Life Update

Hey hey y'all. It's been so, so, so long. I don't even think you'd know me anymore, a starkly different person from the one who last updated this blog.

Hell, she might as well have just died.

I've always loved that phrase, you know, "who died and made you God?". It just sounds so poetic; although as a non-native English speaker, I'm not sure how often you can use it in your normal conversation or how fitting it would be.

But in this case, she died, and yet I see no God up here. In this high horse of so-called adulthood.

I'm turning thirty this week, yet I still don't have my name stamped on the book store. Less than an 'aspiring writer', even, I have abandoned writing entirely as my means of catharsis. I don't even know who I am anymore.

That's... the moldy jam strawberry take of my upcoming birthday (I don't know what that means). I wanted to just write a lighthearted life update, but I desperately need to be emotionally charged first to start typing, and sadness is the only emotion I can consume easily. 

Me no Sad

Sad T makes the best writer T. That's why she hasn't been writing; she's been too happy, too sane, too fitting in, too distracted.

The worst part of being a working adult is that you can no longer be random. Even hobbies need to be planned. Even the prospect of a hobby, the fun thought of a side project, needs a roadmap, you can't just jump into it expecting things to work out. You have to deliberately make it work.

I just started a new job at an IT company. Overall good benefit and it's something I need for my "career trajectory" or whatever. I have a mentor and a probation period for training and preparing for the actual work. But I have little experience and technical skill in IT so learning takes a long time, and adapting to the corporate culture was more challenging than I thought. Open floor plan. Perpetually monitored company laptop. Endless documenting. No free lunch??

My point is, I don't entirely hate what I'm doing at the moment, but I wish I'd have more energy to be functional outside the work hour. I'm left exhausted every single time I clock out that I practically don't have the energy to be human; washing clothes, cooking meals, or even doing stretches or light workouts. All I want to do is lay down on my bed, head empty, only my thumb scrolling hundreds of short-video formats of brain-dead, emotionally reactive contents for hours on end, before I realize it's late night and I need to sleep to get ready for work tomorrow yet again.

Be Still

I can't seem to be at peace with myself nowadays. I get restless being alone in my room. I would either distract myself with my phone or occupy my thoughts with worry about work (yet stubbornly refusing to act upon it because at that point I'd be off the hour and if I do it then doing overtime be my 'standard' work ethic and I'd have to do it every time).

I remember how peaceful I used to be being alone in my dorm room. I entertain my thoughts. I write. I listen to music mindfully. I brew a cup of coffee. I don't think I have ever worried about what to eat. Not in a financially-safe context (although that is true in my case), but more like I was too absorbed in 'the zone' of my activity that it did not matter.

Now I spend hours scrolling online food order, trying to find a semi-decent meal with reasonable price, calculating promotion codes to make it worth it. When ultimately, it's far cheaper to just walk a couple blocks out for a bundle of nasi padang or street kwetiaw, when I'm not in the mood to cook and clean.

I spend hours scrolling Instragram reels for cat videos and memes, finding solace in the endless stream of content, knowing that however shitty I felt that day, there'd always be a funny content to scratch that dopamine itch within my brain. It is the damn phone.

But deeper than that, it's my inability to stay still. 

There's a constant urge to escape the room. Don't want to be alone. Go out to a cafe to write. Hang out at a mall with my boyfriend. But when they're all physically implausible, my brain can still seek the exit: Down the net we go.

Even when there are a lot of activities I have plotted to do at home. I don't know, reading the piling stocks of books in my kindle, finishing my "Book of Dreams", repainting my shoes, painting the paint-by-numbers, practicing bass guitar, practicing drum rudiments, whatever??

I don't know if it's something about my current dorm room; the loneliness; the constantly distracted brain; the mobility. Sometimes it's like I'm actively sabotaging myself from doing meaningful things. From doing the difficult stuff and struggling, entirely forgetting the reasonably paced rewards down the line.

Worrywort

It all boils down to fear. Nothing new there. I'm afraid of starting what looks enticing. I'm afraid I'd suck at it and disillusion myself. I'm afraid it's not going to be as fun and cool as it looked in the first place. I'm afraid of not doing a perfect work in the first try and I have to fix my messes.

(Although I still think the useless no-view and no-air window also plays a huge part in cramping my style in enjoying my alone time.)

Free Will

It might also be that I've been stuck too long in this goddamn city without significant newness to my routine that I've been running on autopilot.

The good news is after a long hiatus of seemingly unending rut of isolation, the new job sort of pushed me into motion, although not without some hiccups.

I mentioned the open floor plan. Especially annoying when you're on an online meeting with some other people, while the person next to you is also on call with someone else. And the desk across me was also being noisy, team members crowding to discuss something about work. 

But a new girl came along, and during her supposedly meeting hour, she got up, took her laptop and headset along, and walked to a separate room to conduct her meeting. Unbothered by the crowd. That's when I realized, you can do that? I fear I've not been exercising free will... whatever that term would mean in the context of a corporate world, anyway.

Last week I impulsively signed up for a community meetup in Bandung, and apparently the venue was just a 10-minute walk from where I reside. I've never walked in that direction because I never had any business in the area, but as soon as my feet crossed the street to that perimeter, I realized I could've just... walked anywhere. 

I could turn right. I could turn left. I could even hail an angkot and take me fuck-it-where. At that moment I realized that I could have exercised this free will at any moment.

But it wouldn't appear if I didn't already have something to do around there.

Cool Stuff I've Done

That community meetup was for an online writing challenge community I followed on Instagram. I did write a bit about #30haribercerita, a challenge held every January to write everyday for 30 days on Instagram. I just thought it was pretty neat to have a place I could channel my writing needs and have some sort of accountability (it being public and everything), but lately I felt the need to connect with actual people.

So as soon as I found out they were holding a meetup in Bandung, attend it I did.

It was rather an impulsive thing for me... especially considering how reserved I used to be. That's why I said she (old T) might as well be dead.

I think it was a nice experience. I got to listen to people's stories from different backgrounds, held together by our fondness towards writing (or the writing community itself), got insight from the community volunteers - about how they worked hard to select stories to be featured, and went home feeling inspired myself.

I ended up re-connecting with an old acquaintance (it's been 7 years holy shit??), met some new acquaintances where we prompted to follow each others' Instagram account, and bought a merch.

My boyfriend said that I was starting to become an ibuk-ibuk, because he thought "communities are how mothers make friends".

I don't know how valid it is (sounds a bit misogynist too, tbh), but tell that to the all-male band members from my previous workplace who (still) invited me for regular practice every Tuesday.

Yeah, I'm "in a band" now, I guess. It's kind of weird. I don't know how people do bands, but I always imagined them as sort of more professional and full-time than whatever it is I'm currently engaged in. Perhaps because it's an after-hour hobby for office workers, the members aren't always regular (except for the core three or four people, so I guess they're the band).

I once jokingly wrote a rant saying that "this office job is the dream... just need a band practice routine during the night". And it actually happened.

Although I ended up ditching that workplace, the members still kindly welcomed me in joining their practice as a vocalist. Which is funny because I don't think I can sing?? But that's what they kind of needed, and I didn't have anything else to offer.

After some time practicing, I came to the conclusion that being in a band is somewhat akin to getting a job, you know? It was a matter of what role they need, and if you were appointed, you just try to do your best at that. Yeah, so it's about compromising yet again, but I was happy enough to already have a place to channel my energy in music. And we do play some Muse and Nirvana so I couldn't really complain. My goal would be to try jamming one or two of the usual playlist in bass or drum, just to have a go at it, you know? Haha.

---

I don't know where this post is headed, and what I was trying to say. I first complained about not being able to write, to be alone with my thought, then phone addiction, then free will, then community. I just have a lot to report on, considering it's been almost a year since I actually wrote here.

I do want to write something more substantial than my lousy experience, but after a long hiatus from creation, this blog page serves as a familiar friend with safe, comforting arms to embrace my welcome yet again. I just want to stretch these writing muscles again, and I think this diary-type report fits in better with the rest of my archive here.

I do miss you all, whoever still reads my page. Such a nostalgia trip, re-reading everything here and finding myself grow from all the cringiness I used to embody...

Take care. Hope to see you again.

Cheers,

-T

Create to Process - Draft #1

Hey. I miss you all.

I was just preoccupied with life and jobseeking (I know - I'm almost 30!) and whatnot when upon a boring, super sunny day, I realized that I could just... write.

Write about my thoughts. About nothingness. About nothing and everything at the same time. No pressure, no thoughts of "personal branding" or giving away "useful tips" for making money. Just me and my feelings. I realized most people don't give a shit anyway, so why bother trying to impress, you know? Express, don't impress.

I kept an online diary. Not blog. .doc files of my daily documentation. But they're no fun. I know that it was just me talking to myself; no one other than me would be reading it. And it felt like work everytime I open one of those. 

Maybe the thrill of keeping a blog has always been the prospect, no matter how tiny, of someone else who might or might not read everything that you wrote. With all the sadness, the emotions, and the cringe.

I joined a 30-days writing challenge back in January, where I had to write consistently everyday for a month and upload the writing on Instagram. It was held annually. I don't think I did really well, and I've skipped every other day or so, but by now I'm beginning to think it's just me holding myself to an impossibly high standard, because I've joined for three years and I got a feature each year (where they re-post your writing on their account).

Not gonna lie, it did make me write more consistently, albeit not everyday, but... to what extent? I reminisce on the entire month. Did I have fun? Maybe, for a bit. Did I get a lot of likes? No, not really. Did I pour my heart and soul into each piece? Not really, because I had things to do alongside the writing. And writing? on Instagram? I was at the mercy of their caption word limit and limited selection of semi-decent representative pictures to upload.

So I began to wonder, what is the point anymore in me writing, if I don't have fun with it? If I can't properly express myself? If it doesn't make me money nor bring good reputation?

Is this just a struggle that I need to go through because my brain cells are beyond fried due to exposure to all these short-form contents? Or is this just indicative of writing no longer being the relevant media for my expression? Am I regressing towards the state of a boring adulthood?

I'd admit that I've also been having difficulty reading. Especially classic literature where they put their entire heart, soul, and extensive ancient vocabularies rarely seen or heard today into it. Where a whole page is filled with description of the setting, and nothing really *happened* until the next chapter.

So, yeah, attention span. Big deal. I have to work for it. Except it's hard. The platforms are out to get you. You practically can't live without your smartphone. Neo-capitalism in place. Efficiency towards dehumanizing progress. The world is in shambles. Idiots in position of power. And they keep getting away with it.

Anyway, maybe this is in part the fact that the more adult you are, you're more responsible towards more things. Things in the world. Things that happened to you.

Often times when I'm journaling, I couldn't really figure out what to write about. It felt like nothing of importance happened, yet in retrospect I have done a lot of things. Meetings are things too, but they're not that exciting as a written experience. I'm constantly torn between micro-archiving every miniscule things and only exploring deeper into the most exciting stuff.

So I haven't been writing; like really writing. Dedicating a time slot to just sit down, focus, and type away to process whatever happened to me. But I know it's necessary. Because sometimes I don't even register that I just went through an extensive job interview until my boyfriend asked about me the day afterwards. Could be the jobseeking burnout, too. Or maybe I'm just losing my mind.

It feels like I'm constantly disassociating. Floating through life from one trivial event to another, not knowing where to go. The light won't guide me, and I'm stuck here forever. Like the ghost of a successful past, treading the eventual downfall of my virtues. No job, no money, nothing.

And yeah, writing used to be a solace from this feeling because at least I'm connecting with myself, one step at a time. But now, it doesn't feel like that anymore. It just feels like a waste of time, and I'm still miserable by the time I'm finished. I hate that I'm feeling like this. Writing is supposed to be meaningful. Not always fun, no, but meaningful.

A lot of things had happened since I last updated here, yet I'm having little to no brainpower to express them all.

Thanks for listening, for the time being. Hopefully I'll be in a better headspace the next time you see me.

Cheers.

-T.

Hey, so..

I can't conjure an apple.

I used to compromise with my supposedly above average skill to develop fitting metaphors for all sort of emotions I was feeling. The way people can connect cloudy grey sky to sad, or sunny blue to happy. Red for blood. Damage. Harm. Lipstick's not even the first thing on my mind.

It's uncanny how we attribute red to both pain and pleasure. Blood. Sex. Excitement.

One thing can be good to someone as it is bad for others.

My therapist told me not to think in black-and-white. I didn't know what that means, but I don't like how grey some things are to me right now. It makes me feel powerless, uncertain, and even more indecisive than before.

And now I can't see any other colors. That's why, yet again, I compromise. This time in the form of picking the most feminine pastel pink color for all my new stuff. Mouse? Pink. Headphone? Pink. Shirt? Pink. Headclip? Pink. Bass guitar? You bet.

At least now I have the courage to actually take on a hobby. I started with a guitar, dreamt of mastering the drums, and now I end up with a bass guitar. Funny how life turns out sometimes. Or maybe I'm still too cowardly to actually pursue what I really want and camouflage it with another, telling people that it's what I want. Kinda like playing a Queen because you're still waiting for the perfect moment to reveal your two Aces. And you don't know if the moment will ever really come.

I stopped re-dying my hair blue, because I'm a functioning member of the adult society, and now all I have is these limp, frizzy, sad strands of hair that died (heh) for no reason. Well, at least if you bleach them dead you gotta make it look exciting, right? But yet here there are, and here I am, dying inside with no sign of color.

This might as well be another version of "jobs under capitalism ruin everything" rant, where I'd argue that these 9-to-5 jobs and the inherent expectations that came included, without seemingly proper security guaranteed, has stripped us dry of all sort of excitement and life. Then it would just be another Palahniuk novel. Or I'd present the contrarian argument that "humans have always had jobs and they were harsher back then", blah blah blah, and I'd still have no idea what I'm doing with my life.

Of course a lot has happened to me these past.. I don't know, months, since I last wrote an entry here? Not all bad, hell, I don't know if anything bad has happened, per se. If anything, I've learned a lot here and there. It's just I seemed to not have time to step back and reflect, much more write about them.

If this keeps up, my hair's going to go naturally white before I can publish anything of value.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell is actually holding me back from pursuing what I want.

Nobody Even Reads This Anymore, Right?

The long weekend is coming to an end. Looming. I have a couple of hours to confess, before the clock strikes twelve.

What is it about Blogspot's Times New Roman font, which is generally treated as the anal version of typography, that feels like the presence of an old friend?

Everyone is going back to their respective workplaces. To their place in society. To their designated function and purpose.

And there's me.

When everyone's busy doing what they're doing, where do I fit in?

The anxiety of being discovered inhibits me from being my true self.

If only I had known the bitter shame of failing to conform, I would deny any form of social awareness.

Tick. Tock.

You have 45 minutes left.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I just want to disappear.

I'm nothing but a walking shadow of my remnants. Crumbling past and decaying memories.

And expectations of once upon a time a prodigy.

Cook-off

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

Writing is a lot like cooking.

You get the appropriate ingredients (ideas), clean and prep them (jotting down the idea), cut them up and throw away the skins (get rid of irrelevant stuff), filter out scums in the boiling water (get rid of even more irrelevant stuff), season it with aromatic (add flairs and metaphors) and top it up with garnish, and you’d probably end up with something more or less edible.

If it tastes good, that’s a bonus point for you. And for a brief moment you thought you had it in you to become a professional cook.

Just like cooking, writing is never instant. Even if you just want to make something simple, cup noodles still take four minutes to get ready.

Just like the dry noodles needing time to seep all that boiling water, you also need inspiration to seep into your brain and turn them into a short passage according to your vision.

Or not. That might be ridiculous. This is just a thought that pops up as I am currently rewriting yet another draft of my long(ish)-form essay about the evolution of the music genre that doesn’t seem to be done from two weeks ago.

“The only kind of writing is rewriting” As the great sailor-author Ernest Hemingway once said.

Now, I’ve always been scared of calling myself a “writer” or even an aspiring one, because in this age of instant gratification and abundance of content, taking a long time to create one blog post that’s not exactly catering to the masses seems like a waste of energy.

In a sense, that’s actually unfair both for me and for all the content creators out there, because things do take time. 

Unfair for myself because I’m beating myself over the fact that it takes more than one week to finish a mini-essay about music streaming, when I know darn well I’m progressing. Unfair for everyone in the creative industry for undermining their process and somehow thinking that their creation happened instantly.

Even YouTube “video essays” that are seemingly just “rants” probably needed at least a month for idea generating, conceptualizing, and implementation (scripting, script editing, recording, re-recording, video editing and god knows what else). Well… at least the ones I watch and find value in.

And I get that it’s hard to quantify creative processes. How long is too long of a process? How much does a decent design actually worth? How much does an extraordinary painting worth? What defines a good creation? If an alleged “masterpiece” doesn’t have people appreciating it, is it still a masterpiece? If my writing, which I poured out my heart and soul to, doesn’t gain any traction, should I say it’s a flop and I should stop writing?

Even so, the nice thing about creative processes is that it always ultimately stems from the depth of our human need for self-expression. I write because I have an (abundance of) idea to communicate and pour into words. I didn’t initially seek approval or audience, although recently I find myself longing for a community in order to hopefully discuss the idea further and inspire me to keep writing. 

And maybe build myself a portfolio as a “writer” of some sort, because apparently I can’t just expect people to believe that I’m smart and a great verbal communicator.

I know that’s rich coming from me, and I realize how late I might just be. With the uprising abundance of generative AI tools that easily, almost instantly, lets people create soulless contents for the mere sake of capitalizing on it. “Ways to make money from ChatGPT”, they would claim.

We should be celebrating more often the journey of our creative process. Because it’s fun. Because it serves as proof of our existence, the synthesis of our accumulated subjective experiences. It’s who we are as humans.

Creating is a lot like cooking, and just as necessary.

Why I Haven't Been Showing Up (Here)

I've just read a Medium blog post about "showing up".

And I gotta say, these past three years or so I've learnt my lesson to do so. Showing up is exactly the only thing you can control in life. 

I used to not be able to relate to my fellow college mates whom people talked about because they "disappeared" from college. You know the ones, not attending classes but still have their names attached in the academic registry.

Until I become one of them.

There are various reasons for it to happen, and I don't speak for anyone else, but in my case it's mostly personal and internal struggle. A struggle to mingle with new people. A struggle to learn completely new things. A struggle to make peace with myself for not being perfect.

Over time, I managed to pull through with the help of friends who were all going through the same stuff. Apparently, nobody actually knows what they're doing, so all you can do is... you guessed it, show up. 

It's just stoicism, isn't it? Focus only on things within your control.

You don't know for sure if you're going to get the job or not, you can only show up to the interview and try your best. You don't know if your  You don't know for sure if your writing will get the attention it deserves or not, you can only consistently write.

And the act of showing up itself will lead you to a whole new experience. Unexpected things. And a couple of expected ones, I presume.

So why am I writing this?

Probably to ask myself, if you think showing up is important, why haven't you been doing so, as the owner of this blog?

Good question, my friend. (nanya sendiri jawab sendiri) 

Ironically, it's not like I stopped writing. I've just stopped posting.

There's not a single deciding factor. Maybe it's the lack of time and energy from my day job. Maybe it's the demotivation from the declining viewers' count. Maybe I just no longer find ranting in blog posts fulfilling and tried more serious things but never ended up finishing them. Maybe I began to think that spending so much time and energy to write isn't worth it anymore.

Or maybe Blogspot is no longer the satisfactory platform for me anymore.

I've been considering switching to more "modern", mobile-friendly blogging platforms with built-in audience. For my mini-essays or observation pieces related to my media interests like book or music reviews. Perhaps platforms like Medium or Substack.

I already gave a shot at Substack, setting up my pages (and projected topics / sections), and posting a couple of writings. But the menu is just so unintuitive and full of unnecessary bullcraps like subscriber newsletter setups, un-removable "podcast" section on my page, "social" posts and pages, and so on. It's like Medium with extra bullshit.

Medium sounds great because of its emphasized focus on writing, built-in audience (although with stiff competition), modern user interface, plugged-in article images, and mobile-view support. The way it's built makes it feels like it's supporting "branching" ideas like the ones my head usually makes up. Since I've tried signing up for it, I've been getting newsletter emails for topics of my interests, like app designs and writing. That's where I get the idea of how people generally write on the platform (one-sentence paragraphs and clickbait-y oh I'm sorry, it's hooks titles).

I love Blogspot because it's been a safe space for me. It acts like a dedicated little quirky corner for me and my antics in the vast realm of the internet, since the dawn of 2009. 

But the internet has shifted. Everyone keeps in touch through visual-based social media platforms now. Why write (and read) long-ass paragraphs when you can just snap a picture and post it for everyone (you filter to allow) to see, in an instant?

I used to plug links to my blog on Twitter (oh I'm sorry it's X now) whenever I published a new post, where I was my authentic self and my follower friends were highly tolerable to my antics. Usually when I tweet (oh I'm sorry it's post now) a hyperlink to my new post, it turns into an intuitive 'widget' thing that people would easily click, especially if I added thumbnails.

Now the platform policy doesn't really support any external links that will take viewers to another website. Whenever I tried to tweet a Substack link or blogspot link, the (recently implemented) view metric feature shows virtually zero viewers.

Probably also something to do with the seemingly declining trustworthiness of Blogspot. I've done a couple AI-labeling gig jobs, and all the Blogger websites I encountered had only shady contents (SEO keywords spam, copy-pasted articles, etc). So maybe my 15-years-old blog with nothing but my original rant contents is also mushed together with those shitshow.

So... yeah, I'm not really sure what's next. I'll probably still rant here every now and then, and shoot my shot at writing more topical things somewhere more audience can read them. I'll keep updating!

Cheers.

Just Another Sunday

This cafe is located at the heart of the city. I used to make this the setting of my fictional story where I met a street musician turned crush turned significant others (I dislike the term “lovers”, it's just too intense for my moderately modest taste). But I digress.

As one of the most central, bustling, economically productive and attention-grabbing parts of the city, it’s bound to be more well-developed. The streets are generally walkable with wide pedestrian paths, and various culinary and shopping destinations are lined up along the street. 

On a Sunday, it’s only natural there are this many people walking around and about. It’s very lively, very urban. I dig the vibe, which almost feels like being in downtown Paris, with less Eiffel and more tropical bushes.

I’m strategically playing the role of a watchman in the middle of it all. Alone. With my notepad and pair of watchful (but wary) eyes.

Around the room, I see people pouring in and out of the cafe, in groups or in pairings, rarely by themselves. The seats are filled with people sitting together and talking. Some visit only briefly for discounted cups of sweet coffee-stained beverages. Some spend tens of minutes to hours getting heated up in discussions. Most of them are dressed well; some even wear formal clothes, seemingly fresh out of attending a wedding ceremony. The adults are chatting and catching up, telling stories and talking a little bit (or even more) of business, while the children are busy among themselves, running around in their educated tiny pitter-patters.

Outside, I see vehicles passing by. Cars and motorbikes mingling on the road. Shoppers (also mostly in groups) pouring in and out of the infamous Japan-brand clothing store across the street. Trendy clothes, small purses, and paper shopping bags in their hands, pacing leisurely.

Upon the realization, I immediately feel out of place.

Even when this cafe is notorious for individuals working on their laptops, in the scheme of a long weekend afternoon, among people chattering and spending time with friends and families, away from their day job tasks (save for the baristas and service workers who are still on the clock, serving your bourgeoise ass), you trying to meet your self-inflicted blog post deadline (which you still haven’t work on yet btw) does not really fit the landscape.

Perhaps downright suspicious. Like a secret agent scouting out her target whose main choice of style is supposedly Uniqlo, trying to make their fashion statement as low profile as their existence. My notepad on my lap, mouth sipping sugarless iced americano, eyes keep glancing towards the white building.

But I’m in my element here. It’s true that I have developed my social skills to be aware of the collectivist culture at work that might put me in the minority, somewhat strange. But I’ve recognized myself enough to be comfortable being a loner, an observer, a type-two introvert who seeps energy from social interactions among people enjoying themselves, who want nothing to do with me. Me existing solely as a background character of their day, an NPC who spawned rather incorrectly.

It’s the pinnacle of a writer to not be perceived.