Philosophy, Self Improvement
The Most Dangerous Thing on Earth
Weekend’s afternoon always hit different. Currently, I’m in Bandung with my co-workers to celebrate our 3rd company’s anniversary, thanks Mediarumu. We rent a villa for three days and two nights, and it’s very recommended for those of you want to have a short escape from the hubbub of the city or want to Netflix and fuck with your crush. This villa’s name is Awilgar bamboo and it’s located in Cibeunying, Bandung.
I’m alone now. My friends are going outside and I have plans to catch up with my high school mate. I often do a lot of things with him, where one of them is hiking a mountain with him. I’ve done hiking two mountains with him (Mt. Prau and Mt. Gede), out of four mounts that I’ve done -the others is Mt. Salah and Mt. Merbabu. I’ve planned to hike Semeru -if they are already open since closed during the eruption- at the end of the year.
So, my friend’s name is Julyan Dico, and I called him Coki. He has a unique identity, crazy, love to doing a stupid things and his mouth is out of nowhere like a God of comedy. A typical funny person. He often threw up his mind and talked a lot. What a funny person he is. Speaking about minds, I remember when I had class in my third semester entitled Eastern Philosophy. His name is Lao Tzu and I rank him as the second great eastern philosopher from the east under Jalaluddin Rumi (my favorite one). Absolutely, Lao Tzu gave me a lot of lessons about life perspective.
Many of us, especially those who are addicted to social media (including me lol) are facing various problems. Despite the geographical, political, economic, social and culture, I think the majority that become the cause of our suffering and problems come from the magic stuff called smartphone and social media. Although, it cannot be denied that these things also have benefits such as, connecting people, enabling people to earn money on their bed, and so on and so on, but I think we cannot dodge the bad sides of this shit as well.
It affects our life, such as our mental health, our priority, our desire, our lifestyle because social media provides such shits. Go on, scroll your Instagram feeds or TikTok you will see many people showing off their USP -I called it “unique selling personal”. It could be their showing their body shape that hot as fuck, their income, their vehicle, their branded wallet and so on and so on. This then, affects our life indirectly. It is shaping the new meaning and life orientation to us and then make us feels insecure, anxiety, and confused because we fucking consume too much informations in this modern world. So, how do we fight it? Do I suggest that we have to become Tarzan once again in order to save our minds? No.
We can’t direct the wind. As stoic said, just caring about the things that are under our control are relevant with Lao Tzu opinions about minds. We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sail. We can’t change reality, but we can change our mind. We can’t choose what kind of content that will appear on our TikTok for your page, but we have options to skip it. Because it is social media which makes us care about the things that aren’t under our control, and they don’t work in the repressive way but in normalization so that we feel it doesn’t affect our life. Again, social media doesn’t work directly, but it is indirectly that will shape our subconscious.
“Care what about other people think, and you will always be their prisoner.” — Lao Tzu
Therefore, in my opinion, the mind is the most dangerous thing on earth. It can give us heaven and hell at once. It is like a double-aged sword. Lao Tzu was right and I agree with him. He also once said that:
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
From the sentence above, Lao Tzu starts with words “thoughts” which is our mind. The way we think, the way we interpret, and the way we determine something, all of these are processed by our mind. Even if we are sleeping, our mind doesn’t stop working. It’s an unbelievable gift that God has given to us which distinguishes us from another creature. The thing that could change everything and never stop is a deathly weapon for those of us who really know how to use it. Be wise, open your eyes, and good day from Bandung.
Lao Tzu, Li Er. Tao te ching. Wordsworth, 1997.
