Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Lamunan Pagi Hari

Pagi ini, playlist musik yang biasa menemani perjalananku ke kampus mengkhianatiku. Alih-alih mencerahkan awal hari, ia berturut-turut memainkan lagu-lagu yang sempat menjadi musik pengiring patah hati di masa lalu.

Lagu pertama, ‘Heart Vacancy’ dari The Wanted mengingatkanku pada masa-masa patah hatiku yang pertama, pada sebuah musim dingin jauh di Inggris sana. Dalam kesendirian musim dingin, ketika hampir semua teman asrama pulang ke rumah mereka masing-masing, lagu ini seolah menjadi sebuah lorong dan jalan keluar bagi semua emosi negatif. Seorang sahabat dari Indonesia, seorang penyiar radio pada masa itu, mengirimkan lagu ini setelah mendengar cerita pengalaman gagalnya hubungan pertamaku. Tak disangka tak dinyana, aku menjadi sangat terikat pada melodi dan lirik yang ada di dalamnya.

Kupikir cukup satu lagu ini saja yang akan muncul di playlist. Entah kenapa, telepon genggamku seolah ingin melemparku kembali ke dalam gelapnya masa lalu dan memutar ‘Payphone’ dari Maroon 5. Sial, pikirku. Lagu ini kembali membawaku ke dalam kemarahan besar pada kegagalan keduaku. Marah, murka, dan kecewa. Mungkin itu tiga kata yang cocok menggambarkan apa yang kualami pada saat itu.

Kurang ajar, pikirku! Kenapa aku diberondong luapan-luapan emosi yang ingin kulupakan di pagi hari? Lagu selanjutnya yang dimainkan memang sudah tidak lagi berhubungan dengan masa lalu, tapi benak dan pikirku sudah terlanjur terperangkap dalam lubang hitam kenangan. Sebuah pikiran lalu melayang dan muncul, lagu apa lagi yang mungkin muncul? Bodoh bukan? Bukannya mencoba untuk melangkah ke hari yang lebih cerah, aku justru memperangkap diri sendiri dengan berkubang di dalam lumpur memori.

Bus-ku saat itu sedang melintas di dekat Galaxy Macau. Di sana terlihat sebuah pagar sekolah, Guang Da Middle School. Otakku yang terlalu banyak berpikir langsung terpusat pada salah satu karakter cina yang ada di sana, (Guang). Sebuah karakter biasa yang berarti cahaya. Tapi otak ini langsung teringat dengan nama seorang penyanyi, Guang Liang. Di waktu itulah, sebuah judul lagu dari Guang Liang muncul dalam benak, ‘Yue Ding’.

Beginilah nasib orang dengan benak yang tak pernah berhenti berpikir. Sedikit saja pemicu terlihat, sang benak akan terus berlari tak tentu arah mencari dan menyambar, menyulut api bagi rangkaian-rangkaian peristiwa dan pikiran. Lagu itu tidak pernah punya makna bagiku saat ia baru saja muncul. Baru di tahun 2009, lagu itu menempel dalam benak.

‘Kampret’, sebut saja begitu, adalah seseorang yang sempat menempati kursi khusus dalam hatiku di tahun itu. Kami pernah berangan-angan bersama akan masa depan yang mungkin terjadi, yang mungkin dapat kami jalani berdua. Tetapi, sebuah halangan yang menghadang di depan kami saat itu adalah mimpi kami berdua untuk dapat melanjutkan studi ke luar negeri, Salah satu kekhawatiran yang ia ungkapkan adalah bahwa jarak dan waktu akan memisahkan kami pada saat studi lanjut. Inilah bagian dimana lagu ‘Yue Ding’  menjadi sangat berkesan.

Lagu itu bercerita mengenai sepasang kekasih yang berpisah dan berjanji untuk bertemu lagi tiga tahun kemudian. Setidaknya, salah satu dari pasangan itu masih setia menunggu, masih mengingat janjinya, dan bergeming di tempat yang sama. Studi lanjut kami diprediksikan selama dua tahun, setidaknya. Apakah kami sanggup menjalani perpisahan selama dua tahun? Aku selalu meyakinkan diriku dan dirinya dengan lagu itu, bahwa ada orang yang sanggup menjalani semuanya.

Takdir ternyata berkata lain. Dalam hitungan bulan, banyak sekali yang terjadi. Puncak semuanya terjadi ketika si ‘kampret’ menghilang, pindah dari Yogya tanpa kata pamit. Beberapa kali upaya untuk menyambung komunikasi kembali selalu gagal. Aku akhirnya mendapatkan jalan untuk melanjutkan studi ke Inggris, sementara ia (setahun setelahku) mendapatkan kesempatan melanjutkan studinya ke Belanda.

Tak dinyana, jalan kami bertemu lagi di tahun 2013. Secara tidak sengaja, kami berdua bertemu di sebuah warung tegal di Jakarta. Siapa yang pernah menyangka dan berpikir bahwa pertemuan itu akan terjadi di sebuah kota lain, di sebuah warung kecil yang tidak terkenal. Entah mengapa, lirik dari lagu ‘Yue Ding’ itu benar-benar terjadi. Setelah tiga tahun, kami kembali bertemu dan menyelesaikan semuanya.

Penyelesaian? Di masa lalu, perpisahan kami tidak ditandai dengan kata-kata apapun, tidak ada kata pamit atau selesai. Semua hanya berputar dalam benak saja. Tahu sama tahu, Tetapi tiga tahun berselang, semua akhirnya benar-benar jelas. Semua kemarahan, semua perasaan sayang, dan semua mimpi yang pernah kami pendam berdua akhirnya benar-benar disegel dengan sebuah kata ‘TAMAT’.

Lamunanku berakhir ketika speaker di dalam bus berteriak, menandakan pemberhentianku sudah dekat. Lamunan dan  permenungan yang cukup panjang dari sebuah otak yang cukup ‘random’.


Ah, lagu ajaib itu… Lagu yang benar-benar terjadi dalam hidup…

Friday, November 01, 2013

Freirean Reading of Zombie

I am found guilty of watching tons of zombie movies, boththe crappy ones and the magnificent ones. It’s true, the repetition they portrayed is often cheesy and as uncreative as it can be. Furthermore, the zombieque culture becomes so huge and widespread that these undeads lost their charms. But why do I still watch (andhunt) those movies? Frankly speaking, these brain-eating brainless creatures brought about a sense of reminisce and nostalgic feeling for me.

It was started with the routine geek pajama parties I often held in my house with fellow geeks. Well, these chaps would certainly refuse the ‘geek’ label I used in this writing. Yet, what would you call four chaps having sleepovers for days only to play some video games? The year was 2001,back when the first Sony Play Station was still ruling and winning the third console war.
Some franchises stood out among the others, some titles flunked dramatically. One of the standing out franchises was Bio Hazard / Resident Evil. It became our challenge night by night, how to finish this thrilling silent game with sound effects amplified through gigantic room speaker in the darkness where the only light we had came from the TV screen and the green PSX LED. Ah, what a moment.

What is so special from the hordes of undead corpse flocking the world in search of fresh brains? They are less cool than their blood-sucking vampiric cousins, the perpetually seductive witches or the ever-furry werewolf neighbours. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. The market was also saturated already with constant exposure to these rotting bodies.

Yet the key to understand zombies are the concept of bodies through body culture studies perspective. Body is defined by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1968) as Flesh, the being, and the appearance of oneself. This conceptual flesh puts body as an integral part of the mind, consequently in unity with main drive of any action. The integration with a force of will thus placed body in the position of a subject, as meaning, and as embodied existence.

Butler (in Bodies ThatMatter, 1993) argued that body acts or performs its own subjectivity,devoid of any influence from constructed reality and expectation from surrounding society. The seclusion of subjectivity from any expectation thus signified ‘body’ as the core identity; initial identity. Furthermore, body is theorised as “matter”, so that the cultural norms that constitute its identity can be exposed, examined, and critique. This is the state of nakedness, a complete strip off where self identity is broken down into Democritus’ concept of atom,the state where further division is no longer possible.

Thus, the common concept of basic identity is the result of negotiation / dialogue between the materiality of body and the materiality of knowledge and language. Within this framework, each aspect is materialised;manifested into solid matter. The solidification of two parties creates real spatial context of dialogue between them. Taking the nature of knowledge and language as being able to be controlled by any person, the dialogal practice taking place here follows an ideal Bakhtinian dialogism. A horizontal power structure wherein no party dominates the other operates here, creating an ideal negotiation and neutral adjustment.

Different situation may happen when culture is included here, as the nature of culture sometimes forces any person to bestow before it,the conquering nature over any individual living within its authority. An inclusion of culture in the dialogal practice would turn the natural dialogue into cyborgization. Following Donna Haraway’s (1997) concept of post-humanism,culture and social norms posses the machinization ability; operates as a gigantic mother brain penetrating the skin of the fleshed out body and replacing the natural parts with mechanical prosthetic. However, in doing so,not all of the flesh parts are taken out, creating power struggle between the nature and the machine. 

If we are taking an analogy of natural connection between flesh and knowledge and language into a man taking material and sew them into clothes, we can see that the skin still acts as a border between these two parties. Even though the unity between body and clothing can be seen, body will perform its own subjectivity to counter willful construction, in turn creates a clear distinction of constructional aspects. The difference here is the skin as a liminal field, the meeting point of body and construction. However, in the cyborgization, the skin is violated and instead being replaced by mechanical layers. The loss of liminal quality in the skin renders the construction aspects indistinguishable from the flesh.

The term power struggle consequently brings about the shift from horizontal dialogue into vertical dialogue; where one side reclaimed dominance over the others; Foucauldian scheme of war and oppression. Thestruggle between personal “body” and machinization

What about zombie? Using body cultural studies, we can scrutinise the implicit meaning behind dead ‘body’; dead ‘flesh’. What does it mean then? If (living) body can perform its own subjectivity, then zombie cannot perform their own subjectivity. Even though they are living, their freewill is taken from them. Without subjectivity, their main driving force, their main existence, and their very core are robbed. Interestingly, these zombies are still wearing their clothes; which leads into a reading that their knowledge and language are still there. Yet, without their subjectivities, knowledge and languages cannot be used (which is manifested in their lack of intelligence and lack of speech). In other words, this is the manifestation of closed society, a mutism in flesh (pun intended).

Another question sprung up, what are the main causes of this zombie plague? Some initial movies resorted to the explanation of Haitian black magic, yet the newest movies vaguely referred to viral infection. Whether we take side on the black magic (mythical) or biochemical weapon (mechanical cyborgization?), the zombies are all acting the same; following what the source‘programmed’/ ‘dictated’ them to do. Interestingly, this source successfully killed the body and reanimated them as some kind of slaves.

Similarity in this ‘society’/’hordes’ indicates soulless society, brainwashed into throwing away their very essence of identity and uniqueness and rendering their ability to think (critically) useless. According to Freirean perspective, this is one of the characteristic of a closed society led by a dictator / tyrant. In Education for Critical Consciousness, Paulo Freire (1973) described massification as a characteristic of a closed society imposed by the leader to avoid any coup d’etat. Within this massification process, any citizen should not be given any opportunity to develop critical thinking –similar to zombies inability to thinkand speak – and is expected to behave uniformly. This massification will create‘obedient’ domesticated civilians, separated from total project and consequently being dehumanised.

Before the perspective of this closed society, social norms are changed. Freirean concept of sui generis democracy explains that popular silence (mutism) and inaction is synonymous with healthy society. Thus, people who try to bring about critical thinking will be seen as ‘subversive’ and ‘public enemy’. This branding as a public enemy is what caused them to be crushed under people power; manifested as the attack of zombie hordes towards the protagonists.

Further similarity between zombie apocalypse and mutism also lies in the trigger to the zombie attack. In most movies, the zombies are attracted by any sound and sudden movement. Any voice breaking the silence of the zombieland will be treated as a threat to be taken care of; triggering flock attack. What would happen then after the attack? The victim will either be dead or turned into zombie; both results in mutism and submersion.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Unheimlich

Unheimlich
adalah ikan yang dikeluarkan dari air
berkelebat-kelebit panik mencari napas
di penghujung hayatnya
mencoba mengulur waktu
walau bimbang
mengingat belaian sungai
atau mempersiapkan diri menuju ajal
serta ragu
antara maju penuh sakit
atau mundur yang tak mungkin
atau bertahan di antara
dan tak berdaya
sama seperti saat ia
ada di batas
hidup dan mati
saat dilahirkan

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

The Price

Charlene’s song “I’ve Never Been To Me” had been echoing in my head in the last few weeks. It was consoling yet pretty much slapping me in both cheeks. Charlene sang the story of two ladies with two different lives; one who lived a domestic life and another one lived her limitless freedom. Both ladies mourned over their choices and wished to walk in another’s path. Oh human, always vying for what they don’t have and constantly feeling dissatisfied with what they already have....

Unfortunately, that song resonated with what my own experience. Somehow, listening to that beautiful songstress unearthed an anxiety within me. Being stranded in Macau to pursue my doctorate degree and that silly ambition of obtaining the degree before entering my fourth decade in life had got me thinking a lot lately. I came back into solitude one more time, just right after experiencing a very festive life in Jakarta with Vita Voxa and some friends I made there. But being here in Macau led me into solace without the ability to make friends due to the language barrier.

Did my silly ambition lead me to live my freedom without border and leave the domesticated life I could have? To think that I sacrificed the opportunities (countless opportunities) to settle down and just be a normal husband in such a boring household for this ambition of attaining knowledge and title. How many women I left and hurt just because I prioritised my pursuit of doctorate degree over my love life? How many times had I braced myself over the stupid commentaries and constant question, “When are you going to get married?”

I always responded to the question by saying that I prioritised my study over anything. And if there was something I really wanted, it was the freedom and wings to explore the world. This was the realisation I had when conversing with Sarasvati Devi on the peak of Gunung Lawu. My ambition to obtain this degree and this knowledge is similar to ancient heroes’ struggle to wield and harness the most powerful weapon. Knowledge and education are the new Excalibur, the new Masamune, the new Pasopati. By mastering the knowledge, one will gain such an immense power to conquer the world. That is the war we had to fight in the recent days.


Yet power will never be gratis. There is always something one has to pay for that. This solitude, this separation, and this anxiety are the price I have to pay. Just like Charlene’s heroine in the song, one will always have regrets. The price has been paid in advance now, why should I give up and wasted my payment?

Five Great Generals of Macau

My first month in Macau has been completely different from my first month in Jakarta. It was not devoid of any spiritual encounter nor the vivid dreams. Well, vivid dreams were never something strange for me. However, insomniac encounter is. And this was the most terrifying insomniac encounter I've experienced here.

It was started couple of days ago, when I had my first insomnia in years. To think about it, my last insomnia was during my undergraduate years. That was the olden days of yore, wasn't it? So, it was a complete panic in my side to find out that I couldn't sleep after 1 o'clock in the morning. There had to be something! Something!!!!!

For the next hour, I was just rolling on my bed, trying to hard to be asleep. And yes, there were some bizarre methods for that. And no, I'm not going to spill the beans here.

Two o'clock and my eyes were still open. DAMN! I needed to wake up early in the following morning. With such a might of a berserker, I forced my eyes to follow my command. Instead of meeting the pitch black velvet, I got a vision. There were five people all dressed in black rode their black horses into the direction of University of Macau. WHAT THE????

When they got closer, I could see the dress they were wearing. It was old Portuguese soldier costumes. All of a sudden, they introduced themselves as five great generals who once ruled over Macau in the olden years. I could hear the sound of horses rambling and shrieking under my window. All of a sudden, the other four generals went to four different direction inside the campus. They rode their horses fiercely and unsheathed their swords and swung it in such threatening way. What about the other one? He stayed in front of my building and did the same way.

WHAT THE?? I knew they were trying to find me and reach me. But with that attitude? It lasted until three o'clock in the morning, and that was when I realised. Three o'clock is always the bewitching hour of dawn. What was this site before it became University of Macau??????