My Both Worlds

“You’re interesting!” she shouted at my face.

I am fully aware of my age while building things that seem lunatic to many people I’ve met when I told them what I was up to. If you’ve read the first post I made in this blog,  you may have had the impression of a snob. But. Believe me, I’m not a big fan of fake stories and wise quotes that a lot of us are eager to listen to and read just to bullshit inspire us. I did things. And proudly,  I’ve learned most things I know today by doing, and my firsthand experiences. If you ever had the chance to climb uphill, you’ll understand how irresponsibly easy it is to to get a lift while others have to bust their ass off days and nights 10x harder like you can never imagine. I’ve encountered many shortcuts in my way, and gladly, I’ve learned to gather enough courage to say no. It’s hard. But it’s worth it for me. And I hope it is to you.

I’m dedicating this to the people who have been my greatest support and constantly inspire me to have the balls to wake up from dreaming and start chasing it. I feel strongly impelled to share about what’s kept me going all this time; It’s my both worlds that does this magic. They’re my only fuel to build castles in the high above sky.

We all have different privileges. Mine has been the best tool in getting myself closer to every dream I have. Of course it’s not yet a finish line, but every day is a success for me, even if it’s still on progress. I worked extremely hard for everything that I have today, from networks to this very mac I’m using to write this post. Never for a second I’d leave all of the lessons that came with it. I knew I didn’t win the birth lottery and everything that it entails, which left me no option but to work smart enough to get my shit together and achieve every objective I have in my life. From having lived independently for 4 years to become a true dependent of myself, I’ve learned the hard way to embrace all of the concepts of loneliness. Pursuing a dream comes with cost we never knew ever existed until we took the plunge. All dreams are expensive. And with limitations in reality, sometimes, people take the alternative over the dream they used to tell themselves to achieve when they were younger. But if you’re happy with whatever you’re doing today and will still be doing it the second you wake up tomorrow, keep doing it.

About my both worlds.

I have friends and families who hail from two extremely different worlds, of which I’ve learned tremendously on how to see the world from both lenses. I have the luxury to share things we praise over dinner or coffee with my friends who are holding their ‘achieved status’ as celebrities, government people, top producers, CEOs, activists, writers, and all the other people who fight the fight across different battlefields. These are the people who I’d nicely sit next to on the top of the pyramid at some point, despite the first-class lifestyle. To me though, it is far more satisfying than being one of those so-called educated mouths who choose to criticise the shit they think they deeply care about. I call them unrealistic backseat drivers. My suggestion: ditch them. My friends whom I know very closely about what they do have the incomparable sense of confidence and belong to the realists when it comes to building bridges between the poor and the 1%. They don’t just dream like I used to when I was a child. They get up and make shit happen, which happened to be the fuel I’ve used to burn the midnight oil.

On the other hand, I didn’t come from a wealthy family, nor had I enjoyed the finest international education and and family vacation abroad like most of my friends. I’ve experienced living in a Gubuk house in the middle of a forest when I was 5. When I say forest, I mean it. Those trees and wild animals that taught me how to find a good place to perform my act of urination (this is the most appropriate way to say ‘piss’, I discovered) and at what time I should jump into a really fresh natural pond or swim against the stream in a river. While at home, I can’t help but remember how it felt to only being able to eat rice and salt when there was nothing else to eat at my Grandma’s house in Sumbawa. Or at school, I remember how humiliating it was to stand in front of the entire school with the other students who hadn’t paid the school fees. Yes, they did that.

This collection of mentally painful stories that had brought me here today functions as a kind reminder to me, like the gravity that pulls me back to the ground no matter how high I’ve flown since I took off the ground. Now that I’ve seen things and experienced a lot of things, it’s spoken to me very persuasively that I and everyone else with different experiences are capable of waving a magic hand to get things done with the greatest resources I have. Having come through such stages of life makes it terribly easy for me to deeply feel the sufferings of these men and women, and their children, who are forever my family. It makes me think of thousands of big opportunities I can chase and grab. Because if you ever happened to grow up in the middle of problems, you just know what it means to be part of that problem. And all of the things we’ve learned at school and everywhere else are just a method we develop to sort things out, making it easier to help create a better world. Because regardless of the scale, the tiniest impact we create will always count.

I think it’s quite fair to say that most of the things we discover as we grow up are more counterintuitive than what we once imagined. The theory we knew wouldn’t suffice at times. For this issue, all I need is balance, which luckily had come from the two worlds of mine. They lead me to sleepless nights and lonely roads while completing one tiny part of a big dream that I have in mind.

Most importantly, this post is specially aimed at very few people of my small circle who tremendously invest their faith in what I’m doing, even more than I trust myself sometimes. I’m thanking the greatest force in the Universe for these souls I see when things get too rough because of all the lonely roads I’ve walked in, they’ve always been there. They are the reason why everything I do today and every day is worth dying for. Thank you to you who are 24/7 available to help without me ever asking. Whatever it is I will have left before my last breath, that’s my best way to thank you for the enormous support.