float.

if you could float away in the sky like a hot-air balloon, where would you go before you run out of fuel?

shallow.

What's the use of a bag you can't leave on the ground?

What's the use of a pretty house you can't live comfortably in?

What's the use of windows that opens to nothing?

What's the use of shoes you can't run in?

Lost

The worst feeling in the world is when you start feeling like you'd rather fail than continue doing what you're doing.

It's not where I want to be, but it's where I am right now.

People say that it doesn't matter what you've done on the past, it's what you do now that counts. To how many people does that rule apply? To you, to me, to everyone. Maybe.

You can't fix the broken. The broken is incorrigible. The incorrigible has no hope.

They say that success is wanting to thrive, not just survive. Then if surviving is a failure, what happens when you don't even want to survive? It's jumping from a cliff knowing you're jumping from a cliff.

And then things take a turn.

Suddenly, in mid-air, you realize you're falling and that you'd rather be perched back atop the cliff rather than here. But the incorrigible has no hope.

You can't undo that fall.

It's not where you want to be, but it's where you are right now.

The moment you lose your sense of purpose, the moment you find it back. But too late, by the time you found where you want to be you have drifted away.

You want to cast an anchor and stop drifting, but that would get you nowhere. You look ahead and there is nothing but the violent current and the thick suffocating mist. You look above and there are the glittering stars in all their glory; yes, you know where you are.

Now if only you knew where you could go.

Trying to swim against the current could get you somewhere, nowhere. Right now you are nowhere. You don't know what's ahead.

You've fallen into a pit, you know you're in a pit, but you've got nowhere else to go. Not knowing where you want to go is worse than not knowing where you are.

You are lost.

I am lost.

Tracing Cause to Effect

There are many reasons why I write.

Mainly because I feel that I express myself better when I'm writing, because you have backspaces and the tiny little punctuations that let you really place your words where you want them to be. Because the things that end up being read are the things that have gone through your head countless times, enough to think over (for the moment, at least) what you should and shouldn't write.

I write to clear the tangled up lines of thought in my head, in the places where I can no longer trace cause to effect, I write things down. So that I can clearly see what I am thinking.

But liking writing without having anything to write about is like having a fork without having a food to pick up, so I write because I feel that I have things to say. Writing without a reader too is like making dinner for an empty table, so I write because I feel like the things that I have to say should be heard by others.

And these things, certainly, are of much importance to me.

I write about the things I am thoroughly grateful for and I write about the things that I wish others could have to be grateful for.

Like how I am grateful for the roof over my head, and how the fact that at least 13 percent of Indonesia's population live under the poverty line without a proper roof over their head. Then perhaps, about how I am grateful for having choices I never had to make and about how everyone deserve equal chances to these choices.

I write to remind myself of how grateful I should be and to remind myself what I should do to give back. Big talk, yes. Big responsibility, perhaps one I can't take on on my own. But, you see, that is why I write, because my thoughts are simply thoughts, a hypothesis based on what I know and what I think (with bias). Each person is taught kindness, but the world is a big place for everyone. All kindness is wasted by ignorance.

We feign knowledge, we feign compassion. And maybe, that is exactly what I'm doing right now, trying to be compassionate, to find the unfortunate so that I can find my own cause. Trying to be gentle, perhaps it is simply narcissism.

But my questions and criticism, though with bias and little consideration of reality, represent the ideals that I (at that moment) have come to believe. Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps I am not. Maybe I failed to trace my cause to its effect and so failed to paint the picture of an ideal world in your head.

I am not questioning you. I am not questioning the world. The questions I ask are written so we could deliberate and so that I can finally come to an answer.

An answer that may well change in the future, or an answer that might change many things. Your writing is like a plant in a greenhouse, you can water it every day and it will grow, but it will never grow out of the pot if you don't let it. Grow and wither, given everything you could muster yourself.

I write to let it out of the greenhouse, out to the open air, out to the fresh soil and out to the sun. Out to the scrutiny it needs to grow and expand, to take roots and spread.

That, is why I write.

I am a panda.

It must be nice being a panda. Animals seem to have a sense of direction, a sense of purpose. They must eat, reproduce and raise their young. And that is all they seem to do.

You don't see pandas loitering around, you don't see pandas pursuing a career in the arts. We don't have panda sports, nor do we distinguish pandas as well-off pandas and homeless pandas. There is nothing that could possibly pull them away from that sense of direction, that firm conviction that they were born knowing what to do and where to go.

The same with salmons. Born upstream a river, newborn salmons go through a long journey to return to the sea until the time comes for them to spawn, at which time they return upstream to the river.

You question how salmons know where to go, what to do. You wonder if salmons have geography classes, preparatory classes, sex-ed classes.

You wonder: how come?

How come they know where to go the moment they were born? How come they know what to do, how to reproduce? How is it that humans, as an intelligent creature, fail at establishing a purpose the moment they were born into this world?

How is it that humans were born knowing nothing? How is it that we weren't born naturally with the knowledge about the birds and the bees? How is it that we have so many purposes we humans create for ourselves instead of a purpose we were given?

Many of us believe that we were born with a purpose, given by our Creator. Many of us go through life questioning what life means. Many of us find our purpose, many others never find their purpose.

It seems like black and white.

Then there are those whose hearts are never at peace, those with shaky resolutions and doubtful eyes. Those who think they find their purpose and hesitate to pursue them. Those who question too much: "Is this really my purpose?."

Those who live with the conviction that they are always in doubt. Ironic. A conviction that they are never convinced. Is this the one? What if I find a better one? What if I'm not good at it? What if I stop liking it?

What if? What if? What if?

And their heads spin around, glancing here and there, picking up stuff and throwing them away, mentally banging their heads to a brick wall they can never break. They hear circus music in their head, seemingly mocking them with the drum rolls and the trumpets and the singers singing happily the same thing over and over again.

And you seem to hear them screaming silently: Tell me what to do, for I am lost.

I like animals, I wish I was more like one; so deeply rooted in their sense of purpose that they'd never be distracted by the unnecessary. I like people with a sense of direction, which I completely lack.

I completely lack the ability to make a decision. I am too scared. Too convinced that I will never be convinced. Perhaps like a salmon washed ashore, entranced by the light of the sun falling through the water. Like a panda who refuses to eat bamboo because it wants to be different.

An anomaly? Perhaps not. A lost child. Too obsessed by the little things in life.

Yeah, it must be nice being a panda.