Update 14 May 2012

*Anton’s note: haven’t post for some time, I know, I know, and I’m sorry. Time is what I do not have in abundance, and decent internet connection, and so on and so on, it’s actually will that I do not have. Oh, there is also this one event which resulted in an unwillingness to share, which is also a reason why I feel hard to post. Hope this post will motivate me to post more in the future! ^^

Masih saja kesal melihat layar komputer yang mengatakan bahwa proses pengunduhan “Access 2007 for Dummies” telah terganggu, saya kemudian memalingkan muka ke layar televisi di samping meja belajar saat itu. “Finding Forrester” berada pada penghujungnya dan film itu ditutup dengan sangat baik sekali, dengan sang tokoh utama, Jamal Wallace, bermain bola basket bersama teman-temannya, yang dimulai dengan hanya berdua, kemudian semakin bertambah, dan sampai pada akhirnya hanya Jamal sendiri yang bermain, yang dilakukan di taman bermain beraspal di Bronx yang bisa langsung dilihat dengan jelas dari jendela kamar almarhum William Forrester.
Tentu saja film itu menarik dan saya merekomendasikan anda untuk menontonnya, tetapi saya percaya bukan itu tema utama dari tulisan ini. Permainan Jamal di akhir film itu menghentakkan sesuatu di benak saya, dan saya rasa hal itu tidak memiliki hubungan langsung dengan tema film itu. Saya membayangkan diri saya sebagai teman satu tim dalam permainan itu yang secara kebetulan berada di dekat keranjang bola. Kemudian, teman saya yang memegang bola memberikan operan tinggi kepada saya, tanpa saya duga, karena ada anggota tim lain yang bisa dikatakan lebih meyakinkan dalam mencetak nilai, namun bola itu telah sampai ke tangan saya. Tentu saja, akan sangat menggelikan untuk menghentikan permainan untuk memikirkan hal itu, sehingga saya dengan cepat melemparkan bola itu sebaik yang saya mampu ke arah keranjang untuk mencetak nilai. Tidak ada nilai yang tercetak, keranjang itu tidak tertembus, dan kisah singkat itu berakhir di benak saya saat itu juga.

Perasaan pertama yang menghampiri saya adalah penyesalan, begitu nyata perasaan itu seolah kisah itu bukan sebuah imajinasi belaka. Pertama; Seandainya aku lebih siap untuk saat itu, kemudian; kenapa harus aku?

Sepertinya kisah itu, dan perasaan itu adalah emulasi dari hal yang telah terjadi beberapa bulan lalu, dan sampai hari ini masih meninggalkan bekas yang merusak. Entahlah..

Dan malam masih panjang, sekalipun jam mengatakan sebaliknya…
Ngilu hasil tarik tambang tadi siang masih terasa..
Mungkin malam ini tidak akan tertidur lagi.. entahlah…

Principality of Liechtenstein

Principality of Liechtenstein, with its area just over 160 square kilometres (62 sq mi) and an estimated population of 35,000, can be safely qualified as a small state. To the right, Austria, and to the left, Switzerland.  The story of how it gotten in the map is not flavoured with bloody battles, heroic desperado, ambitiously cunning scheme done by foxy royal family, or inspiring war of independence. When the Napoleonic Empire (Napoleon’s Holy Roman Empire if I’m not mistaken) was dissolved, Liechtenstein ceased to owe obligations to any feudal lord beyond its borders. Ta da! That’s how Liechtenstein seized its place in the map.  No major political power in Europe ever considered Liechtenstein as a territory of interest, and indeed, it had little impact on European history anyway. Empires rise and fall, and Europe reshaped many times, but Liechtenstein has very small, if any, role in the drama.  Admit it, it is a state you rarely heard or remember of.

Wikipedia, with its respected source said that Liechtenstein has the second highest gross domestic product per person in the world when adjusted by purchasing power parity, and has the world’s lowest external debt. Liechtenstein also has the second lowest unemployment rate in the world at 1.5% (Monaco is first). Small but rich! A Leprechaun! Just kidding.

Many aspects of its life relied on its neighbours, like diplomatic relations, defence, currency, energy, railway, etc.. It doesn’t even maintain any kind of military force. In March 2007, a 170-person Swiss infantry unit became lost during a training exercise and inadvertently crossed 1.5 km into Liechtenstein, and guess what, Liechtenstein government didn’t even realize it!

This small state seems so powerless. But Liechtensteiners decision, which the history marked, will proven they are not cowards. In 1945, about 501 soldiers of First Russian National Army, Russian-born German army,  was given asylum. At that time, these soldiers were considered traitors for their anti-Bolshevism and their stance against Russian Communist in World War 2, and therefore, after the war ended, Soviet government demanded repatriation of this soldiers against their wish. British and Americans together with another allied country, the victors, complied with Soviet demand. But, Liechtenstein refused to comply to Red Giant’s demand. On 16 August 1945, a Soviet delegation came to Liechtenstein in an attempt to repatriate the Russians, and Liechtenstein informed the Soviet government that only those Russians who wanted to go home would be permitted to go. 200 soldiers went back to Their Red Mother, and “nothing was ever heard of them again”, that phrase could mean they’re dead in execution , worked to death in some gulag, or if you choose to be an optimist, they’re probably just live happily ever after with new identity somewhere in Russia unexposed by the media. The remainder of this army stayed in Liechtenstein for another year until the government of Argentina offered asylum. In their stay there, the small population of the country (12,141 in 1945) supported them (4% of the population) at a rate of SF 30,000 per month for 2 years and paid their costs to move to Argentina. Liechtenstein was not rich at that time.

You can always speculate that it was Nazism among Liechtenstein population at that time that bring such act, or that Liechtenstein was very far from the hand of Soviet threat, or it was just a stupid action, a political blunder clouded by short minded emotion, perceived as a noble act. You can always do that. But, the fact that Liechtenstein refused to force refugees back to their land, where their fate were dark, is something that history will not erase. And I see it as an act bold enough, considering their size and power. Kinda remind me of David. Small and seems powerless, but with courage bigger than giants. I wonder if I can have their bravery.

Standing ovation for Liechtenstein!

“Here in Hinterschellenberg, on the night of 2 May 1945, the asylum-seeking remainder of the “1st Russian National Army of the German Wehrmacht” under Major General A. Holmston-Smyslowsky, with about 500 fully equipped men, crossed the border of the Greater German Reich into Liechtenstein. The first negotiations took place in the “Wirtschaft zum Löwen” tavern, which led to the granting of asylum by the Principality of Liechtenstein. It was the only country which resisted the Soviet Union’s extradition demands. After two and a half years, the Russians were free to leave for a country of their choice.”— Russian Monument Liechtenstein, Hinterschellenberg, near Liechtenstein‘s border with Austria.

I = My Father ?

I cannot stop telling myself  to keep a straight face, prevent yawns, and when I have the capabilities, to put some interested expression, whenever my father telling some random information in random session. It seems like it is a very boring event, the way I put it, but the truth is it doesn’t happen on every occasion. Many times the information are very interesting. He has a lot knowledge in his head and he only have a handful time to share them all. He’s like a walking Wikipedia, an exaggeration I admit, but you get the point.

Then, recently I realized I often inform people with random, oot information in many occasions, mostly on journey or on that awkward moment when suddenly the conversation died out for there is no more topic to be discussed. I tried to quantify how many times in a week I do that, and guess what…

I’m turning into my father

*it is interesting to know that “information” often is a source of linguistic mistake made by non-English as first language speaker, because “information” in their native language has plural and singular form, but in English it has only singular form for it is uncountable noun. Oh no, I did it again!

Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Pot calling the kettle black, an interesting idiom. Let me give some brief examples to describe what this idiom trying to express.

There was once upon a time a boy, let’s call him Nes, who sulked and complained about how his subordinate left a very important task for a trivial reason, a weekend holiday, and eventually forced him to do the burdensome task himself. A couple of months later, this very same boy, abandon a task coming from his superior for a different kind, but with similar ridiculousness, trivial reason; he’s in shortage of penny, while the task requires not more than will and energy. He, in my perspective, showed even more impoliteness to his superior in his rejection of the task compared to what his subordinate had done before. This is pot calling the kettle black.

There was also this different boy, let’s call him Fiveio, who complained about his superior was lazy and did not do his duty properly. And guess what, he, also in my perspective, neglect his duty. This is pot calling the kettle black.

The latter especially, brought me a degree of rage. He told me to read a religious book. He complained over and over about his superior’s laziness. He blamed pretty much every setbacks at his superior. Well, I guess I have a look of a kindergarten teacher, so that every kid in the class come to me complaining and sulking for every unwanted deed coming from their friends.

And my dear reader, I am not different so much from these two characters. Just another “pot calling the kettle black”. My friend told me to tell my feeling, my story, to somebody to make me feel better, and here it is. This is my refuge and I hope you understand how much anger I’m pouring to this world, my world.

Kings and Queens to be

Termites have an interesting class system; the commoners: worker, soldier, and the aristocrats: prince, princess, king, queen. It pretty much resembles ant’s. It all starts from her royal highness, the queen, who give birth to all termites on the colony. She also decided which class they will get into, with some kind of pheromone given while feeding, to be the strong and scary soldiers, protecting the homeland and her royal highness, the queen, from any threat, or to be the humble servant, the worker class, taking the most compulsory role, providing food and maintaining the nest for the survival of the colony, as Napoleon put it: An army marches on its stomach. Or when they are seen as fit, to be the princes and princess of the kingdom, the heir and heiress of the great termite kingdom. They are “laron”-s in my language, or you can call it alate, the ones with royal wings and imperial eyes, educated in aristocratic manner for a noble purpose; expanding the great kingdom, claiming lands rightfully owned by her royal highness, which are every land, and preserving the royal blood.

These princes and princesses will be properly prepared until the day they have to quit the nest to carry out their royal duty, their purpose of life, to be the new kings and queens of the new colonies. In areas with a distinct dry season, like Indonesia, these royal children leave the nest in large swarms after the first good soaking rain of the rainy season, with the rain of sadness and love from people they will leave forever, a very sad goodbye indeed, but their destiny requires this farewell.

They will fly, as strong as their body could, as long as their flesh can sustain, as far as their wings can get them, and they will fall. Their wings will be taken afterwards and they will mate. And we have the new heralded Kings and Queens of the new colony of termites.

The new queen can live up to forty-five years, mating and laying eggs for life. And the king, unlike ants, will mate and continues to mate with the queen for life. That’s a very long time of mating, I must admit. Only death will do them part, what a noble family!

But let us see a better look of their life as princes and princesses. They are told all their life that they are the hope of the colony, that they are nobles, they are the chosen few, and that they will fulfil their royal destiny. But little did they know that their life survival chance are low out of the nest, or at least that’s how I see. I see them fly and fly relentlessly around my residence, to the light, all night long, and in the morning, their corpses will be abundant on the floor. A flight of doom. A sad flight. And as I compare the swarm I saw the previous night with the corpses on the floor, survivors, if there’s any, are not much. If only they were workers or soldiers, they would have lived a longer life, in the calm nest, and to die in the care of their brothers, not destined to have this kind of remorseful slumber far from home.

To live rained with all the motivation and hope from others, convinced that we are special and that we are the chosen few, that our destiny is greatness and glory, aren’t many of us lead that life? Aren’t many of us all then fly to the sun with our wings, and found out that, like Icarus, our wings are fake and they melt as the heat of sun demands them to? Or aren’t many of us then, like Phaeton, dare ourselves to ride the sun chariot, and found out later that we are unfit for the great task as Zeus’ thunderbolt is set to strike us?

A very pessimistic view on life, you might say about this post. A story of false hope, of those who doom themselves. But you can see it in a more positive tone with a little help from a simple phrase: what if. What if you are the survivor of the swarm? What if you are the King or Queen to be? I guess that chance, even at its slightest, worth the risk have to be paid when it is found that we are unfit for the prize. We don’t know what is waiting in our path, we do know that some things are inevitable, death, for example, but much else are covered in mystery, and the outcome of this shot, a rise-or-fall shot, which will only come in rarity, is also unknown to us. Maybe that’s why these alate-s keep flying anyway; this shot worth their life.

 ”In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”—Anton Ego (Ratatouille, 2007)

Anton’s note: Sorry for the long hiatus, my dear reader! Please be nice to me and leave some comments, with critics and advises, for I know a long vacuum has rendered my post creation ability weaker, grammatically, vocabulary, style, or anything else. And you can always tell me your opinion regarding the topic of this post. I will greatly appreciate them. Danke!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,600 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 60 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

And it’s finally December…again…

Hei ho! Long time no write…and suddenly it’s December now. Time really flies mercilessly. And look! WordPress gives me my favourite effect of the year, the snow!

I welcome Maria, my new reader and follower (one from a very scarce population), and Arum, another new reader (disloyal reader I pray), and Jeremiah, the new kid on the block after Benny. May you all get something good from my world!

I’m older, thinner they said, probably a little bit grown up, and possibly still in the same level of sanity. I’m on my 3rd semester now and it’s really hectic these days. I got a lot of stories to tell, and they’re exclusively for you, my dear reader! It’s quite interesting that I can share a lot more information without a lot of hassle on my virtual refuge (this WordPress blog, which can be read by everyone on the net) than in the real world with somebody I trust.

Time and will are always the constraints to write another post, especially these months with a lot of things going in my life. I can’t promise you soon, or a wonderful post, or anything you will remember, but I can tell you it’s gonna be something from my mind and it has something to do with me. Wait and see!

I appreciate your comments and before I forgot…

Have Yourself a Merry Christmas !

2 Different Strategy

Not so long ago, I was sitting around with two of my friends, chatting. One of my friend was an FTUI student and he’s a good Dota player. He was talking about one Dota round he had at a tournament held at FTUI. To make it short, there were five people in his team: two of them were pro (and three including my friend), and the other two were a kind of retired player, to put it in another way, those two hadn’t play the game for quite a long time and were not on their best performance. My friend told us how the battle went, and there’s an interesting point came out in the middle of his story.

My friend told us that, since the two retired player were comparatively weaker and easier to get killed in the game, the other three bought some expensive items to boost their performance in the game, thus preventing them from getting bullied by the enemies. His argument for that strategy was a weak spot on a team could bring the whole team down, so by covering the weak spot (helping the weak players), his team would have a better chance of survival, and winning the game.

But my other friend on the discussion, a student of FHUI, disagreed. He believed, like the Pareto principle suggest that we should focus on the profitable 20% and ignoring the 80% less profitable, the better strategy should have been by empowering the pros. Spending money on the weaklings would only restrain the pros from securing victory for the team and even putting the team in great turmoil, for the enemies are getting more and more powerful as the game proceeds.

They are two different strategies, taken from two different point of view, and I believe very relevant in reality, not just in that game. Some country gives tax cut for rich individuals believing these people would generate more profit for the good of the people, some country taxes this kind of people more to help those leaving on poverty. Some school focused more resources on brilliant students, giving them better teacher, better facility, better than lesser students, but some school gives extra lessons and more care on those with learning difficulties.

Each of these strategies yields different result. But which one is better? I believe everybody wouldn’t have the same answer on that question.

So what do you think? Support the greater or help the lesser? Or is it possible and efficient to pursue both strategy considering our resource constraint?

Same Number

Lately, I’ve been seeing same digits at the clock often. It didn’t bother me at first, but after a lot of happening, it made me wonder. Some people suggested that probably somebody out there is missing me, and some even had strange theory of numerology.

After some time of thought, I think it’s because I’m feeling lonely. When I’m alone or when I’m nervous, I frequently looked at my watch or my cellphone just to check the time. And more peek at the clock gives a higher probability of looking at the same digits.

What do you think? Care to share your theory? Or experience probably?

Are You on Your Rock?

Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable. (AT VII 24; CSM II 16)

Just a little note before you continue, this post doesn’t really relate to rock in reference to a music genre. And it doesn’t come from the idiom “on the rocks”.

Not so long ago, I spent my day with a couple of friends. They were Jeremiah, Benny, and Vina (Benny’s girlfriend) [Lord, we lost another single in our group!]. Come to think of it, it was quite an unusual combination. We went to SMAK 1, watched Kung Fu Panda 2, browsing some musical instruments, and spent our last hours for the day at a cafe, playing cards.

One of the interesting parts in our day-wasting-activity is the last Chapsa game we had (a kind of poker without bets and the aim is to make sure your hands are free from cards). On the moment of truth, the round when almost everyone had the chance to be victor or loser after the present round, Jeremiah, a student of FHUI (a prestigious law faculty on Indonesian soil), spit out double two (a two card and another two card, so we have two cards now, get it?), and smiled innocently thinking he had the highest card on the table. And we just know how to thwarted this little boy with his foul imaginary hope. We told him that in a one-to-one fight, card number two is the mightiest of all, but in any other fight, that card is pretty much a loser kind. So, he protested a little, but eventually accepted it, since the three of us agreed that the rule was universal, and he lost that game.

That incident reminded me of a movie titled “Flightplan” starring Jodie Foster about a woman who lost her daughter in a plane and all the passengers tried to convinced her that she had none. In the end, she found her daughter. If she had believed all the passengers and stopped looking for her daughter, her daughter might’ve been found dead. And, in the same sense, what if we had lied to Jeremiah to win the game, knowing he was quite a rookie on this card game and had no full knowledge on the rule, and he believed us?! He would’ve been conned easily by his foxy friends and lost bitterly because of his friends cunning wits. Or what if there was different rules from different region or high school?

I believe such condition is applicable to almost every aspect in our life where decision has to be made and external influence exists. “What to believe? Should I believe them? I don’t think so, but they told me that… Everybody does it anyway. Nah, maybe it’s just me. It’s just my imagination.” Frequently, we comply to society demands without trying to figure out the truth of it, or we do and we found out that it is wrong but we do it anyway, choosing what is convenient for people around us than what is right and proper, questioning ourselves more than questioning others. If you put it that way, then the truth and fact are what majority or the side with stronger influence decides. I don’t think it is always good. Just like the quotation mentioned above,”one firm and immoveable point” is enough “in order to shift the entire earth”,but yet not easily found.

So, what am I trying to say? I don’t know how to put it clearly, believe me, I’m even confused with the message I’m sending here to you, my dear reader. I think you got to find your rock. A stance where you belong, which is “firm and immoveable”, so that no tide or storm may swept it and you altogether. You have to make sure that you and the rock you’re standing on have the strongest influence on yourself, and decisions you made are in certainty, not in doubt, because you know for sure what is right and what is wrong.

Does the voice of the people represents the voice of God? Not always, I suppose. You can always tell vox populi to shut up when you’re certain.

Confused? Welcome to Anton World!

We can have more confusing conversation about this topic through the comment box.

Little note:

• Adam, Charles, and Paul Tannery. 1964–1976. Oeuvres de Descartes, vols. I-XII, revised edition. Paris: J. Vrin/C.N.R.S. [references to this work (abbreviated as AT) are by volume and page, separated by a colon.]

• Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and (for vol. 3) Anthony Kenny, eds. and trans. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols. 1–3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [All quotations are taken from this edition (abbreviated as CSM); any deviations from it are the author's own. References to this work are by volume and page, separated by a colon.]