On surprising yourself more.

“It seems that Jakarta to me ends in this Pasar Palmerah and I could never imagine living or hanging farther off.” I actually went to uni 2km off that imaginary border and have somehow continued to work here. And liking the area more!

“Gah fucking dumb people trying to look great online. Pretentious.” Now I am leading a life shaped a lot more like that.

“Drop the fucking English when speaking. Don’t mix it. It’s stupid.” I comfortably speak exactly like this, mincing all the languages I know into chewable sentences.

“Why are these gym rats keeping this extreme diet and not do some real sports instead.” I have been actively hitting the gym now and learn to feel comfortable lifting weights and all that.

“For fuck’s sake, I would never make my online profile public and allow everyone to follow all bits of my digital footprint.” Now you kinda google me and can probably see my shitposting my most embarrassing stuff quite very easily.

“Why would anyone work a 9-5 job when you could create your own dream company and make more at the end?” I put my ‘working for myself’ thing on a complete pause now to start working a semi-corporate job and I am loving it so far, not just benefitting financially but the effectiveness of doing things when managed properly.

“I cannot stand people who actually spend minutes of their lives choosing what the fuck to wear when they can do a one-for-all kinda outfit.” Funny how I now take more time to consider what to actually wear, even when it’s just a flip-flop / pajamas day. It surely is funny how this world works.

“Why would these lame bitches stay in a nice hotel when you could save it and spend for other activities when you’re travelling this young?!” Now I am horribly picky on my room and bathroom preference whenever staying outside my own house because I now prioritise comfort and my peace of mind over everything.

etc…etc…

These are a few I can think of right now, of how much I have changed as a person who thrives to be better at any given time. I’ve learned to open up myself more to this gigantic horizon of opportunities and since have constantly proven myself wrong, a mistake I’m glad to have made of course.

And I cannot wait to surprise myself more with more and more layers of myself I’m yet to find. Cheers to surprises 🙂

Being liked and maintaining loyalty.

Think it’s obvious how I’ve been forewarned of the many blessings I have been gifted, that I am luckier than most in some departments of my life, economically, physically, academically, or that I am a male, a lot of which have brought me better odds of succeeding in many things life and work. Obviously hard work matters, but these are just privileges I constantly make myself aware of. In this post, I’m trying to recount one or two.

These things that started from as simple as having a pretty face to being able to ace tough things in an academic environment, they come at a heavy price. For the most part, you’re often perceived as someone likeable, charming, to even becoming a person somebody else really looks up to.

A perfect instance would be: at such an early age of primary school, I already had the experience of girls from other classes/school calling our landline phone. Then it evolved quickly, and a little more aggressively in grade 7-9, when girls, or even boys I had no idea about, randomly calling or screaming my name while driving at 90kmph past my house. For some reason, it was perceived as ok to flirt anyhow. To my unsurprisingly surprise, I even had friendster and facebook fan pages made, or fake accounts already back then. Fair to say I had a sense of what it’s like to be known by strangers for something, even for things you cannot see yourself.

With time, such mini scale of fame grew, but more qualitatively this time, to moments like someone always coming to your show, listen to your radio session, getting star-stuck in person,

I for one never thought I had that in me.

Now whenever I get to cross path with someone new whose friend has already heard about me, I get goose bump still, on their impression about me, which is often much less accurate than how I publicly present myself to the world 🙂

I have a really short list of people whom I truly look up to in terms of how I’d like to carve out this life of mine.

I have also parted ways with some of the closest people in my circle. This is due to multiple reasons, either I’ve grown into an asshole or I just can’t stand people turning into something they are not.

In a life where circles could only get smaller and better each day, one should prove their loyalty, put their money where their mouth is and not stirred when other external variables start kicking in.

Any type of relationship is difficult to cultivate, let alone fucking maintain. If you can’t seem to prove your loyalty or worth, better to move the fuck on and let this life lead us to finer things and people.

So yea my lovely readers, may we find the happier, finer things in life wherever we can find it, even if it means getting rid of the good old ones.

Fast-forward 2020.

Started off from Gili T. Sober, rainy morning at the usual cafe with plenty of bules fleeing the island to Europe, Australia and China.

Then Jan in, thinking of joining a trip I arrange to SG or not. With the virus effect started kicking in.

Feb in BKK and broke down in KL on the way back to Lombok.

Mar by the beach, but mind elsewhere. Selong belanak days.

Apr stranded at home. Covid finally caught up at home.

May struggling to navigate through what I just realised as a big mess.

Jun busy repatriating students and people from Warsaw and Berlin.

Jul I lost my head here.

Aug trying to recover. also built a water project helping 200 families accessing water in north lombok – wow!

Sept moved to Big Durian because I need $ to save my ass and of course because I found my passion……in insurtech startup 🙂

Oct settling down paying back shit i dont owe.

Nov busy tiang space lombok jogja.

Dec recovering from covid.

Sing along for mental health.

As you may have read on Vogue and Business Week, I have been seen on youtube more now to the tune of 20 views/video because, one, IG bores the fuck out of me (flooded w toxic people preaching about not being toxic), two, I felt more comfortably shitposting on youtube and twitter, from which my analytics seem to rise significantly — nah, jk. Anyway, it’s been fun and good for the mind to sing while working from home to whatever or bacot your way about stuff that netizens care so much about. These below I’d like to do a lot more of in the near future – stay tuned!

Grasping at straws, but better.

So I come to think of it, instead of writing a long sappy life journey on how uncomfortably positioned I am right now in life, maybe I’ll just share the kind of coping mechanism that has worked for me. These days, and a few months prior, I have been intentionally keeping myself occupied with some pet projects. The idea is, to focus on the brighter sides of things in this dark life we’ve stumbled upon, right? Whatever – but here’s a few I’ve done that you and I might share a thing or two in common with:

Tiang Space and 1000 Startup Digital

Although mostly virtual, my baby Tiang Space that was supposed to launch this summer break (not Australian summer), is now participating in this massive, national event to boost our startup ecosystem around the country along with 16 other cities. We’re at phase two now (out of 5) and anyone from anywhere is more than welcome to join our series of free events here: Click this to learn more or even apply. Make sure you choose Mataram when applying if you wanna be a part of our group 🙂

Runcing Foundation’s First Scholarship Batch

All my life I have been extremely privileged to go learn things fully sponsored, a.k.a scholarship. My ambitious ass has been taking me to places in the world to see Obama, talking to Ban Ki Moon in high school years, or even a chance to turn down a few scholarship offers my way because I was aiming for something bigger (although I failed to secure the bigger fish lol). Bottom line is that it feels nice to feel valued and truly supported for what people feel you are capable of in this life and beyond. At Runcing, I have every chance of turning a dream into reality, to really pay it forward, to those whose heart is screaming to reach for the stars but really life has made it really, really difficult for some people to even get a fair start to get anywhere. Some have to fight a million times harder.

With this, I’m asking you kindly to take a look at this program and help me and my team to keep around 60-90 remarkable students of 7th-12th grade in school. We have everything in place from supervisor, school partners, etc to ensure we deliver this mission. That we use every penny extremely with extreme care to details and responsibly. If you could spare your coffee money today or buy that fancy shoes on your next payday 🙂 that would mean the world to me and I sure as hell would grab drinks with you (this does not sound great but ok). Or click below to have a chat with me:

Inspira ID

This initiative is fresh from the oven. A prominent, inspiring celeb friend asked if I’m keen on helping some of the brightest students in Indonesia to gain free mentoring from figures they might look up to to succeed in their future career, it’s a million times yes. So we are now open for anyone still in university, looking for one on one mentoring from some of the best minds, here is your chance to explore your potential deeper and carve the kind of future you want. All starts here.

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There’s a lot more going on than what I can tell you now from coffee to property to travel industry to digital agency to how to dodge shitty lawyers. But I’m a lazy ass who loves to sleep in early now. So adios amigos. zzzzz.

Quick Check-in:

  • Just a week ago, I decided to move back again to hustle in my adopted city of Big Durian to join a team of a leading insurtech startup in the country and beyond.
  • The immense amount of ongoing work in my paradise home Lombok is still under a great control, hoping it’d stay that way , thanks to best of the best gurus for teaching me to be virtually omnipresent from faraway places, and to tech.
  • Just turned 26 yesterday and felt still younger than ever, considering 80% of mis amigos are in the club thirties hehe.
  • Keen on buying me gifts? 🙂 Here’s a link for you to help keep hundreds of incredibly remarkable students (grade 7-12) from Lombok, Sumbawa, NTT, to continue pursuing their potentials in across 5 selected schools in Lombok. All this volunteer work managed by Runcing Foundation.
  • I’m still unmarried, have zero kids, no dogs anymore, but attached with a list of other expectations in my back.
  • The shithole I’ve been put through since early COVID (February onwards) is still a chapter I’m struggling to close with literally everything that I have left.
  • Never in my life I had to involve service of three different lawyers to help sort my shit.
  • I also lost a great best friend in the midst of the great turbulence. You can’t keep people whom you no longer gravitate towards and serve the same purpose.
  • I blocked JK Rowling account and Elon Musk. I feel sorry coming from a generation that still worships big figures that are extremely lacking in the human department and equality.

I will write more when I have time, I swear. gotta wear mask and buy that IKEA shit now because what else are jakartans doing on a weekend in pandemic ryte if not playing tennis or collecting plants. Cheers!