I Can't Do This. Not Right Now.

This is going to sound weird, but I think my inner demon is back.

I was fine for the last two weeks or so, but it all changed overnight. And of course it occurs when I happen to be prepared for exam week.

Feelings are mixed in between "I need to do stuffs" and "I'm not good enough so why bother", to "I should go out more and explore" and "fuck everything I hate everything why bother". I don't know how more precise I can explain, but I think it's pretty close.

I see everyone around me are doing really fine in their 4th year, and I'm still stuck thinking where I'm heading for my future. So far it's still looking pretty bleak to me. I'm afraid, I'm scared, I'm worried, most of the time. I got nothing. Just... not knowing, it's terrifying.

More terrifying is knowing that you won't be good enough... for anyone, for anything. I have the tendency to feel like a total failure at the slightest mistake. I know this needs change in order for me to live as a human being (not a breathing fiasco). I decided just a few moments ago that I would start not caring, as in, stop taking shit from everyone, you know, but my inner demon decided that it's just too late for me to change. I'm already known as the shit-bearer, the invisible beta, to everyone around me. That means I bring no change whatsoever, just not influential enough to be a human, you know?

I feel like I digress throughout the whole post, rambling with no point. What I'm trying to say is probably that I feel like a total failure, stuck in stagnancy while seeing everyone doing so great, progressing with their studies, with their lives, and their future. That's the point.

I just feel like I'm not ready to face the world yet. Not now. I also don't feel like I would be ready anytime soon, though. I don't know when I will actually change for good. For now, I just want to sulk and hate on myself.


Peace out.

What's a Spotify?

First of all, let me just remind you how much I love music. Well, at least my type of music, you know. I figure in the 21st century everyone likes music, one way or another, one type or the other, regardless of how often they listen to it. You can just sit back and relax while listening to music, you can listen to music on the train, in your car, or even while walking. Music is general; it's universal.

That is why online music streaming service is extremely popular nowadays, and I'm here to talk about it. I know I'm probably late to the hype, because I've been wanting to give my insight since the first time Spotify made its way to Indonesia, which was on the late March 2016. You all probably have known about this thing called Spotify, it's kind of the biggest music streaming service on the internet right now.

Stop and Drop

I look at the calendar... it's already May. I almost forget that I had birthday exactly a couple of weeks and a day ago. Kind of a sad one. I spent the whole morning sleeping past twelve, and had lunch with only tic-tacs. At least I went out in the evening to get some ice cream with my pal Eka, and I got a Deadpool keychain, which was a pretty nice surprise.

I did two blog posts before, so why do I mention my birthday in this particular one?

Well, I want to talk a little bit about timing.

When I looked at the calendar, I didn't think about my birthday at the first glance. I think about how the long weekend already passed. Today is the 8th day of May. A Sunday. It means tomorrow is already Monday, and there are a lot of responsibilities waiting for me. But it doesn't feel like it's going to be Monday tomorrow because my classes finished in April. So what I'm doing now is just waiting for exam dates, which are on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 19th (odd one out there). THEN, I could go home for a three-months holiday.

Plus, I had long weekend from the 5th of May, and did nothing more than going out for a day with Tisa to watch the infamous Captain America : Civil War. I was basically a human trash in the last four days. Brain is numbing, muscles are weakening, and my will is shattered. Exaggeration? Maybe. But the point is, I just wasted four perfectly good days off, and suddenly I feel like it's already the holiday period.

I'm wrong in that aspect. I still have four exams waiting, one postponed exam (because my body decided to break down), and a few research / experiment-based tasks. That's the fact, but I don't feel like that's the fact. Mindset is dangerous when you don't set it right.

That's one example. The second one would be how I don't feel like I'm already 21. I should be a fully-functioning adult by now, but I still feel like a high-school kid. Hell, I think high-school kids now are more mature than I am. I think high-school me was even more mature than I am right now. I feel like I've been wasting perfectly good 21 years.

...Well, maybe just two or three years. The third one would be how it hasn't gotten into me that I should be starting on my skripsi right after this three-months holiday I mentioned. That means I have three months to sort myself out before I'm actually going adulting. 

For the past two years or so, what I've been doing is basically only going along with the flow. In my university, each semester you have compulsory classes, and you get to choose optional classes that suits your intended research topic as long as it doesn't exceed the limit. As you get into higher level, you have less compulsory classes and more optional classes. So now I have reach the top level, in which I only have two compulsory classes to take, and the rest? Optional classes to support my favored research topic, in other words, my skripsi.

How do I choose which classes to take if I don't even know what research topic I'm going for?

My real problem actually lies in how my mind still can't comprehend that I don't have much more time. Every start of the semester I promise myself that I would do better in classes than I did last semester, but as far as I know, my grades have been going downhill. Like, rollercoaster downhill.

My grades are going downhill because my awareness of time is terrible. Every semester goes in a flash, and it's already the end as I just happen to contemplate, what just happened? I have no track of the present, and it happens rather unconsciously. Sometimes I postpone the study of a chapter for probably just a day, and when tomorrow comes, I'm given more tasks that require more urgency and boom it's already exam day. 

I hate when that happens, but that happens more times than I can count, so in the end I would only end up hating myself, and adopt 'regret' as my middle name.

If there's a word to describe my situation, it probably would be absent-mindedness. I don't comprehend how much time I have on my hand. I don't comprehend how much tasks I have. I don't keep tracks. 

I know about my responsibilities, but at the same time, I don't know my responsibilities.

Most of the time I experience myself through the eye of a third person. I would go, "okay, you need to do this" but when the time comes to do the thing, my mind would leave my body, thinking about something else less urgent, less important, anything but the thing I should be working on. I heard the correct term is procrastination, but I figure when you procrastinate, you are fully aware that you have tasks in mind. I don't.

I feel like, when the time to do something has come, someone else (I figure, the responsible side of me) would take over and everything will be fine. But it never happened. No one is coming to help, not if you don't ask them. But how could you ask for help when you don't even realize that there's something you need help with?

I'm only keeping tracks of my schedule, but not on the things in the schedule I have to actually do. For example, maybe I have to do a meeting in two days, but in the meantime I don't do any preparation for the meeting at all. I just know that I have meeting, but I don't even know what the meeting will be about.

Then it struck me deep. I only enjoy marking my calendar, because it means I would have something to do. I'm living a life bored, waiting for the day something would happen... and I wouldn't be bored anymore. I don't have the inside drive to do anything based on my passion, my decision alone, so I get excited when there are actual plans made for me.

I have tried deciding plans on my own, but they're mostly as shallow as getting something to eat, shopping some books, watching movies, well, those stuff. I can't think of bringing myself to do anything remotely exciting or life-changing or soul-searching or skill-gaining. Just... mundane, ordinary recreational activities that don't include thinking or gaining self-satisfaction.

Last year, after my three-months holiday period, my semester went... terrible. I failed a compulsory class that I have to take next semester. I never failed a class before. This was the class that at first I thought I would like, but apparently it's in dire need of fundamental materials that had been taught in a class held a semester beforehand. A class which I hadn't pay much attention. A class which I wish I had paid more attention into.

It's like a chain reaction going on sometimes. I had to study for a class, but then it has a part that had been taught in a class some semester before, but I forget, and then I got stuck, and end up with nothing. Then I regret why I didn't study for that material in the last semester better, and then I feel the need to study so I don't regret the next semester but I can't study it fully because I forget some crucial parts in which I need to learn before I can move on. And it goes on and on in a devil's circle.

I feel like I'm only making excuses for myself, because admitting myself into inferiority is easier than changing for superiority. I may have that complex.

All excuses aside, I have cognitive recognition of my problems, but as I said, admitting my inferiority as an excuse over things I did wrong is easier than actually solving the problem. It's like I'm going through a "list of all things wrong with me" but not aiming to cross some things off the list.

Long story short, I know my problem lies in my absent-mindedness over timing and responsibilities, but I can't bring myself to actually solve the problem... so far. This kind of explains why I'm slightly... afraid of this year's three-months holiday period. I worry that this long holiday will sort of increasing the absent-mindedness due to the long period of 'unused brain'. I always tell myself that I would study some materials in the holiday period, but it never happened.

This year, I'm trying to avoid the mistakes I kept making years after years before. I wouldn't promise myself to study in the holiday, per se, but I will try to sort myself out of my problems instead of just recognizing it. I'm going to need some support... and maybe a little luck.

Maybe you can help, by suggesting some actual thing I can do on holiday? Something that would keep my mind from being in limbo...

Wish me luck!

Bandung, 8 Mei 2016

Taruna In Limbo

Nasya Is Not A Person

...kebohongan yang terus aku lantunkan dalam hati setiap kali ia mengucap nama itu. No, not a person. I can't be jealous. I can't look jealous. Aku menganggapnya seperti nama sayang untuk suatu objek yang disukainya. Mungkin mobil? Tapi ia tidak punya mobil.... Motornya, mungkin? Bukan, aku tahu ia menamai motornya dengan nama lain... Kapalnya? Kapal? Oh my God, listen to yourself. 

Bagaimana mungkin kau bisa membohongi diri sendiri? Ceritamu tidak konsisten, tidak lengkap. Bahkan pondasi dari kebohongan itu tidak meyakinkan. Nasya bukan orang? Lalu apa? Kau bahkan tidak bisa menjawab pertanyaan itu.

Terlebih lagi, ia selalu menjabarkan nama itu dengan menggunakan diksi yang jelas-jelas ditujukan untuk manusia. Mana mungkin kau berkata bahwa kau akan kencan dengan sebuah mobil di BIP? Absurd.

"Hei,"

Aku menengok dari cangkir kopiku.

"Kau mendengarkanku?"

Aku tidak bisa berbohong. Aku menggeleng sambil tertawa garing, "Ah, maaf, aku baru saja teringat sesuatu."

"Ada apa? Ceritakanlah. Aku juga bakal bosan kalau harus mendengarkan diriku mengoceh terus." Ujarnya sambil meneguk latte karamel dari cangkir putihnya, serupa dengan yang sedang aku genggam di atas meja.

"Aku kepikiran ide cerita di mana orang-orang bisa menikah dengan motor mereka." Well, I had to make something up right?

Dia terpana selama beberapa detik sebelum tertawa, "Creepy."

I know, I am.

----

Aku tak tahu mengapa aku harus mengarang cerita seaneh itu. Benar, aku memang mengambil ide dimana ia bisa menikah dengan Nasya, dicampur dengan pemikiran bahwa Nasya bisa jadi nama untuk motornya, tapi menyatukan keduanya menjadi ide cerita sungguh absurd. Aku tak seharusnya dilepas ke jalan, ke dunia luar.

Aku seharusnya hanya mendekam di rumah, bertahan hidup dengan tiga dus roti dan selai kacang, ditemani ide-ide gila dari kepalaku semata. Tidak ada yang perlu tahu isi pikiranku.

Gerimis di luar mulai mereda. Melihat isi cangkir kopi kami berdua, ditambah menilai aliran percakapan yang tampak lebih menjaga jarak setelah pengakuan ide cerita tadi, aku tahu ia sudah lebih dari siap untuk pergi meninggalkan tempat ini.

Meninggalkanku.

Drama sekali, Tar. Bravo. Dia hanya akan menemui Nasya di mall beberapa kilo dari sini, ditambah lagi kau masih bisa mengiriminya pesan jika ingin mengobrol. It's not like he's going away to marry a girl in some tropic island and forget all about you. Pikirku getir. They might.... Pikirku lagi. Bahkan aku masih bisa bercakap dengan diri sendiri. 

"Hujannya reda," ujarnya setelah menatap keluar. Ia mengambil smartphone-nya dari atas meja dan mengetik sesuatu, "Kayaknya aku mesti pergi sekarang, deh."

I bet you're thrilled to. Pikirku. Tapi aku tidak mengatakan apapun.

"Makasih ya traktirannya. You're cool, man." 

Aku hanya tertawa kecil sembari menjawab, "No problem."

----

Well, guess what brain, he's not coming back.

Aku tidak pernah mendapatinya berada di sekitar kafe itu lagi. Aku masih sering mengunjungi kafe itu, masih sering memesan latte karamel, green tea dengan espresso shot, masih sering duduk memandangi langit ketika hujan turun.

Masih sering berharap dia muncul dan mengajakku mengobrol.

But it never happened anymore.

Aku hanya bisa mengatakan ini ketika aku menulis. Aku tidak dikenal sebagai orang yang affectionate oleh teman-temanku. Hell, they sometimes told me that I'm really cold and insensitive. But this is a side of me they would never find out, if they're not fond of reading.

Contrary to popular belief, I'm a highly sentimental person.

But I can never say that to anyone. I have to maintain my image and such. Feels are so gay.

The last time I talked about similar feeling was years ago. My friend dismissed my story with a brush of "dude, I didn't know you're such a girl."

Aku hampir saja menumpahkan cangkir panas flat white-ku ketika wajahnya tiba-tiba muncul di bingkai pintu utama kafe. Hari itu bahkan tidak hujan, dan pikiranku berhalusinasi sejauh itu?

...tapi itu bukan halusinasi. Aku belum gila. 

"Hey," ia menyapa pelan.

"Hei! Ada angin apa nih?" tanyaku sambil menaruh cangkir kembali ke tatakannya. Aku punya tiga detik untuk menentukan suatu hal penting. Should I go for a hug? Should I stand up to hug him or shake his hand? Dammit.

"Tak ada apa-apa." Ia langsung duduk di kursi di depanku. Oh good. I don't have to stand up.

Perempuan yang baru saja memesan minuman di kasir berjalan ke arah kami dan duduk di kursi di sampingnya. Di depanku. 

"Kenalkan, ini Nasya." Katanya sambil menepuk punggung perempuan tersebut. Aku terpana sesaat sambil mengamati perempuan di hadapanku. Rambutnya lurus panjang, terurai indah, dengan sedikit ikal di bagian telinga. Bulu matanya lentik, dan kedua bola matanya menatapku dengan tatapan penasaran. Ia memiliki aura cantik alami, dengan kepolosan yang tampak tidak kalah alami.

Aku tak tahu aku harus merasa cemburu dengannya, atau dengan 'teman'ku.

"Nasya," Ia tersenyum sambil mengulurkan tangan.

Akhirnya aku bertemu dengannya. Saat aku menggenggam tangan kanannya yang dingin dan mengucap namaku, aku tahu...

Ini adalah perpisahan.

Bandung, 7 Mei 2016

Taruna who still wants that coffee.

Articulation in My Vein

Apa sebenarnya definisi hakiki dari... kekuatan?

Apa yang orang maksud ketika mereka berkata 'kamu harus kuat'? Sejauh apa aku harus bertahan untuk dapat disebut 'kuat'? Apakah ada suatu standar tertentu untuk seseorang menjadi 'kuat'?

Fisik? Mental? Apa itu penting ketika kau sedang mencari makna yang sesungguhnya dari kekuatan? Far beyond the frontier of physical or mentality.

Aku bukan orang yang kuat, aku tahu itu dengan pasti. Aku tidak pernah berolahraga, meskipun aku harap aku melakukannya, terutama ketika menonton anime shonen kesukaanku, atau tidak sengaja melihat refleksi dari figurku sendiri di cermin. Aku mengeluh setiap saat, menambahkan kata 'penyesalan' sebagai nama tengahku dan menyalahkan nasib atas ketidakbecusanku alih-alih memperbaiki kesalahan. Aku menulis postingan di blog mengenai kekuatan, dan bukannya memperkuat diriku sendiri...

...karena hal-hal itu lebih mudah untuk dilakukan.

Hati kecilku tahu, tahu benar bahwa selama ini aku melakukan hal yang salah. Aku memutuskan untuk melakukan sesuatu meskipun aku tahu hal itu salah untuk dilakukan.

If you don't know it's wrong to do, it's a mistake. If you know it's wrong, it's a sin.

....or something along that way. I forgot how it goes. Yang jelas, ketika aku tahu aku salah dan aku melakukannya, otomatis aku melakukan suatu dosa. Dan konsep ini yang belum aku pahami realitanya. Bagaimana? Aku tahu aku melakukan hal yang salah, namun orang lain tidak tahu kalau sebenarnya aku tahu aku melakukan hal yang salah. Membingungkan? Well, begini... ketika aku melakukan kesalahan, orang berharap aku meminta maaf, karena... yah, itu kesalahan. Dan kau umumnya meminta maaf jika berbuat salah, kan?
Tentu saja itu akan menjadi dobel kesalahan di sisi mereka, karena mereka berasumsi aku salah. Tidak, tidak, kawan. Aku tahu aku salah. Itu dosa. Aku tidak akan meminta maaf karena... well, I did something wrong on purpose, and I'm not sorry of that. I'm not apologizing.

Would that I could, man.

Menurutku orang yang mampu melakukan hal yang benar adalah orang yang kuat... dan atas dasar itu aku berani berkata bahwa aku bukan orang yang kuat. Bahkan, mungkin, aku dapat dikatakan pengecut.

Ya, tidak ada orang yang sebelumnya pernah memberitahuku hal tersebut. As far as I know, I was always being showered with constant compliments and expectations.

People keep saying, "ah kamu kan pinter,", "kamu tuh sebenernya pinter, cuma kurang usaha," and all that. I actually know there are silent majority who would think otherwise, but since the good ones are the ones I constantly hear, I might as well be told so. Is there a word for people who has low belief in themselves when others think otherwise?

Aku sama sekali tidak merasa pintar. If anything, it's the other way around. It feels like being put on a pedestal, even though maybe it's not what people do to me -- they might just think 'oh, smart girl' or something. It frustrates me to try to live up to their expectation, trying to be smart...

I managed well in the past 12 years or so, but the last couple of years are totally on whole new level. University life makes me feel... outstandingly average. It's like you're so average that people don't even bother to say how average you are. Nobody expects anything anymore, and that kind of... takes me by surprise. It drains my power away.

I feel like the only one telling me I'm such a loser is myself, although I don't know how many people actually think like that. I'm just a lazy guy with no ambition, don't know where he's going.

I have so many song lyrics that would apply to me right now, and they're all about self-negativity. I don't know why I'm being so negative about myself when everyone is believing in me. Maybe I just like proving people wrong, even if it means sacrificing my future.

I used to be so strong, how did it end up like this?



Bandung, 5 Mei 2016

Taruna yang Hilang.

A Call for Help

I have been literally restless in the past few weeks.

This isn't just your ordinary nightmare. It almost feels like a kind of stress stretched out endlessly without you knowing its plasticity. The brink of its length reaching out the horizon.

I don't know if I should call this an illness or something, but the restlessness is real. Trying to sleep healthily is hard. I am used to staying up until late at night, and then go to sleep when it's almost dawn, or maybe if I'm lucky enough, I can doze off by one a.m. I realized that this needed to change, so I moved to a new place, get myself a roommate with normal human schedule, hoping I could start clean.

The first month or so, this plan worked. I could manage to sleep by one a.m at the very late nights, wake up before nine (to me this is a big achievement). I didn't notice when this plan started to fail. The last thing I know I'm right now sitting in front of my laptop at five a.m, writing in hope to find some light among the strings of narration. I just got home last night, arriving at almost 11 p,m, and hoping to get an early good night's sleep due to the exhaustion. Hopefully I could wake up early and start fresh again.

I did wake up early. Like, two hours after I slept. My body decided to wake up two hours after I slept after a long day of travel, for what reason I have absolutely no darn idea. I supposed I wasn't tired enough? Okay, so I decided to browse 9gag in hope to find my sleepiness. I did, two hours later. And when I slept, I woke up the second time after experiencing what people might call sleep paralysis. You know, when you dream of something and then you can't move and you're on the brink between sleep and wakefulness. I don't know the exact, accurate term, but that's what I experienced.

It's not my first time, but still it's an unpleasant experience for a lazy overthinker like me, because it messes with both my mind and my body. I go through this a lot, and I notice a pattern that this happens every time I overwork myself. The first ones are the hardest. You just think you're haunted, cursed or something, and superstitious thinking get through you as you wake up sweating like crazy, scared of your surrounding. But after six or seven times, you just wake up feeling frustrated and can't help but being all "goddammit not this again I need my sleep". This time I wake up with ringing ears. My head was pounding, my throat was dry and my legs are sore all over. Was I that tired, though? Why can't I get a good night sleep lately? I don't even drink coffee in the past week.

Everything is sore all over. I want to sleep but I have a feeling that I can't even if I try. It's almost a certainty to my pattern that if it happens once in a night, it won't happen again in the same night, but it still doesn't reassure me at the very least. At this point I'm too frustrated and exhausted to even try to sleep. Mentally and physically. Because, you know, when this happens, you can't sleep. Thus, you have more time to stay awake and maybe do something productive, right? NOPE. At this point, you are too exhausted to do anything remotely productive. That, is if you're like me. If you're not, I'm glad for you, I really am. I hope we can somehow talk about this and you can share your secret to being productive at night. But then I wonder what makes you read this far, because if you're what I think you are, you would be doing something better right? Now I digress.

So here I am, sitting in the dark of the unlit room at 5.30 a.m, with the only light came from window which curtains are slightly ajar, and glow-in-the-dark star stickers up on the ceiling. I drink some water while contemplating what the hell is wrong with me and the plausible cause for my endless restlessness. My roommate was half-awake and asked me what I was doing. I didn't answer. I was too busy considering the miserable state of my mind and body alike. She went back to sleep. I thought to myself, must be nice to be able not to overthink things. Must be nice not being me, having a sleep paralysis episode for like ten minutes and then spend the next couple of hours thinking about it.

I tend to think a lot when I'm not doing anything. Mostly they are just selfish, insecure thoughts of myself, that I dare not tell anyone else. I also think about my school tasks, though. I think about the tasks I need to do today and the regret I bear when I realize how stupid of me not starting doing them earlier. Short-minded? Maybe, but who guarantees I'd still live tomorrow?



Sincerely,


Your messed-up Taruna.