Time

A few months ago I met an old friend who spends quite some time traveling and living in other countries. He enjoys it while he’s abroad, but not when sometimes he needs to return to Jakarta. He finds the city dirty, noisy and messy compared to the cities he has ever lived and traveled to, so he is often clueless to decide what to do with his spare time here.

Anyway, one day we went eating to help him kill time.

From the restaurant, we went to the bookstore where in the end of our visit I bought the magazine he earlier wanted to kill… and he spared its life.

The age of distraction

In case you’ve experienced trouble on focusing because of many distractions around you, don’t worry, you are not alone. And don’t worry, it’s better to have distractions than not having any stimulus at all. The telecom boom is still something to be thankful for, rather than something to condemn. Imagine the old days when we have very limited access just to get to know something or someone. I don’t want to go back to those days.

What I want to go back to is doing some of the old analog things that can balance my life today. Something organic, hand-made, like sketching. Something kinetic like taking photos, where at least I’ll have a walk rather than just sitting. Maybe if I have more spare time in the future I’ll learn music and cooking, the two most ancient forms of art. As for cooking, I may start sooner by compiling my family’s recipes and taking some pictures of the preparing process and the end results… as well as tasting it, of course :-)

Thanks to my friend Gadis who gave me a very good advice, I’ve also started to turn off my phones again at night. It feels like an electronic detox therapy, which would help to overcome Electronic Insomnia Syndrome, restlessness caused by over-radiation from electronic devices. I’m still working on reducing my hours in front of the computer though, but the phone—along with the messenger groups and the timelines—is already a good start. As for my portable computer, I’ve already had it occasionally brought in my backpack for a year or two now, and have replaced it with the traditional plain notebook. I’ve begun to like the smell and the texture of paper again, my backpack becomes a lot lighter, and anytime I get bored of driving I can take the bus or ojek with less worry by having less precious belongings inside my bag.

I think the key to focus is not to blame or get rid of the technology (since it was first invented to make a better living), but to learn to detach from it. It’s pretty much similar with anything. Like food, if we can’t find rice than let’s settle with another carb, or no carb… or even if it’s always available let’s learn to occasionally not taking it. It should make our life lighter, and hopefully healthier.

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Illustration from Learning Fundamentals.

In relation to the (e)book Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto In The Age Of Distraction by Leo Babauta, founder of Zen Habits.

For more mind maps, click here.

Another New Year present

From my writer and group head.

Some New Year presents

I have to admit it’s not easy to do something different like spending Christmas and New Year’s Eve in a more simple and quite way, and away from family. The hardest part is not deciding to do that, but to stay in that decision with everyone around me keep questioning why would I want to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve without not going back hometown—while I can—and not going to the places with fireworks and stuffs.

After so many times trying to getaway with somewhat more rational answers, I’ve finally found a final answer, which is “why not?”

So there I was, already in my bedroom since about 9.30 pm, turning off my BlackBerry before the message blasts—with all those template greetings—bombardized. There happened to be a football match on TV, Blackburn Rovers about to finish the game at Old Trafford leading 3-2, continued with other game at Stamford Bridge where Aston Villa won 3-1.

The internet went back normal (fast that was) except for the Twitter which of course would get congested due to its tens of millions of South East Asians users, especially Indonesians (and especially Jakartans), who would bombardize tweeting. It inspired me to scribble this for my Little Sketches blog…

After making phone calls to my parents and sister, I signed off with a scoop of this lovely Whisky Chocolate Mud from a good friend that I kept on the fridge, and went to bed until about 10 o’clock in the morning.

We were having this gift exchange, my church friends and I, so after a lunch meeting with them we all went home with a gift. That’s New Year present number 7, after the peaceful evening (1), the football score lines (2 & 3), the internet back to normal (4), the idea for a sketch (5) and the Whisky Mud (6).

But apparently it didn’t stop right there.

After lunch I got sleepy and went for an afternoon nap, something I’ve been wanting to do for months but had not really had the chance to. It was a very nice nap, flawless 3 hours one (and surely New Year present number 8), and when I woke up and turned on the internet and opened Wikipedia, there was this thank you note from the foundation…

I’ve been a regular visitor of this temple of mind, as the founder Jimmy Wales used to call it, and I’m very happy to know that there are millions of fellow visitors who also care enough to give donations to help it stay as temple and free from commercials. It just gives me this breeze of optimism that we can still find good people… that they still exist despite many sayings that the world today is a lot worse than it was before. I think nature is getting worse—thanks to some of us who destroy it—but the world is just getting tougher, and as a consequence the degrees of good and bad have widened. Those who are not strong and sensitive enough may become worse than the worst people from the former generations, but those who are strong and sensitive enough may survive… if not become greater than the former’s greatest.