Perlu

Akhir 2012, banyak teman menjawil saya di dunia maya.

"Tonton Life of Pi, Syhur," kata mereka.

"Lo katanya ngajar malah main film," sergah teman lain lagi.

Ketika saya sempatkan melihat film itu, saya sudah bosan menyanggah kemiripan saya dengan pemeran utamanya. Harus diakui memang, paling tidak dekilnya sama antara Pi di Pasifik dan saya di Banggai.

Tapi menurut mereka kemiripan ini tak cuma tentang perawakan Pi saja. Teman-teman saya terbahak melihat saya menyanggah anggapan mereka bahwa upaya Pi menghafal nilai konstanta pi itu tipikal kelakuan saya. Ketika keluarga Pi berkomentar bahwa tiap minggu ia punya agama baru, saya diam saja deh biar digoda-goda juga.

Be angry

"First they came for the Ahmadis and the Shias,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't an Ahmadi or a Shia.

Then they came for the queers,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a queer.

Then they came for the members of GKI Yasmin,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Christian.

Then they came for the atheists,

and I didn't speak out because I'm a believer.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak out for me." 

- Niemöller, re-written.

I am not who you should be worried about. I am not who you should take offense from. Your God is not less great because I don't believe in him.

You don't think your God is any less great because one billion people are Catholics. You don't think your God is any less great because the Hindus worship Shiva Brahma and Vishnu. You don't think your God is any less great because the Japanese never bow to a distant Arab land.

So no, your God is not any less great even if I wrote a Facebook status that claims otherwise.

So chill.

But if you are so keen in winning back my worship, there is one thing you can do: be angry.

Be angry when a man is mobbed for voicing his thought. Be angry when the Ahmaddiyah and the Shia fear for their life. Be angry when the congregation of GKI Yasmin are forced to worship their God from the sidewalk.

Be righteously angry.

Because docility repels me.

Show me you can tolerate others with disagreeing view. Show me you are compassionate to the weak. Show me that you, as your prophet before you, are not legitimizing those who are forcing their minority view.

Much less shoving it down the throats of the helpless few, bullied and intimidated into conformance.

Then even if you don't have the answers to all my questions, I will hold you in renewed respect. Your lessons I will listen with open ears, with less prejudice than I would otherwise hold.

And perhaps that would even make your God looks upon you with pride.

The morbid gift and the religious leap

A thought popped in to my head.

So understandably, I groaned. Because I knew then I wouldn't get any sleep. I was trying to steal a nap before the next class, you see. To compensate my diminishing nighttime sleeping hours.

So I weighed it in, remembering that the only way to get rid of an earworm is to sing it through, to complete the whole song. And then I decided to just go ahead and follow the thought-thread.

Tangle of thought-threads

Gila yah, ternyata susah nulis yang emo-emoan kalau situasinya adalah: a. besok mulai weekend. b. perut kenyang. c. udaranya mendung enak, ga terlalu panas.

But in truth I have been brooding this past week. The reasons are nothing new, I was just mulling it over and over and again, compounded with anxiety of first time attending special lecture in astronomy to obtain credits, final exam for japanese reading class--intermediate level, the looming conference, plus the fact that I had no clue whether I am supposed to write a report for other classes I attend this semester.

But now a cool Friday evening descended upon Astro Plaza, and save for the cicadas' constant cacophony, it's really quiet so I shall now try to disentangle the threads of thoughts that had been keeping my mind between a hard place and a horrible place.

We shall start with the first thread (out of three, but I'm not sure I'm ready to write about the third): of falling out of religion and parental hopes and expectations.

(If you have a delicate mind, or especially conservative, my following rants may offend you. Save us both the hassle and do not continue. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.)