From Card Getting Declined, to Hyper-Social.

Let’s just begin gently from how ecstatic I am to finally jam on this keyboard on Sunday morning, minding my own business, just penning shit from my head to this public, personal blog. I mean who else is blogging these days leaving messy digital footprint for their future partner, employer, investor? donor? school? The answer would start with – this guy.

A few days back, and some other sappy days, my card was declined at a mall to afford basic necessities like food or coffee. Took me a few minutes to recover from the embarrassment until a friend quickly wired me cash. By definition, I have probably gone beyond poor that evening and it certainly hurts like a bitch to not be able to rely on yourself at times, needing to ask for help from anyone, at possibly anytime. Even for someone who has thick skin like me, it haunts me to think what my closest circle might perceive my misfortunes and the idea that I am trying to push my narrative of ‘oh someone ran away with hundreds of million because I was too dumb so please help me‘ because you’re my friend. Yea it kinda has come to that. And the self-hate or reject and every other irreversible damage you get can be a little traumatising for self, when not managed properly, or intermezzoed with fun jokes.

HOW-fucking-EVER, the way I operate in uncharted waters, emotionally, I opt to not process the emotions yet and instead focus on my recovery plan (paying back all these with everything I can do in life to generate money) working myself to the bone, until one day I am able to cross this off of my list and get the fuck out to go on a long, self-pity journey and rebuild everything from the ground up. Better watch.

Anyway….thought I’d share to you here on what’s up w my life:

1. Working life. I quit Fuse and crossed industry from insurtech to the ever-evolving proptech startup, Pinhome. There is a number of push and pull factors around the why. The bottom line though: startups of all sizes are fun when given the right room to grow both for the company AND the individuals who run the engine. I think I am in the middle of that all, even after taking a pause for about 2 years. The difference now is all the amazing things u get to learn from the inside and how proving urself wrong on plenty of things on work life and startup and how the know-it-all fades out as you grow better.
2. Coworking space and Motogp. As for Tiang, my baby whom my partners and I gave birth to seems to struggle to find herself in the midst of me, my partner who is now completing her studies in France somewhat still optimistic but getting cold feet, and another who is constantly hovering at the option to flee and move overseas, that after he left Sydney to join forces building this Tiang dream. It’s extremely tough to land at a firm decision when you’ve spent over a billion to build and gamble in a commercial area relying on foreign visitors in the midst of pandemic, despite the overly hyped Motogp that’s around the corner.
3. Runcing Foundation. This front I’m quite relieved and happy about. We are now focusing on expanding to Papua, NTT, and other parts. It could get extremely exhausting to run especially when you only have around 5-10 spare hours to spend a week on this probono, but given my incredible team who is spread across NYC, SG, HK, Lombok, Bali, Jkt, we have been able to always find the workarounds.
4. The trying to be content creator and modelling. Yea I do that now. I’ve ditched all my stereotypes about this type of work and begin to understand the art from the inside. Things sort of took off a bit and I have been getting a few offers I could say yes to from modelling to endorsements. It is…..nice. But the juggling can be as difficult as putting one OPPO airpod on my left ear for a live photoshoot and my airpod on my right ear that is connected to an ongoing meeting. Yes it gets to that level of multitasking sometimes.
5. The after-effect of it all is obviously getting the mini-fame situations, even when going to a small cafe not many people go to, someone sends a photo of you from afar in your DM, or getting a bit drunk at a bar and someone comes to you saying how much they love your content. I am honestly loving the admiration and love coming my way, but it sure is a bit intense, especially for someone without that sizable audience like me. If I were someone with > 100k followers maybe it’d make a whole lot more sense but mine….it’s weird.
6. Inspira the mentorship platform we intended to start again this year may need to wait a bit longer. Still searching for the bandwidth to pursue all this again, especially for someone a hundred times busier than I am, like….superstar Maudy.
7. With everything I’ve been doing, I feel that all these have forced my hyper social-self out of me in order to make things…..work. I can endure longer conversations now, even in person. To the extent I no longer get to recharge as much (now that I am not in Lombok for instance) or my weekends are often used up to do the other work I cannot do on weekdays (due to draining and time).
8. Lastly, probably chasing Perempuan Lihai a.ka. Sista. I tried searching for her in Denpasar last month but to no avail. And personally, I stopped talking about it because it numbed me and talking to the wrong people gets you the unfavorable reactions when stories are half-told and you just don’t have the energy to explain everything. might as well be used for money-making activities so I can one day pay it all off and live my actual life. It has been 15 months or so since the tragedy. I have paid parts and numbed myself and held back from the impulses of actually buying primary needs for myself because spending around 20mio-ish a month can hurt a little fucking much. And seeking help from a number of lawyers or authorities had led me to a big fuck-all. Anyway….the sky is blue.
9. Constantly denying you’re in depressed mode and re-shift the focus to…..anything seemingly more productive.

So that’s what’s up and If I had the extra time and money, the first I’d love to see myself doing is stuff like reminiscing the times spent alone here and there, doing all the crazy stupid fun wise things I can. Or working towards doing all that again before life officially enters its boring stage and I start talking down on younger folks thinking we know everything. More to write from me soon. Love!