Sejak saya menjadi dosen, banyak yang bertanya kepada saya: "Yakin mau jadi dosen? Gajinya bukannya tidak seberapa?" Juga: "Yakin mau jadi dosen? Memang cukup buat hidup?" Dan pertanyaan-pertanyaan sejenis.
Saya pikir jadi dosen itu kan profesi yang mulia ya. Kenapa ya profesi yang mulia ini masih sering perlu dibarengi dengan "komitmen" untuk "hidup susah" atau "pas-pasan".
Kenapa bisa, profesi yang seharusnya merupakan profesi yang terhormat, profesi yang akan bisa mencetak CEO masa depan sebuah perusahaan, penemu teknologi baru, pengusaha sukses, pembangun bangsa dan negara Indonesia di masa depan ini, harus menghadapi pilihan yang sangat sulit: mau jadi dosen (atau tenaga pengajar lainnya) ATAU mau hidup enak dan punya materi berlimpah.
Faktanya pendapatan menjadi seorang dosen memang tidak setinggi jika seseorang mengejar karir di korporat. Kenapa bisa begitu? Sejujurnya saya juga tidak tahu. Hanya saja saya tidak ingin mencari siapa yang salah.
Yang tidak pas, menurut saya, adalah anggapan semua pihak bahwa menjadi dosen itu adalah sebuah pilihan karier yang perlu dijalani dengan "keikhlasan". Sehingga membuat seorang dosen merasa "berdosa" jika dirinya ingin mendapatkan imbalan materi, melebihi imbalan lainnya (penghargaan, rasa hormat), sebagai timbal balik atas pekerjaan yang dilakukannya.
Kenapa jika seorang manajer di sebuah perusahaan mendapat kenaikan gaji atau bonus karena mencapai target penjualan, atau karena performanya baik, maka manajer tersebut dikatakan sebagai manajer yang hebat, bahwa hal itu sudah sepantasnya terjadi, dan berbagai cap positif lainnya akan dialamatkan kepada manajer tersebut.
Namun, jika seorang dosen, atau tenaga pendidik manapun, di institusi pendidikan manapun, memiliki performa yang baik, dan mengharapkan imbalan apapun selain ucapan terima kasih dan penghargaan non-materi lainnya (misalnya saja: mendapatkan bonus berupa uang karena karya penelitiannya dipublish di jurnal internasional, mampu mendampingi mahasiswa lomba dan berhasil menjadi juara pertama, mendapatkan kenaikan gaji karena performanya yang baik dalam mengajar) maka sudah pasti dosen itu akan dicap sebagai dosen yang materialistis.
Mengapa anggapan seperti itu yang muncul? Bukan hanya dari masyarakat umum, bahkan dari lingkungan tenaga pendidik sendiri juga merasa malu jika mereka menginginkan untuk mendapatkan pendapatan yang lebih baik. Membicarakan soal termin kenaikan gaji, soal pendapatan atau bonus yang akan didapat, adalah hal yang tabu dibicarakan antar "karyawan" (dosen) di "perusahaan" (universitas).
Saya setuju bahwa institusi pendidikan tidak harus disamakan dengan korporasi. Saya hanya tidak mengerti mengapa adalah hal yang buruk bagi tenaga pendidik untuk mengharapkan imbalan berupa materi? Toh ini adalah pekerjaan kami satu-satunya, profesi kami, kami makan dari pekerjaan ini.
Jika diharuskan untuk mengajar dengan sepenuh hati, berkomitmen dan tidak melakukan pekerjaan lain di luar pekerjaan utama sebagai pengajar, lalu kenapa seolah-olah masyarakat memberikan stigma buruk terhadap tenaga pengajar yang mengharapkan imbalan materiil dari kerja kerasnya?
Tidakkah menjadi ironi yang amat sangat, jika seorang dosen di kemudian hari bisa sampai kesulitan menyekolahkan anaknya, karena tidak memiliki cukup uang?
11 Desember 2015
02 Desember 2015
Idealisme (?)
Mulai Agustus 2015 kemarin, saya resmi menjalani sebuah profesi baru. Sebagai dosen.
Sejak dulu saya memang ingin menjadi dosen. Hampir setiap teman saya memiliki pertanyaan maupun tanggapan yang sama mengenai hal ini: "Kenapa sih kok mau jadi dosen?"
Jawaban saya, sejujurnya, memang idealis. Saya selalu pikir seperti ini: saya selalu percaya bahwa untuk menolong Indonesia ini jalannya ada dua: kewirausahaan dan pendidikan.
Saya percaya pendidikan adalah cara kita bisa menjadikan Indonesia menjadi bangsa yang lebih baik. Pendidikan otak dan yang lebih penting lagi adalah karakter.
Menjadi dosen saya pikir merupakan jalan saya, sumbangsih saya, walaupun sekecil apapun untuk dapat menjadikan Indonesia bangsa yang lebih baik.
Saya ingin generasi muda Indonesia bisa menjadi generasi yang punya karakter. Yang bangga jadi orang Indonesia. Yang jujur dan mau bekerja keras. Dan satu lagi: generasi yang tidak takut bermimpi.
Saya kira, generasi kita merupakan generasi yang "terjebak". Saya perhatikan bahwa kuliah harus lah merupakan masa-masa mereka menentukan pilihan dan menemukan diri mereka. Mahasiswa adalah masanya eksplorasi, berbuat salah, dan yang paling penting: mengetahui apa yang mau dilakukan setelah lulus kuliah.
Jangan sampai mereka memandang kuliah hanya sebagai kuliah, tujuannya hanya lulus. Sebetulnya kan kuliah itu persiapan, hanya alat. Yang penting adalah setelahnya. Namun betapa mirisnya ketika melihat generasi saya tidak menyadari fakta ini. Berapa banyak di antara kita yang benar-benar tahu apa yang mau dilakukan setelah lulus? Sejujurnya, dengan rendah hati, saya pikir, sudah terlambat jika mencari tahu apa yang mau kita lakukan setelah kita lulus kuliah. Masa eksplorasi sudah habis. Harusnya sebelum lulus kuliah, kita sudah tahu mau jadi apa. Kerja? Wirausaha? Studi lanjut?
Saya ingin generasi muda Indonesia, generasi-generasi mahasiswa saya, tidak lagi menjadi generasi "terjebak". Saya ingin mereka tahu apa yang mau mereka lakukan setelah mereka lulus kuliah, saya ingin mereka berani bermimpi besar, dan bekerja keras untuk mencapainya.
Betul saya tahu, "Seberapa banyak sih orang yang bakal bisa terjangkau? Siapa yang bisa menjamin kalau mahasiswa yang lo ajar bisa jadi orang yang baik nantinya?"
Tapi saya selalu pikir: lebih baik menyalakan lilin daripada mengutuki kegelapan. Sekecil apapun, yang penting melakukan usaha nyata daripada hanya marah-marah dan mengutuki keadaan tanpa melakukan hal apapun.
Bukan begitu?
23 April 2015
Puasa
Sebentar lagi.
Semoga tahun ini, tidak ada lagi hal-hal lucu.
Warung makan yang tetap buka, dirazia, dipaksa tutup, bahkan dirusak.
Tempat-tempat hiburan ditutup, dianggap mengganggu orang beribadah.
Yang makan siang-siang dicap kafir.
Semoga ya, semoga.
Karena saya yakin bukan agamanya, tapi orangnya.
Saya tidak mengerti pasti apa ajarannya,
tapi setahu saya,
yang ditahan adalah hawa nafsu.
Bukan godaannya yang dibikin tidak ada.
Logikanya,
Itu sama saja, seperti saya berjanji untuk pantang merokok.
Padahal kan,
saya memang tidak merokok.
Sepakat?
Linger
What if love is,
only love
it is just,
and not more special
than any of our other feelings.
Angry, sad, happy, lazy
If so,
then why it makes us feels so lost,
all of us,
all of the time,
They say
when it comes to love
we're all in the dark.
Don't you think so?
Oh no.
Don't you think so?
23.4.2015
only love
it is just,
and not more special
than any of our other feelings.
Angry, sad, happy, lazy
If so,
then why it makes us feels so lost,
all of us,
all of the time,
They say
when it comes to love
we're all in the dark.
Don't you think so?
Oh no.
Don't you think so?
23.4.2015
28 Agustus 2014
Unsolved
If peoples do not like The Beatles, would music still be their passion?
If David Beckham was not a famous football player, would soccer still be his passion?
Is your passion is your passion because you're good at it? Or is it just because you like doing it then it's become your passion?
Is it possible that you love dancing so much, but you can't dance at all. But you still love dancing anyway.
Then is dancing your passion? Or not? And should you be a dancer?
If David Beckham was not a famous football player, would soccer still be his passion?
Is your passion is your passion because you're good at it? Or is it just because you like doing it then it's become your passion?
Is it possible that you love dancing so much, but you can't dance at all. But you still love dancing anyway.
Then is dancing your passion? Or not? And should you be a dancer?
27 April 2014
01 Maret 2014
That's that
Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying
19 Agustus 2013
To be great.
"Some men aren't meant to be happy. They were meant to be great"
-Cyrus Rutherford Beene-
-Cyrus Rutherford Beene-
31 Januari 2013
Well Said
In this country, you gotta make the money first.
Then when you get the money, you get the power.
Then when you get the power, you get the women
Al Pacino as Tony Montana
in Scarface
09 Oktober 2012
How Not to Die
Taken from : http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
August 2007
(This is a talk I gave at the last Y Combinator dinner of the summer. Usually we don't have a speaker at the last dinner; it's more of a party. But it seemed worth spoiling the atmosphere if I could save some of the startups from preventable deaths. So at the last minute I cooked up this rather grim talk. I didn't mean this as an essay; I wrote it down because I only had two hours before dinner and think fastest while writing.)
A couple days ago I told a reporter that we expected about a third of the companies we funded to succeed. Actually I was being conservative. I'm hoping it might be as much as a half. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could achieve a 50% success rate?
Another way of saying that is that half of you are going to die. Phrased that way, it doesn't sound good at all. In fact, it's kind of weird when you think about it, because our definition of success is that the founders get rich. If half the startups we fund succeed, then half of you are going to get rich and the other half are going to get nothing.
If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. It certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. We avoided dying till we got rich.
It was really close, too. When we were visiting Yahoo to talk about being acquired, we had to interrupt everything and borrow one of their conference rooms to talk down an investor who was about to back out of a new funding round we needed to stay alive. So even in the middle of getting rich we were fighting off the grim reaper.
You may have heard that quote about luck consisting of opportunity meeting preparation. You've now done the preparation. The work you've done so far has, in effect, put you in a position to get lucky: you can now get rich by not letting your company die. That's more than most people have. So let's talk about how not to die.
We've done this five times now, and we've seen a bunch of startups die. About 10 of them so far. We don't know exactly what happens when they die, because they generally don't die loudly and heroically. Mostly they crawl off somewhere and die.
For us the main indication of impending doom is when we don't hear from you. When we haven't heard from, or about, a startup for a couple months, that's a bad sign. If we send them an email asking what's up, and they don't reply, that's a really bad sign. So far that is a 100% accurate predictor of death.
Whereas if a startup regularly does new deals and releases and either sends us mail or shows up at YC events, they're probably going to live.
I realize this will sound naive, but maybe the linkage works in both directions. Maybe if you can arrange that we keep hearing from you, you won't die.
That may not be so naive as it sounds. You've probably noticed that having dinners every Tuesday with us and the other founders causes you to get more done than you would otherwise, because every dinner is a mini Demo Day. Every dinner is a kind of a deadline. So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push you to make things happen, because otherwise you'll be embarrassed to tell us that you haven't done anything new since the last time we talked.
If this works, it would be an amazing hack. It would be pretty cool if merely by staying in regular contact with us you could get rich. It sounds crazy, but there's a good chance that would work.
A variant is to stay in touch with other YC-funded startups. There is now a whole neighborhood of them in San Francisco. If you move there, the peer pressure that made you work harder all summer will continue to operate.
When startups die, the official cause of death is always either running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Often the two occur simultaneously. But I think the underlying cause is usually that they've become demoralized. You rarely hear of a startup that's working around the clock doing deals and pumping out new features, and dies because they can't pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server.
Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. So keep typing!
If so many startups get demoralized and fail when merely by hanging on they could get rich, you have to assume that running a startup can be demoralizing. That is certainly true. I've been there, and that's why I've never done another startup. The low points in a startup are just unbelievably low. I bet even Google had moments where things seemed hopeless.
Knowing that should help. If you know it's going to feel terrible sometimes, then when it feels terrible you won't think "ouch, this feels terrible, I give up." It feels that way for everyone. And if you just hang on, things will probably get better. The metaphor people use to describe the way a startup feels is at least a roller coaster and not drowning. You don't just sink and sink; there are ups after the downs.
Another feeling that seems alarming but is in fact normal in a startup is the feeling that what you're doing isn't working. The reason you can expect to feel this is that what you do probably won't work. Startups almost never get it right the first time. Much more commonly you launch something, and no one cares. Don't assume when this happens that you've failed. That's normal for startups. But don't sit around doing nothing. Iterate.
I like Paul Buchheit's suggestion of trying to make something that at least someone really loves. As long as you've made something that a few users are ecstatic about, you're on the right track. It will be good for your morale to have even a handful of users who really love you, and startups run on morale. But also it will tell you what to focus on. What is it about you that they love? Can you do more of that? Where can you find more people who love that sort of thing? As long as you have some core of users who love you, all you have to do is expand it. It may take a while, but as long as you keep plugging away, you'll win in the end. Both Blogger and Delicious did that. Both took years to succeed. But both began with a core of fanatically devoted users, and all Evan and Joshua had to do was grow that core incrementally. Wufoo is on the same trajectory now.
So when you release something and it seems like no one cares, look more closely. Are there zero users who really love you, or is there at least some little group that does? It's quite possible there will be zero. In that case, tweak your product and try again. Every one of you is working on a space that contains at least one winning permutation somewhere in it. If you just keep trying, you'll find it.
Let me mention some things not to do. The number one thing not to do is other things. If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with "but we're going to keep working on the startup," you are in big trouble. Bob's going to grad school, but we're going to keep working on the startup. We're moving back to Minnesota, but we're going to keep working on the startup. We're taking on some consulting projects, but we're going to keep working on the startup. You may as well just translate these to "we're giving up on the startup, but we're not willing to admit that to ourselves," because that's what it means most of the time. A startup is so hard that working on it can't be preceded by "but."
In particular, don't go to graduate school, and don't start other projects. Distraction is fatal to startups. Going to (or back to) school is a huge predictor of death because in addition to the distraction it gives you something to say you're doing. If you're only doing a startup, then if the startup fails, you fail. If you're in grad school and your startup fails, you can say later "Oh yeah, we had this startup on the side when I was in grad school, but it didn't go anywhere."
You can't use euphemisms like "didn't go anywhere" for something that's your only occupation. People won't let you.
One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars. So if you want to get millions of dollars, put yourself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating.
When we first met the founders of Octopart, they seemed very smart, but not a great bet to succeed, because they didn't seem especially committed. One of the two founders was still in grad school. It was the usual story: he'd drop out if it looked like the startup was taking off. Since then he has not only dropped out of grad school, but appeared full length in Newsweek with the word "Billionaire" printed across his chest. He just cannot fail now. Everyone he knows has seen that picture. Girls who dissed him in high school have seen it. His mom probably has it on the fridge. It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now. At this point he is committed to fight to the death.
I wish every startup we funded could appear in a Newsweek article describing them as the next generation of billionaires, because then none of them would be able to give up. The success rate would be 90%. I'm not kidding.
When we first knew the Octoparts they were lighthearted, cheery guys. Now when we talk to them they seem grimly determined. The electronic parts distributors are trying to squash them to keep their monopoly pricing. (If it strikes you as odd that people still order electronic parts out of thick paper catalogs in 2007, there's a reason for that. The distributors want to prevent the transparency that comes from having prices online.) I feel kind of bad that we've transformed these guys from lighthearted to grimly determined. But that comes with the territory. If a startup succeeds, you get millions of dollars, and you don't get that kind of money just by asking for it. You have to assume it takes some amount of pain.
And however tough things get for the Octoparts, I predict they'll succeed. They may have to morph themselves into something totally different, but they won't just crawl off and die. They're smart; they're working in a promising field; and they just cannot give up.
All of you guys already have the first two. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. Whether you end up among the living or the dead comes down to the third ingredient, not giving up.
So I'll tell you now: bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup. The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of disaster happening are one in a thousand. So don't get demoralized. When the disaster strikes, just say to yourself, ok, this was what Paul was talking about. What did he say to do? Oh, yeah. Don't give up.
August 2007
(This is a talk I gave at the last Y Combinator dinner of the summer. Usually we don't have a speaker at the last dinner; it's more of a party. But it seemed worth spoiling the atmosphere if I could save some of the startups from preventable deaths. So at the last minute I cooked up this rather grim talk. I didn't mean this as an essay; I wrote it down because I only had two hours before dinner and think fastest while writing.)
A couple days ago I told a reporter that we expected about a third of the companies we funded to succeed. Actually I was being conservative. I'm hoping it might be as much as a half. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could achieve a 50% success rate?
Another way of saying that is that half of you are going to die. Phrased that way, it doesn't sound good at all. In fact, it's kind of weird when you think about it, because our definition of success is that the founders get rich. If half the startups we fund succeed, then half of you are going to get rich and the other half are going to get nothing.
If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. It certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. We avoided dying till we got rich.
It was really close, too. When we were visiting Yahoo to talk about being acquired, we had to interrupt everything and borrow one of their conference rooms to talk down an investor who was about to back out of a new funding round we needed to stay alive. So even in the middle of getting rich we were fighting off the grim reaper.
You may have heard that quote about luck consisting of opportunity meeting preparation. You've now done the preparation. The work you've done so far has, in effect, put you in a position to get lucky: you can now get rich by not letting your company die. That's more than most people have. So let's talk about how not to die.
We've done this five times now, and we've seen a bunch of startups die. About 10 of them so far. We don't know exactly what happens when they die, because they generally don't die loudly and heroically. Mostly they crawl off somewhere and die.
For us the main indication of impending doom is when we don't hear from you. When we haven't heard from, or about, a startup for a couple months, that's a bad sign. If we send them an email asking what's up, and they don't reply, that's a really bad sign. So far that is a 100% accurate predictor of death.
Whereas if a startup regularly does new deals and releases and either sends us mail or shows up at YC events, they're probably going to live.
I realize this will sound naive, but maybe the linkage works in both directions. Maybe if you can arrange that we keep hearing from you, you won't die.
That may not be so naive as it sounds. You've probably noticed that having dinners every Tuesday with us and the other founders causes you to get more done than you would otherwise, because every dinner is a mini Demo Day. Every dinner is a kind of a deadline. So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push you to make things happen, because otherwise you'll be embarrassed to tell us that you haven't done anything new since the last time we talked.
If this works, it would be an amazing hack. It would be pretty cool if merely by staying in regular contact with us you could get rich. It sounds crazy, but there's a good chance that would work.
A variant is to stay in touch with other YC-funded startups. There is now a whole neighborhood of them in San Francisco. If you move there, the peer pressure that made you work harder all summer will continue to operate.
When startups die, the official cause of death is always either running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Often the two occur simultaneously. But I think the underlying cause is usually that they've become demoralized. You rarely hear of a startup that's working around the clock doing deals and pumping out new features, and dies because they can't pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server.
Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. So keep typing!
If so many startups get demoralized and fail when merely by hanging on they could get rich, you have to assume that running a startup can be demoralizing. That is certainly true. I've been there, and that's why I've never done another startup. The low points in a startup are just unbelievably low. I bet even Google had moments where things seemed hopeless.
Knowing that should help. If you know it's going to feel terrible sometimes, then when it feels terrible you won't think "ouch, this feels terrible, I give up." It feels that way for everyone. And if you just hang on, things will probably get better. The metaphor people use to describe the way a startup feels is at least a roller coaster and not drowning. You don't just sink and sink; there are ups after the downs.
Another feeling that seems alarming but is in fact normal in a startup is the feeling that what you're doing isn't working. The reason you can expect to feel this is that what you do probably won't work. Startups almost never get it right the first time. Much more commonly you launch something, and no one cares. Don't assume when this happens that you've failed. That's normal for startups. But don't sit around doing nothing. Iterate.
I like Paul Buchheit's suggestion of trying to make something that at least someone really loves. As long as you've made something that a few users are ecstatic about, you're on the right track. It will be good for your morale to have even a handful of users who really love you, and startups run on morale. But also it will tell you what to focus on. What is it about you that they love? Can you do more of that? Where can you find more people who love that sort of thing? As long as you have some core of users who love you, all you have to do is expand it. It may take a while, but as long as you keep plugging away, you'll win in the end. Both Blogger and Delicious did that. Both took years to succeed. But both began with a core of fanatically devoted users, and all Evan and Joshua had to do was grow that core incrementally. Wufoo is on the same trajectory now.
So when you release something and it seems like no one cares, look more closely. Are there zero users who really love you, or is there at least some little group that does? It's quite possible there will be zero. In that case, tweak your product and try again. Every one of you is working on a space that contains at least one winning permutation somewhere in it. If you just keep trying, you'll find it.
Let me mention some things not to do. The number one thing not to do is other things. If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with "but we're going to keep working on the startup," you are in big trouble. Bob's going to grad school, but we're going to keep working on the startup. We're moving back to Minnesota, but we're going to keep working on the startup. We're taking on some consulting projects, but we're going to keep working on the startup. You may as well just translate these to "we're giving up on the startup, but we're not willing to admit that to ourselves," because that's what it means most of the time. A startup is so hard that working on it can't be preceded by "but."
In particular, don't go to graduate school, and don't start other projects. Distraction is fatal to startups. Going to (or back to) school is a huge predictor of death because in addition to the distraction it gives you something to say you're doing. If you're only doing a startup, then if the startup fails, you fail. If you're in grad school and your startup fails, you can say later "Oh yeah, we had this startup on the side when I was in grad school, but it didn't go anywhere."
You can't use euphemisms like "didn't go anywhere" for something that's your only occupation. People won't let you.
One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars. So if you want to get millions of dollars, put yourself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating.
When we first met the founders of Octopart, they seemed very smart, but not a great bet to succeed, because they didn't seem especially committed. One of the two founders was still in grad school. It was the usual story: he'd drop out if it looked like the startup was taking off. Since then he has not only dropped out of grad school, but appeared full length in Newsweek with the word "Billionaire" printed across his chest. He just cannot fail now. Everyone he knows has seen that picture. Girls who dissed him in high school have seen it. His mom probably has it on the fridge. It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now. At this point he is committed to fight to the death.
I wish every startup we funded could appear in a Newsweek article describing them as the next generation of billionaires, because then none of them would be able to give up. The success rate would be 90%. I'm not kidding.
When we first knew the Octoparts they were lighthearted, cheery guys. Now when we talk to them they seem grimly determined. The electronic parts distributors are trying to squash them to keep their monopoly pricing. (If it strikes you as odd that people still order electronic parts out of thick paper catalogs in 2007, there's a reason for that. The distributors want to prevent the transparency that comes from having prices online.) I feel kind of bad that we've transformed these guys from lighthearted to grimly determined. But that comes with the territory. If a startup succeeds, you get millions of dollars, and you don't get that kind of money just by asking for it. You have to assume it takes some amount of pain.
And however tough things get for the Octoparts, I predict they'll succeed. They may have to morph themselves into something totally different, but they won't just crawl off and die. They're smart; they're working in a promising field; and they just cannot give up.
All of you guys already have the first two. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. Whether you end up among the living or the dead comes down to the third ingredient, not giving up.
So I'll tell you now: bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup. The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of disaster happening are one in a thousand. So don't get demoralized. When the disaster strikes, just say to yourself, ok, this was what Paul was talking about. What did he say to do? Oh, yeah. Don't give up.
Dan Perjuangan, adalah pelaksanaan kata-kata.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Mereka masukkan kamu ke dalam sel yang gelap.
Tanpa lampu. Tanpa lubang cahaya. Pengap.
Ada hawa. Tak ada angkasa.
Terkucil. Temanmu beratus-ratus nyamuk semata.
Terkunci. Tak tahu di mana berada.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Apa katamu?
Ketika haus aku minum dari kaleng karatan.
Sambil bersila aku mengharungi waktu
lepas dari jam, hari dan bulan
Aku dipeluk oleh wibawa tidak berbentuk
tidak berupa, tidak bernama.
Aku istirah di sini.
Tenaga ghaib memupuk jiwaku.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Di setiap jalan mengadang mastodon dan serigala.
Kamu terkurung dalam lingkaran.
Para pengeran meludahi kamu dari kereta kencana.
Kaki kamu dirantai ke batang karang.
Kamu dikutuk dan disalahkan.
Tanpa pengadilan.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Bubur di piring timah
didorong dengan kaki ke depanmu
Paman Doblang, apa katamu?
Kesadaran adalah matahari.
Kesabaran adalah bumi.
Keberanian menjadi cakrawala.
Dan perjuangan...
adalah perlaksanaan kata-kata.
Depok, 22 April 1984
"Paman Doblang!" by W.S Rendra
Mereka masukkan kamu ke dalam sel yang gelap.
Tanpa lampu. Tanpa lubang cahaya. Pengap.
Ada hawa. Tak ada angkasa.
Terkucil. Temanmu beratus-ratus nyamuk semata.
Terkunci. Tak tahu di mana berada.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Apa katamu?
Ketika haus aku minum dari kaleng karatan.
Sambil bersila aku mengharungi waktu
lepas dari jam, hari dan bulan
Aku dipeluk oleh wibawa tidak berbentuk
tidak berupa, tidak bernama.
Aku istirah di sini.
Tenaga ghaib memupuk jiwaku.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Di setiap jalan mengadang mastodon dan serigala.
Kamu terkurung dalam lingkaran.
Para pengeran meludahi kamu dari kereta kencana.
Kaki kamu dirantai ke batang karang.
Kamu dikutuk dan disalahkan.
Tanpa pengadilan.
Paman Doblang! Paman Doblang!
Bubur di piring timah
didorong dengan kaki ke depanmu
Paman Doblang, apa katamu?
Kesadaran adalah matahari.
Kesabaran adalah bumi.
Keberanian menjadi cakrawala.
Dan perjuangan...
adalah perlaksanaan kata-kata.
Depok, 22 April 1984
"Paman Doblang!" by W.S Rendra
19 September 2012
Oh Chris, You Must Be In Love
Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
Everything you do
They were all yellow
I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
It was called yellow
So then I took my time
Oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turned into something beautiful
You know
You know I love you so
You know I love you so
I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
Because it was all yellow
I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
But it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turned into something beautiful
You know
For you I'd bleed myself dry
For you I'd bleed myself dry
It's true..
Look how they shine for you..
Look how they shine for you..
Look how they shine..
Look at the star..
Look how they shine..for you..
And all the things that you do..
Coldplay - Yellow
Look how they shine for you
Everything you do
They were all yellow
I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
It was called yellow
So then I took my time
Oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turned into something beautiful
You know
You know I love you so
You know I love you so
I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
Because it was all yellow
I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
But it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turned into something beautiful
You know
For you I'd bleed myself dry
For you I'd bleed myself dry
It's true..
Look how they shine for you..
Look how they shine for you..
Look how they shine..
Look at the star..
Look how they shine..for you..
And all the things that you do..
Coldplay - Yellow
17 September 2012
Thank You, Good Sir
"I disapprove of what you say. But I will defend, to the death your right to say it"
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall in the book The Friends of Voltaire-
12 September 2012
27 Agustus 2012
To the beautiful game we all love
I just saw the movie "United" recently.
A wonderful movie that tells the story about Manchester United Football Club. The story mainly focus around the 1958 Munich disaster.
I already knew the fact about this Munich disaster for quite sometime. But the movie really moved me.
The time was in the 50's.
The young Manchester United team was on top of the world.
Matt Busby was appointed manager of MU in 1945 and immediately hired Jimmy Murphy as assistant manager of the club. After winning the championship at 1952, surprisingly Busby decided to give trust to a gang of "young boys" (then aged 16-17 years old) to be at the United first team replacing the liking of Johny Carey and the previous team mates that had just won them the title.
Who knows that this God given boys was destined for greatness.
With an average age of 21-22 years old players, they've won back to back English League title in 1955-56 and 1956-1957.
Hence come the name : The Busby Babes. The golden boys that is going to be king in the world of football belongs to Matt Busby.
The lads included right-back Bill Foulkes, centre-halves Mark Jones and Jackie Blanchflower, wingers Albert Scanlon and David Pegg and forward Liam Whelan. Among them was Duncan Edwards, judged by many to be England's finest player of his era, and capped by England at 18 – setting a record for the youngest-ever full international that remained unbroken for more than 40 years.
In the 57-58 season they were expected to rule the world of football and they practically did until in February 6th 1958 the plane that the players took was crashed after failing to take off in Munich Airport (the team was back from a champions league games against red star belgrade and the plane was refueling in Munich).
23 out of 44 people that were on the plane died, 8 of them were the players. Some of the Busby Babes.
The babes was young, they were superbly talented, and they were loved, not just by United fans, but by England. And by the world.
There is this one scene in the movie that really move me.
The policeman that escort the players body was asked by Jimmy Murphy do they tired because they've been wake all night to look after the coffin of the babes.
One of the police responded by saying (pretty much) this : "I watched these kids every week. I love how they play. They were such a delight to watch their every game you know? They gave us joy. Everybody love them. Even their opponent love them you know, the Busby babes. They've been the nation's pride. This is the least i can do to honor them. No, I'm not tired."
It amazed me how the players and the managers who survived the tragedy then trying their best to get back on their feet again. How all of the people pick each other up to bounce back after the tragedy.
It really shows me how soccer can inspire so many people all around the world. How it can spread so many love to so many people.
It really is beautiful.
A wonderful movie that tells the story about Manchester United Football Club. The story mainly focus around the 1958 Munich disaster.
I already knew the fact about this Munich disaster for quite sometime. But the movie really moved me.
The time was in the 50's.
The young Manchester United team was on top of the world.
Matt Busby was appointed manager of MU in 1945 and immediately hired Jimmy Murphy as assistant manager of the club. After winning the championship at 1952, surprisingly Busby decided to give trust to a gang of "young boys" (then aged 16-17 years old) to be at the United first team replacing the liking of Johny Carey and the previous team mates that had just won them the title.
Who knows that this God given boys was destined for greatness.
With an average age of 21-22 years old players, they've won back to back English League title in 1955-56 and 1956-1957.
Hence come the name : The Busby Babes. The golden boys that is going to be king in the world of football belongs to Matt Busby.
The lads included right-back Bill Foulkes, centre-halves Mark Jones and Jackie Blanchflower, wingers Albert Scanlon and David Pegg and forward Liam Whelan. Among them was Duncan Edwards, judged by many to be England's finest player of his era, and capped by England at 18 – setting a record for the youngest-ever full international that remained unbroken for more than 40 years.
In the 57-58 season they were expected to rule the world of football and they practically did until in February 6th 1958 the plane that the players took was crashed after failing to take off in Munich Airport (the team was back from a champions league games against red star belgrade and the plane was refueling in Munich).
23 out of 44 people that were on the plane died, 8 of them were the players. Some of the Busby Babes.
The babes was young, they were superbly talented, and they were loved, not just by United fans, but by England. And by the world.
There is this one scene in the movie that really move me.
The policeman that escort the players body was asked by Jimmy Murphy do they tired because they've been wake all night to look after the coffin of the babes.
One of the police responded by saying (pretty much) this : "I watched these kids every week. I love how they play. They were such a delight to watch their every game you know? They gave us joy. Everybody love them. Even their opponent love them you know, the Busby babes. They've been the nation's pride. This is the least i can do to honor them. No, I'm not tired."
It amazed me how the players and the managers who survived the tragedy then trying their best to get back on their feet again. How all of the people pick each other up to bounce back after the tragedy.
It really shows me how soccer can inspire so many people all around the world. How it can spread so many love to so many people.
It really is beautiful.
"In Munich you died, in United you live forever"
Dia
Anda-Biru
Oh biru
Biarkan diriku merengkuhmu
Hanyutkan dirimu dalam cintaku, tersenyumlah untukku
Oh biru
Indah dirimu hempaskan aku
Jauh ku tenggelam dalam tatapmu
Sesatku dalam kasihmu
Sejuta kata takkan pernah bisa lisankan maksud rasaku ini
Dia mengalir dalam darahku
Dia setengah dari jiwaku
Dia bayangan atas nyawaku
Dia..
Oh biru
Detak jantungmu membawa aku berlayar tengah samudera cintamu
sesatku dalam kasihmu
Dia mengalir dalam darahku
Dia setengah dari jiwaku
Dia bayangan atas nyawaku
Biarlah dua menjadi satu
20 Agustus 2012
The Answer?
I copy this post from the web www.blog.edwardsuhadi.com.
The title of the post is : Stepping Up.
Stepping Up
by Edward Suhadi
I just finished watching Step Up Revolution.
It was breath-taking and mind-blowing. I just wanted to shout all along the movie and shake my tushy off.
The dance and cinematography gimmicks are cool, but what’s really touch me deep is the dancers.
You see, I’m always close to the the dancing world. I think it is mainly because I dated a dancer for seven years in my younger years, so I can see their world up close and know what is really happening.
Dancers are one of the most passionate, determined and idealistic people. Their profession basically summed up what passion is.
I admire them. I really do.
A lot of us don’t realize this, but for every three minute dance performance we see, there are people that come to the studio for weeks just to practice and practice and get it right.
I know first hand on what it feels like coming to practice three times a week, going through traffic, amidst office deadlines, amidst exhaustion, choreographing, memorizing, working out the details, doing it over and over and over and saying “five, six, seven, eight” over and over and over and over and over and over… Just for a three minute performance.
I sometimes think, up until now, “Are you people crazy? All these? For three minutes? Some of the audience is barely looking.”
Can you imagine how many sweaty exhausting hours of practice they gave just for being that little dot in the frame corner for two seconds? But they love it, they don’t care. I know, I’ve been there. Once the music is on, they just. dont. care.
And they definately don’t do it for the money. There’s no money in dancing. Even in a society where dancing is much more appriciated, it is quite hard to make a decent life based on dancing alone.
But they keep doing it. They keep dancing.
Because they love it. And that’s enough.
It doesn’t pay as much as the office job or the usual carreer path their friends are taking or their parents are approving, but they keep on dancing. Against what is established. Following their heart. Pursuing the dream. Not many people are like that nowadays. Not many.
I feel related to them, seeing these dancers jumping around like rabbits from my dark theater seat.
My company too have lost sales and clients based on some idealistic terms and ideas that we have in place starting this year, but that’s okay, since we are now building the clientele with the right fit for our company. It might be not popular, yet, but we keep on going, we keep on ‘dancing’.
I feel like saying to the dancers on the screen, “I feel you man. I feel you.”
But of course to create great, idealistic mind-blowing projects, ‘the dancers’ have to learn how to sell it, how to make a sustainable carreer around these things that they love.
I love this expression ‘Passion and Profit’: It won’t be profitable if it wasn’t passionate, but without profit, it won’t last very long. The two have to exist together.
The passionate people have to learn how to bring the business side to their craft, and the businessmen have to learn to take risks by supporting these people.
Heck, all the genre-defining greats started out like that. Nobody wanted to touch Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Lord of The Rings. Too idealistic. Nobody has done this before. But somewhere along the way, there were producers and publishers that stepped up to take the risk. Passionate projects backed by good money. Bada-boom. Big bada-boom.
That’s why I always whisper a silent prayer if I saw a passion project/business, while also trying to support them the way I can. They need to know that there are people that still believe that dreams come true :)
If we don’t dream, what are we?
So here’s to all the dancers that I know: Francy, Evy, Suhanti, Aline, Cialing, Wiwiek, Santi, Yosandi, Aman, Leo, Suzan, Mona, Rita, Tisen, Vijay, Sandy, Cynthia, Yen Yen, Sella, Dada, Felice, Meimei and all of you out there who continue to come to the studio even if the world doesn’t know and the world doesn’t care: all of you have inspired me. To keep on going. To keep on doing what you love. Despite. Eventhough.
Here’s to the dancers:
Thank you.
* * * * *
A request: If you ever watch a dance performance, in the mall, in the church, on the stage, after they finish, come up to them and just say, “Hey, you did a great job there. Thank you.” It will mean the world to them :)
The writings above was taken from http://blog.edwardsuhadi.com/2012/08/18/stepping-up/
The title of the post is : Stepping Up.
Stepping Up
by Edward Suhadi
I just finished watching Step Up Revolution.
It was breath-taking and mind-blowing. I just wanted to shout all along the movie and shake my tushy off.
The dance and cinematography gimmicks are cool, but what’s really touch me deep is the dancers.
You see, I’m always close to the the dancing world. I think it is mainly because I dated a dancer for seven years in my younger years, so I can see their world up close and know what is really happening.
Dancers are one of the most passionate, determined and idealistic people. Their profession basically summed up what passion is.
I admire them. I really do.
A lot of us don’t realize this, but for every three minute dance performance we see, there are people that come to the studio for weeks just to practice and practice and get it right.
I know first hand on what it feels like coming to practice three times a week, going through traffic, amidst office deadlines, amidst exhaustion, choreographing, memorizing, working out the details, doing it over and over and over and saying “five, six, seven, eight” over and over and over and over and over and over… Just for a three minute performance.
I sometimes think, up until now, “Are you people crazy? All these? For three minutes? Some of the audience is barely looking.”
Can you imagine how many sweaty exhausting hours of practice they gave just for being that little dot in the frame corner for two seconds? But they love it, they don’t care. I know, I’ve been there. Once the music is on, they just. dont. care.
And they definately don’t do it for the money. There’s no money in dancing. Even in a society where dancing is much more appriciated, it is quite hard to make a decent life based on dancing alone.
But they keep doing it. They keep dancing.
Because they love it. And that’s enough.
It doesn’t pay as much as the office job or the usual carreer path their friends are taking or their parents are approving, but they keep on dancing. Against what is established. Following their heart. Pursuing the dream. Not many people are like that nowadays. Not many.
I feel related to them, seeing these dancers jumping around like rabbits from my dark theater seat.
My company too have lost sales and clients based on some idealistic terms and ideas that we have in place starting this year, but that’s okay, since we are now building the clientele with the right fit for our company. It might be not popular, yet, but we keep on going, we keep on ‘dancing’.
I feel like saying to the dancers on the screen, “I feel you man. I feel you.”
But of course to create great, idealistic mind-blowing projects, ‘the dancers’ have to learn how to sell it, how to make a sustainable carreer around these things that they love.
I love this expression ‘Passion and Profit’: It won’t be profitable if it wasn’t passionate, but without profit, it won’t last very long. The two have to exist together.
The passionate people have to learn how to bring the business side to their craft, and the businessmen have to learn to take risks by supporting these people.
Heck, all the genre-defining greats started out like that. Nobody wanted to touch Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Lord of The Rings. Too idealistic. Nobody has done this before. But somewhere along the way, there were producers and publishers that stepped up to take the risk. Passionate projects backed by good money. Bada-boom. Big bada-boom.
That’s why I always whisper a silent prayer if I saw a passion project/business, while also trying to support them the way I can. They need to know that there are people that still believe that dreams come true :)
If we don’t dream, what are we?
So here’s to all the dancers that I know: Francy, Evy, Suhanti, Aline, Cialing, Wiwiek, Santi, Yosandi, Aman, Leo, Suzan, Mona, Rita, Tisen, Vijay, Sandy, Cynthia, Yen Yen, Sella, Dada, Felice, Meimei and all of you out there who continue to come to the studio even if the world doesn’t know and the world doesn’t care: all of you have inspired me. To keep on going. To keep on doing what you love. Despite. Eventhough.
Here’s to the dancers:
Thank you.
* * * * *
A request: If you ever watch a dance performance, in the mall, in the church, on the stage, after they finish, come up to them and just say, “Hey, you did a great job there. Thank you.” It will mean the world to them :)
The writings above was taken from http://blog.edwardsuhadi.com/2012/08/18/stepping-up/
17 Agustus 2012
The Gambler
"That's the issue everyone's facing in life isn't it? We all have ideals. We all need money."
-Arem Duplessis-
It just punch me in the face. Reality.
I didn't realize until recently that there is a time limit for chasing dreams.
I just watched this movie, and I don't know why but movies always have it's own way of delivering it's message for me, stronger than any other media.
The main character is a dancer who believe that he can live and earn money by becoming a professional dancer one day. But one day everything is starting to fall apart and it seems like he has to give up his dream of becoming a dancer, and started to work at a company as a regular office worker.
It just hit me that when you grow up, you have less options. You cannot do whatever it is that you wish to do, because you are no longer living for yourself.
Even though you like it. Even though it is your passion. Even though you think you're really good at it. Even though your're believing that you can earn a living from it. When you grow older, you have to prove all that. Or else, you have to leave it. Simply said, when you get older, you'll need to start earning money.
When you grow older, you need money.
And that's why there is a time limit for dreaming.
You need to make it work. If you want to choose dancing as your career, than by a certain age you need to prove that you can earn enough money from dancing. If you want to be a painter, an artist, a musician, a sound engineer, a firefighter, a soldier, or any other profession that you wanted to be, at some time you need to start making money. Or else, you need to find something else to do, that makes money.
I just realize that. (where have I been, right?)
So I'll place my bet. I've set my time limit. I'll take the leap of faith.
Godspeed.
-Arem Duplessis-
It just punch me in the face. Reality.
I didn't realize until recently that there is a time limit for chasing dreams.
I just watched this movie, and I don't know why but movies always have it's own way of delivering it's message for me, stronger than any other media.
The main character is a dancer who believe that he can live and earn money by becoming a professional dancer one day. But one day everything is starting to fall apart and it seems like he has to give up his dream of becoming a dancer, and started to work at a company as a regular office worker.
It just hit me that when you grow up, you have less options. You cannot do whatever it is that you wish to do, because you are no longer living for yourself.
Even though you like it. Even though it is your passion. Even though you think you're really good at it. Even though your're believing that you can earn a living from it. When you grow older, you have to prove all that. Or else, you have to leave it. Simply said, when you get older, you'll need to start earning money.
When you grow older, you need money.
And that's why there is a time limit for dreaming.
You need to make it work. If you want to choose dancing as your career, than by a certain age you need to prove that you can earn enough money from dancing. If you want to be a painter, an artist, a musician, a sound engineer, a firefighter, a soldier, or any other profession that you wanted to be, at some time you need to start making money. Or else, you need to find something else to do, that makes money.
I just realize that. (where have I been, right?)
So I'll place my bet. I've set my time limit. I'll take the leap of faith.
Godspeed.
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