Life-Lessons, Self-Awareness
“It has its ups and downs, but it’s your choice to scream or enjoy.”
A quiet office ambience, no deadlines, a hot coffee and a pack of cigarettes are the perfect combination for imagination. It’s cold here due to the central building’s AC temperature reaching 20 degrees Celsius. Not forget to plug in the headset and open up my Spotify which plays the song Rame Rame — Amboina by one of my favorite local vocalists, Utha Likumahuwa. Makes my imagination dance on the roof of the office even more.
Life is like a rollercoaster. There are always ups and downs. However, besides that, life will never lose its meaning. Based on my experience of living on this planet for approximately 23 years, I think that’s how it works.
The journey of my life, if depicted graphically, will form a longitudinal pattern rather than exponential pattern. I was born from the womb of a beautiful mother and a rich father. My father was a member of the council, a well-known timber businessman and a writer. Usually, he writes only using paper and pen, and does not like to use technology. I don’t know what kind of topics he wrote, I never knew. Maybe he wrote about me when I was little, about “how cute my son is”. It could also be that he wrote about “the philosophy of Machiavelli”. I do not know.
My childhood was very glamorous. I still remember that even for bathing I use mineral water. The food is definitely expensive. I am very grateful and happy to be born with such conditions. However, in reality this is not the case. It doesn’t always live up to expectations. That noble sensation only lasted until I reached the age of 4–5 years. After my father died in a car accident, my mother’s economy went into a tailspin. He had to work hard to buy me milk to grow into a successful human being like my father in the future.
Until my mother remarried, my family’s economy was bullish. However, it also didn’t last long because my second father had a heart disease and eventually died when I was in the 5th grade of elementary school. Since then, our economy has been bearish again. My mother has to go back to work. He rarely spent her time with me at home. Ahh, good old days. Honestly, a little flashback makes me sad. Fuck, I’m crying now just because remember a lot of her sacrifices for me. Who says boys don’t cry? Fucking patriarchy.
Indeed, that’s my life. It’s like a roller coaster, right? That long journey led me to the conclusion that life is more of a cycle than progress. I am 23 years old now and no longer play with robots like when I was 6 years old. However, there are always other “toys” in every process of my growth. I don’t cry anymore when my mom doesn’t realize my desire for something, but I still cry when I miss my mom. There are always new meanings and problems.
Why rollercoasters? Because I think that’s a pretty accurate analogy and metaphor in describing human life. A rollercoaster won’t be as fun if the track is just flat, just going down or just going up. There must be ups and downs so that the sensation of excitement is felt.
If you don’t like rollercoasters, there are actually a lot of metaphors that we can use to describe human life. Such as an electron diagram, a medical device that detects the heartbeat. It also moves up and down which indicates that a heart is beating and alive. If it moves flat, that means you are dead. Even the stock market chart also moves up and down. It doesn’t always go up, it doesn’t always go down and it doesn’t always flat.
So does our life. Indeed, it’s like that. If I had expected a life that was always on top, then I was wrong. A life that is always on top indicates stagnation. If I’m always on top, then when will I learn? If I don’t learn, then when will I develop?
Also, there is another interesting side of life that I found in my imagination. Humans are creatures that cannot possibly have no meaning. Even a nihilist has a meaning, which the absence of meaning itself is a meaning. When I created a meaning, let say the desire to study at my dream University. When that meaning has been realized, then I create a new meaning, which is getting a high GPA. When I successfully achieve that number of GPA, then I create a new meaning again, which is getting a permanent job. When I managed to get a permanent job, I created a new meaning, which was to collect money from my salary to take my master’s degree abroad. That’s how human life goes.
It cannot lose its meaning. When he reaches the ceiling, the ceiling becomes the floor for the new meaning he creates. Rollercoasters, electro diagrams and stock markets are sufficient metaphors for the dynamic of our life. The twists and turns, the ups and downs of life are inevitable. However, we often complain when we are at the bottom even though it is part of life. Even though it is the fun and excitement of the life that we live. Or perhaps, we just don’t realize…