Dear Stranger,

The stranger on the train.

Have you ever wondered why it's possible to have the deepest
and most profound conversation with someone you've only just
met. The man on the train. The woman on the plane.

It's often while travelling, and it happens rarely. But when
it does, it can be remarkable.

You confide in each other to an amazing degree. It's somehow
easy for you to see one another's Big Picture.

Perhaps it's because you know you're unlikely to see one
another again. Maybe it's that you've got the other person's
undivided attention for quite a long, but finite time.

Whatever it is, there's something really powerful about this
idea of safely exchanging confidences with someone you don't
really know.

Written by Jon (Moodscope team), from a daily Moodscope e-mail dated July 14, 2010.

I just like the idea how I thought of this on the same day, and then there's the e-mail. And of course, because I love Deeper Conversation. Only because I love to dissect one's heart and soul - is that even ethical?

Also, it is because it helps you to see the World and Life.

I want to see the world and be nomadic in between twisted liberal and moderate perseverance of conservative ideologies.

Menyeluruh

Apa entah sebenarnya yang kita semua kehendaki dalam kehidupan ni? Tentu kamu para pembaca bisa saja meyenaraikannya dengan panjang. Kereta mewah, rumah mewah bersertakan dekorasi moden, karier, cinta hati dan sebagainya. Kononnya itulah komponen kehidupan yang utama. Yang akan merangkumi kehidupan kita. Yang kononnya, akan menyeluruhi kita.

Persoalannya, sejauh manakah kebenarannya itu?

Hasrat aku untuk menulis semakin membuak sepanjang bulan Jun, tetapi kemahuan aku hanyut mengikut arus kehidupan. Melupakan penulisan bukan lah suatu perbuatan membuang masa, malah pemangkin kehidupan. Dengan menulis, seseorang dapat mencungkil buah pemikirannya serta membina integrasi dunia luaran dan dalaman. Tetapi tidak, aku alpa dengan kehidupan dan kerenahnya.

Dengan tidak sedar, yang masih difikirkan kenyataanya sudah jauh ketinggalan mengikut peredaran Masa. Tetapi kepala aku degil, sering mahu lawan arus. Percubaan aku untuk mencernakan babak-babak kehidupan sepanjang tahun masih lagi berlanjutan. Tiada penghujungnya. Masih terkapai-kapai memberi pengertian kepada setiap satu. Masih bergerak ke hadapan, tetapi masih juga lagi berundur sekali-kala. Rasanya seperti Masa iri hati akan kita. Al-Asr.

Umpamanya seperti memandu kereta dengan laju di lebuhraya dalam perjalanan jarak jauh seakan berlumba dengan Masa. Atau pemikiran kita sendiri.

Kenyataanya, ke mana hendak kita lari? Ianya masih di situ. Walaupun kamu lari ke penghujung dunia sekali pun, ia masih di situ. Semuannya di dalam kepala kamu sahaja.

Aku duduk terpaku di sebelah tubuh beliau. Hatiku gundah. Otakku memikirkan akan kehidupan, kuasa Mutlak, dan Masa. Aku runsing melihat individu-individu di sekeliling yang mungkin seperti diri aku sendiri. Fikiranku melayang ke alam rohani. Segala persoalan muncul.

Tetapi mungkin perbuatan aku itu semua sama ada interpersonally, atau intrapersonally, tidak rasional mengikut aspek metafizik dan rohani. Kun fayakun. Jadi, maka jadilah. Mungkin beliau sudah pun menyeluruhi kehidupannya dari segala aspek.

Kemudian segala pemikiran aku yang pada asalnya ditujukan kepada beliau berpaling kepada kita.

Adakah yang dicari oleh kita semua akan menjamin proses penyeluruhan kehidupan kita? Adakah pencarian kita akan membawa kita ke arah Fully-Functioning Self Rogers dan Self-Actualization Maslow? Berbaloikah kehidupan kita yang bertahun-tahun lamanya? Atau mungkin kita akan menjalani kehidupan personal-growth yang mendatar? Tiada perubahan. Tiada kemajuan Diri. Alangkah pilunya jika begitu?

Segala bab-bab yang dipelajari dari Developmental Psychology: the Journey of Adulthood pada semester terakhir aku dimuntahkan semula bulat-bulat. Social Roles and Relationship, Work and Retirement, The Quest for Meaning, Death and Bereavement, The Successful Journey.

Aku sering memikirkan fasa kehidupan individu-individu di sekeliling aku. Lagi-lagi beliau yang terbaring di hadapan aku.

Aku akui aku masih mentah untuk memberi pandangan menyeluruh tentang kehidupan. Apa yang dipelajari adalah teori semata-mata. Masih suku perjalanan kehidupan aku, sudah pun mengeluh berpanjangan. Masih lagi mencari penetapan, kebebasan and diri.

Mungkin segala kejadian yang berintikan plot Kematian adalah peringatan halus untuk kita semua. Masih ada Ruang dan Masa untuk kita membentuk Diri, menyuntikan pengertian serta mengecapi awangan sambil berpijak di bumi yang nyata.

Sound easy? Wait until you realise there's more to Life.

Al-Fatihah buat Tok Mak, Allahyarhamha Salbiah binti Abdul Rahim.

Within

I always have the sense that the words are coming out of my body, not just my mind. (…) There’s something about the rhythms of language that correspond to the rhythms of our own bodies. An attentive reader is finding meanings in the book that can’t be articulated, finding them in his or her body. I think this is what so many people don’t understand about fiction. Poetry is supposed to be musical. But people don’t understand prose. They’re so used to reading journalism - clunky, functional sentences that convey factual information. Facts… just the surfaces of things.

Paul Auster, interviewed by Jonathan Lethem (the Believer Book of Writers talking to Writers)

Romantisch I

The thing about humans is that we yearn. We yearn for that great Life component. But what differs individuals in this yearning or search, is the extreme passion seeking for that great Life component. Maybe the very entity and component itself.

When Romanticism bloomed in the late 18th century, young German scholars were driven over individualistic notion ever since the Renaissance. Kant was absorbed into their daily philosophies. Das Ding an sich. Or the Thing in itself. These fellow Romantics believed that the Ego, much like Freud's das Ich (the Ego) facilitate greatly in one's knowledge and cognition. They worshiped the Ego. They believed in the most romantic things like the Soul, yearning, imagination, feeling and experience. And believe me, they are beautiful, egocentric and romantic Souls!

But please do not confuse Romanticism with your modern chic literature rubbish.

So what these fellow Romantics (e.g. Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Schiller, Byron, Coleridge) believed was that art has a deeper meaning to it. When one bridges the link between the external and internal worlds, a significant masterpiece of the internal world is being portrayed.

They were Souls who yearn for the most distant, abstract and metaphysical things. Not your usual face-value affections. They were in a search for something deeper than the seven seas. They believed in Perfection and completion. I dare to bet they'd take lines like Muse's Hysteria "Give me your Heart and your Soul" seriously.

Goethe, a romantic himself, introduced the concept of 'unrequited love' in his The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).

So what happens when they do not achieve their perceived Perfection? Or when they do not attain their great Life component to Perfection and make them feel as a whole?

Integral.

You know what is wickedly right? The Clot (Read) or al-Alaq.

As you grow older, your perceptions grow with you. Of course, we develop at different rates. And may God bless the poor souls who aren't able to move beyond their egocentric nature. Or see the world and Life from a much beautiful view. The best part is, the beauty never stops!

Now now, individuals develop at different rates. Why of course, in accordance to one's lifestyle and exposure. Maybe even area of interest. But then again, that doesn't really matter because when you have that panoramic view, you'd know it really is about Integration. One interest correlates to another. As Gestalt says, the whole is greater than its parts.

My point is, before I write any ridiculous posts further, I'd have to double check my facts to avoid inaccuracy, plagiarism and the sort. Such action my friend, contradicts my old writing habit, and I'd like to view this as personal growth.

To our Life search!