Success

Success

Success is only in my eyes, not in the eyes of the world. Though I’ve never accumulated very great riches, published a thousand books, never got a PhD, the Nobel Prize, won a world championship, toured the world, … That’s not what I call success.

Even though I only succeeded to publish my letters almost unnoticed in small corners of not well known news papers, build me a humble home page, exercise, conduct an amateur church choir of aged, musically uneducated members, take care of my Volley Club of boys and girls, or suppose I just live in a bamboo hut, …

I’m successful, honorable only in my eyes. I am awarding myself awards.

“I have a little purse with gold which I owe, give thanks to no one” says a poet.

Success? That’s my purse with a bit of gold in it, which I earned myself.

November 2010

Forgiving

Forgiving

Certainly am I forgiving, as I myself am not better than he/she is.

October 2010

A Thought On Death

A Thought On Death

A hundred percent being free, healthy. Free from fear, oldness, sickness, free from hunger, thirst, from hate, from jealousy, pain, worries, miseries, free from feeling deceived, despised, blamed, threatened,… that must be heaven.

February 2008

A Thought On Dying

A Thought On Dying

For man life is short as just ten years or a thousand years. Life is so precious and death is such a scare. Do you ever want to die willingly in the place of your child, grandchild, your father, mother, wife, husband, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, … to say nothing of another? Except, when life were hell, then death must be heaven!

December 2008

Found A Heaven In My Bed

Found A Heaven In My Bed

Pak Arif told me his dream,
“I dreamt I was in heaven. Some heaven dwellers welcomed me and asked whether I still remembered them.
Certainly, I said. You are Foxy who has died. You are Benji and Chicko, my dogs who are still alive.”

“Yes, we were fated to be born as dogs.”

“And you are the Cerukcuk bird, who was despairing, as your nest fell down, since a part of the waringin branches had to be cut off.”

“And I’m the waringin tree my branches you wound.” Said another heavenly being. “Why didn’you have the nerve to protect me and ignore his claims that my fallen leaves would block his rain-drain?”

“I met my wife who eloped with another husband and many people who had deceived, cheated me, even the man who had murdered me. Strange as dreams are, how easy it was to forgive them. And as I met my many wives I had married,- I didn’t remember I had married so many women - I wondered, they aren’t jealous and didn’t quarrel.

“Conscious (in heaven) that we were just puppets in the hands of the great Dalang (puppeteer), we were unconscious, didn’t realize (on earth) that we were just puppets, but convinced, certain that we were not acting our roles or dreaming, but really living our lives.

“They welcomed me without hate, jealousy, without loving, feeling, since in heaven there is no difference between man and woman anymore, no relation of parents and children, no difference between man, animal, plant, there’s no time and space, no night and day. In His eyes, we were all equal, alike.

“Then I awoke. How happy I was, I wasn’t murdered and still alive. I reached, touched beside me. Oh what a relief, my wife was still sleeping at my side peacefully. How nice and happy it was to be still living on earth. And I was grateful that I found a heaven in my bed at that time.

“Since that dream I’m more kind, more loving towards Benji, Chicko, to trees, plants, weeds and bibi our house-maid – ‘I sincerely hate her’ said my wife in jest, play – and the petroleum vendor, and all those people who are regarded as of the lower-class, in the opinion, eyes of the public.

“Sure, however easy it is to live for those who have freed, liberated themselves of desires, wishes, as those that are in heaven, I’m still thirsting after all human wants, needs, desires with all its joys, pleasures, pain, sorrow and sadness. I’m still drawn to ‘forbidden fruits’. Yet do I not want to exchange this life, so brief, yet so precious, with an eternal, peaceful, blissful life in heaven.”

So, pak Arif told me his thoughts.

August 1999

October 2010

A Valentine Day To Remember

A Valentine Day To Remember

It’s good that there’s no such thing as Masculinism, an organization protecting, promoting the rights, the interests of men, as I think of Feminism said Pak Arif to me.

What’s the fun to join a club of men, fathers, old men with dreary views. I am feeling old, cold, weak, lonely in the company of men. A man among men, is something of a desert, a night without stars. And I imagined the military personnel who for a long period had to be separated from their wives and children and sweethearts, he said.

Not as a village chicken hen that’s happy to rear her little chicks, if a chicken by selection is chosen for its eggs or meat, in the long run it would lose her natural instincts to brood and rear her chicks. If a chicken every day is trained to fight, what about a female chicken that one day might, would crow and grow spurs?

Well, suppose we men practice, live as those in a monastery, then one day would lose our natural affection for Eve, I don’t want to be born, said he.

It’s fortunate that we have a Valentine day to remember when man and woman, male and female are happy together; that time which is so praised, sung, painted by artists and celebrated by all creatures on the earth through all the ages.

Men and women, male and female are not created to be competitors, rivals, opponents or enemies as dogs and cats are.

Are you sorry that you were fated to be born female? I then asked my wife. I’m happy to be born male, otherwise how could I have found you? Ha, ha, ha. Pak Arif laughed as he related these thoughts.

From Jayakarta, 27 April 1995

October 2010

On Being Free

On Being Free

There’s the joy of going to the Taman Ismail Marzuki Art Centre. We listen to a music recital outside the concert hall, me and her, just sitting relaxed beneath a lantern besides the pathway as we could also hear it softly, exquisitely in the open air.

I don’t have to come in formal dress, tight shining shoes, take a taxi, I just come on sandals, lightly clothed, take some snack with us and we enjoy eating it at leisure. We don’t have to talk, to comment, to shake hands with people, politely clap our hands and we‘re so free to stay or go, to listen or not listen when it’s boring us.

There’s even a greater being free. When people think, fancy that I’m a great art lover, and send me an invitation, then, I for a long time hesitating between going or not going, - as I am feeling forced to go as not to reward the kind attention of those who send me the invitation with a disappointment - I take courage, leave the cards, forget about the arts, take my bike and pedal slowly, leisurely to enjoy the evening, stop somewhere at the Monas Park and buy me warm tahu pong (fried curd bean).

In my mind’s eye I see the people in the theatre where I also would be “entrapped”, sitting stiffly, talk all the fuss about nothing, basa-basi so we say in the bahasa, just clever talk, ceremony. Now am I far away from it, so free, also free from the fear to disappoint those who very kindly send me the invitation, to celebrate my won freedom with eating tahu pong, with my self, my thoughts sitting on the sidewalk, charmed by flickering pelita lights (oil lamps) of vendors beneath a glorious starry sky.

How happy and free is the mother duck with her lovely ducklings resting in the shade beneath an only tree but freer, is the julung-julung baby fish in the sawah (rice field) water, almost infinitely free, so free, unbounded , unconscious of time, place and worries.

1977

October 2010

What Were You Fated To Be An Animal Or A Plant?

What Were You Fated To Be An Amimal Or A Plant?

Liu Xiaobo just won the Nobel Prize for peace and I think of the heroes of Human Rights, of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter and many others.

But there’s still no famous hero of Animal, Plant Rights except unknown, silent fighters, who fight, protect, shelter them. It seems so far away, perhaps we still have to wait a thousand years before this could be established, accepted.

What, were you or we, fated to be an animal or a plant? Could they help to be fated that way instead of a human being?

And I think of the Universal Rights,- except the Laws of Nature, especially for food - the right of all being to have a share of the land, the sea, the rivers, the lakes, the clouds, … the world, the sun, the stars, the heavens, … and be treated as a worthy, honorable citizen of the earth.

October 2010

Paradise Of Sounds And Music

Paradise Of Sounds And Music

Behold the greatest masterpiece on the screen of Space and Time:

A wonderful world; but no lovely sights were there no light, no stars to see were there no night. It would be dead were there no soul, no stir; of revolving, rotating planets, of sailing clouds, flowing water, waving trees, of crawling, fluttering, breathing life. It would be cold were there no warmth, or dull were there no forms, no shapes, no colors, scents and fragrances.

And having created this work of art, the Creator still added another master’s stroke of delightful sounds to break the silence of the world.
See You Tube: chewginhoa and chewspictures.blogspot.com.

Hear the delightful sounds of water murmuring, gurgling, babbling in a brook or splashing, rushing, roaring in a river; of fallen leaves, the golden paddy, Alang-Alang (sedge) rustling and trees whispering, sighing in the wind; the patter on the roof, the merry song of frogs and children playing in the rain.

Listen to a Tekukur (wood-pigeon) calling, high up in a tree and one senses the vastness and stillness of the sky. Hear the breeze-like sound of cicadas (Uir-Uir) and one is transported to the country and the woods. The “croak” of a frog, the “tuit” of the night-bird, the “thud” of a fruit falling from off its branch, or a gecko’s “tok-keeeeh” makes one feel something of the essence of the night.

Then hear such wonderful sounds as simple and natural as the crackle and the sizzle in a frying pan, or water dripping musically into a basin, of chiseling marble or chopping meat, a horse walking or trotting through a lonely road; the chimes of a clock or church bells, a lovely voice through a telephone, ...

Only artists create music out of sounds. How eloquent music is. It is even more eloquent then speech. Really, music must be made up of lyrics in sounds.
Hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, we would be inspired to march bravely to the end unable to surrender. We would desperately fall in love with Porgy’s Bess, though she’s “such a liquor guzzling slut” in Gershwin’s opera and weep with Bach in his Matthew Passion.

Poetry must be music translated into verse, a painting must be music in line and colors.

The gamelan (Javanese Music) sounds like coming from some celestial abode, borne on the deepest awe-inspiring gong, as if to pervade our being and the world. And how fascinating is even a recitative of a dalang (puppeteer) or a qori(ah) who recites the Koran.

Yet, no less delightful are such little pieces as a prelude of Chopin, or a sunny, carefree, play-full ‘sonatina’, or songs some people refer to as Pop. All the same, they perform them with no less feeling than opera artists.

Our Pesinden (a woman aria singer) sings as beautiful as the Lorelei; even old men would feel like young again and they make husbands forget about their wives. The Kecapi-Suling (the flute and zither) sounds so heart-rending, one would contract heartache.

These little pieces certainly are as wonderful as the best of symphonies, opera’s or oratorios. They’re as wonderful as a cricket’s chirping to the nightingale’s song, or as falling Sawah (wet rice-field) water to the Niagara Falls, or as a firefly to the dazzling sun.

Indonesia Times, May 27, 1987

Caution:

Feast your ears on sounds and music, but I warn you: Hearing music very badly performed or out of tune would be as awful as eating food without salt. Forcing oneself to enjoy a piece of music one doesn’t like, would be very agonizing and to listen too much would be as hellish as forcing oneself to eat more when one has had enough.

October 2010

The Richest Man

The Richest Man

“Look, there she is, the jamu (bitter-sweet-hot health-drinks) vendor with her bakul (basket) jamu on her back. Her great riches - as she’s young, healthy and as fresh, beautiful, lovely as morning - appear despite her poor living conditions.” So said Pak Arif.

“I, myself am full of riches almost bursting.
Riches through my eyes of finding a paradise almost anywhere;
Through feeling when I’m stepping in pure, fresh, streaming, flowing mountain water and cup it in my hands;
Through hearing it rushing in a river, gurgle, murmur, splashing in a brook or sawah (rice-field) water;
Through breathing deeply the pure, fresh air;
Through wetting myself in raindrops which so wonderfully seem to fall from heaven;
Through walking barefoot to feel the dew, cool floor;
Through a healthy hunger and being alive.

“Then there are the riches, treasures of being healthy, being happy, being free;
Of loving and being loved;
Of the carefree young and of the old with ripened thoughts;
Of those who became mothers;
Of infinite thoughts and fantasy;
Of being able to give and receive the most precious gifts;
Of …

“The richest man
Without much effort, exertion, he has a huge income,
Stolen he doesn’t become poor, suppose it could be stolen,
The more he gives, the more he receives, instead of becoming empty,
He receives a lot and doesn’t have to pay.

“He is a wandering fortune.” I thought someone had said this, but if I’m mistaken, it must be me, as I would have found it myself. Ha, ha, ha.” So said Pak Arif to me.

1977

October 2010

How Lovely, How Green

How Lovely, How Green

“How green, how lovely is this plant” said a visitor pointing to a plant in a flower pot just placed in the visitor’s hall. Unnoticed when it was happy among many other plants in the garden, as a beautiful, gracious tree unobserved among other trees in a forest.

Deprived of the sun in the room, though we regularly water it it would be unhappy, wither, become sick and die. It is similar with man and creatures.

October 2010

When I'm Ninety

When I’m Ninety

In 2020 when I’m ninety or if lucky, in 2030 when I’m a hundred years, I would be proud when I could print and publish “Bacaan Waktu Santai” myself as it would be so easy by that time, print some 10 books and send them to our national and other libraries.

Then will I start playing Bach, read Shakespeare and get me a driver’s licence.

October 2010