Again?

Seriously, what is it with you? In an alternate universe, we could probably be the greatest team that the world has ever seen (yeah, I know, I make a reference to One Direction's song). I mean, look at us. Even people who didn't know us well at least knew how close we were. How we bickered and then made up. How you teased me and then kept coming around. Our friends knew the story of me and you and our biggest fight. How I was mad as hell and you were too, but you stayed beside me and fought me, for goodness sake, and I cried but you stayed. You were there the whole time. We got closer every time we fought and made up, and I thought I would be the only one who think so, but then you acknowledged it. How great was that?

We were a team, though probably not the greatest. Yet, came the doomed, unfortunate day when my feelings were stronger than my reason, and I put a closure on it. After that, we were never the same. We were friends, still, but we stopped being a team. You found yourself a girlfriend, I found myself a company. It was us writing our new stories. You may ask me why, or you may not, but between us... there was never a possibility. You made it pretty clear.

So, what is it with you? Times have passed, your girlfriend stays while my doomed, unfortunate company left, and we don't even talk anymore. Why do you come back in a form of, despite being vivid, unreal memory that mercilessly washes over me when I sleep? In this universe, we are done. Perhaps the you in my dream would like to find me and our possibility in our alternate universe? Either way, stop sneaking into my head like this and leave me hanging. By the way, I know that dream, according to Freud, is a kind of sublimation for suppressed id. That might be me and my longing for something I cannot really specify since I don't even know what it is--that might be it, and it takes its form in you. However, that notion is so unromantic, and I decided that you are not a Freudian effect. I prefer it was you who sneaked into my mind.

 

But still, STOP. I love you, but it's not worth it. 

Quarter-life Crisis

Reaching the peak of our 20s (plus the fact that we are all so sinfully ambitious), my friends and I are probably facing our biggest quater-life crisis right now: the choices. 

For me, it always starts with the longing to escape from my job. You see, I'm working my second job. Unlike my first job as a teacher, I love it here. I love translating movies, I love the friends (although you really can't love everyone), I love the routine. It is all perfect except for the shifting (from which I finally managed to escape due to a case with a night company driver) and the management (which is unfitting its famous name), and sometimes the ones who got away (you know, the would-be friends but drifted apart with spite once we encountered the, ahem, night company driver-case). Sometimes it occurs to me that I might be an escapist who simply doesn't like authority, with little trust to people and quick to judge. But it is not for me to say so; it's your job to judge me as I other people. Be honest, we live in a judgmental world.

Anyway, my friends (with each to their own reasons) and I then went to the same intersection that leads to the desire to pursue higher education. Why education? I don't know. My reasons include the confusion of what I really am doing with my life. I feel incapable, lost, stuck, unfulfilled, dissatisfied, and generally unhappy. I noticed, of course, that this is not only my problem. Some people try to provide reasons. I agree to some of them: the conviction that I can do better--I can be at a better place, I am destined to be great, not just another employee in another company--more often than not, backfires. It becomes a burden.

20s is the age of deadlines. Perhaps this deadline's extended to our 30s, but sooner or later it will end. Name it. Marriage, family, education, career... most people want theirs to settle before 30, 35.  In our quarter-life, that leaves us with only 5-10 years. Meanwhile, there are lots of things we want to pursue and those things are no longer the small stuff like the highest grade in class or the books we want to buy. We want a partner in love, not just husband or wife. We want the romance as well as the punctuality. We want a family before we're too old to do anything. We want to learn, to study, to travel, and to know the world. We were told that we can. We want to keep concerning ourselves with issues in life, be it social or humanities or scientific. We want to become a part of the world; we want to contribute. We want to climb our stairs career-wise. We have big dreams, but it all takes time.

I want to study culture and gender and feminism and theology and Islam and media and film and advertising and journalism and creative writing and literature, but I can't study them all. I have to have one focus to pursue. Would I rather pursue practical skills that can be put to work, or pursue what I am passionate about? In a rare case, someone can be so lucky so as to find a string connecting the two. If I pursue the practical skills, will I be happy once I get them to work? If I pursue my passion, will it provide for my life? Would I rather be idealistic or realistic? Can't I be both?

When I finally decided I want to pursue higher education first (because I haven't found the perfect workplace and I haven't had anyone with me to marry), I was faced with yet another set of options. Such was described in previous paragraphs. I made up my mind, or I thought I did, to study Creative Industries. The path is clear. I'm working in media industries as a translator (which can actually lead to two directions: media and/or translation) and I am interested in the relationship between media and culture. Creative Industries major has answers for them. However, it asks me: what will I focus on? I can't just study for the sake of studying. I don't have the answer yet.

I put misery to my life by overthinking it, as usual, and it confuses me too much. I'm not used to not having answers. I am a good student. I'm sure I can follow the classes diligently and successfully, but I'm not used to having to find my own question and answer. What will I do in life? What will I contribute to Indonesia, to the school, to my community? What will I give in return of the money the scholarship will invest on me? Giving answers would be easy; following up and be sincere wouldn't. I can't just say I want this to give me back my self-esteem and satisfy my thirst for knowledge (which will be an honest thing to say).

Anyway, in the midst of confusion, an offer came that almost immediately pull me and my life that way. There's this girl, who is a friend of a friend of mine, who used to test me for novel translation. I contacted her after I decided to quit my current job. Surprisingly, she offers me another novel translation project and even proposes that I become her proofreader next month. Being a proofreader/editor/translator has always been more interesting to me than I want to admit. It seems a simple task, but I truly enjoy it. It is practical, too, so I won't have to worry about not having a job. It is a concrete and sought after job. Without a second thought, I accepted her proposal. It could be a fulfilling freelance job while I complete my requirements for the scholarship. Killing two birds with one stone.

As if it is not enough a joy to hear, she read my CV and saw that I have published a fiction teen literature. She told me she's an editor at a well-known publishing company and encouraged me to send her my novel drafts, if any. She said she would love to edit and revise it if it's deemed worthy of publishing.

Oh, God, mercy!

It's a dream I have gradually forgotten. Buried in my deepest, silent heart. And my heart is never not noisy. I never thought it would come again like a new wounded flesh. So real and so close and so painful--it reminds me that it is still alive and burning.

Therefore, it is natural that I am drawn to the force of this dream. But while my heart is fluttering at the thought of picking up where I left it off, my conscience tugs at me and says, "What about all the plans you have in mind?" What about all the practical skills I have planned to learn? What about the issues and purposes you have prepared to be the key weapons in the scholarship essays and interviews? What about all the plans you have in mind?

I was never one to just abandon my heart, and all these times, things went great if I follow my heart. Moreover, the older I get, the rarer my heart tells me something. I cannot just refuse to hear what it is telling me now. It is fluttering when it hears the news, for God's sake! This is definitely not something I can just walk past by.

What scares me is that it almost immediately made me think I don't need this media and practical skills. I don't need to pretend I'm interested in cultural policy so much that I want to work in that field (because truly, I am interested in studying and learning all about it, but the prospect of working in that field does not appeal to me, like, at all). I am not ambitious to pursue a career in media.

But how much can I profit from writing fictions? If I'm J.K. Rowling, it would probably be enough for life.

I can always translate things. It is so tempting to just take a class and get certification for translation. I can edit books and papers. And then I'll get back to writing stories. I can probably get some published. I can always be an interpreter if I grow tired of seeing papers and documents. I can just take another class of interpretation. Or I can pursue a major in translation, although I still don't think it should happen anytime soon. Or probably I can take a major in literature. You know, studying world literature to see how other countries represent their culture in the books and all the pieces of writings. I can find some ways to represent Indonesia to the eyes of the world. I don't want to be a lecturer... but probably it's for the best? Or I can just be a researcher in Indonesian literature?

You see, I set my heart to writing and publishing and I want to try my best to make something out of it. I know I will, eventually. But it takes time to really break it down and find the concrete answers and then explain it to my parents, because I know they expect the best from me. And they think I'm not destined to be just another somebody. At least, my father does. He sees me as a minister of everything wonderful and foreign and influential. He sees me as a boss of a start-up, promising company. He sees me as a manager from a well-known corporate. He sees me as someone I think I can, but I'm not sure if I want to, become.

Oh, he'll accept my explanation, for sure, but it is scary to see the slight disappointment in his eyes if I seem to be unsure of my future, or if that future is something he does not understand. Still, in this quarter-life, I have to admit I don't know many things. I don't know if this is the right way or that is the correct path instead, or if my life will be prosperous in the future. I'm not good at planning. I don't know the answer to everything, and everything might not go according to plan. And sometimes I don't even know what I want.

It's a lie when they say teenage period is the period of confusion. 

Dying Dreams

Earlier this week, my friend asked me to review his second short article criticizing a theater performance he watched and was disappointed with. Last night, he told me it has been published and asked me to comment on it. This morning, I read it. 

It was an easily understood article. His arguments were strongly elaborated, his complicated and literally-translated terms were sufficiently explained, the article was introduced and concluded nicely... so overall, I think it was a good article. Surely it was, because it has been published. 

Reading the article, I felt a bit nostalgic because, first, criticizing art (movies, books, etc) was what we did in college and it has been so long since I last did it seriously. Second, it was because my friend used the theory I had used as a tool in my thesis. That is, the adaptation theory by Linda Hutcheon. But that doesn't matter.

I also felt proud for him because he wrote something worth reading and even got it published. As far as I know, he hadn't wanted to be a writer or journalist, so I could only think that getting published was probably not his aim; getting people to know how he think about the play is. Hence, I was happy for him.

However, and this is so low of me, I feel kinda sad. I had been the one who wanted to be journalist and here I am, stuck with the job I hadn't wanted the most. And I envy him because he used everything he learned at college - not the grammar part, because he wrote in Bahasa - and got where he is right now. He looks like everything I want to be; everything I had dreamed of - not just a journalist, but also a critical one. 

Considering what I have been doing up to now, I am nowhere near my dream of becoming a journalist. Nevermind the critical one. This got me questioning: is my dream dying now? Am I now too occupied with my job? I can't help thinking that way, because working as a full-timer really occupies my life, but no. That is not the problem. 

To be completely honest, back when I didn't have a job (and was frantically looking for one), I didn't even think much of being a journalist. I hadn't applied for a journalist position - I had applied for editor or translator position because those were what I liked best. Even up till now. What's more, I hadn't tried to write anything critical and post it on some media. I hadn't used everything that matters that I had learned in college to create anything worth considering. During my vacant period, I had only been looking for a secure job. Something to guarantee a constant income so I can live from month to month.

It doesn't mean I was wrong. Being jobless for six months could really turn your head spinning, and we, the fresh graduates, were well-informed that not having a job means being a burden for your family, your country, and your own. We knew that we could no longer burden our family; we have been funded for 12 years of school, if not 16 years in total including higher institution. But most of all, we longed for that bit of independence. For standing on our own feet, paying by ourselves for everything, being able to treat the family that has been there for us. For starting from scratch by ourselves and creating our own rules for our little world. Having a job is the first step for all that.

So, yeah, probably my dream to become a journalist is dying. Has been dying for a while now. I exchanged it with the dream of being independent. So I got what I wanted. It's just that after three months and not liking what I do, I'm sorry for not trying more things before settling. Being a critical journalist, though could be a permanent job, needs more trial-and-errors. If not from applying directly to the media, it can start with what my friend just did. 

Still, trying to look at things with positive outlook, what I'm doing can be seen as a trial-and-error. I am trying this out and so far the end results are errors, but that's okay because then I know this is not for me. Meanwhile, I can continue pursuing my other dream: to be a writer. Not doing what I like gives me enough time and will to do what I like best. That is, writing. And writing, especially writing fiction, has flexible hours. 

Okay, some of my dreams are dying (or frozen, as I prefer to think it can be relived someday), but there are certain dreams whose pursuit means sacrificing other dreams. Nothing's wrong with that as long as you are fully conscious when you make your choices and you are aware that each choice has consequences.