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As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.

Haruki Murakami

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What It Feels Like to be an INFJ

Last month, I was all about a Korean variety show called Sister’s Slamdunk 2. I had a marathon for the episodes because everything they did always made me laughed hard. I am definitely not going to talk about the show, but it’s about my personality/MBTI test result. You’d probably say to yourself, “I don’t see the correlation between the show and the MBTI test, though?” well, it actually is, it’s just that I’m not there yet (lol). Anyways, in one of the episodes of the show, they did the MBTI test which was (obviously) provided by a psychologist. I remember the psychologist told them the result may change if something big happened in their life–so I kept it in mind (for whatever reason). Since I was very curious about the test, I looked it up on the internet and I stumbled upon a website called 16personalities in which I gladly took the countless number of questions. 

It turned out I am an INFJ with the result of; Introverted – 72%, Intuitive – 83%, Feeling – 63%, Judging – 77%, Assertive – 58%. If you’re curious about the whole INFJ explanation, you can look it up here. To make it short, everything written is indeed me. So they say, an INFJ likes to help others, gifted with strong sensing (like can read one’s face and mind very well), creative, and there is only 1% of people in the world who are INFJ (roughly estimated). Oh and one more thing; there is no in between for INFJs. For example, one can be a quiet type one day and the next day one becomes a freaking talkative without any concrete reason. Yup, that’s me. Whenever I’m in the environment that I’m comfortable at, I talk nonstop but then I shut my mouth off at home the same day (most of the time because I used up all of my extrovert energy lol). 

Honestly speaking, I even thought myself as a weird person because of my weird habits. The no in between is one of the examples. It frustrates me how I can’t be stable and always change from time to time. I even asked myself, “Why are you like this? Please act normal.” but years have passed and nothing changed. And also, my mind is always occupied with my own thoughts and imaginations. So if you’ve ever seen me being all quiet and looked like my soul has left my body, I was actually in my own world, thinking about whatever crossed the mind. However, there are some things that make me very grateful to be an INFJ. One of them is when I can quickly read a situation (yep, any situations/vibe). Whenever I go, there’s always this one person who jokes a lot, but sometimes their jokes went overboard which makes the other person feels uncomfortable. A total different from that case, I know when to stop, the right time to speak, and the exact second to shut my mouth. Thus, as far as I remember, I don’t have any enemy or anything. And that’s what I like the most about being an INFJ. 

I am very grateful to stumbled upon this MBTI test, truthfully. I can learn about myself more which I never had the knowledge to figure out. This type of personality is honestly a puzzle-like personality. I can’t even figure myself out. But after knowing I’m an INFJ and do a little research about this personality, I found out some people are like me–have no clue about their own personality. Hence as I read things about INFJ, I finally figured myself out little by little everyday.

Being an INFJ is difficult–it’s like dealing with an unsolved puzzle everyday, but it’s fun at the same time. And as what INFJs say, “You won’t be able to know me 100%, even I learn new things about myself every day”.

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the universe took its time on you crafted you precisely so you could offer the world something distinct from everyone else so when you doubt how you were created you doubt an energy greater than us both

rupi kaur

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There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.

Mary Lou Kownacki

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One Solemn Sunday at the ROH Projects

Two months ago, I went to an art space or art exhibition with a friend at ROH Projects. I’ve been living in Jakarta since the day I was born, but I actually never got the chance to visit any modern art space here–though I’ve visited museums a few times. But to be honest, compare to other country, I’d say, modern art spaces in Jakarta are not that many, although it is growing rapidly fast (and I’m not even complaining!).

So anyways, I’ve seen a lot of pictures from the ROH Projects on Instagram, which made me very eager to visit the place. ROH Projects is located in a busy SCBD Kuningan area, where I don’t think I want to visit again on a weekday. Yes, I visited on a Sunday where there was less traffic, even compare to Saturday. Since it was a Sunday and basically no traffic at all, it only took me 45 minutes to get there whereas it will probably take me 1,5 hours on weekdays. It’s located in the Equity Tower, so each person needs to leave an identification card (or license, if you prefer) at the security on the first floor. The security will lead you to the elevator which soon enough will get you to the ROH Projects.

I was probably very lucky at that time because the exhibition, “DOWN DOWN DOWN the rabbit hole” by Cinanti Astria Johansjah was using white a lot, which matches my Instagram feeds (lol)! Anyways, once I went in, there was a wall with a description of the exhibition. 

DOWN DOWN DOWN the rabbit hole is the fourth solo exhibition by Bandung based artist Cinanati Astria Johansjah (who is better-known as Keni, Balikpapan, 1985). And for this exhibition Keni decided to deal with a solemn theme. grief.

In psychology, grieving is described as a five-stage process. denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance-the-so called Kubler-Ross model. Keni’s work in this exhibition is situated in between the two stages of bargaining and early depression. And the stage of bargaining is considered to be a bargaining with one self, and one’s anger issues, and one’s surrounding. And in the early stage of depression there is still hope that depression doesn’t run too deep and too long, and thus there is still hope that one could get out the black void any time soon.

In-betweenness is a significant motif throughout Keni’s oeuvre. She considers the in-betweenness as an essential ‘adempauze’. ‘Adempauze’ is a Dutch-Indonesia word signifying an ephemeral respite, eerily frozen time for a brief moment. 

Now the words psychology, denial, anger, and depression reminded me a lot of my thesis’ theory--that is, Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory. While the structure of mind has three stages (id, ego, and superego), denial, anger, and depression are categorized in the ego stage or any other words--defense mechanism. Alright I don’t think I’ll discuss my thesis any further because the memory of it is starting to fade away (lol), but honestly speaking, read the wall before the first encounter with the whole exhibition made me very excited. Okay, I can relate to this. That’s what came onto my mind.

And yes, it did.

Not quite sure if my interpretation was right or false, but what I know for sure is that when it comes to art, right and false are both nonexistence. That is because, art can be interpreted in thousands or even millions different ways. I learned this when I was in college. Since I majored in English literature, we had to analyzed various works as the assignments, and it’s important to have our own interpretations but it must be accompanied with our strong beliefs or reasons. Thus, in every assignments, we always had to write “In my opinion...”.

Wait I didn’t even revealed my interpretation about the exhibition...(got so carried away with the whole various interpretations thing).

Anyways, in my opinion it interpreted the little girl’s dreams, and she is probably in the situation of having a mental breakdown. I think it might happened because of her lost one of her parents? I don’t know, I’m not sure. But the exact word that can be described as my opinion is; solemn. These paintings are solemn in my eyes, and to think that grief is the concept of this exhibition--the artist really drew the paintings in that mood. Like, once you take a look at it, you’d probably think, “Wow this is somehow very sad.”

(The paintings only light up if one sits on the chair!)

Despite the fact that I mentioned this exhibition matches my Instagram feeds (lol ok stop), I really enjoyed them. Really! The paintings have that sadness vibes to it, I don’t know how to explain, which means the artist succeed at showing the emotion. I’d definitely go to ROH Projects again in the future, since I’m still curious about the other exhibitions. 

Now here’s the information about ROH Projects:

EQUITY TOWER 40E JALAN JEND SUDIRMAN KAV. 52-53 JAKARTA SELATAN, 12190 INDONESIA

PHONE: 62 21 514 02116

E-MAIL: info@rohprojects.net

BUSINESS HOURS: TUESDAY – SUNDAY 11 AM – 7 PM OR BY APPOINTMENT

CLOSED ON NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Oh and! The admission is free, you only need to pay for the parking fee if you go there by car!

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Central Park, New York.

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Liking HONNE Means You Are Stuck in Their Labyrinth. And the Possibility To Get Out is 0%.

Photo source: Atlantic Records

Back when I was in junior high, I had a close friend who was all about indie music. And since I was her close friend, she introduced a local band to me. But sadly (and I have no idea why, as I think about it again) I had zero interest on the band or indie music genre, I would say. Well, that’s quite understandable though, because back then I was a Disney kid—I spent all my free time sitting in front of the TV, watching either Disney or Nickelodeon (lol). Disney songs like Hannah Montana or High School Musical or even Aly and AJ (oh my god, kinda miss them!) were very pop and also, country genre would pop here and there. Thus, it’s very different from the indie genre that my friend introduced to me. But I did listen to Regina Spektor’s Laughing With and a few of Sondre Lerche’s songs, though I wasn’t a big fan of them. I think I accidentally found Daniela Andrade on Youtube when I was in high school which led me to liking indie music bits by bits. But that’s it. I wasn’t religiously listened to her songs, so she kinda passed on the list. 

Close people of mine knows very well that I’m a big fan of K-Pop and K-Drama. I think I liked them since 2010 and in 2014 a girl group called Red Velvet debuted and I’m stanning them ever since. They tend to share songs on their Instagram (like I mentioned on the previous post) and Seulgi, one of the members (my bias, fyi), shared a song of Honne—Warm on a Cold Night, if I’m not mistaken. I was very curious about Honne, so I looked up to them on Youtube and Spotify and I couldn’t find a way out. I really love their songs—definitely my style!

Okay it took us quite a long way to get here (lol), but for those who don’t know, Honne is a British duo consists of James Hatcher (producer) and Andy Clutterbuck (singer, producer) who both write, record and produce the music—according to Wikipedia. The name of Honne is from Japanese, I’m not sure about the meaning of it, but I guess they really love Japan and got inspired from the country, so they used a Japanese word for their name. Apparently, they are very famous in Korea—I think they had concerts (or invited to festivals) quite of a few times in Korea and a lot of celebrities including Sooyoung from Girls’ Generation and Eric Nam came to watch them. Well, who could resist the duo, to be honest? Oh, I think last week I watched them on one of the famous Korean TV programs, Yoo Hee Youl’s Sketchbook! I was really shocked when I saw them appear before my eyes on TV (what?). As far as I know, Sketchbook is sort of a prestigious music show (because Music Bank, Inkigayo and such always have shitty sound system and camera works) because they have the best sound quality, so only those famous singers or bands can appear on the show. 

Now here’s the fun part: I watched them live two months ago! It was a university festival and they got invited! The ticket was very cheap, it was only IDR 150,000 (approx $11). But it was sold out very fast, so a lot of people bought it from calo (basically it’s people who bulk buy and sell the ticket at triple price, at least). I planned to go there with three of my friends, so that makes us four, but the other two were not available at the date, so I only went with a friend. 

Fast forward to the concert, it was soooo hot as it was packed with people and we were waiting for a long time (and we even watched Logan while waiting for 10PM). My friend and I were like, “Should we just go home?”—okay, you may think we were so fragile but no, let me tell you, there was barely any oxygen in the room! I think a few of the crowd kinda passed out a bit, it was just crazy. But when the two came up on the stage, everything changed drastically, we forgot about our thoughts a few minutes before. They literally sang almost the whole album and they performed for an hour long! Like, the ticket is far from expensive, yet the service is out of this world. 

 Oh, and here are my top five songs of them (though I couldn’t really choose since all of them are so good):

1. Good Together 2. Coastal Love 3. All in the Value 4. Warm on a Cold Night 5. The Night

PS. Listening to Honne always give me a sudden throwback to my internship days at a ministry, because I listened to them a lot during the commute at dawn (yes dawn, Jakarta’s traffic is so messed up) and way back home at night. Their songs are just perfect for night rides.

PSS. Honne is going to do a collab with Tom Misch! FREAKING TOM MISCH—my other favorite indie singer! Seriously, both Honne and Tom Misch are the next big things!

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I remember I couldn’t fully concentrate on writing my thesis a few months ago. I was easily distracted, without any concrete reason. Then I ended up making a playlist on Spotify, which contains songs that Red Velvet posted on the Instagram. Apparently, Wendy recommended Moonchild’s Don’t Wake Me and I practically fell in love during the first listen. Moonchild has some sort of relax and chill vibes in all of their songs, and it helps me concentrate on my thesis! Never knew music would help me this much.

So just like what Wendy did, this time I am recommending the artist to any of you who reads this. They helped me and I hope they’ll help you as well. Oh fun fact: I listened to their songs when I wrote the previous post!

Anyway, you can listen to their songs on their official SoundCloud or on Spotify!

PS. Ocean Deep is not my favorite song of Moonchild--actually, I couldn’t pick one!

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The Vegetarian: A Sister’s Bad Luck (A Review)

I’m pretty sure I am not the only one who is confused with the ending of this novel—like seriously, I didn’t get it at the first attempt. Honestly speaking, I had to go to goodreads.com to find the answer, only to find out a lot people are as confused as me. But luckily, I found the answer and it turns out to be very deep.

I stumbled upon a video on youtube and I saw someone recommended this book to the youtuber on the comment section and it got many likes. I was interested with the fact that the novel is entitled “The Vegetarian”, so I looked up on it and buy it right away. When the novel arrived at my house, I was surprised at how thin it is because I thought it’d be 300-ish pages, but no, it only contains 188 pages.

The novel is divided into three parts and it is using the third person point of view. The first part focuses on the main character’s husband, the second part is her brother-in-law, and the last part is her sister.

Long story short, the novel tells about a married woman (30ish I guess, I don’t recall) who suddenly turn into a vegetarian because of a bad dream that she had one night. People around her dislike the idea and they think she is “crazy”. Her condition gone worse, to the point she has to be admitted to a mental hospital, where she doesn’t want to eat anymore—or as what people called “a slowly suicide attempt”. (I made that up, no characters in the novel said that, but you know—a conclusion of their actions? Lol)

Just like when I watch a Korean drama called “Another Oh Haeyoung”, no one is at fault in the story—all of them are victims of the situation. The main character, Yeong-Hye suddenly wants to become a vegetarian because of the dream she had. I don’t think I can make her the one who starts all of this. Well, maybe she is, but it’s out of her control, it’s not her own desire, it came out all of a sudden and everything is like a flowing water. The husband of Yeong-Hye is not a murder as well, because he suffered a lot. As someone whose wife is suddenly change into a vegetarian (to the point her whole life style changes), of course it’ll be too frustrating for the husband to keep up with his wife. Not only that, Yeong-Hye also acts weird that somehow, people can’t take it. I give kudos to the husband though, because at first he’s still trying to welcome her new behavior and he still tries to understand her. But since everything gets out of control, he decides to file a divorce.

Now I still don’t get the way Yeong-Hye brother’s in law thinking. Like, he’s married to Yeong-Hye’s sister and her sister does everything for him—being a mother of his child and making a living. But still, he’s thinking “Yeong-Hye is better than my wife.” WHY do you take your wife for granted? One fact is that this brother in law is an artist and the author of this novel probably wanted to show that stereotype of an artist—unpredictable, beyond the universe-kind of thinking. Moving on with the story, this brother-in-law used Yeong-Hye to satisfy himself, by saying he wants to make an art movie. Well he did, but he practices a sex video with Yeong-Hye which turned out being caught by his wife and everything is bye-bye.

The last part of the novel is Yeong-Hye’s sister, In-Hye, the only one who takes care of her (because she is basically neglected by her family). After In-Hye caught her husband and Yeong-Hye had sex together (through a video), she sent both of them to a mental hospital. But being a very ideal elder sister, she couldn’t leave her sister alone, so she visits the mental hospital occasionally to the point she had to ask her neighbor to babysit her son.

The novel ends with the scene where Yeong-Hye vomits blood, so she has to be moved to a bigger hospital. In-Hye accompanies her in the ambluence, with the last sentences from the novel,

“Quietly, she (In-Hye) breathes in. The trees by the side of the road are blazing, green fire undulating like the rippling flanks of a massive animal, wild and savage. In-Hye stares fiercely at the trees. As if waiting for an answer. As if protesting against something. The look in her eyes is dark and insistent.” (2015: 188)

Okay so after I went to Good Reads to find the answer for the ending, it turns out the ending probably means In-Hye wants to commit suicide. Let’s face it, she is a character with the worst fate on the novel. She is the breadwinner of her little household, her husband cheats on her, she has to take care of her sister, and had to leave her son behind for the sake of her sister. There are actually a few hints in the novel that she wants to commit suicide but it stopped by her son.

Overall, the novel is quite bizarre yet interesting at the same time. I wasn’t expecting something to be this mind-blowing. Yes, it’s mind-blowing for me. I also like the fact that the writer puts out different stereotypes in the novel and discussed it in different perspectives.

Will I read the novel again? Yes, but I need to read something light at the moment. Maybe I’ll read it again next month.

But really, it is an interesting novel to analyze. English literature students out there, especially those who loves psychoanalysis like me, this one is a recommendation for your thesis!

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There is a woman who always keeps her head up high. Her eyes sparkle like a bright star in the sky. She has the stamina, beauty, and courage that one would admire, Even the love and happiness one inspires. She is a women that one can always count on, And a woman that sees no wrong. Her beauty shines from the inside out, It flows like a journey down a long route. Her smile shines beautifully like the sun rising over the horizon, And her intelligence, wisdom, and hard work are not surprising. She is a genuinely caring women Who goes the extra mile to help one in need or broken hearted, And throughout all of her hard work, No one ever sees her fall apart.

Crystal Foy, “An Admirable Woman”

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source: http://designspiration.net/image/22140260866956/

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Still Alice: An Alzheimer’s Disease Patient Point of View (Mini Analysis)

To tell you the truth, I have a love-hate relationship with this novel. And that is because of my thesis. So the thing is, I used this novel at first for my thesis of analysis. I have written the thesis up until chapter two but then my supervisor advised me to change novel because the issue in Still Alice is very minimum and she’s afraid I can only write until 30 pages or something–when I need 45-ish pages. I was devastated of course, since I already put my all in this novel, but nothing’s gonna change so I quickly switched to Room by Emma Donoghue.

Anyways, I’m definitely not gonna talk about my thesis because it’s so boring (HA), and instead, I’m going to talk about Still Alice.

So basically, Still Alice tells a story about a 50 years old woman named Alice, a successful psychology professor at Harvard, who suddenly forgets about a thing or two. She decides to see her doctor who advises her to see a neurologist. The neurologist concludes that she has Alzheimer’s disease. Alice cannot believe the reality and so is her family. Well, the whole story is telling the readers how her illness develop from time to time, and how irony the illness is. It is a sad novel, but we can also see the development of each characters in the novel, in which are Alice, Alice’s husband, and her grown up kids.

Alice, in my opinion, is a dictator person at first. Perhaps it’s because of her successful career as a professor in a named university or perhaps it’s because she’s originally like that ever since she was little–I have no idea. But it shows on how she deals with her youngest daughter, who wants to pursue an acting career instead of being a scholar or such alike. On the other hand, Alice’s husband, secretly supporting their youngest daughter’s dream to become an actress in which got a disapproval from Alice herself. However, though, when Alice diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she became less a dictator (but still is), probably because she thinks she is going to die anytime soon–I don’t know, that’s an if. But the irony that I got from this novel is that, her youngest daughter became the closest to her, even though they were not like that at first. I believe Alice shows favoritism actions towards her eldest daughter in the novel because she became what Alice wants. From this view, I can conclude that you cannot acting as a very powerful person because at the end of the day, you will need someone to take care of you. It’s not an embarrassing thing, but it’s just how everything in this world works.

This is a total real life inspired novel. I mean, there are probably millions of people in the whole world who have Alzheimer’s disease–whether they’re still on the early stage or not. So of course, the setting is something common which can be easily found in real life. And that is, I think, one of the reasons why I like this novel–its’ realism.

Since I’ve analyzed Still Alice up until chapter two, I know exactly the theory that can be used as a tool to analyze it–psychoanalysis. Life and death instincts by Sigmund Freud (oh this brings back memories). Alice shows a constant change of behavior in the novel. One time she wants to be able to go back to normal, the next second she wants to kill herself. It’s repeating like that, so life and death instincts are the best to help me analyze the novel. Her actions throughout the novel can be classified into either life or death instincts. It’s a fun thing to do, but sadly, it’s not gonna reach 45 pages.

Of course I love the novel. I mean, if I don’t I won’t choose it at the very beginning. Well, maybe it’s because I love both psychoanalysis and realism. But maybe, for those who prefer something bizarre and everything fantasy, would think this novel as a boring one. And never gonna be opened again. However, though, Still Alice has the power to show people what it feels like to be diagnosed as an Alzheimer’s disease patient. It’s not a random, can-be-cured-easily disease, so it has to be treated as much as cancer. And I think, a lot of people, especially in Indonesia, are yet aware of this.