Of Doodling

At first, I thought it was only me. But if you were elementary schooled in Indonesia during the 80 and 90’s perhaps you are familiar with it too. I am talking about the formulaic recipe of drawing Indonesian scenery.

At one point or another we probably drew bright blue sky, two mountains and a sun, green rice field to the left and right of an asphalt road. The variations generally on the shading technique, additional hut and car, birds, and the lamp post.

I asked some of my friends in the office, and they confirmed it. We had fun joking about it afterwards. It was pretty nostalgic and brought back recollections of our childhood.

There was this program called ‘Gemar Menggambar’ on the telly hosted by the late Pak Tino Sidin. All of us have a very fond memory of him. It was so fascinating to see him brilliantly create illustrations from some simple lines and curves.

He also had this session where children all over the country send their works and given comment by the good man. He’s the one coined the ever popular phrase, ‘Yak Bagus’. Definitely The Must See TV show back then and we’d be hard pressed to name any of today’s offering as inspirational and educative as that.

Back to the scenery drawings, just like other aspects of public schooling back then, they were all too rigid. During Suharto’s three decades in power indeed there was a vast expansion of public schooling at primary and secondary levels, alongside a significant growth in private education.

The New Order however required public and private schools to teach the same nationally mandated syllabus to all school children. National history along with the Morals of Panca Sila were compulsory subjects, right to the way we dressed and cut our hair.

I’m not saying this is necessarily bad; it probably has its own merit. There’s a tie that bound us all together as a nation. But on another level it killed creativity and suppressed individualistic expression during the times when school kids need to be more expressive and imaginative.

This probably has an indirect effect on our ability to accept and embrace differences. The one official history is, without a doubt, essential in uniting the diverse Indonesians. The doctrinal curriculum on the other hand eliminated any disputes between classes or ethnic groups; social and religious conflict was focused towards the Dutch and Communism.

Critical discourse of issues and alternative interpretations were frowned upon. The social classroom functioned to curb knowledge of difference. Yet the root of conflicts and tension between differing groups were brewing silently in the background. After The New Order collapsed, this tension and conflict has reared its ugly head on plenty of occasions.

When I was little, I used to scribble a lot. I can’t see a white paper or a blank wall without the need to doodle something on it. My parents bless them, luckily allowed me to do just that at the expense of the living room. My drawing teacher though once rebuked me because I drew Superman and Batman on a class assignment. Although I was unhappy, I get back to the usual standard of scenery drawing in no time.

I certainly hope teachers nowadays are astute enough to let little children be as creative as they want to be. Many Tino Sidin, Affandi, Basuki Abdullah, or more could possibly emerge from amongst them.

Of Success and Happiness

A couple of weeks ago, some old high school friends took a trip back to Magelang to inspire the ‘would be graduates’ currently in their third grade. It has been a tradition for sometime now and I’m proud to say that the bond between alumni and the high school is as strong as ever.

I was told that the event was a big hit. A student came to contact me online via one of those social networking site and told me how impressed they were at their older brothers. It’s hard not to be impressed really, amongst the alumni were a vice president of Danamon, members(?) of the honorable KPK, several successful entrepreneurs, air force pilot of the F16, and others holding important positions in some elite organizations at a very young age of thirty.

The student then went on to ask me, what I do for a living and tidbits about my career so far. It was a harmless naive curiosity, yet when juxtaposed with the above, I have to admit that it got me thinking for a bit. When I did mention my occupation, I don’t know if it’s insecurity kicked in or something else, but I could’ve sworn that his reaction was like, meh …

Parading successes of some alumni would do a world of wonders to motivate the students. I certainly hope it will not give a false sense of security among them and thinking that success will come for granted. Life outside the dormitory could be pretty harsh. Even the best and the smartest of alumni had to work hard to get to where they are now.

I also believe that success is a relatively loose term and that in life it's no longer solely linked to privileged or even overseas academic venture, as it once was. Nevertheless, I understand that society at large has its own yardstick to measure success. In the end, most things come down to money. Sad but true. It is still traditionally associated with these five things: beautiful spouse, elite professions, luxurious cars, lavish houses, and expensive hobbies.

I can safely say that I have none of those, well except perhaps beautiful spouse (I had to put this one in, otherwise no dinner for me this week). I am at my early thirty now and while some of my colleagues have set out to do stuffs that would make people around them proud, I had to dig deep to really find things that would stand out from mediocrity.

This usually don’t bother me that much as I’ve accustomed to the fact that there are people who could make things look easy and sharper at responding to the general public demands of success. Or just plain lucky, but you gotta make your own luck in life.

As it happens, I stumbled on a TV program some weeks ago, a motivator, went on to say that The Biggest Mistake a person could make is to aim low and then achieving the target. As I watched there and saw the large audiences nodding in unison, I wondered, have I been one of those? While I can see where he's getting at, I also remember thinking, so what?!

However, add that factor to some nonchalant questions from my junior, and several events that happened during the last holiday, I began to seriously muse on things. Although, true to the form, after questioning my philosophy, instead of actually aiming higher and planning to pull them off, I blog my way out of it. I suppose it's inertia of protracted custom where predictability carries its own comforts.

In my defense (as if I need to), success does not equate happiness. When I look around and look behind, I think I’m pretty happy and content with the way things are in my life. Cynics may cite that I’m easily satisfied, or worse, making the biggest mistake by aiming too low. I’m the only one who knows where I came from, the limitations and the road blocks, my effort all this time, and my contribution to my family and people around me.

Thinking back, it may be simplified over as; have I been a worthy son and a worthy friend? Have I been paying my duty, taxes and brought about benefit to the society?

I could have done better, there’s no question, but when it comes down to that, I could have done a lot worse too.