun kita mengakhirinya dengan menyambut, meminjam frasa Pramoedya dalam Anak Semua Bangsa, kehidupan yang lebih nyata daripada pendapat siapapun tentang kenyataan.

Cinta itu subversif.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Tentang Batas dan Bulu Mata

Lucu memang Murakami. Ia mengasosiasikan seksualitas dengan bulu mata palsu, yang dalam bukunya, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, dikenakan oleh Creta Kano bahkan di siang hari, menandingi gemerlapnya matahari, atau justru mengamplifikasi yang-telah-terang.

Aku mendambakan dunia yang dihidupi manusia tanpa harimaunya, di mana kegaduhan sebagaimana layaknya tercipta melalui intensitas pandangan mata, keberadaan yang nyata, dan percikan kimiawi dalam kerja. Pendek kata, mekanisme yang sederhana adanya, seklasik percaya yang tumbuh dari rasa yang menyentuh raga, atau kesadaran saling menjaga.

Namun aku tahu, dan terus-menerus diingatkan, bahwa adalah pilihan sadar untuk melarut dalam pertarungan ini. Yang tak kuketahui: umbul-umbul dalam perang ini adalah nama, dan tombaknya adalah kejahatan wanita. Musuh, dalam pertarungan ini, adalah gerak-gerik dan intuisi diri. Memang tak tepat jika kemelarutan ini disebut "pertarungan melawan batas-batas", karena batas-batas, yang awalnya kukira sang musuh, justru adalah amunisi yang pamungkas, jalan keluar yang nantinya mungkin menyelamatkan.

Yang lalu hadir adalah kegamangan. Aku tak lagi bisa menarik garis-garis nilai, tabel ukuran-ukuran, kategori anggukan dan gelengan. Kali ini, yang menjadi titik tolok keraguan bukan lagi perbedaan diri dan apa yang kuanggap "dunia ruang-sistem". Itu lagu lama. Seringnya aku berharap kembali berada di tengah kolektivitas nilai yang dahulu kucibir saja, hingga setidaknya jika aku lari dan menghindar, aku tahu aku sedang berlari dari tempat asalku. Namun saat ini, tak ada yang "asal". Hanya ada batas diri yang nantinya menjadi "akhir".

Lucu memang Murakami. Selama ini ia ternyata adalah penulis yang sederhana. Ia menulis tentang dunia nyata saja.

- Special thanks to M.R., The Disciple, for his "Consider me a stranger" that one evening after work.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Gold-plated Whale

A':
You still don't get it? We're talking about revelation here. A revelation leaps over the border of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is move from reason that observes to reason that acts. That's what's critical.

A:
Exactly, which is why I'm living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows without a break. But I still think that there had to be one place beyond anybody's reach. I am sure that somewhere I'd run across the entrance that would take me to that other world.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Die Schöpfung ist niemals vollendet

Ketika berlarian dengan masa yang memangsa, kau impikan makna yang tidak didasarkan hierarki rasa, melainkan ia yang terbentuk dan terurai dalam jaringan acuan lewat momen suspensi.
Mungkin kita telah dikutuk; the sisyphus digging for the imperfection which would discover the audience, imposing the eventually amongst the actually.

Mari.

Bangkit adalah duduk terdiam, beku, dan merentang mengundang keterkejutan.
Bangkit adalah menjunjung karya, menuntaskannya, pun jika kau memilih membunuhnya kembali.
Bangkit adalah membangunkan malam, mendobrak keterlelapan. Bangkit adalah memenuhi undangan pagi, menyambutnya, atau bahkan menidurinya sebagai yang bukan repetisi.
Bangkit adalah menggilas malumu, malumu untuk mendengar suaramu: dengan lantang mengakui tiap ketercekatan, dengan lega menerima tiap keraguan yang tak terhindarkan.
Bangkit adalah meninggikan pagar menghadang kedekatan wajah-wajah yang tak henti melewatimu, lalu merajutnya sebagai selimut yang bercerita tentang kebersatuan, tentang samudra yang menyelimuti benua dalam hatimu.

Kata mereka kita memang terkutuk, untuk terus berkutat dengan sejarah kita: bangkit, berkejaran dengan perjuangan melawan lupa.

Or perhaps let us forget and get carried away, menarikan penciptaan yang tak usai.

Monday, April 19, 2010

is the glass half empty or half full?


It is completely full. But it is empty of a lot of things; it is completely empty of everything but water and air molecules.


(Photo taken in Brisbane, July 2009)

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

192 Jam

Dua hari ini adalah tentang gelisah yang mengendap. Kau bergelut di tengah sebab-sebab yang mungkin, dan menemukan bahwa jarak yang ingin kau depa mengada di cerukan yang bukan milikmu.

Di luar sana, ketika peperangan adalah selalu satu-satunya hal yang menyambutmu, kau resah ketika harapan dan manifestasinya tak bermotifkan loyalitas, apalagi nasionalisme gamang. Lalu apa yang akan kau pertahankan di menit-menit todongan laras api? Bahwa kau melacur demi keberbedaan yang wajib meraga?

Kau begitu yakin. Kau tak ingin berhenti. Kau tak kunjung mengerti. Dan kau pun bergantung pada moralitas-moralitas tua: tindakan paling mulia di tengah peperangan bukanlah berjuang menyerang musuhmu hingga titik darah penghabisan, bukan pula berlari, apalagi bersembunyi, melainkan menyelamatkan segala yang kau bisa selamatkan, siapapun itu.


- Tentang surat, bantuan bermuatan, dan dislokasi budaya. Terima kasih kepada G.S.M. dan ingatannya atas Purbo Carito.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

The Forgotten Width



Probably the world does not know any limits, just as life never sets any boundaries. Probably it all comes down to our incapacities. Probably it's all due to the clear horizon which cleanly cuts the view, or adjoins the view.

Look at us indulging ourselves in the scenes and mobility before the line ends, believing what we see, accepting the sight upon the polarized unseen unknown, neglecting its possible presence, or else maintaining fear and caution for it.


(Photo taken by Ardani Yusuf Prawira, at one pier in Waigeo Island, West Papua, December 2009)

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The Motionless Movement



Watching the sea and faraway lands right after the morning prayer was truly enlightening and profound. I was (and always have been) on motion, and watched the motionless passing by. It made me dwell in the memory of the people and the world I had passed by during my movements, either enforced by the fangs of time or due to the dream of constructing and deconstructing.

When we move, we are in a way destructured by our movement towards a certain direction; we are both here and at the same time not here as we are already in the process of going elsewhere. To stop destructuring ourselves, we have to stop moving altogether. Either we move and we are no longer whole, or we are whole and we cannot move.

Consequently we journey to the different corners and pause, seeking the motionless movements in the world. If such exist.

(Photo taken on board KM Labobar, while crossing the Banda Sea, December 2009)

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Yang Tak Juga Berakhir

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Kau tanggalkan semua
tak lupa secangkir usapan ego
yang terus kau tenggak
"Peradaban ini lucu, lihat wajah ketakutannya,"
dan kau memilih untuk berparodi,
biar mereka menjenggut karena merasa,
hanya untuk berakhir mendapati bayangnya
Namun beranikah kau menyelami bawah matamu?
Tak lekang sebentuk kecerdasan
dengan sadar meminumi beban,
karena beban berarti pengorbanan
Sayangnya tak ada keselamatan
dari ketidakmurnian
Lalu kau meringkuk; kalah, katamu,
lalu bermain mengadakan
dan meniadakan.


- Kebajikan tak kunjung menuai akhir, begitu pula mala, dan kau gariskan pada kebrutalan. Hanya kau dan Tuhan yang tahu.

Monday, October 26, 2009

subtlety



The most memorable scene in Anna Karenina is set at Prokovskoye. Levin, dark and melancholy, is trying to forget Kitty. It is springtime, he goes off with the peasants to mow the fields. In the beginning the task seems too arduous for him. He is about to give up when the old peasant leading the row calls for rest. Then they begin again with their scythes. Rest, and the row moves forward again, forty hands scything swathes and moving steadily towards the river as the sun rises. Hotter, arms and shoulders are soaked in sweat, but with each successive pause and start, the awkward painful gestures become more fluid. A welcome breeze suddenly caresses their backs: a summer rain. Gradually, Levin's movements are freed from the shackles of his will, and he goes off into a light trance which gives his gestures the perfection of conscious, automatic motion, without thought or calculation, and the scythe seems to move of its own accord. Levin delights in the forgetfulness that movement brings, where the pleasure of doing is marvellously foreign to the striving of the will.

This is eminently true of many happy moments in life. Freed from demands of decisions and intention, adrift on some inner sea, or a "city of subtlety and brown-colored life", we observe our various moments as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence.

(Photo taken in Yogyakarta, October 2008)

Monday, September 14, 2009

ceritakan padaku tentang kebersatuan




(Photo taken in Tanjung Tinggi, Belitung, August 2009)

Friday, August 21, 2009

savannah



When we gaze at still life, even though we did not pursue it, we delight in its beauty, a beauty borne away by the magnified and immobile configuration of things, we find pleasures in the fact that there was no need for longing, we may contemplate something we need not want, may cherish something we need not desire. So this still life, because it embodies a beauty that speaks to our desire but was given birth by none, because it cossets our pleasure without in any way being part of our own plans, because it is offered to us without requiring the effort of desiring on our part: it incarnates the quintessence of art, the certainty of timelessness. In the scene before our eyes, silent, without life or motion, a time exempt of plans for the future is incarnated, perfection purloined from duration and its weary greed. Existence without duration, beauty without will.

For it is an emotion without desire.

(Photo taken in Mt. Lawu, at Cokro Srengenge post, 3025 m above sea level, August 2009)