Carnot System and Life

I was tempted to write upon the stability of life by the comment in two posts before this by Yellowtofu. He stated that we can make an analogy of perfection and balance in the Carnot system. Hmm, I was never a good student in the senior high. To be honest, I cheated in my National Final Exam, including Physics. But, I happen to know about Carnot system.

Carnot system is the ideal machine, in which the output is totally equal with the input. Very efficient machine, eh? (Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this was written in my piece of cheating paper during National Final Exam! Hehehehe!)
Yellowtofu made analogy that actually the stability itself would equal to death. Because everything is stable and harmonic. And to think further, when everything is balanced and in order, what should we do then?

Perfect stability and harmony is only existed in utopia. Just like Carnot system is only utopic design. And I can imagine that in utopia, everything is perfect. There is this balance of love and hate, of black and white, of good and evil. Everything is in harmony. But then, life would be so dull. We will have nothing to do, even no chance to do anything. STOPPED. No challenge, no threat, and that would mean no opportunity to develop ourselves and explore new things.

What would it mean for human to stop developing? DEATH.

This makes a strong revelation, that actually there is a beauty in an imperfection. That friction would lead us to a full life. That the imperfection would lead us to the dream of perfection. And life itself is one big IMPERFECTION.

The struggling to reach the stability is what makes us alive. The journey to shed away our imperfection to achieve perfection is the real essence of life. The voyage for us to keep being better over time is what breathes us spirit. And we will embrace our final destination in death.

Dream Journal 4 : An Empty Train

I wanted to go to Bandung by train, so I went to the train station. It was very crowded at the time, many people are waiting for their train. And suddenly I heard the announcement that the train to Bandung will soon depart. Quickly I moved to the train and went into it. There were nobody there, saved me and 4 young girls.

The five of us walked together, trying to find the comfortable seat for us. Contrary to the crowd outside, I found nobody in the train. It was empty, totally empty. Everything is broken, like the train had not been used for years. We felt totally strange there. We kept going to the last compartment, and finally found a girl sitting there.

She asked us, "You want to go to Bandung?"

We nodded. The girls started to find the seat in that compartment. I was still curious at that time, "Where is everybody, miss?"

She stared at me and smiled. "It's very hard to explain. Let's just enjoy the journey!" She stood, and I could see that she was short. Her T-shirt is purple, and she had a nice pigtail behind her head. Her face seemed familiar, but I just cannot recall it.

"It will be twenty five thousand rupiah per person," said her. We handed her the money, and she said again, "Thank you. We will soon depart! Enjoy it!" At the same time, the train started moving.

The young girls started having conversation among them, while the short girl sat comfortably in her seat. I was driven by my curiosity. "Will you excuse me for a while? I want to see the whole train!"

They looked at me for an instance and just nodded. I went out from the compartment and started walked along the train. Nobody there, so I decided to went back to my place. But on my way back, I saw a man with red checkers shirt. He had thick beard and short curly hair. He stood in front of glued newspaper, as if he was trying to read all the articles. Yes, another person! I screamed in my mind enthusiastically.

I approached him, but when I reached his spot, he was no longer there. I saw him in another compartment instead with another guy that I didn't see previously. My body shivered. I looked at the newspaper, and the date was March 25, 1987. DAMN!!!

I rushed back to my compartment. There, I approached the short girl and asked her, "Tell me, is this a ghost train?"

She looked at us with a sad look. "We don't mean to deceive you, sir! But yes, this is a ghost train!"

I got shocked. The young girls in that compartment were also got shocked. "That's why there were nobody here. But, how do you manage to find out that, sir?" they asked me.

"I found a newspaper dated back from 1987. There is no way someone would save newspaper that old!"

One of the girls gasped. "Yes, there's no way newspaper from 10 years ago was here. It is 1997, isn't it?"

This time, I became more and more pale. I just realized that the girls were also ghost. They came from 1997....

The short girl looked at me grimly and said, "Sir, if you feel deceived, we can return your money and you can stop in the next station. Next one will be Rembang!"

"Yes, please! I want to stop at the next station!"

The train stopped, and I quickly jumped off the train. It was really a big station. So crowded, but everyone is gray. Damn! The train has gone off without me, and I couldn't see it anymore. As if it vanished into thin air. But the song they played in the train is still echoed, even after I woke up. It was the song "Mengenangmu" by Kerispatih, but only the last part.... "Di keabadian!" (note : In eternity....)

DAMN!!!!!

Love and Hate

Just recently, I remember the excerpt from Chrono Cross opening movie. It says,

"We loved so many, yet hated so much
We hurt others and were hurt ourselves,
yet even then,
we ran like the wind,
under the cerulean sky"

Well, it says something. It reminded me of the equilibrium between light and shadow. There will always be a shadow when light presents. The two are always co-exist. One completes the other, and without one there will be no other.

Thus, in one's life, we cannot make every people love us for the way we are. There are always those who hated us, no matter how good we are doing things. There is no way we could avoid people's hatred upon us. However, this could also be applied towards ourselves. No matter how good we are, there must be some people that we hate.

It is just like the principle of yin and yang from the ancient china, in which we cannot have all white or all black. We love and we hate, it's an inevitable fact.

However, the next thing would also be interesting. Remember the saying, "We reap what we sow"? When we hate people and tried to hurt them, indirectly we are hurting ourselves. We hurt others and were hurt ourselves. There is no way to avoid the pain. Even the old javanese saying said, "When you are pointing mistake of others, your three fingers are pointing at yourself!"

People are actually mirror of ourselves. When we hurt them, we hurt our reflection. And when you attack mirror, things will just bounce back to yourself. When we hit on someone, we actually wanted to shatter ourselves down. That is why, hurting and being hurt are actually one hell of a circle.

However, it is the circle of life. No matter what we do, we cannot have just one side. As long as there is love, there will be hate. As long as we hurt others, we cannot escape from the pain. But we still need to progress through the life, keep running, for we will find the cerulean sky above us.

PS : It gives me an urge to elaborate this writing even further. Probably will do a continuation of this later on!