The Cycles of The Ages
“Hard times bring forth strong men.
Strong men bring forth good times.
Good times bring forth weak men.
Weak men bring forth hard times.”
~people of the earth~
Keindahan Memberi
Adakah engkau melihat keindahan dari kehidupan manusia?
Engkau bekerja, membantu kesibukan para petinggi, mereka membayarmu.
Engkau belajar, memahami ilmu tentang alam, ilmu membantu kehidupanmu.
Apa yang diberi akan dibalas, tanpa rasa dengki agar berbekas.
Dibalas tak selalu dengan tangan, tapi selalu meninggalkan kesan.
Manusia selalu lupa bahwa dia tak hidup sendiri.
Seolah-olah dunia ialah miliknya pribadi.
Ia sedikit memberi, namun merasa kurang atas apa yang didapatkan dari orang lain.
Sampai suatu saat ia bersedih tak melihat satu kebaikan pun datang. Benih-benih kebaikan itu telah layu sebelum tumbuh.
Ada pula manusia yang banyak memberi, namun masih belum merasa cukup untuk membalas kebaikan orang lain.
Sampai suatu ketika orang lain membalas apa yang telah ia berikan, ia tersenyum karena kebaikan itu pulang kembali kepada tuannya.
Kebaikan datang tanpa harus dipanggil oleh tuannya.
Itulah indahnya memberi.
Yang Terlupakan
Di sela kesibukan bekerja, banyak hal yang mulai terlupakan.
Mengurus keperluan sehari-hari…
Merencanakan kegiatan akhir pekan…
Tiba-tiba telpon berdering…
“Halo, Ibu. Apa kabar Bu?”
“Baik-baik saja nak”
“Alhamdulillah. Lama tidak mendengar kabar Ibu.”
“Nenekmu berkunjung ke rumah minggu ini. Ndak mau pulang ke rumah juga?”
“Mau Bu. Insyaallah. Saya akan mengunjungi kalian minggu ini. ”
Akhirnya anak muda tersebut pulang ke rumah.
Sampailah ia di rumah dan mengucap salam kepada seisinya.
“Assalamulaikum”
“Waalaikumsalam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh”, jawab seorang nenek dengan lirihnya.
Tiba-tiba di pikiran anak muda tersebut terlintas kenangan masa kecil…
Seorang nenek duduk memangku cucunya seorang diri…
Menyanyikan lagu sebelum dia tertidur..
Menemani si cucu bermain di waktu siang…
Senyum nenek terlihat sangat bahagia…
23 tahun berlalu, kini sang nenek semakin tua…
Kini sakit-sakitan…
Terkadang ia lupa apa yang mau ia lakukan…
Tak semua hal yang terlupa, yang masih teringat adalah wajah cucunya yang sudah menjadi seorang pemuda…
Sang cucu akhirnya bertemu kembali dengan nenek…
Nenek pun tersenyum…
Senyum itu seperti senyum 23 tahun yang lalu…
Si cucu tak ikut tersenyum, malah bersedih…
“Apa yang engkau tangisi nak?”, tanya nenek.
“Aku tak tahu bagaimana aku bisa membalas apa yang telah engkau berikan di masa lalu”, jawab si cucu.
“Hal itu tak perlu engkau khawatirkan. Berjumpa denganmu sudah membuatku bahagia.”
“Betapa ruginya aku. Setiap hari aku bekerja, tak pernah sempat memikirkan kalian semua. Mengapa baru ditelpon aku baru teringat pulang ke rumah. Tak ada tempat yang lebih damai, selain berada di rumah ini bersama kalian.”
“Jangan disesali nak. Kini engkau sudah di sini. Nikmatilah selagi engkau bisa. Mungkin kita tak pernah bertemu lagi.”
“Aku khawatir pertemuan kita akan sesingkat ini.”
“Beginilah kehidupan nak. Ada awal dan ada juga akhir. Kita mungkin tidak akan berjumpa lagi. Tetapi ingat, janganlah kenyataan ini membuatmu lupa. Apa yang telah kuberikan di masa lalu teruskanlah ke generasimu selanjutnya. Ia tak akan pernah tergantikan oleh uang. Ia juga tak bisa dibeli dengan uang. Ia datang tak memandang miskin atau kaya. Tak semua orang bisa memberikannya sembarangan, bahkan jika engkau memberikannya segunung uang. Kau tahu apa itu? Kasih sayang. Berikanlah selagi engkau masih berada di dunia.”
Sang cucu pun akhirnya tersenyum, lalu memeluk neneknya erat seakan hari esok tak pernah ada.
First Odontectomy Experience
It was Wednesday, 2017 May 3rd, when I visited Harapan Bunda hospital in West Jakarta. I went there to have Odontectomy. For those who not yet knowing that term, it’s about pulling your teeth out of your mouth. Young people usually take this action since they might catch pain in the mouth. What cause the pain is that their wisdom teeth, located deep in the mouth, press the gum or scratch the inner surface of cheek. That was my second visit to the hospital. The first visit is to consult the doctor and make the appointment. I have got toothaches three times since the existence of the wisdom tooth. It happened sooo long that at that day I decided to say a goodbye to “her”.
I found an interesting lesson there, so I really want write this story. Everything looked different there compared to the outside world. In the outside world, you see ideal things, like healthy people, and luxury of the world. In hospital, you won’t find those things. My mind changed so quickly as I found sick people laying on the bed staring blank and poor people rushed to deal with BPJS insurance complexity while what they really want is simply an affordable disease treatment. At another moment, I felt so pity when I looked a little cute baby, *wait a minute* with an abnormal mouth. Her mouth has four lips, without nose. God, how she took the breath. She must know how to do it safely. Not like other babies around, she stared left and right without any noise, no cry, silent, just wandering eyes. Well, it was cuteness and creepiness at the same time. I can’t imagine how her future will be. Her mother sat beside her waiting for her father coming back from somewhere. Her mother looks so calm and patient. I think she got kind parents who accept her condition with their deepest heart. God bless you kid.
That moment makes me think twice about my life. Sometimes, many of us complain hard about our condition. Even with the chance to work and to enjoy the life to the fullest, we still feel that those are not enough. We still ask why we don’t get life that comfortable. In the other side of world, there are people who are born in less fortunate physics than us which might be unresolved even in the hard way to become the “perfect” us.
Okay, back to the topic. The surgery time had come and I was ready to have my tooth pulled out. I want to say that it was really a surgery because the doctor needed to cut some parts of my gum before the tooth pulling action got started, because the gum covered the tooth. To start the surgery, the doctor cleaned my face and my mouth with iodine water. Any left bacteria will leave an infection and she needed to prevent it. The second step was to inject anesthetics. It took 4 shots and 30 minutes waiting time until my mouth lost its pain sensation. Next, the doctor started to cut the gum. Well, nothing bad happened, no pain occurred. Then, the doctor told me to be ready, because she said it would not be going to be easy because the tooth was attached strongly to the mouth. “Ok Doc, Ok. I trust you.”, I said. The first pulling trial left no result. Screwdriver and pliers did not work. Well, I felt my jaw was going to break one more if she pull it once more. The time was running out, and I still didn’t understand why the doctor still wandered how to get that nasty tooth out . The anesthetics faded slowly, but the surgery was still far from its end. I felt pain slowly, but in certain way. “Doc, please give me more drugs”, I said. *drug addiction?* The doctor gave me the second shots of anesthetics. She finally figured out that the tooth pegged into two ways, one peg stood vertically, and another peg stood horizontally. This made traditionally pulling the tooth one way is not effective. She decided to break the tooth into two parts, so that both parts can be pulled in the different ways. Amazingly, it worked. The surgery was successful, but the post-surgery effect left an unbearable pain in my mouth. That pain was the worst in my toothache history ever. Well, no surgery is painless, right?
After going home, I got curious about how another kind of surgery looks like. I browsed the Youtube videos of brain surgery and any cancer treatment surgery. God, I thought they are more painful that my last surgery I guessed, because they have a bunch of cuts. Mine only had two cuts, and it was really painful. That surgery experience graved deeply a message in me that surgery is not only expensive, but also PAINFUL. Well, not every disease ends with surgery, but once you got a serious disease and it needs surgery, it will throw you into a really bad bad day. So, it raised a warning for me one more level to prioritize health over many things and thanks for God to give us health everyday.
I really want to write another story when I visited Penang for a medication effort. I think l’ll write it next time. Thanks for reading.
Improving Time
This week I tried to rent a motorbike in Jakarta. It cost around 260K rupiahs for three days. The package includes two helmets and a motor tax paper. I used it for doing some long rides, like Slipi-Depok and Depok-Pulomas routes. It is about a journey along the outskirt of Jakarta. I like it because I can save more time than if I used trains and buses. I would like to say “it improves my time”. So, why I say so? Let me explain that.
How do you see “time”? In “The Effective Executive” book, time is an nonrenewable resource. Since nothing can substitute time, its value is priceless. Imagine gold or diamond, can you think why it is expensive? Yes, because it is a kind of scarce resource, so does time. Time is an expensive resource. Imagine that you have to spend 4 hours for commuting during works, can you count how much time you can spend for leisures outside work? Yes, it must be 24 hours minus 4 hours minus working time. That will be the time that is deserved for you to have an enjoyable life. If you can cut the commuting time, you can have more of your time and improve your time. You can gather and use that amount of time means that you have spent the most expensive things for your happy life.
My trip like Slipi-Depok, Depok-Pulomas, and Pulomas-Slipi usually took about 90, 120, and 180 minutes respectively. Compared to motorbike ride, it needs 30, 60, and 30 minutes. The latter improves 70% of the travel time of the former. I can understand why many Jakartans ride motorbikes, even though the public transportation networks are massive. I am impressed by the way Transjakarta buses work. They have their own lanes on highways. Everyone expects them to be speedy while other vehicles do some struggles in traffic jams. The problem is that many of those lanes are overlapping with private vehicle roads, making no difference in such a traffic jam situation. Most bus stations are also far from residences; 15 minutes walk for me. Besides, the passengers have to be patient waiting for the bus that can arrive in 30 minutes.
Considering a train, it is the most fastest vehicle in the city, yet not always in time. For reaching some stations, it might stop first in the middle of the way to wait a station entry queue and it can be 30 minutes long. There are another alternatives, such as Uber Moto and GrabBike. At normal usage like taking a 5 minutes trip, the drivers will gladly bring you to the destination. However, they always throw away orders of 30 minutes or more trip. So, there is much uncertainty of transportation in Jakarta. In the other hand, motorbikes offer a full privilege in making trip. They are affordable for personal usages. People even can own it via simple financial credits. Oil becomes cheaper now too.
Considering the rent cost, it is rationally unjustifiable. I took the decision to rent a motorbike as a part of a research to prove the argument that I really need a motorbike. In other occasions, I met some colleagues and they told me I am crazy. They asked me why you spent a lot of money for that thing. Simply, I answered “I am just buying freedom”.
Here I Write Knowledge 