surreal to say, but boy was I turning twenty-fucking-nine just a few weeks back.
Had a damn good run into my roaring twenties regardless. And nothing more I’d enjoy more doing than writing a flash recap of different lives I’d lived here, coz now we’re turning into spectators of our own and you feel like this walking museum. Tell me I’m wrong.
15-17 years young, this cocky snob. Are you lost daddy’s boy?
a boy, torn between his love for music and this academically driven version, not that driven, but ambitious enough to be the first in many things. In these years, I had the privilege to be the very first kid who participated in AFS-YES exchange program from outside Java (forgot the stats but among the 63 kids out of 10k who applied back then I guess). I remember studying footprints of people I was inspired by, which led me to these things, from emailing them and hell, a lot of embarrassing stuff my today-self wouldn’t dare doing anymore. I literally benchmarked every notable alumni of every top school I knew then and that I had to beat that (e.g. that kid won an international xxx, I had to make sure I try whatever they have bigger). I don’t really get myself at times. Or whose validation I was seeking from trying too hard.
Even among other international students, I was considered to be very ambitious to have made it to several local newspapers, sent to national events, then met Bank Ki Moon, met state secretary, then eventually POTUS. A lot of things I know many of my peers would kill for at that age. On top of these, my pretty privilege at home had led me far to being easily known in several national organisations and communities I was a part of. even today I would bump into a former member somewhere in the most random city I can think of.
On the other version, the past 6-7 years leading to this, I spent my life only in recording studios and music studios trying to make it in the showbiz. Lol I know. Everyone in my life was so convinced this was the path I was about to embark on many even had different fan clubs of me or my band already in early days of friendster and myspace and then facebook. Not to exaggerate but it was that weird and crazy. My band, whose personnel were former members of an already national music bands who knew the guys, along with having recorded 35 demos ready to send to major music labels. It was the Bieber fever era and boyband and solo new artists like Afgan came to rise.
BUT a lot could happen as you discovered more about yourself. You tried one thing, got addicted, you wanted more and more. I ditched the dream despite having put all of our combined resources into this. I bailed on these dreams, on myself, on my dad, on the everyone in my band (everyone else was already in their late 20s except me back then), everyone who had faith in me I think. I just, found myself having more fun excelling in school and achieving things on the side. Perhaps I didn’t enjoy the pressure of being controlled by too many voices deciding what I should do, even where I should go to school, who picked me up, who I could hang with. I may be a nobody still but I was so already imprisoned by everyone’s idea of me and living up to these expectations had killed me slowly. tiny star syndrome and anxiety came a little early for me there.
And uh, towards the end of this period, I lost my best friend and forever nemesis, my father who, I now miss each day.
17 – 20 , this Americanized ivy league-obsessed kid the fuck?
Not only was I obsessed about being the first in everything. I was asked to join Hilo Green Ambassador thing, and actually won, despite being the youngest among….everyone. I started Earth Hour and a grassroots movement focusing on education in North Lombok. Then I won YSEALI to be their second batch the following year and eventually met the POTUS. I also won the whatever the Arctic thing. Started a social enterprise this young called Buku Kami in the early days of Uber and Grab (where they hired my friends to be their first team of 10 people out of hotel rooms). I took a gap year to focus on my initiatives and earning money while prepping, exhaustively, myself for a US school. A lot of self-discoveries happened in this era that has shaped me.
Winning a lot of these landed me a bunch of partial and full-ride scholarships both at home and overseas, except it’s not what I wanted. Ungrateful working-class ass I know. I figured it somehow stemmed from having been invited to speak at prestigious universities around the country from Depok, to Jakarta, BSD, Padang, Malang, Yogyakarta, Mataram, and shared my passion on newspapers overseas, invited as a judge and appeared live on TV from doing my things. Felt like I deserved more of life. I was, indeed, too privileged to have learned that early to put myself through a self-funded gap year doing whatnots in this Big Durian while trying to get a full ride from top US schools. Life lessons picked up here and there among all my angkot and KRL and Transjakarta rides.
Long story short, some of my very close friends who made it to my dream schools. I, after giving everything I had, failed. I failed so miserably I remember I lost the will to live I needed help to get back up. My kind exes and close friends helped me to find myself again, put my life back on track and actually arranged to get some very decent scholarships for me. Despite all the help, I still did not want to end up attending public schools in this country out of shame from not making it even after all the extra miles I had walked (and taking a ygap year on top of finishing high school late) and that bumping into a lot of friends in that yellow school in Depok would’ve reminded me of what a big failure I all was. Instead I just wanted to lay low at a private school where I didn’t have as many friends. I kept myself shut from the world quite a while, just everything was private even all my socials. I didn’t socialise with a lot of my friends for 1-2 years. I was just this dark until I felt like myself again.
21 – 24 tech nomad coworking era
While in IT school, I had the privilege to be among the first people to be in tech since ride-hailing and fintech took off. I have become good friends with key individuals in the industry before all VCs flocking into this country, some of whom I took as my mentors. I was so certain this is the next thing I wanted to pursue professionally and that the lack of the technical know-how led me to coding, and not international business nor Law nor the intl relations or every other cool major I once thought I’d be doing.
I had a lot of things my peers did not from connections to certain parts of circles to self-generated wealth at that age, not much but enough to live independently and travel to see nicer parts of the world. Mind you I even rented a shared apartment and another in this city at the time while attending one of the most $$$ private schools in this country just because I could. Just kidding, it was more complex than that.
Anyways, had started my own foundation and company around these ages while my friends were seeking internship from top 4 or doing MUNs. I even had interns from prestigious schools from the UK, the US, Hong Kong, you name it felt like I cracked it again in life. Life was as random as people reaching out to us from Dubai, HK, or MBA students from Manchester, to catch up and offered things for some of the stuff I started. It’s beyond me how this all happened.
I was going online again. I had the luxury to travel to countries on my own I could be seen riding a bike in Pai on random Wednesday when I didnt have classes. Or that I’d be catching my Neural Network midterm exam from a cancelled flight in NYC’s snowstorm. Or riding a banana boat with new expat friends 3 hours out of Manila. And figuring out how to catch a flight from Bukittinggi Padang 3 hours before flight. All these dopamines I had kept me going. At this point, I still had a quite a good private online life. Like nobody knew whom I was seeing, my sexuality, how I pulled strings, and just assumed I had it all easy because I was rich and yada yada. It was a good life.
25-28 surviving a crash, landing on SCBD corporate turned model
I think this is when I first bought a house. The two companies I started with my partners had brought me the traction we needed to live comfortably (not like suddenly became a millionaire and shit tho). I ran a digital agency with quite a number of satisfied clients and all run remotely, opened a Nasi Campur truck at a growing expat hub in Lombok, was on my way to finish a coworking space + cafe with my partners, ran my travel agent and set up trips around Bali/Lombok and overseas, all the while I was learning to land my first brokerage deals with foreign nationals in my island home.
Everything until earthquake, then the Covid hit. Until some woman I’ve worked with fucked my life big time. I lost pretty much everything I had built. Like a lot of ppl, felt like life robbed everything from me. The two companies I could not keep up we had to finally let go of our staff and voila, I found myself in J-town again surviving all the crashes. I went back into tech and tried to rebuild.
28, twenty-nine and beyond ~
This is where a lot of major turns took part. Life evolved. The internet express fame and stuff led me to explore a bunch of new professional experiences and expanded my horizons. The turns I’d made outside my 9-5 work life brought me to fashion, beauty even, and others.
Several learning curves later. After bleeding, living on survival mode and finally getting back on my feet, I took on the entrepreneurial challenges to pursue this path again. I cleared my name, saved up enough, I thought before starting. Since 2022, I embarked in a few ventures and started some fun initiatives on the side. I put myself out there, putting on new helmets. I made the bold turns into industries I had zero expertise about. I went through transition period from the stable income period to finally take the damn plunge.
I have untangled a lot things of my past, not only did I leave my extremely comfortable tech life in this city, I also outgrew several boxes I had unconsciously put myself into, which allows me to carve the life I wanted to have in the next decades (coz 5-yr plans suck and overrated) and nurture my curiosity with care.
My goal was simple: putting down all the roots and have contingency plans.
I joined forces with a leading celeb MUA into beauty world along with my old partner, starting from a beauty salon, Naia Beau, in a premium area of South Jakarta. I have also taken part in a growing coffee journey with friends, Jelajah Coffee, in Mandalika and Gili T Lombok. The property agency my partner and I started , Imag1ne, also lives on to hit our next milestones. And then there’s the part-time content creator life. Our foundation, Runcing, is also under good hands of a growing team and prepared to rebrand again as we raise funds for new programs in Eastern Indonesia. I have a lot cooking for the bigger roadmap. Many runways to be meticulously planned and executed. I am excited, thrilled, but mostly shit-scared of the expected mishaps.
Stakes are mostly high. Odds stacked against you always. There’s always one thing or two you missed in the planning that require smart, express maneuvers. Especially if you’ve been running on thin ice for these past 8 months and afford quite a middle-up class lifestyle.
Whatever this chapter has for me, I’m here today still, less reckless, moving at hyper-high velocity building this and that. Some I have managed to keep afloat, some I’d rather lose. And I’m a lucky kid to always catch my tribe and rely on my ring one to navigate through my hardships. Everything else in life is probably just as hard, but this is the hard I choose.
I certainly do not know which I prefer more than the others, but carrying the lessons learned wherever these feet might go. I’m just here. Ready to kill. And feast.
……and maybe, cry a little too ~
Muhammad Carlos 
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