On point

That's also why, if we were to consider the unusual project of creating a robot that could cry at the movies, we would have to do something apparently rather cruel. We would have to ensure this robot knew all about suffering, for it's only against a background of pain that beautiful scenes in films become deeply moving rather than merely nice.

A bit of masochism keeps you going

How often do you have the urge to run away? So desperate to skip the following seconds, minutes, hours, days, or years because the moment is getting too unbearable?

The sudden absence of someone dear. The emptiness getting louder.
Unintentionally break something unmendable and being left with guilt and the dread of uncertainty; the few horrible seconds before someone either shout at you or being big and forgive you, which in both you'll be helpless and vulnerable.

Feeling an embarrassment overflowing your body after saying something wrong to a group of people you want to impress. Or worse, tongue-tied and blanked mind in front of them. Their looks and smirks keep playing in your mind for years.

Being so overwhelmed by all the things you have to do you barely get any sleep at all. 

The endless redoing of mundane things that will get you nowhere. 

Being in a physically painful state, every inch of your body starts to give out one by one you don't even know whether you can make it anymore. 

But you will. You made it this far, despite the knocks and kicks life throws at you generously. Sometimes the urges to escape, to press a fast-forward button in these scenarios are inevitable. But we humans grow over these painful edge-of-the-blade moments. Choking, gasping, flailing. Washed over by sweat, blood, and tears. The fast-forward button we desperately want to own is a curse; a life without these moments is a life not worth living.

The House of Desperate Souls

I am an open house
A friend lurked from the yard,
watching me go about my day
I smiled and flicked a small talk
Watching me closely with a sense of longing in his eyes,
a joke cracked between us
and we laughed until our stomachs hurt
He made his way inside
His movement was a rushed one,
some unnatural gestures in the eye of an amateur
Blurred the line between a stranger, a friend, and a lover
I went along with it
At night I couldn't stop asking myself
Am I the last resort, a house people like to stay at when all the hotels are booked?

People come and go as they please,
leaving the door opened each time
Each time it is doubting my own foundation,
it is tearing apart my own walls to see what I am

I never knew what I want,
so I kept letting them in despite the uncertainty that loomed silently in the dark
But now I do,
I finally do know what I want

(On being a late bloomer: It feels really weird to get something for the first time when you're way past age. Just when I think that I would be this stuck and numb for the rest of my life, time throws a gift of growth that keeps life moving.)

Mind Branches

IV.
Tension
   we know it's there right underneath us -
   it's all we can think about at some point of our lives
   a monster with the ability to wipe all of us out
   yet we pretend there's no such thing
   going about our lives,
   we make noises about everything
   anything
   except that.

III.
New faces, new places, sky with different colors
   I miss blank slates already.

II.
Fear is a bitch
   Everybody is supposed to have a success story
   Why can't I conquer mine?

I.
Admiring you from afar is a new kind of sadness.

Your Cave

What is your choice of self-destruction?
Running until you're collapsed — numb limbs, gasping for breath, struggling to keep a bit of air in your lungs?

Burning your insides with countless packs, waiting till the day it gets you?
Going out to dangerous places alone at night, feeling high and impulsive,
Or is it driving at 100 on highway, your body getting lighter as you float with the wind — for the sole feeling of freedom, of spontaneity, of assurance?

Is it eating as much as you can until there's no room anymore for pain, until you're this close to exploding?

Is it avoiding sunlight, locking yourself in with LCD screen exposure 24/7?
Is it sleeping until you can't take it anymore—looking emptily as the clock ticks by, or is it painting all night for the 3rd time in a row?

Is it staying out late as far from home as possible — drinks in hand, crowds to drown your thoughts?

Is it scratching your skin, sinking your nails deep inside your flesh to move the thoughts away even for just a few seconds?
Is it taking shower with ice cold water, scrubbing away those cells for hours until your whole body is red, irritated, and swollen?

Is it laxatives, is it pills, is it bleach?
Is it dangerous hike and dive in some foreign country?
Is it working for 18 hours a day to avoid some thoughts?

So bare with me,

What is your choice of self-destruction?

siklus self-doubt

ketika kamu (seharusnya) dapet 100 di kuis satu-satunya matkul yg kamu menguasai. lalu iseng ngelirik kiri, kaget karena jawabannya beda semua, ganti 2 jawaban yg ragu, dan berakhir dengan nilai rata-rata.

i dont understand why i let this kind of thing happened to me more than once. why cant you learn from your exact past experience like everyone else goddamnit. congratulations, you deserve a frickin medal to be this spineless, flip-flopping lil piece of shit. enjoy the taste of unfulfillment in your mouth for the rest of the week!

Dogville: My Entire Humanity Crisis in One Movie

ten thousand blades striking at once

But if you have no part in the world, no matter how diseased the world is, you are dead. It is not enough to earn your living, do no actual harm to anyone, tell no lies, help a few people with money or kindness when the occasion presents – and without too great a hardship to oneself. It is not enough. It is okay. It is not dirty. But it is dead.

– Martha Gellhorn

A Letter to Myself

Look behind
The wall I built has gotten too thick,
too big,
too tall

The guard is strong and impenetrable

Spending the last few years inside,

I've grown accustomed to the dark

From a little space I watch people grow,
their lives flash before my eyes
Taking notes, calculating, interpreting
I am a still in their background,
a streak of paint that's not meant to be there,
an off-color no one notices even though it doesn't belong with the rest of the painting

Taking notes, calculating, interpreting
Trying to understand the world,
but staying in my own, the one I created for myself
Trying to understand life,
without having one

You can't fathom the unfathomable
Each a phantom of a soul's mind
Let go, let loose
Step out,
it's time.

• —Inspired by Life Beyond Walls, a poem by d.c.r

hang in there

Self improvement is important, but at times I can't help feeling like I'm dysfunctional as shit.
The more people talk about it, the more I am certain
I am not enough. for you, for life.

To Bloom and To Wither

“But darling, why so gloomy? You got a gift very few have – you can be alone in the dark and never feel lost. You can be your own friend in any roads you take throughout life. You know great people carved their path that way. You got your own back. I would kill to have that.”

She stopped for a while, fixing her glare at a space of nothing, “Things like that come with a price. You crave connections, but it’s hard to create bonds with people. And it’s killing me because I’m afraid that life will pass, leaving me alone and unloved – and I don't say it out of dramatization or insecurity, it comes from self observation and genuine worry about being too independent. You have an ocean of empathy and feeling, but unable to express them to anyone and it’s slicing and inflating my inside at the same time, leaving me hollow as I grow older. My race is with time. My kryptonite is holding back. I don’t need anyone to light the match and guide me – I can do that on my own. But I want to be understood and validated, I want someone to walk alongside me. And darling, want is a more powerful thing than need.”

“Well, denial is stronger than both.”

Baby Steps to Positivity

So I've been rereading a bunch of my late posts and I realized that the amount of negativity in this blog is just too much! I'm a relaxed person in real life, but this blog is my catharsis a.k.a. rant box a.k.a. a space for me to channel mind toxicity and frustration.

Anyway, let's take some time to appreciate life, as messy as it is, for there is beauty in every place I lay my eyes on

I'm blessed with good health and good life

The future is open and it holds endless possibilities

There is still enough time to make dreams happen, to connect with people who matter

I am in control of my thoughts, my actions, and my decisions

My growth is progressing, and I hope my conscience mature over time

The short life I have, it may not change the world, but it might mean a lot to those I help and care about

So give thanks to Allah and keep good thoughts of Him.

PS: I'm incorporating yoga into my daily routine. I hope it can stick for a long time. I found the relaxation soothing and helpful in balancing my thoughts and body. I'm also starting to eat better, reducing junk foods to minimum amount and increasing my veggie and fruit intake. I'm ensuring the health of my body, soul, and mind while giving them some love and healing. 

trash post

  do i need help?
i should get myself a friend because not talking is killing me.
but then again, no one understands anyone else
is loneliness the price you have to pay for not being misunderstood?

The Earth Spins Around

How can I know that all of this won't end in vain? What is it that I've been craving, a meaningful life? What does that even mean?

Each of us is such a small, weightless flick of dust who feels special, believing we can change the world somehow. But most of us will be forgotten, our lifetimes wasted, our voices unheard. Surely there were many like us before, people who carried and fought for our ideals throughout all the centuries. Yet the world doesn't seem to change. Its evolvement is nothing but heartless invention. We are still of the same mentality, the same hunger, the same urges. We still fight for the same thing.

Priding civilization because we don't know any better. Putting names on everything as if we got it all figured out. Building skyscrapers and see the world through a screen.

Despite the 'peak of humanity', we are still wild inside, aren't we?

And what if it doesn't matter? What if nothing of this will matter? What if all the dream and war and love and life and fear and fight and idea and victory and obsession and possession and hatred and ache and chaos and grief and death won't matter at the end of the day? 

When the day ends, will we matter?

10 Best Movies of 2016

It's 3 months past 2016 but here I am. I wanted to post this around December 2016 fyi, but oscar movies always come out at the end of the year, 95% of them released at the same time. And don't get me started on Indonesian cinemas which screening time is messed up (I'm talking about 1-3 months delay on non-box office movies) and half of the movies I wanted to watch didn't even get a screen time. I had to wait for the bluray version to come out in an illegal movie site. I'm disgusting I know.

Soo, just a quick disclaimer. This list will be based on my personal experience and (amateurish) judgement. I made sure I have seen most of the Academy's movies, at least all nominees from the main categories (except documentary and foreign language film. I will tend to that soon). 

Here are some honorable mentions (in no particular order):

- Nocturnal Animals 

-Kimi No Na Wa

-The Edge of Seventeen

-Elle

And here are some of the movies that I haven't watched yet that might've made this list:

-Silence

-The Light between Oceans

There is a confusion about the release year of two movies that I absolutely loved. Those would be The Lobster (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) and The Little Prince (dir. Mark Osborne). I personally watched them in the beginning of 2016, rotten tomatoes said it's 2016, but IMDB apparently had a different idea. So, if these counted as 2016 movies, they would definitely be on my top 10, but in order to avoid further confusion, we will leave them out.

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2016

10. Sing Street         //         Captain Fantastic

What it's about:

*Sing Street: A coming-of-age boy with his family and school problems in hard economy of 1980 Dublin. He started a band to get a girl he liked. (Directed by John Carney. If you like his other films, Once and Begin Again, you would love this one).

*Captain Fantasic : A big family who lived in the woods abandoning social standards and norms forced to face the "real world" as their mother died.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't choose. It's a tie. Both of these movies are heartwarming and done really really well. They are different of course, but they kinda leave the same taste after a while. They are surprisingly these fun, feel-good, emotional movies that I can see myself rewatching again and again in the future. It's a great movie experience really. If you want some lightweight yet substantial movies to watch on a Saturday night, seek out Sing Street and Captain Fantastic.

9. Hacksaw Ridge

Mel Gibson is back in the game, yo! Hacksaw Ridge is a war biographical movie about Desmond Doss, a soldier who never shot a single person during World War II, but serving the state by saving 75 soldiers' lives. He won the Medal of Honor later in his life because of his bravery and selflessness. Now this ain't Full Metal Jacket or Saving Private Ryan. This movie simply won't be talked about fifty years from now. Hacksaw Ridge had its share of cliche moments and cheesy love story, sure, but it is a solid movie. The young actor, Andrew Garfield is showing his true potential here, which is first-class act, the cinematography is great, the directing is good, the explicit gore added depth and realistic take on the subject.The last half of the movie is touching, sadistic, and it is done with such passion and faith. It introduced us to the war hero, one idealistic man, Desmond Doss.

8. Zootopia

Zootopia is a brave and revolutionary movie breakthrough from Disney. I'm proud of you, Disney! In this movie, we are presented with heavy subjects like race, prejudice, the power of media, and multiple layers of society with a perfect dose that can be absorbed by any age. This movie is human (despite the characters of course(((:) and delivered a great deal of message for its viewers. With suspenseful actions, funny jokes, multiple twists (as predictable as it is), adorable characters, and overall exciting tones, this movie is definitely a strong contender.

ps: I was obsessed with Judy and Nick for weeks! Ship them with all my heart<33333

7. Moana

Disney really went full-power this year. Think Zootopia is the best animation movie of the year? Here's another! While Zootopia had guts, Moana had heart. It is artistically one of the best Disney animation of all time. Well, I was surprised with Moana. It is moving and empowering. The scene where she restored the heart of Te Fiti is sdfuadbjksuwqdba, I'm speechless. Beautiful. The songs are wonderful, the backstory perfect. It teaches young girls things Disney never got right before (and no, that's not entirely that women don't need a prince to save them).

6. I, Daniel Blake

This little British movie that no one talked about. Ah, where do I begin? Remembering this movie made my heart tremble. This is a movie about the welfare system in "developed country", England. We are exposed to suffering poor people and the government system (who promised "prosperity" and who were supposed to ensure the well-being and security of its citizen) as a masquerade for impossible appeals and humiliations. This movie really hit me hard. There is this particular scene which I can't bear and tears just poured right through me without any warning. This movie is powerful, important, deeply moving. It is handled right and not manipulative at all. I, Daniel Blake is a must-see. (Hollywood should learn from this)

5. Hell or High Water

I did not expect to like Hell or High Water this much. Hell or High Water is about two brothers who rob banks throughout Texas for different reasons, but mostly to save the family's ranch. This came out as our usual western crime movie, but I can assure you it's not. It's more about family and life than it is about the suspenseful shootings and robbery. It's deeper than that.  Despite being nominated for Best Picture in the Academy, we all know it's got no chance of actually winning. This movie is underrated as hell. The acting is solid, it's not pretentious, the movie is shot beautifully, and I really like the way this movie is delivered. Great script, perfect dialogue and silence. Definitely a well-crafted movie that worth the watch.

4. Manchester by the Sea

A strong, strong drama relied solely on the acting performance, direction, and a great script. Everything in this movie is top-notch. It's about a janitor who lives alone, who had to take care of his nephew in Manchester because his brother (the nephew's dad) just died. It's about their struggles to cope. Pretty simple, right? I walked in to see this with confidence that I know everything about this film. I've never been more wrong. It's not your typical bonding-and-struggling-to-get-along-type of movie. It's different and it's deeply substantial. Casey Affleck delivered one of the best performance I had ever seen. It's quiet, it's heart-wrenching, it's emotionally affecting. Manchester by the Sea is a tale of grief and loss, approach with caution.

3. Lion

Lion got a lot to tell. It told the true story of an Indian boy who accidentally got lost in Calcutta, and after some sequences, was adopted by an Australian couple. When he grew up, he wanted to track his home in India to reconnect with his family. Lion is the one film of the year that I can't get my finger on what it really is that makes me love and love this movie with all my heart. The acting is superb (especially Dev Patel as grown up Saroo, the kid actor who played young Saroo, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara), the cinematography beautiful, the story gripping, sure. But there is this thing which I cannot name that resonated deep within me when I saw this. Nobody cried in the theater but I did multiple times throughout the film. It's not heavy or groundbreaking, but it's soulful, and with perfect story-telling and great dialogue, soulful is enough.

top 2 is hard and they both have their own strength and weakness. the following doesn't imply that one is better than the other, because after i thought thoroughly i still haven't reached any conclusion. that being said, let's just jump into it.

2. Arrival

Arrival is, in a sense, the best movie I've watched this year. It's original, it hasn't been done before, and it's breathtaking. The buildup was perfect and accurate. From Villeneuve, director of Sicario and screenwriter of Hell or High Water, I had high expectation for Arrival. I was not being let down. Arrival is gripping from the start, and by the end it surpassed all my expectation I had for this film. Arrival tells the story of alien invasion on Earth. But instead of being all apocalyptic, the-end-of-the-world-ish, or superheroish Hollywood usually pulled off, this has different approach. The alien invasion was controlled by language approach. How language is the most important aspect of basic communication and how it shapes a way of thinking. How language arguably is the most primal tool we need for evolution. Amy Adams was the backbone of this movie, and the fact that she didn't get Oscar's nomination is beyond me. Arrival is a perfect package; from acting, to cinematography, to the directing, to its soundtrack, to the atmosphere, to filming techniques. There is even a thoughtful and well-made twist at the end of the film. Arrival is an epic and intimate sci-fi with perfect balance of brain and heart.

1. La La Land

I know, I know. "La La Land is overrated as hell." 

It's not. It's a great musical movie. Being born in the late 90s, I didn't have my share with legendary musicals. Everybody has a once-in-a-lifetime cinema experience, and for me it is La La Land. La La Land is magical, it caught me from the second it started and hasn't let me go. Damien Chazelle is a genius. The music in this movie is theatrical, grand, and complex. It has the best music score of all the movies I have watched. It's daring, it offers new perspective on love and career. It's unpredictable and it's passionate. La La Land is a modern musical that people will talk about fifty years from now.

Empty Space For You is Another Universe for Someone Else

but how do you weigh sacrifice and self-respect?

should people respect themselves enough to walk away

or stay - gravels in their eyes, blood oozing out - for their loved ones?