Psychological Science

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Chinese believe that this is the year of the wooden horse; and according to Mas Leo, the wooden horse is the Trojan horse in the Western world. A Trojan horse seems harmless, they look very similar to the wooden horses children like to rock on top of. However, others never know what lies inside the Trojan. They never need to know. The Trojan is full of surprises: Once it is let in, it opens up, and shows the world what they never knew the Trojan was capable of. Let us be Trojans ;)

Anyway, I am taking an introduction to Psychology class here at Amherst College. One thing I learned so far is the fact that Psychology is the scientific study of the mind. Psychology dismisses all superstitions, Freudian psychotherapy and dream interpretations are left behind, and empirical evidences are required for every single theory put forward.

I definitely love the class, it contained many interesting facts and developments. I learned a lot about numerous branches of psychology, and the experiments that lead to the discovery of important theories of the cognition, behavior, and development of human beings. I like the professor too. She looks astonishingly beautiful and young for a person who had her PhD (she has been teaching for quite a bit before coming to Amherst, and she is not even new here) but more importantly, she is kind, intelligent, and very helpful to her students. I just came back from her office hours and received answers to certain doubts I had about Psychology.

However, I could not stop thinking.. Is that how are the Westerners taught? Talk about rejecting everything and having no belief in anything but science.

But then again, this reminds me of a conversation I had with Mbak Mary a few weeks earlier in Jakarta. She told me that the atheists actually believe in God, and to actually learn from them. As in, not in the conventional religious sense of the word "God" capital G, but in having faith and belief. It is just portrayed/structured differently.

Anyway, one of the conversations I had with my professor was where the materialistic mind ends and the dualistic mind starts. It is a philosophical question, so I am left on my own to figure it out. For now, I believe that there is no disjoint between the two. The materialistic mind is the dualistic mind that can be explained/uncovered by science. I cannot say for sure if there will be a point where science can cover everything, and there probably won't be one, but it doesn't make either sides irrelevant.

Anyway, I am not too sure that is it her energy, or is it my emotions about the possible flight, or both, that left me feeling drained. She's an interesting person: I should be more sensitive next time, but meanwhile I shall thank the Universe for providing me a hug when I needed the most.

Truly Indonesia's Finest,

Irony

I am guilty for making fun of my dad, who actually taught me a very useful mantra of acceptance and realization. To make up for it, I shall feature it in my blog post!

It's called Ho'oponopono, an ancient Hawaiian tradition of reconciliation and forgiveness. It sounds like: I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you, thank you.

Or in Bahasa, Aku menerima, aku menyesal, maafkan aku, aku cinta kamu, terima kasih.

Will leave it to you on how you choose to apply it. Hint: Use your feelings, like literally ;)

Truly Indonesia's Finest,

Malleable

It's snowy here at Amherst, but life seems so good so far. Things are picking up pace, making me neglect even the simplest things such as updating my Whatsapp to the American number it deserves.

Therefore, here is a small observation that I would like to share. While we all know that all language speakers with their unique accents are malleable, I propose that some are more malleable than others. I have not discussed this with people born with different languages and accents, but I believe a person born in Jakarta and speaking Bahasa Indonesia (with the Jakartan dialect) has the most malleable accent.

Why, you ask. Firstly, there is no such thing as a Jakartan accent or dialect, apart from the more frequent uses of "gue and elo" instead of "aku and kamu" (I and you). If Bahasa Indonesia with different dialects is Chinese Food, the Jakartan speaks Cantonese food. Our accents are so 清淡 and light that we are easily influenced by other Indonesian accents. For instance, I lived with a significant number of people from Bandung when I was in Raffles. A few months forward, my parents could somehow pick up Sundanese inflections in my tone of speaking.

When I studied in Singapore, my English turned into Singlish pretty rapidly. My Bahasa had a Malay influence in it. Now, having spent more than a semester at Amherst, my friends back home tell me that I sound American-ish. When I was learning Chinese in Beijing people there told me that my accent sounded Southern. However, when I spoke Chinese to the Southern Chinese people afterward they told me that my accent sounded like a BejingER.

And so far no one can imitate what does an Indonesian-tainted English accent sound like. They claim that they can detect an accent in our English, but they can't mimic it nor point out what was "off".

Cool, huh?

Yardstick

This entry is inspired by Diga's shared item about judgments.

When I was going through my Junior College education in Raffles, I have a favorite dwelling spot two floors on top of my room that I frequent. It is no other than Michael Aditya's room. I believe we have this little thing about how the neighbor's is always greener, and back then, so was Michael's room. It was cleaner, fresher, and always ample with sunlight. I go there almost every instant I feel distracted from my studies, when I have a big decision to make and needed advice, when I missed Jakarta and felt homesick, or needed a company generally.

Michael's room was the Diga-room-equivalent in Raffles JC, with the difference being Diga's room was adjacent to mine.

Anyway, Michael was the first non-family member whom I shared about my late spiritual mentor, and I remember we were discussing about the development of human beings, or as Michael likes to refer it as, the "more enlightened ones". Of course, we come to the necessary foundation of any developmental/progressivist model: What constitutes human development, and how is this development measured? In other words, what makes one human being more developed than the other?

Here, Diga's shared article comes to play. There are certain yardsticks I use to evaluate other people, divided into two categories: ideal and practical. These yardsticks are by no means finalized, as I develop further I shall refine them further as well. Nonetheless, these are the fruits of discussion with the more enlightened ones coupled with the observations and the reflections by yours truly.

Here are my ideal yardsticks: Rahayu, Tajir, and Sadar. My practical yardsticks are the person's world outlook, future horizon, and grandest creation.

I would like to begin by explaining the distinctions between the ideal and practical yardsticks. Ideal yardsticks require a sharper and keener intuition to judge, coupled with usually longer time spent with the person. Judgments based on practical yardsticks, on the other hand, can be meted out based on a single conversation and a few questions. However, a person can easily lie their way out of a judgment based on practical yardsticks, but never can the ideal yardstick be fooled.

I like to compare a person with him or herself in the past, and usually questions about their world outlook, future horizon, and grandest creation will give me a good idea about how developed the person is provided the person is absolutely honest about these. In general, the broader the person's world outlook, the more open-minded the person is to new ideas, and thus the more developed the person is. Having a broader world outlook does not mean being a liberal, nor does it mean to have a precarious stance on his own world views. Rather, it calls the ability to accept and acknowledge that different people come with different perspectives, and the willingness to accommodate and integrate the beneficial or advantageous aspects of another's perspective in order to strengthen and enrich one's own.

A person with a future horizon is a person with vision. He is confident of their lives and continues to believe for a better tomorrow. He has the faith and the energy to improve the lives of others. He is not afraid to break his boring routines and step out of his comfort zone to realize his ideals and ambitions. However, do not fall into the trap of thinking that the person with vision is the person with the grandest ambitions and dreams. Everyone has their own stories and personal legends (copying from Paulo Coelho) and the person with a future horizon strives toward them. His perseverance, confidence, and relentless energy sustaining his vision makes him a step more developed than the rest.

Lastly, a person with karya or creation signals that the person is brimmed with the necessary perseverance, work-ethic, and determination to create something and nurture it. Again, creation should not be reduced to mere gigantic skyscrapers or leviathan robots: Food, painting, music, or even a philosophical teaching are all creations. I confess that not all creations are created equally, but a man is his creation.

However, we all see that a person can lie or inflate stories about their world outlook, future horizon, and grandest creations. That is why these yardsticks are easily administered but easily manipulated as well. Let us get to the ideal yardsticks of a human's development: Rahayu, Tajir, and Sadar.

Rahayu is a Javanese word roughly translating to being happy and at peace with the state of affairs. A developed person may not have the best circumstances in the world, but he or she accepts whatever the conditions are and makes the best out of it. He understands that he needs to accept things the way they are before he can start changing them for the better. Therefore, he is happy, accepting, and is at peace. He is confident that things will go well too.

Tajir is an Indonesian slang which translates roughly to being rich. I like to say Tajir Lahir Batin, a catchphrase an acquaintance introduced to me. It translates to being rich internally and externally. A person becomes rich only when he has the vision, puts in the effort, and conducts himself according to the right attitudes. Again, a person may be physically rich, blessed with tons of money, but mentally poor. In this case, the person is by no means tajir, but instead his wealth only causes him to suffer. On the other hand, I always believe that once a person is tajir in his attitude and internally, the external tajir will soon follow after. Even the poorest of the people may have the Tajir attitude: Generous, believing in abundance instead of competition, not stingy, and charitable. The developed person is Tajir.

Sadar is an Indonesian word for being awakened or conscious. The developed person is always conscious. He is a keen observer of what is happening around themselves, and is able to distinguish between the dramas of the daily lives and the necessary lessons to be learned from these dramas. A sadar person realizes that there is no such thing as coincidence, and is always alert to the possible meanings the Universe seeks to give him through others. Sadar leads to the vision and the confidence and conviction that sustains the vision of the person. The developed person is wide awake and aware of his life's own purpose, and walks through it with confidence, calmness, and conviction, as he is aware of the signposts and roadmaps of life written by the Universe: He won't get lost. By being sadar, a person inevitably becomes tajir and rahayu.

Numerous questions arise from these writings. I am well-aware that these concepts would require further elaborations and examples, especially how to achieve these states of development I am talking about. Well, let me conclude with a short reflection.

Some believe that it is only human to try and give meaning to everything. Birthday is not merely getting a year older, New Year is not merely a new calendar. Death is not merely the ceasing of the human body's function, but people feel compelled to narrate numerous explanations about and after it. Skeptics argue that we are trying too hard to give meaning to everything. The wise see that there is actually meaning to everything, anything, and nothing, and it is up to us to choose whether to acknowledge the fact and seek out the meanings or just live in denial and ignore it altogether.

The external world is driven, but how we respond to it and which path we choose is our own responsibility. The script is thrown to us, but we decide how we act it out.

Everyone has different scripts, connected by the Story behind the scripts, and perhaps in living life with this realization, we understand that we are only playing along with our different scripts. We have every right to enjoy our journey, and thus no wonder the grand masters of the game of life seem to be so peaceful, happy, and free of burden. As a chocolate to our five year old mind, living the ideal/universal way of life would even allow us to sneak a peek on our past or coming scripts, or even others! More on to this later.

Anyhow, Diga, this is my yardstick. This is how I judge myself and other people. What's your move? ;)

Truly Indonesia's Finest,

Pertemuan, Pesan, dan Perkembangan.

I have to firstly apologize to those English-speaking readers for writing this post in Bahasa. My intuition tells me that somehow the writings will flow better if it is written in my native language. Let me know.

Setiap kali saya bertemu dengan mentor spiritual saya, dan bersyukur kepada beliau atas pertemuan ini, beliau selalu meminta saya untuk bersyukur kepada higher-self saya. Menurut beliau, orang-orang bisa bertemu karena sudah diatur dan dirancang oleh yang diatas, oleh higher-selfnya masing-masing. Itulah yang orang Indonesia biasa sebut "jodoh". Kan kalau jodoh tidak kemana-mana. Jadi, walaupun emang agak terulang-ulang, pertemuan kita dengan siapapun tidak ada yang kebetulan. In fact, tidak ada yang namanya kebetulan: Semuanya sudah diatur.

Jadi, kita tertinggal dengan satu pertanyaan, mengapakah kita dipertemukan dengan orang tertentu? Mengapa kita bisa bertemu dengan orang itu, mengapa kita bertemu lagi, mengapa ada beberapa orang yang udah rajin-rajin bikin janji, malah ngga bisa ketemu seolah ngga ada jodoh? Disanalah letak kesadaran kita yang tengah diuji. Itulah menurut seorang bijak yang sharing sama saya bedanya kafir dengan orang sadar: Orang kafir ketemu orang ya ketemu aja, ngobrol ya ngobrol saja. Orang bijak, orang sadar, berusaha mencari tahu alasan dibalik pertemuan itu. Lah hidup orang kan singkat, kalau urusannya belum beres dan mesti ketemu lagi, tetapi sudah dipanggil oleh sang Pencipta bagaimana?

Jadi sejak saat itu saya selalu berusaha untuk baca dan bertanya, apakah tujuan dari pertemuan saya dengan orang-orang ini? Jawabannya tidak langsung jelas, tetapi ada beberapa hal yang terlintas di benak saya - untuk mencari tahu siapa yang harus saya pertahankan, dan siapa yang harus saya tinggalkan. Ya, berteman dengan siapapun baik, tetapi tidak semuanya kita harus pertahankan, bukan? Kalau kita mengambil analogi dengan makan-makan di meja buffet, semua makanan bisa kelihatannya enak, tetapi ada yang lebih enak daripada yang lain. Ada yang benar-benar tidak enak, ada yang mantap sekali. Apakah kita harus berusaha untuk mencicipi semua? Ya ada yang maunya begitu. Tetapi, di kali lain, apakah kita akan makan lagi makanan yang sudah jelas-jelas tidak enak? Jawabannya tentu saja tidak, bukan?

Ambil patinya, buang hampasnya. Itulah salah satu dari sedikit peribahasa Melayu yang saya ingat sampai sekarang. Bukan berarti kita maunya yang enak-enak doang, tetapi kita jalani semuanya, kita dengarkan, kita buka, tetapi hanya yang baik saja yang kita simpan. Mungkin tidak ada yang namanya baik atau buruk, tetapi ada yang bermanfaat dan ada yang merusak atau membatasi. Kita tidak bisa merubah hal itu. Kadang-kadang yang bermanfaat pun tidak enak, dan yang merusak itu enak sekali. Yah, kita mesti belajar supaya hidup kita enak, dan berkualitas, untuk merubah yang tidak enak menjadi enak, dan yang enak menjadi enak sekali. Yang merusak/membatasi kita lepas saja.

Bagaimana caranya untuk bisa merubah yang tidak enak menjadi enak, dan enak menjadi enak sekali? Ya mudah saja, pertama kita harus berhenti melarikan diri dan berhenti men-deny hal-hal tersebut. Pahamilah nature hal-hal tersebut, dan terimalah apa adanya. Tiba-tiba semuanya terasa nyaman, dan kita bisa perlahan merubah hal tersebut. Ingat, dengan cara ini kita sudah merubah diri kita terlebih dahulu: dari tidak terima jadi terima, dari menggerutu jadi sabar. Jadi, sebenarnya dengan merubah diri sendiri kita telah merubah dunia. 

Yah sharing pengalaman sendiri saya saja. Semalam sebelum saya berangkat pulang dari Amerika untuk liburan musim dingin, saya bermain sled salju dengan teman-teman bulutangkis saya dan terjatuh sehingga tangan kiri saya terkilir. Sakit sekali, sampai pas tidur pun sakit. Teman sekamar saya pun menyalakan lampu saya ketika saya tidur sehingga saya terbangun. Setelah saya mengeluh kepada teman sekamar saya dan mematikan lampunya pun saya masih sakit hati, tidak terima, sehingga saya tidak bisa tidur. Itupun terganggu dengan nyerinya lengan kiri saya. Tiba-tiba saya mendapat sebuah inspirasi pelan dan tenang, hati saya bilang, ya sudah, terima jadi saja dulu. Terima jadi bahwa roommate saya memang tidak begitu considerate, terima jadi bahwa memang lengan kiri saya terkilir jadinya sakit. Api luapan emosi saya langsung padam. Tangan kiri saya masih sakit, tetapi rasanya tidak sesakit tadi. Saya pun melanjutkan tidur dengan tenang.

Yah, saya berhenti menyalahkan siapapun (termasuk diri saya). Saya berhenti berusaha memecahkan masalah, atau mendeny bahwa sedang tidak ada apa apa yang terjadi. Saya cuma terima jadi saja. Saya mengakui, saya sadar, bahwa emang lengan kiri saya sakit, emang hati gue kesel gara2 roommate gue. And it worked like magic.

Sang bijaksana juga pernah sharing bahwa bedanya denial sama ragu-ragu itu tipis. ragu-ragu itu sudah tahu, menerima, tapi belum yakin. denial itu sudah tahu, tapi tidak diterima, ditolak, dan dibuang jauh-jauh. Ya nanti jadinya utang dagang.

Dan izinkan saya menambahkan, terima jadi dan sabar itu BUKAN pasrah dan tidak melakukan apa-apa. Memang dari luar kelihatannya hanya menunggu, tetapi menunggu dan menerima juga merupakan suatu tindakan. Kalau rumah kita kebakaran terus kita di dalem rumah aja dan menerima jadi kan namanya bunuh diri. Tetapi, kita bijak, kita sadar, kita tenang, dan kita terima, dan lakukan apapun yang kita bisa untuk mengubah keadaan jadi lebih baik dan nyaman. Kita berusaha untuk mengubah yang tidak enak jadi enak, dan yang enak menjadi enak sekali. Menunggu, sabar, dan menerima adalah bagian dari usaha itu. Kalau tidak bisa ngapa-ngapain, ya terima saja, dan jangan ngapa-ngapain. ;)

Rahayu, terima, dan enjoy aja ya:)

Truly Indonesia's Finest,