Two souls in one body Two sides in one body Two forms in one body
Wherever I go, I have to carry ’em Don’t ask me how heavy they are Don’t ask me if they bother me or not Don’t ask me how to mess up with ’em
An old soul in young girl’s body; the darkness of the light side; and the devil with an angel’s face
An old soul stays in her body she doesn’t want to let it go The darkness stays along with the light side no matter how hard she drove it away, the darkness would remain in her The devil wants to turn into an angel just to cheat on me and you trapped me in and you in a cunning game but, I refuse to give up so, I’ll free the devil from my soul
Everyone makes mistakes. Not only an amateur writer, but a pro or someone who has long experience on writing might do the mistakes. Making mistakes is normal as long as you know how to fix it and promise yourself to not doing the same thing again in the future. Today I want to write and share this article for you as a reminder for you and for me to not making these following mistakes below.
Waiting for an inspiration. An inspiration was not awaited, but sought. If you just waiting for inspiration comes to you, you’ll never ever write. So, how do you get the inspirations? There’re many ways to get the inspirations. But, the most important thing among them all is read a lot. I think there’s no amazing writer who doesn’t like reading. Without read a lot, your understanding of something is very limited. Beside that, your writing will be monotone and boring because you only write about the same thing too many times. Another ways that you can try are watching TV news, watching a movie, listening to music, attending workshop/training/colloquium/discussion even travelling-domesticaly or internationally. Write something that you like or closest to your life experience.
Imitating others’ style. I believe everyone has unique and different writing style. I know that media always has tendency to like a writing with certain style more which is considered suit their tastes. I also know that a writing we made should be understandable for readers so that the informations and messages can be conveyed to the readers. There’s nothing wrong when we admire others’ writing style. But, we don’t need to write like him/her. Write like yourself with your own writing style. No need to think too much about people’s judgements. They have the right to like or dislike our writing. If they don’t like our writing style, doesn’t mean our writing are suck. Bad according to them is not necessarily bad according to others. No need to push yourself too hard to always follow the trend or market tastes. Be yourself and show your different colors to the world.
Inconsistent on writing. If you want to be great writer, keep practicing writing. Your talent is nothing without learning and practicing. You can be defeated by those who keep practicing diligently. Don’t make writer’s block and lack of inspirations your reasons to not writing. Don’t let the number of readers, like and hate comments affect your spirit on writing. Writing needs patience, perserverance and consistency. Being a great writer takes long process that is not instant.
Have you ever made those mistakes? Are there any other mistakes you have made? It’s okay to make mistakes. You always can learn something new from them.
Have a great day everyone! Don’t forget to be happy.
[And said] “If you do good, you do good for youselves; if you do evil (you do it) to yourselves.” Then when the final promise came.[We sent your enemies] to sadden your faces and to enter the temple in Jerussalem,as they entered it the first time,and to destroy what they had taken over with [total] destruction.
(Surah Al-Isra : 7-Noble Qur’an with English Translation)
If you are asked, what’s your life purpose? How do you answer it? The answers might be different from one to another, based on how you see this life from your own perspectives. But, most of them want to be helpful person to others. We want to be someone who can share kindness and love toward others, especially people whom we loved.
Benefit is the result from what we have done. For example, you have good habit and lifestyle, like eat healthy food, doing exercise, enough sleeping, good at handling stress etc., so you can be healthy, both physically and mentally. Having healthy body and mind is the benefit of implementing good habit and lifestyle.
Another example, you like reading in your spare time. You like reading everything. Book, newspaper, magazines, online articles etc. You like to read various topics. Politic, law, economic and business, humanities, technology, health, literature even entertainment etc. Because of this habit, you have broad knowledges so you can get many ideas and inspirations to write something. Having broad knowledges and many ideas to write are the benefit you can get from reading.
Meanwhile, the purpose or goals is something we would like to achieve in the future. Everyone wants to reach the success in their life. Whether it’s about academic, career, friendship, love etc. Success can be achieved with effort and prayer. Or with some bad acts, like bring others down. But, I won’t talk about the second thing.
In this case, reaching a success is the goals, meanwhile effort and prayer are the way you choose to reach the goals. If the success make us being a person who loves to share and inspiring others, means our success have already given benefit for ourselves and others.
The next question is, has your success (including mine) been able to benefit for others, at least for the people who’s closest to you (read : family and friends)? The answer is only known by you and God. But, I’ll give you some questions more which can help you to answer it (I hope it’ll help you).
Does the success keep you humble or arrogant? Does the success make you love and respect people around you more (esp. family and friends) or make you more ignorant to them? Does the success make you more grateful to God or make you more forgetful to thank Him (If you have beliefs that God is exists, you may answer it. But, if don’t, I won’t force you to answer)? And the last, does your success make you more mature and wise in seeing your life or make you become narrow-minded and heartless?
These questions aren’t only for you, but for me too. I’m sorry I give you too much questions in my writing today.
Have a great day everyone! Don’t forget to be happy.
I’m used to working individually or in teams, so are you. Working in teams is more difficult, challenging but fun at the same time. Why do I say it’s more difficult and challenging? Because, in a team always consist of many people from different character, habit, thoughts and background meanwhile we would like to make the goals and aims come true. Here, we have to learn how to put yourself well in the team. There’re always problems and conflicts. But, we can grow up together to be more mature because of them.
In a team, we can find teammates who are quiet or talkative, cool and calm or bold and daring, laid-back or perfectionist, humorous or serious, etc. And I bet you have teammates who are critical and opinionated. Critical person usually straight-forward and not afraid to stand up for him/herself or others. They are not afraid to say “wrong” if it’s wrong and “right” if it’s right. They tend to be not caring of what others think and say. As long as they have logical reasons to do or say something (especially if they disagree with something), then go for it.
They often misunderstood by people as intimidating, judgemental and hard-headed. So, according to the title, what’s the difference between hard-headed and critical person?
Critical (adj.) 1. indicating the faults in somebody/something or one’s disapproval of somebody/something; (2) [attrib] of or relating to judgement or analysis of something, esp literature, art etc; (3) (a) of or at a crisis, e.g. We are at a critical time in our country’s history; The patient’s condition is critical (b) of the greatest importance/crucial. Meanwhile hard-headed (adj.) means not allowing one’s emotions to affect one’s opinions or decisions. [1]
A critical person usually don’t trust someone/something easily. When they receive information or news, they’ll check the validity and truth first before they decide to trust it or not. They have “good eyes” to indicate mistakes on someone/something even the smallest things and they know how to correct them.
A hard-headed person usually has problem in understanding others feeling and needs. They rarely want to listen to others and hard to advised. These kind of people often gave a hard time to their parents and teachers when they were children.
These two kind of characters often make people irritated. Critical people are considered annoying because they put too much attention on small things and details which most people don’t think is important. Even they can nagging on small mistakes. Meanwhile hard-headed people are considered irritating because they often disobey the rules or others words. Whereas the rules or what people said might be right and good for them. But, their hard-headedness make them hard to listen to others.
So, how do you deal with these kind of people, especially in your team? Based on my own experience, having critical teammates is an advantage for me because their existence have opened my eyes and mind to be more objective and see the problems from different angle. Their existence can make a team more dynamic, colorful and different in implementing the ideas.
Sometimes, dealing with hard-headed people can drain my patience. But, I need to control myself when I talk to them, especially when I disagree with them and want to refute their opinions. If I feel like I’d lose control, I’d rather succumb and calm myself down than get into heated argument with them (tbh, I don’t really like arguing with others even though I’m right. Because I might hurt them, both mentally and physically, if I force myself to get in when my emotions aren’t stable).
Have a great day everyone! Don’t forget to be happy.
Reference :
[1] Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 1995
Working on entertainment industry is not easy. As an artist or the person who works in art/entertainment field (whether they’re a musician, singer, actor/actress, dancer, comedian etc), they are required to have “something” unique that distinguishes them from others. They are required to be creative so the people will not bore.
An artist who works in entertainment industry is required to have fit, healthy body and good stamina in every condition. They are required to always look perfect from head to toe. Always smiling in front of camera and media. They aren’t allowed to show that they’re tired or sad in front of their fans. In fact, they’re just human, like us, who have feeling and emotions. They can feel happy, joy, sad, angry, tired, bore, stress etc. But, they have no freedom to show it to others because of their job (and responsibility) or they will be labeled as unprofessional.
Media also has a role in creating an image of the artist in public’s eyes. Tbh, entertainment industry prone to “racism” and “discrimination“. Media helped to form a single standard of beauty and brainwashed others to believe in it.
In Indonesia, entertainment industry is dominated by the mixed-blooded artists who have “western look” (white skin, tall, slim, pointed nose etc) meanwhile the “brown people” artists (Indonesian people are classified as Malay race which has brown or tan skin color as their characteristics. So, I used the term “brown people” to describe it.) are fewer in number. That’s why I have a thought, “are we brown people not more beautiful/handsome than those who are white people?”
portrait of Indonesia woman in traditional clothes-source : pinterest.com
Many people are finally attracted to this profession with assumption that they can get everything they wants. Popularity, fans, attention, money, big house, luxurious car and boys/girls are standing in a row hoping to be theirs. Having all of them can make your social status go higher in the society.
The Price An Artist Must Pay To Maintain Its Existence And Popularity
But, there’s no free things in this world. There’s any price you have to pay for that luxury. You have no privacy anymore because people always want to know everything you do. The media will inevitably hunt down the latest and hottest news or gossips about you to satisfy public’s curiousity.
You can’t enjoy the freedom anymore like an ordinary people because there’re always paparazzi who follow you quietly wherever you go. You make a little mistake and it’s captured by the camera, people all over the world will know what you’ve done. Blasphemy, insults and judgments will be addressed to you.
illustration of paparazzi-source : pixabay.com
The demands to always be perfect, no matter the age is no longer young, then many newcomers who’re younger, prettier/handsome and talented, make them have to struggle to maintain their existence and popularuty in entertainment industry. “I can’t lose my fans”, maybe this thought is on their minds. This is what ultimately make them stress and depressed. Finally, drugs become their escape. Or even worse is suicidal.
Drugs and Creativity
There’re 3 types of drugs that usually used by an artist : dumolid, shabu and marijuana. All three are used to strenghten the stamina of the artists who have tight and busy schedules. They live under pressure with limited privacy, looking for tranquility through drugs consumed.
Many people and famous artists claimed that using psychoactive substances can increase creativity. The use of alcohol and marijuana can encourage them to enter the “trance” (half conscious condition in a creative process).
A Dutch study of 60 people showed that using low-dose marijuana had no effect on increasing someone’s creativity. While the use of high-dose marijuana significantly decrease creativity. Zsolt Demetrovics, a researcher from Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, said that assumption of correlation between creativity and use of drugs was not clear, whether there was scientific support or not.
The Reasons Why Many Parents Forbid Their Children to be An Artist
Therefore, many parents don’t agree or forbid their children to pursue their career as an artist. They consider that an artist is a person who has no bright future. They consider artists are morally damaged, disorganize and disobey the rules because of their principle of “free life”. Alcoholic, drugs user, marry and divorce too many times are negative stigma that often addressed to an artist. This is why, many parents want their children to choose “safe jobs” with fixed salary so they can guarantee their lives when they’re getting older.
This negative stigma doesn’t occur without reason. Because they saw those bad acts done by the artists and media exposed them too much.
Art is a beauty. Art is beautiful and delicate. The quality of artwork depends on the extent to which its ability in describing the reality and touch human feelings.
Art isn’t only about aesthetics but also ethics. Using drugs to increase creativity should not be used as an excuses because it actually shows that you have no ethics as an artist.
Happy Sunday Morning. Have a great day. Don’t forget to be happy.
Some people assume that literature is just a fiction and imagination. Not scientific. So, its existence is often underestimated by them. Reading a literature work is assumed as unimportant and useless. In fact, a literature work contains of many life lessons and moral values without patronizing the readers.
I have no literary blood from my family. There’s no one in my family works in the literature field. Most of them are not literature lovers too. I also never studied literature through formal education. I’m not literature student. I took natural science as my major in high school. Then I studied accounting when I entered the college. So, how can I fall in love with literature?
That’s because of my father. My father is the first person who introduced- and later, make me fall in love with literature. My father used to subscribe to the Sunday-morning newspaper and magazines too. Luckily, there’s a literature column in the newspaper which contains poetry and short stories sent by the readers. I loved to read them all even though I didn’t really understand what’s the poetry and short stories talking about and the meaning behind them. But, I enjoyed how the writers expressed their thoughts and feeling through the string of words beautifully.
My father likes to read literary novels and owns a lot. Some of them were taken home, and he kept the rest at his home in Jakarta (my father works at another city and he returns to home in Yogyakarta once every month). Historical roman is what he likes the most.
One of my father’s treasure. I found it when I cleaning. I haven’t finished it yet. source : private document
When I was in middle and high school, I joined in journalistic club at my school. In a journalistic club, I found friends who have an interest in literature and I learned a lot from them.I remembered my Indonesian teachers quite often give us assignments to write short stories, poems, make a review of literature work etc. Even one of my teacher has told us to collect our poems and short stories into a book. My friends often complained when they got writing assignments. But, not for me. For me, writing is love, writing is life.
Literature has made me fall in love with words, crazy about diction and thirsty for meaning. Literature has awakened my awareness to be human being who brings all past, wounds, tears, laughter and hopes, then assembling them into a complete story of the future. Helping me in understanding humanity and its culture better (yeah, I love the things related to humanity and culture). And now, I realize that we are the main character of our respective stories even though we are only supporting character or cameo in other’s stories.
Have a great day everyone! Don’t forget to be happy.
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