Articles - The Cracked Door

Sleeping with “Bar Women” in Siem Reap, Cambodia as a Way to Meet Someone (A Conversation)

One morning while I was getting breakfast in Siem Reap, Cambodia I had a long conversation with a white US American living there. For anyone unfamiliar, Siem Reap is a small, tourist city in Central Cambodia withu a population of around 350,000 most known for the absolutely amazing Angkor Wat ruins, one of the marvels of the world.

This account is just one perspective on complex dynamics between Western men and Southeast Asian women. It exemplifies the types of inequalities and power dynamics in these kinds of relationships and how both he and the Cambodian women he have met navigate these relationships.

The guy had lived in Siem Reap for about 7 months. He is deciding whether to settle here long-term or go back home. He says he has everything he wants in life (such as a nice home, food to eat, etc.) except for a woman.

He has gotten frustrated, though, with the transactional interactions he’s had so far with Cambodian women here. He’ll meet different women at bars, take them home, sleep with them that night, intending for them to be a one-night stand. But then the next morning, they ask for money. He says the amount of money they ask for is not much, but he finds it insulting. It makes him think, “I thought the woman was simply interested in me, but then I realize, ‘Oh that’s what kind of relationship this is.’” He also said he usually meets “bar women” or women who specifically go to bars to meet guys there, which to him are “like this.”

He said he felt frustrated in the US with having to pretend to like people’s personalities or have someone play a wingman in order to get to sleep with them. In Cambodia, he can say, “I think you look pretty; do you also think I’m attractive? Okay,” and go have sex. He also likes that women are more upfront about complimenting his body, for example strangers telling him he looks attractive.

In contrast, he got frustrated with how in the US, women are selective and would seem to judge him on things like his job and salary (he worked a blue collar job often labeled as “lower status”). Here he is comparatively more desired. He admits that Cambodian men seem to have it harder than white men such as himself, though. They often have to go through several hoops like justifying their career path if their work is considered menial.

In his opinion, Cambodians require less in life here in Siem Reap: often just wanting a place to sleep, enough food to eat, and a motorbike to get around. For him, people do not seem to know what they are lacking materially: if they lived in a Western country, they would own so much more monetary wealth and material stuff. But to him, this ignorance prevents many in rural Cambodia from seeing what they lack, lowering the material standards of what a “successful life” looks like, almost like a coping mechanism. (Note: This is his opinion. I do not agree that rural Cambodians do not know what they are “lacking” but find the reasons for these differences in cultural expectations for material things to be a bit more complicated.)

Thus, when the women he sleeps with asks him for things, he can hardly fault them for their request. They are often asking for basic needs like food, and compared to the US, what they are asking for is not that expensive. At the same time, the requests make him feel uneasy

I found it interesting talking with him. I could relate to the frustrations and hurt about having people so frequently ask you for money, but it seemed like he was in some way using his status given to white men in that community to have one-sided, short-term sexual encounters. One-night stands are okay when both sides reasonably know and agree on what to expect, yet I sensed that the women he was having sex with had very different expectations and assumptions than him, seeing the sex as a beginning of a relationship, not just something they are doing that night.

Because of his privilege, he could enforce his expectations that this was a brief sexual encounter. He obviously controlled whether he helped others financially, and he could move on to another woman if this woman had what he considered too unreasonable an expectation. That allowed him to satisfy his own desires (both for sex and to be complemented for his attractiveness). To me, this seemed like a vain and ultimately self-defeating approach for finding satisfaction emotionally, relationally, and even sexually.

I found it sad. He seemed to have some kind of insecurity, which he sought to satisfy by continually having sex with different Cambodian women and seemed either oblivious or indifferent to how that subtly positioned the women as a type of object for him. Then he got frustrated by the ways those women tried to respond within that.

These kinds of cross-cultural relationships can be complicated to navigate, though, especially given differences in power. Everyone has expectations for how to interact, which are influenced by one’s cultural context, and when in another culture, it’s definitely okay to communicate your expectations and find people who respect and abide by your expectations. At the same time, it’s important to be aware of where others are coming from and to be aware of how your power and privilege may unfairly impact the situation. I think he simply felt frustrated with how the women did not abide by his expectations, moving swiftly to get what he wanted without thinking through what their encounter must have looked like from their perspective and how his power and privilege shaped the interaction itself.

This kind of obliviousness can be common among those who are in a position of power in society: particularly white men in other cultures. It can also make one think about how positions of power could lead to similar ignorance in our own lives.

Covering for a Flight (Short Story)

Putri quickly uncovered her face. The security officer needed to see her face to compare with her Indonesian ID card. She rushed to cover herself back off with her niqab before anyone else could see her, but she struggled to tuck the fabric back in place. She had never really worn a niqab before and struggled to get it just right.

Ok, done. She did a doubletake around to see whether anyone had spotted her.

“That’s all,” the officer said. “Have a safe flight.”

She walked over to her gate, worried that she be spotted. She hoped no one was around who might recognize her. Her family didn’t know she was taking this trip, and she wanted to keep it that way. The airport was small. Only a couple gates as it was a small town.

She began to look for her gate, but her stomach started to growl. She still had an hour before her flight left plenty of time to grab lunch. She walked up to the line to order some food at a nearby counter. After she told the lady what she wanted, she turned around to find a table. That’s when he spotted her.

“Hello Putri, is that you?” a voice called to her from behind her in the line after ordering her food.

She turned around, and there was Ismail in a casual yet professional suit jacket and button down shirt. What was he doing here?

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Or, I guess I didn’t know you were going on a trip.”

“Yes sir,” she replied.

She got a better look at him when she turned around to find a seat. He looked like he was wearing nice clothes that he hadn’t tidied up yet, almost as if he was flying to a business meeting and would button his collar and apply his tie after he arrived. He smiled at her as she walked by.

He approached her table a few minutes later after he had gotten his food, “Funny thing seeing you here,” not asking if he could join her.

She said nothing. “You look nervous,” he said to keep the conversation going. “Have you never flown before?”

She nodded yes.

“I see. I was nervous the first time as well,” he tried to reassure, but she got the sense that he had been too young the first time he had flown for him to remember. From a wealthier family in the town, he was now a business man. He was always going somewhere on some trip.

“Yes, my flight heads out soon,” she replied, hoping to use this as an excuse to leave the conversation.

“Where are you going?” he responded.

She had been so anxious she had completely forgot where she was flying to. She got out her ticket from her pocket, which read that she was flying to Bali. Too frazzled to say its name, she showed him the ticket.

“Oh, that’s a fun place,” he replied. “Today, I’m going to Manila, but I wish I was going there, though. It’s much more fun,” chuckling.

“Are you traveling alone?” he filled the resulting silence with.

What an unfair question. She had never been able to lie, so she simply nodded her head yes. He looked at her like one coming upon a nice cake at the shop of a bakery.

“And are you meeting anyone there?”

She nodded no.

“Wow, have you traveled alone before?”

Again, she simply nodded no.

“That’s very brave of you.”

“Thank you,” she murmured politely.

Never mind that he traveled alone all the time. She leaned back in her chair as if to get away from him as much as possible. He now saw her as available.

“You know, it’s very nice to get out of this town every once in a while. It puts things into perspective. To see new possibilities.”

She eyed the clock and checked the time of her flight. She was about to say that she had to go catch her flight, but he came in too fast.

“When is your flight?”

She read him the time.

“That’s not for another hour. You don’t have to worry about it now. As the first time you’ve flown, you must be a little nervous, but trust me, it’s fine. You have plenty of time.”

Ugh, why won’t he let me leave?

She looked throughout the hallway of the terminal to think about her options. How could she get away from him? She saw a sign for the toilet. That would work.

“I have to go to…” she began, but before she could mention the toilet, he came in again.

“I was talking with your mother the other day.”

She paused and sunk a little into her seat. This wouldn’t be good. She couldn’t leave whatever he was about to say unsettled. She would have to stay.

“She said you have an exciting interview coming up. That’s amazing. Congratulations!”

He paused, clearly anticipating something from her other than the blank stare she gave him.

“I didn’t know it was in Bali, though. I thought it was somewhere closer.”

That was the lie she told her mom about this trip. That she was heading to a nearby town for a few days for an exciting job interview. Her mom even took drove her to the bus station. Instead of catching a bus, though, she took a taxi to the airport to head to Bali. When she got back, she was going to say the interview didn’t go well and that she didn’t think she’d hear back from the employers. This was the only way she could think of to get away from it all. Her family would never have approved of her taking a trip alone so far away.

“Yes,” she finally spoke. “It’s in Bali.”

“I kind of wish it was somewhere closer to here. Maybe then we’d be able to see each other more…”

“I know,” she said. She couldn’t have him go blather to anyone that he saw her at the airport, but how could he convince him of that without explaining that this was all a lie?

“Are you considering moving to Bali?” he asked.

“We’ll see.” She was just going on a trip to get away from it all here, but she didn’t need to tell him that. Part of her would love to move to Bali. She’s seen all the pictures, but deep down, she knows that would never happen. She’s just taking a trip. He didn’t need to know that.

“Don’t you have such a nice life for yourself here?”

Absolutely not. She hated this small town, trapped in the same set of relationships with the same people, far away from any semblance of a good economy, but instead she just sat there and said nothing as he continued. He knew he had his life set here with his family business, so of course, he’d prefer if she stayed too.

“What are your plans?”

“I don’t know yet. I am just going for a single interview. I don’t know if it will even work out. If it does, I will figure it out from there.”

“I wish I had known you were going to Bali. I had friends there who you could have stayed with. What are your plans after your interview? You still could hang out with them if you’d like. They could show you around.”

“Thanks, but I won’t have time. I have a tight schedule.” She wished she could stay with someone she knew. It would have saved her a lot of money, but she would never stay with any of his people.

“It’s not a problem. I can text them right now…”

“No!” she shot back. He looked almost taken aback by an assertiveness in her voice that she had not before in the conversation. “Don’t tell them!”

He looked puzzled at her sudden conviction. “Why? It’s not like you visiting there is a secret? Do you…”

He saw her look of horror at this statement.

“You haven’t told anyone in town that you are going to Bali. Have you?”

She didn’t say anything but just looked at him dejected. Her secret has been found out. “I just don’t want anyone back home to think of me differently, as someone with such an opportunity, unless I actually do get the job.”

“That’s fair. You may have to tell them eventually, though, but I’ll keep your secret.”

He agreed to keep it under wraps. She no longer had a reason to stay in conversation with this man.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Now if you would excuse me, I really have to use the toilet.”

She left too quickly to look at him give an excuse for her to stay. All she heard was him faintly calling back that she hoped she had a good time. She didn’t care. She was free. Would he actually spill the beans? That was a problem for another day. After the toilet, she’d find a different place to wait in the airport, one where he was unlikely to be.

The Box’s Joy (A Short Story)

There once was a box. It packed a toy truck that a mother bought for her little boy for his second birthday. The box was excited to be taken home to see what his life would entail now that he was leaving the boring store.

The boy tore open the gift wrap surrounding, ripped him open, and took out the truck. He ran it around the home for a few minutes, but then he ran up to the box.

The boy gazed at him excitedly. The box got to be a rocket ship that day, blasting off to Mars. Then, he was a time machine, taking the boy back to the days of the dinosaurs. They played for weeks, and each day, the box was thrilled to become new things.

Soon, however, the parents put the truck back inside him and stuck him in a closet, where he sat for years. Eventually, the boy took him out. He was much older now. All he did was put some clothes and items into the box to take off to college.

There, he sat for many more years in the dorm closet, only to be moved a few years later when the man got his new home. Again, he gathered dust as he aged, remembering the time when he could be a rocket ship.

One day, a new person opened his closet and gazed upon him. It was a young girl.

She looked at him dazzled and dragged him out. She threw open all the stuff inside him. He got to be a castle, then a throne, then a tall mountain, and the vastness of space itself.

He was older now; some of his walls started to fold. After she was done playing, her parents took one look at the box with his sags and new holes and carried him out to the curb.

The next day it started to rain. His skin fell apart.

The girl ran up smiling with delight. She picked him up with his sagging wetness and danced together in the puddle. He dripped with tears of joy as he got to be a prince in his final moments before the garbage collectors came and took him away.

The Freezer (A Short Story)

There it is, the Cooler. The place I’d have to go. My boss asked me to do an inventory to count every single thing in that cold dark room.

I walk into the huge fridge. The door automatically snaps shut behind me. It’s a long corridor with one bend, which leads to another narrow sliver of a room. A passageway to nowhere. On all sides are piles of boxes of frozen foods, almost squeezing me shut at any moment. No matter how many times I come I can never get used to this space.

I begin my inventory count with boxes of canned peas. For each box I see, I make a mark on my little notepad. Then I move onto the next item. It’s pretty boring. Why did I even accept this job? I had little choice at the time. It offered a paycheck after I graduated, the only way I could find to pay my student loans and afford rent. I can still picture my father’s dejected expression when I told him about the offer. My dad was too polite to say what he thought, and just gave me a blank congratulations, but I could tell he was realizing that all his dreams for what his son would amount to would come to nothing.

Anyways, where was I? I was now counting ice cream carts. If only I could eat one. There’s a new cart. I mark a check on the page, but wait? I check where I marked it. Was that the group for ice cream or one of the other foods? I can’t remember. My little notepad is becoming filled with little groups of marks, too many to remember which is which.

I’m such a fuck up?! I can’t even count carts of ice cream. No wonder I can’t find a good job. I’ll be stuck working here until the day I die.

I guess I never really liked my job anyways. It’s so boring. That is the real reason I can’t keep anything straight. I just don’t care. If I had a real job, I would do it well, or at least, I hope I wouldn’t find a way to mess that up too.

A loud crash in the other passageway snaps me back to reality. What on earth is that? Something must have fallen. Was that me? I’ve been shifting boxes around to do this count, but I hadn’t touched anything over there. Why would something have fallen over there?

I place my clipboard down and walk over to see what happened. There’s nothing. No strewn boxes. Maybe I just heard something. Maybe someone dropped something on the other side of the wall.

I come back, and I can’t find the notepad. I thought I had just set it down on this one box. Where could it have gone? I look around. It’s not on the other boxes. Did it fall somewhere? I start rummaging through a few boxes, moving some around and looking through them. No notepad. I can never seem to find anything anyways.

Kneeling before a box, my butt accidently knocks the stack of boxes behind it. A couple of them crash loudly onto the ground. Just another example of me failing. I begin to look over to see the damage.

But several more boxes fall. This time, they’re in the other room. I shoot straight up. That can’t be me. I hear a growling noise. Something is there.

I don’t have time for this, and I run straight to the door, but it’s locked. I try to pound against it, but no one is outside. The door is pretty thick to seal in the cold. It’s not like they could hear my knocking anyways. My phone has never worked in this deep part of the basement. The creature moves as I knock, as if the noise is stirring it.

This can’t be happening. I do the only thing that makes sense, and that is to go back to work. It’ll keep my mind off of whatever is going on on the other side. That’s all I am here to do. I count the boxes of items. I don’t have my notepad, but that’s okay. I can keep track of the numbers in my head. I hear it moving about. It knocks over boxes, and its breathing grows strained like it’s choking on its own droll. I desperately cling to counting my canned mangoes.

WHACK! It sounds like an entire shelf of stuff has fallen over there. I completely lose track of my count. The bang seems to dig into my very bones. “I’m so dumb?!” I shout reflexively. The creature stops for a few seconds of eerie silence. Then it makes its way towards my room. It must have heard me!

I instinctively dive behind a set of boxes in a vain attempt to protect myself. I’m too much of a wimp to take it on. This is why I deserve death. I wasted my life; why wouldn’t I also waste my death, just sitting here waiting for it to come pounce on me. And what a way to go? In the very bowels of my employer, who doesn’t care enough about me? I bet they’d just clean up my body, make an insurance claim about the goods my blood got spilled on, and move on like nothing happened. Why did I waste my life here?

I hear the monster on the other side of my tower of boxes, gurgling and foaming. That’s it. If I am going to die, I might as well do something. I knock over a box of cans on the top of my stack so that it falls directly on top of it. I hear it whimpering in pain. That slowed it down, but it’s still making its way up my tower.

I plunge my hand into another box and the first thing I can find. It’s a small metallic can of tuna about the size of a fist. This will work. I can use it to punch the beast. Its ugly head rears the top of my fortress as it climbs down, coming straight for me.

I draw back my fist when I realize that it nuzzles its head against my leg. What does it want? I don’t know, but it seems friendly. It looks at me, whimpering in a high pitched voice at my shaking body that I have curled up in the fetal position. I feel an immense compassion towards it: it was simply trapped in this dungeon just trying to get by, like me. When it realizes that I’m not going to give it food, it wanders over to the puddle of food that fell out of their packaging all over the floor in another part of the freezer, slurping it up desperately.

I seize the moment and rush to the door, trying to jiggle it open again. It turns out it was unlocked the whole time. I guess in my panic before, I couldn’t get the latch at the proper angle. I rush outside and don’t look back.

Screw this job. I’m going home.

Left for a Younger Wife – Story of a Middle-Aged Indonesian Woman Getting Divorced

Traveling through Indonesia, I have spoken with a surprisingly high number of middle-aged women somewhere in the process of getting divorced. Compared with the United States, many Indonesians marry younger, with significant cultural pressure placed on women to find a husband by their mid-twenties. At the same time, once married many women choose to stay home as housewives. This can lead to a dynamic where as they get older, they mature apart from their husbands and by their early forties end up in a position where the marriage falls apart.

Such a divorce often forces them to rebuild their lives from the ground up. In addition to starting from scratch materially, financially, and/or professionally, they also go through a kind of renaissance where they rediscover their passions in life that they had put on hold when they became stay-at-home wives. It feels partially similar to retired, empty-nesters in the US rediscovering their old hobbies and passions after their children become adults and start to move out.

This story is a specific example of a woman in her early forties I spoke with who was in the thick of this such a divorce. Her husband fell in-love with someone else and decided to divorce her. Different individuals have different journeys, but her story illustrates some of the tensions and opportunities Indonesian women in such a scenario might face and how they might navigate it. I will refer to her by the pseudonym Putri.

—

Putri had been married to a man for about twenty years, but her husband had been having an affair with another, younger woman for about five years. When Putri and I spoke, he recently decided he wanted to get a divorce so that he could marry this woman. This has left her in a precarious position. She is now in her early 40s and has spent most of her time living as a housewife.

While they were in the process of finalizing their divorce, the husband tried to get married to his new wife. Having two wives at the same time is not allowed in Indonesian law, but he tried to specifically get a Muslim marriage, and the practice of the local religious community seemed to allow it. In Indonesian law, a man cannot marry multiple women, but in Muslim law in Indonesia, that is allowed. The process to submit a divorce for the Indonesian government typically takes about two months. Then a few days after the divorce was legal in Indonesian law, he and his new wife signed the paperwork to marry under Indonesian law. This was in itself very difficult for Putri, seeing her husband so quickly remarry and be with someone else.

They have three kids. In Indonesian law, the kids basically get to decide which parent they move in with after a divorce, and she strongly thinks that they will choose her because she’s the parent they have always been closest to. She said that her husband was an absent father. She is worried about them, though, about how they will process the divorce. Neither she nor her husband told them that they are getting divorced until right the weeks before it happened, and they probably haven’t told them about the affair with their new stepmother.

Putri has a remote gig job online and invested in a local shop her friend started. Both of which she said will give her enough money to get by. She has been a housewife for many years but started her work about 2-3 years ago (around the time she learned about the affair). She said if the divorce had happened back then, she wouldn’t be able to get by since she didn’t have any income independent apart from her husband, but now, she will be financially okay on her own.

Over the last several weeks, she has been a conflicting stew of emotions. She spent several weeks crying. Then, she will have times when she feels really angry and times when she feels compelled to move on and do something fun. Other times, she feels paralyzed and can’t motivate herself to do anything. Sometimes, she even feels like she wished she could sit down with him and see if there’s a way to make it work between them.

She plans to use this time of being divorced to rediscover her passions. She used to write Indonesian pop songs, which is something she wants to go back to. When she was around 19, she was in a band as the lead singer, but all that ended when she married this man. She is good at writing the chorus lines but bad at writing the verses. Her ex-husband (who works in the music industry) would help her make the verses and rest of the song based on her choruses.

She also wants to use this time to travel. She joined a hiking group that hikes once a week while her kids are at school. She also recently went on her first solo trip over the weekend as a way to test the waters for more travel and get her kids used to having her be away for a few days. At the same time, she feels incredibly anxious/scared about doing all this. Some moments, her eagerness to venture out wins, and other moments, her worry takes control. She said many Indonesian women want to go forward yet feel paralyzed by anxiety about doing so at the same time.

She also said that she had a pattern, rooted in her abusive father, of anxious attachment. When she was a kid, she would attach herself to her father, and then when she was around 19, she then attached herself to her boyfriend in the same way who eventually became her ex-husband. She isn’t used to being by herself or focusing on her needs.

At one point, I asked her what she wanted in her life, and she said she wanted her kids to grow into great, well-adjusted adults. I responded saying that wanting your kids to grow up well-adjusted made total sense as a parent. That’s important. But I asked what she wanted for her life, not what she wanted for their lives. She said she has struggled figuring out what she wants in life. Usually, she ends up focusing on how to provide the needs and desires for those around her instead of what she wants for her own life. She tends to lessen her needs in her family and other social environments as a way to ease the tension, not articulating any desires she has but going with what they want to keep the peace and maintain stability. This seems to be something she wants to work on during her time by herself after this divorce. She wants to figure out what she wants for herself. But like one might expect, she also feels incredibly anxious about it.

On top of this, she said Indonesian society stigmatizes divorced women. People tend to view divorce as emblematic of a failed marriage. Even worse, when a couple gets divorced, they usually by default blame the wife instead of the husband for that failure. She sometimes feels really anxious about what others will think of her and how they will treat her as a divorcee. Multiple Indonesians have said that divorced women can be highly stigmatized and outcasted in society, something that both hurts their standing in the community, job prospects, and other important things in life. She has no real choice but to go forward. She thinks getting divorced from him is still worth it to her even if others think ill of her since separating from him will enable her to find happiness in life.

—

Her story illustrates a few patterns among middle-aged women who get divorced. Like her, many marry in their early- or mid-twenties only to drift apart from their husbands into the point of divorce by their forties. When young, the women had many hopes and passions in life that they often put on hold to stay at home as a wife. Now that they are divorced, they must rebuild their lives both emotionally and materially. They also go through a period where they rediscover themselves in the process, reacquainting themselves with the personal passions and professional interests that they loved as their youth. They often say that the experience has taught them the importance of being true to themselves and not sacrificing themselves for anyone, reflecting on how naive it was for them to do so when they first got married when they were young.

Rejected by Others: Growing Up with Epilepsy in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This is a transcript of my conversation with Bella in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She describes her experiences growing up with epilepsy. Throughout her childhood, others have judged or alienated her because of her disease. This is her story of overcoming the stigma others have placed on her.

She spoke Indonesian, and our friend, Hanisa, translated our conversation into English. Because of the way we switched languages throughout the conversation, I decided to post a transcript for anyone interested in reading Bella’s original statements. For anyone who, like me, does not speak Indonesian, all you have to do is copy and paste her statements into a translation app.

Original Version Published Here: https://youtu.be/m8GGnTFydqM

Transcript of Our Conversation

[Stephen – Video’s Introduction]

Hello everyone. This is Stephen with the Curious Life and this video is the first video in a series I’m starting. My plan is to interview people in the different places I visit as I travel the world and talk about their struggles, talk about what life is like for them, and in some cases some of the biggest struggles that they face. The idea is to help people think about the different types of struggles people face in different parts of the world and maybe help people who might experience a similar type of issue in their own context and help them think through how to navigate it themselves.

In today’s video, I’m going to talk with my friend named Bella in Yogjakarta in Indonesia. So she’s going to talk about her experiences growing up with epilepsy and maybe most importantly how people treated her growing up. A lot of people alienated her and bullied her and did a lot of mean things or you know didn’t understand her or her condition. So hopefully this video will help for anyone thinking about people who might be different and what might be going on and help kind of understand the different ways that people with different conditions might behave differently and be more sympathetic. Or also people who maybe are growing up or who have to live with something like epilepsy. So I hope you enjoy, and you’ll get more videos like this in the coming weeks.

[Our Conversation]

[Stephen]

Hello everyone, this is Stephen. I’m specifically here with Bella, my friend, and also with Hanisa. Hanisa is here for translation support and emotional support as well. Bella, how are you doing?

[Bela]

Fine.

[Stephen]

Good. That’s good. And [turning to Hanisa] how are you doing?

[Hanisa]

Good as well

[Stephen]

Yeah, I wanted to talk about maybe some of your journey. So for context, could you tell people a little bit about yourself?

[Hanisa]

Jadi perjalanan kamu gimana? Kamu minta tentang diri kamu?

[Bela]

Perjalanannya sungguh sulit, kadang ada yang mudah, sulit, terus liku-liku lah ya. seperti itu. Saya

mengalami epilepsi dari kelas 6 SD dan mengalami skizofrenia mulai dari lulus SMA tahun 2020.

[Hanisa]

Eh, jadi so she said that the journey is hard for her. Sometimes it’s easy, some is hard. She has been struggling since she was diagnosed with epilepsy as well. It started in elementary school

[Stephen]

Yeah wow. This makes sense.

(Oh and one other quick thing for anyone in case you’re wondering, I do have a cold so if my voice sounds deeper or if I randomly start coughing that’s why.)

But yeah, what was it like growing up with epilepsy?

[Hanisa]

Kamu ngasnya gimana in elementary school? Tumbuh tumbuh ya kamu kamu kamu kan tumbuh gede dari kecil udah epilepsi itu rasanya gimana kamu rasanya dari kelas 6 SD itu? Heeh. mulai ke trier ya. Heeh. tentang pembulian.

[Bela]

Terus dan SMP saya memilih individu waktu sekolahnya dan akhirnya SMA saya memilih pakai C. Oh. Saya memilih individu karena saya trauma karena dibully dari kecil.

[Hanisa]

So she said that at first the most triggering experience for her was when she was in the sixth grade. When in the sixth grade she got bullied by her friends. When in junior high school, she used to be a lone wolf. She used to be a person who didn’t interact with anybody else.

So at the senior high, she chose to do Packet C in Indonesia. It’s like an exam but not the majority of people who do it. It’s not the original exam from senior high school. You can do Packet A for is for elementary school Packet B is for junior high and Packet C is for senior high [in other words, Packet A is an alternative competency exam on can take to graduate from elementary school, Packet B for junior high school, and Packet C for high school].

She did Packet C because she didn’t want to experience having to go around in school. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Stephen]

I mean, I’m glad that you had that option, but it honestly seems like there’s a bit of hardship there. How did the students bully you?

[Hanisa]

Jadi dia paham. Jadi kayak untung ada kayak opsi lain itu dia ada pakainya tadi kayak jadi bisa menghindari itu. Tapi kalau dia tanya lagi jadi kayak kamu gimana merasanya waktu ekspresi waktu pengalaman waktu kamu dibul merasanya seperti apa?

[Bela]

Saya merasa sakit hati karena telah dibully tanpa merasa bersalah. Saya sebenarnya tidak pernah punya kesalahan dengan teman-teman SD, tetapi saya dibully dan dikata-katakan kotoran hewan, kuman dan tidak suka dengan teman-teman yang lain.

[Hanisa]

He said that she was so heart-broken when she was in elementary school at that time when she was in sixth grade. She felt that there’s friends who say bad things to her. Used to mock her saying that she wasn’t even a poop of the animal. She said, “You are bacteria.” And other bad words. They all said to her, but she felt like she didn’t do anything wrong at that time. But all of her friends, they mocked her.

[Stephen]

Why did they mock you? Was it just because you had epilepsy? That seems awful.

[Hanisa]

He kamu diol-ol tuh epilepsi aja atau kayak kenapa aku bis diol kayak

kira-kira? Teman-teman tuh kayak gitu kenapa kamu tahu enggak atau kamu enggak tahu benar?

[Bela]:

enggak tahu em kamu

[Hanisa]

So she said that her friends didn’t know that she had epilepsy at that time so it wasn’t about it.

[Stephen]

Yeah this makes sense. It seems like the like in of itself having epilepsy is something that can be very difficult to process especially as a kid. And it seems like you kind of also had to deal with people treating you differently at the same time.

[Hanisa]

Jadi pasti dia bilang pasti berat buat bela kan. Jadi kayak sesuatu yang kalau

diketahui nanti kan pasti orang-orang bakal kayak gitu kayak gitu.

[Bela]

Heeh. Bagaimana caranya mengalami itu perjuangannya dan entah bagaimana rasanya yang mengalami seperti saya. Entah itu bisa pulih atau tidak. Belum tentu orang yang mengalami seperti saya akan sekuat ini.

[Hanisa]

Iya. She said that many people experience epilepsy, but she doesn’t think that every other person can survive as much as she survived. She grew. She learned as much. She didn’t stop believing in herself. She still has the courage to stand within herself.

[Stephen]

That’s good. That’s awesome. What do you think helped give you that courage?

[Hanisa]

Kamu kok bisa seberani itu se percaya diri itu dengan dirimu untuk apa yang membantumu kayak apa sih gitu?

[Bela]

Saya berjuang dengan diri sendiri karena saya menyemangati diri sendiri kalau orang itu tidak pernah ada yang memilih saya. Terus dan saya pernah dibully itu. Hm. Saya rasanya sakit hati ingin rasanya ingin balas dendam. Hmm. He. Dan saya akhirnya kelas 5 SD mengamuk di satu kelas dan mengguyur satu teman saya, teman dekat saya.

[Hanisa]

So she said that after she got bullied in elementary school, she wanted to take revenge on the people who bullied her. And that actually happened when she was in fifth grade, she took some water with her, and she splashed it on the person and burned her in class.

[Stephen]

Oh wow. This is a different story but when I was that age I also did that to a boy

who was yelling at me and I happened to have some very hot water cuz I was boiling some water. And I realized that like it’s hot, and it was bad. It didn’t burn and which is good, but like I didn’t really think about it all the way.

Yeah. This makes sense. I mean maybe in general: What was it like learning about your epilepsy and processing that you had epilepsy and some of the other issues that you also developed like schizophrenia and stuff like that?

[Hanisa]

Eh, kamu gimana

[Bela]

Kayak memprosesnya di dalam diri kamu kalau tahu oh aku ternyata emang aku absus aku juga aku rasa kamu cara mengosesnya biar bisa kayak berdam kayak udah gitu kayak gitu. Heeh. Oke. Saya berdamai dengan diri sendiri karena telah diberi saran oleh kakak saya karena pemulihan itu penting dan harus minum obat rutin jika ingin sembuh.

[Hanisa]

So she made it herself. She said that what helps her the most is her sister. Her sister told her you can be good if you keep doing medicine and you keep on growing as a person and I will be there to support you. You said that ya?

[Bela]

I oke maamin sekarang boleh.

[Stephen]

Ok, that makes sense. And that’s important to have that support from your sister, from your family. How did you feel when she said that?

[Hanisa]

Perasaan yang bilang gimana pas kakak bilang kayak gitu?

[Bela]

Rasanya tidak terima jika dikejar-kejar atau di dipaksa untuk minum obat. Sebenarnya saya tidak suka waktu itu awal kena epilepsi dan saya menyembunyikan obat itu di bawah kasur dan saya mengaku kalau saya sudah minum obat dan obatnya habis.

[Hanisa]

So she said that at first it was hard for her to accept that she had epilepsy, and when her sister said that you have to routinely have your medicine she didn’t want the medicine. So she hid it below her bed, and she didn’t drink it, but she said she drank it to her sister or family.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense. I mean I’m glad the medicine can be complicated in of itself like what is the what is the medicine like I thought sometimes epilepsy medicine can be both complicated and have a lot of side effects too.

[Hanisa]

H jadi kamu kan medicin medicine perepsiaan jadi medicine perepsinya tuh apakah apa banyak atau kayak harus kayak ben harus teratur atau harus kayak berbari gitu?

[Bela]

Awal kena epilepsi, saya meminum obat dengan tiga kali sehari, pagi, siang, malam. Setelah bertahun 2 tahun kemudian, dosis diturunkan menjadi dua kali sehari. Lalu diturunkan kembali pada tahap selanjutnya jadi satu kali sehari dan tahun ini jadi 2 hari sekali.

[Hanisa]

Hmm. So she said when at first she got diagnosed with epilepsy, she had to drink medicine three times a day, and two years later she got the dosage reduced to two times a day. And then after that got reduced again to one time a day, and right now a day she only drinks it once every other day. So it’s getting less and less so. It’s getting easier.

[Stephen]

And what do you feel like? So, with what you’re saying with your sister, we were talking about focusing on personal growth. What do you think the growth has looked like for you over the last couple years?

[Hanisa]

Kan kamu tadi aa kayak fokus tentang pertumbuhan diri gitu. Nah, pertumbuhan dirimu yang beberapa tahun ke belakang ini seperti apa?

[Bela]

Saya sebenarnya perjalanan hidup ini sedang mengalami stres terus dan saya mengalami merasa kesendirian individu, tidak punya teman, merasa dijauhkan dengan teman dekat dan ingin bersosialisasi jadi tidak percaya. saya diri dan saya memikirkan memutuskan untuk mengedap di rumah sendiri menahan diri di rumah sendiri.

[Hanisa]

Hmm, so actually what she said right now was that she feels so lonely. She feels so stressed. She’d like to try to hold the life that she’s got going on lately. She felt like there are no friends who understand her, like, “I cannot say anything to anybody. My friend got away from me, and they want to get close to me.” And she said that she chose to go to her home and isolate herself there and don’t want to be with anybody else.

[Stephen]

I could definitely see that. If your friends are discounting you like that, I could understand wanting to go home and be safe there. When this happens and when you go home by yourself, how does it feel?

[Hanisa]

Perasaan bilang gimana pas sudah tahu perasaan karena kamu enggak gitu kamu mau pulang.

[Bela]

He enggak bukan e setuju juga.

[Hanisa]

Tapi kayak kamu kenapa enggak itu kamu mau pulang aja gitu enggak mau kayak gimana perasaan kamu kayak waktu pulang sendiri gitu?

[Bela]

Heeh. Banyak saya merasa tidak dianggap dengan teman, tidak berguna kepada tetangga. Dan saya merasa sakit hati, merasa rendah diri kepada diri sendiri, kecewa dengan diri sendiri. Kenapa saya selalu direndahkan, dijauhkan, dan diejek dengan teman sebaya?

[Hanisa]

She said that her mind is occupied with thinking that all of her friends, her peers, don’t want to get near her, and she cannot interact well with her peer group. All of the friends keep putting her outside of the circle.

[Stephen]

I could see that, and obviously I’m not like a medical expert, but I thought some of the medication for epilepsy could be very strong and that it can do a lot too. This makes sense. It’s unfortunate that this has been isolating you in this way. What helps you feel connected with others?

[Hanisa]

Jadi apa yang kamu merasa kamu merasa terhubung dengan orang lain tuh apa yang kamu apa yang bisa merasa terhubung kayak apa yang maksud saya merasa

[Bela]

terhubung dengan orang lain mulai dari berobat seizo ini dan saya mulai percaya diri setelah minum obat penyakit kizo ini dan saya jadi percaya diri untuk bersosialisasi kembali dengan teman sebaya saya dan saya ikut bergabung di komunitas KPSI. Saya merasa bangga dengan diri sendiri dan saya juga senang bisa berkumpul dengan teman-teman yang lain seperti Mbak Hanisa dan teman yang lain. Karena saya suka dengan teman yang pengertian, mendukung satu sama lain dan bisa apa? Mendukung belajar untuk mengenali penyakit mental.

[Hanisa]

She said that felt connected now especially with people in [the mental health support group she joined] like me [Hanisa] and the other friends here because she likes it when people around her are understanding. The people around her can support each other in their own way like that, and

said she likes it. That she can learn a lot from joining this community.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. What have been some of the biggest things you’ve learned in this community? And maybe for context for anyone watching, she’s referencing a community here in Yogjakarta that has people with different kinds of mental health issues whether it’s epilepsy or other things, and they come together and try to kind of talk things out like a small group community support.

[Hanisa]

What was the question?

[Stephen]

Oh, I’m sorry. The question was: How have you been growing in this group? Oh, what have you learned?

[Hanisa]

Apa yang kamu jadi paling paling kamu pelajar yang pelajaran apa yang kamu dapat PKWSI selama 2 minggu?

[Bela]

Oh, masih dapat. saya bisa mengenali penyakit mental, mendapat saran dari dokter saya bahwa harus melakukan aktivitas atau kegiatan sehari-hari itu penting karena agar membantu otak untuk berpikir kritis dan bisa membantu kesehatan mental jadi sehat lagi dan push.

[Hanisa]

She likes it that she can learn from her peers. As well, she can manage her own diseases, and she can talk to the psychiatrist there and KPS as well. She likes it that way. She can grow to be a better person here in KS.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. I’m glad that you have this opportunity. It seems like you’ve been disconnected from so many other people because of this condition. I guess one other question I wanted to ask: Given what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently if you could go back in terms of how you kind of processed and handled all this?

[Hanisa]

Kalau kamu bisa masa lalu, adakah hal yang kamu pengin ubah? Dari situ eh dari situ sekarang kamu gimana?

[Bela]

ingin mulai belajar dari awal lagi. Seperti belajar di waktu SMP, SMA itu saya rasanya ingin mengulangi lagi karena saya seperti merasa kurang ilmu saja dan saya besok tahun depan ingin kuliah di kampus impian dengan dari pihak Yakum. H dan semoga saya bisa diterima.

[Hanisa]

So she said what she wanted to repeat. She wants to redo the time when she was in junior high school and senior high school just because she feels like the knowledge she had wasn’t enough, and she is planning to apply for college in the near future, by the support of Yakum, from that organization. She is hopeful that she can be accepted with courage.

[Stephen]

I hope I hope you get that too. That would be awesome. And I also think like you for many of us myself – I was like this – college can be a time that we can kind of redo a lot of the aspects of either high school or middle school that we would have done. It’s an opportunity to, on some level.

[Hanisa]

Jadi, kamu bisa ngulang lagi yang kamu pengin pulang di SMA, SMA kamu ngulang pas kuliah. Jadi kamu bisa lakuin itu pas kuliah. Jadi itu jadi ada kesempatan buat kamu tidak bisa mengekerien yang kamu experience SMP SMA bisa experience kuliah.

[Stephen]

I have a final question, but it does have two parts. The first part is what would you recommend for anyone experiencing this having this starting at a young age like you. What would you recommend they do to help and help grow?

[Hanisa]

Saran dari buat teman-teman yang sama yang berak ituus apa biar mereka juga tetap bisa tumbuh tetap bisa berkembang gitu ya?

[Bela]

Sarannya saran saya untuk teman-teman yang mengalami seperti saya harus semangat dalam menjalani hidup ini untuk minum obat rutin biarpun itu perjalanannya berat anggap saja obat itu adalah vitamin dan itu bisa memulihkan penyakit biarpun perjalanannya dan waktunya lama semoga yang mengalami saya bisa sembuh pulih, dan tetap semangat untuk menjalani hidup walaupun mengalami penyakit epilepsi dan skill.

[Hanisa]

She said to all of you who experience the same as Bella. She said to keep on fighting. You can pass through that and don’t forget to drink your medicine regularly. Think of it as a vitamin so you don’t think much about it.

[Stephen]

That makes sense. I would agree with all that. It’s like I think in a case like this to take your medicine. It’s like investing in yourself. It’s like growing yourself, making sure you’re on track. So this was the second part of the final question: What would you recommend for anyone who has someone in their family encountering this or has a friend or somebody they know who is having to deal with epilepsy especially at a young age?

[Hanisa]

Kalau saran cara bu orangnya saran buat keluarganya itu apa?

[Bela]

Kalau punya seorang yang punya seperti yang insyaallah masih muda gitu kalau tidak saran saya sangat sulit dijelaskan karena ibu saya, kakak saya, adik saya tidak percaya kalau saya mempunyai penyakit mental itu mood-nya sedang naik turun karena saya dianggap seperti anak pemalas walaupun saya bisa melakukan lakukan aktivitas apapun saya kadang naik turun mood-nya dan orang tua saya tidak percaya dengan saya kalau saya itu sedang mood eh tidak mood biarpun saya bermalas-malasan, tapi saya masih tetap bisa melakukan aktivitas sehari-hari.

[Hanisa]

She said that her mother, her sister, her brother didn’t understand her and said that she was being labeled as lazy. But she didn’t think that she was lazy, just not having the mood to do the things their parents or siblings say at that time.

[Stephen]

Yeah this makes total sense. I bet I think for some people sometimes people can label something as lazy and not realize that it can just be a little harder for you to do it. Like in some people with this condition doing something for people that maybe is normally this level of difficulty for them is that higher level of difficulty for you. It just takes more work. So it doesn’t seem fair to consider you lazy for not being able to do it. It just might be that that thing is a little harder for you to do.

[Hanisa]

He itu ya hal-hal tadi gitu tuh kamuak enggak bisa kalau kamu ngesiap langsung kamu tuh malas kamu tuh gini ya karena itu itu sulit waktu itu untuk melakukan hal yang disuruh waktu itu karena memang belum kan belum pas itu kan sama waktu itu.

[Bela]

Iya.

[Stephen]

Yeah. And I did say the final question, but I do have a followup question on that real quick. If somebody knows someone, you know, in a family or friend who has this condition, what can they do to try to understand it better? You know, maybe unlike your family who didn’t always seem to understand.

[Hanisa]

Kalau dari eh kan tadi bilang kalau yang belum belum semuanya paham gitu kan.

[Bela]

Iya.

[Hanisa]

Nah, kalau misalnya sebagai berat pilihnya seperti apa? Kalau biar orang mengerti paham itu kayak seperti apa yang baik gitu kalau orang yang juga sarannya?

[Bela]

Heeh. Caranya saya sebenarnya ingin memberitahu keluarga saya kalau saya itu bisa melakukan aktivitas apapun. Tapi keluarga saya tidak percaya kalau saya itu anaknya kadang rajin, kadang suka membantu orang lain dan keluarga saya tidak pernah percaya dan saya dianggap anak pemalas kadang-kadang karena orang tua saya pulang waktu orang tua pulang pulang kerja saya masih tidur saya karena kalau tidak mood saya kerjaannya tidur dan saya mager kalau untuk melakukan aktivitas apapun jika eh walau mood-nya masih naik turun

[Hanisa]

She said that she still has an issue with trust in her family. So her parents when they got home she saw that Bella was sleeping at the time just in the bed and didn’t do anything. And that makes her parents think that it’s a thing that Bela shouldn’t do.

[Stephen]

Hm. This makes sense. How would you have liked your parents to have responded in that situation?

[Hanisa]

Penginnya kamu orang gimana kayak gitu?

[Bela]

Pengertian mengerti kondisi saya kalau saya itu orangnya tidak pemalas. Karena saya malas itu karena mood-nya saya naik turun. Dan saya sebenarnya pengin melakukan aktivitas karena ingin membantu. Tapi saya tuh terasa naik turun. Jadi orang tua saya tidak percaya kalau saya itu memiliki gejala yang lebih apa di bawah dari orang lain. Dan saya ingin menceritakan pada orang tua saya kalau teman-teman di komunitas ada yang lebih parah dari saya. Tapi saya tidak berani karena saya mungkin dianggap mereka hanya omong kosong atau bohong gitu ya. Jadi orang tua saya menganggap saya di keluarga saya paling malas ya.

[Hanisa]

She said that she doesn’t think that she’s the laziest person. That they must be really hard.

[Stephen]

Yeah, that’s really unfortunate. It probably adds insult to the difficulties you actually face on a regular basis to then have people say you’re lazy and just say that and to think about you that way.

[Hanisa]

Pasti susah pasti enggak enak Mas kalau orang yang bilang kayak gitu terus enggak gitu.

[Bela]

Sakit hati sekali rasanya. Rasanya saya ingin pengamuk tapi saya tidak berani. Saya mending diam saja menahan rasa marah, menahan amarah daripada membikin membuat keributan di rumah. Lebih baik saya diam daripada saya dimarahin, diomel-omel, dikatain yang tidak-tidak dan akhirnya menjadi masalah besar.

[Hanisa]

She said she wants to explode to her parents. She wants to say that that’s not true. She wanted to define herself but she chose to keep it by herself and didn’t say anything. But yeah that’s her from inside.

[Stephen]

That makes sense. That does sound very hard. I guess for now let’s say, “Thank you for doing this.” How would you like to sign us off? Would you like to do the peace sign or what would you like to do to sign us off?

[Hanisa]

Mau saya gimana buat kayak gantungnya untuknya gimana?

Terima kasih semuanya karena telah melihat saya di sini dan mendengar saya kisah dari remaja sampai dewasa sekarang ini. Saya ingin memberi saran kepada teman-teman semua jika mempunyai kisah seperti ini, harap diperjuangkan walaupun rasanya berat, sakit hati dan harus sabar mengalami menjalankan hidup ini walaupun memang itu memang berat bagi yang mengalami. Dan terima kasih sudah saya akhiri. Sampai jumpa.

[Stephen]

Thank you for listening and bye. Terima kasih. Thank you and peace.

What Even Is a Haiku?

This is a surprisingly complex, debated question. Many English speakers may see a haiku as a three line poem that follows a 5-7-5 syllable structure, and that’s basically it. Teachers have drilled that into us as children.

This interpretation of syllable counts is at best an attempt to approximate Japanese conceptions of haikus in their own language, and this is not the definition most professional English-language haiku writers seem to use. For starters, the Japanese concept of “on” that English speakers translate into “syllables” seems a bit more complicated. Haikus in Japan were a genre of poetry, and like all genres, it evolved over time. But when writers write haikus in English, even if they claim to be basing their work on this tradition, they are really doing something entirely different.

I see my own haikus as a cultural US piece of literature rooted in my own American cultural context. How people in the US thought about Japanese haikus has its own history, largely based on US culture and how people in the United States interpreted Japanese society and literature. I started writing a haiku a day, not because of any affinity with Japanese culture but because the poetry style seemed short and easy to write every single day.

I am also very loose in what constitutes a haiku and what topics I could discuss. I almost always followed the structure of a 5-7-5 syllable three-line stanza (except in some cases where we intentionally broke it) because that constraint gave me friction against which I could be creative.

Some in the United States view haikus – or at least the original Japanese concept of the word – as having certain themes or stylistic features: thematically focusing on nature, having at least one piece of seasonal imagery, possessing a “cut word”, for some employing a certain broader distant vantage point, and so on (for example, see https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/senryu-poetic-forms). These are fine conventions, but I generally did not follow them. I allowed my haikus to be just about anything, whether that be the act of writing a haiku itself or a frustration I felt that day. In a few cases, I did happen to write about nature, but that was the exception, not the rule.

This reflects one of the fundamental tensions I see on how English-speaking poets conceive of the genre of “haiku” as a whole. Some English haiku writers see themselves as continuing in the “Japanese tradition” (or traditions) of what a haiku is, adapting those practices to a new language and cultural context, maybe refining some of the details on their way. These are more likely to desire a strict syllable count and maybe thematic attachments to nature and other common “traditional” haiku conventions. Others see the haiku writing process as a type of stepping stone for developing their own forms of poetic art.

If this were a spectrum, we would fall much more on the latter side. On a practical level, we often talked about societal themes given how passionate both of us are for those topics, which may, for a traditionalist, fall closer to the Japanese senryu tradition than haikus (although I don’t think we happened to follow that tradition strictly either).

At the same time, many English-speaking poets with a looser sense of what constitutes a haiku follow strict syllable counts – often making their haikus 2 or 4 lines or some other number of lines long – or use haikus for purposes substantially different from what the traditionalists might view haikus. On a practical level, I found the 5-7-5 syllable constraint useful to both channel my thoughts and force me to improve our writing, thus almost always abiding by it.

I think most English poets who try to write haikus too easily think of themselves as continuing a Japanese tradition they are not a part of. Words and ideas travel across cultural contexts, changing in the process. We should accept this. When I, at least, write a haiku, I am doing something fundamentally different from what Matsuo Bashō or Yosa Buson centuries ago in Japan. Yes, we call them “haikus,” a word that happens to come from a similar word for what they used to describe their own work but transformed as it became a part of the English lexicon. What they wrote was fascinating; don’t get me wrong, but what I do when I write haikus is still my own personal reflection situated in my own cultural context.

The Walking Dream (A Short Story)

I woke up groggy from a long night, my muscles sore and my head still tired as if I never really slept. I felt the dream cascade on top of me. It’s feeling looming over my mind with omnipresent vividness, but I could not remember exactly what happened.

I was there when he did it all to me. That’s what I could feel. Who was he again, and what did he do? My memory retreated like a wave. I just had the feeling of standing there.

Except I couldn’t move. I just stood. I just remember standing at attention. For what though? I stood in some kind of line; that’s what it was. A line of other bodies.

While standing there, I woke up for some reason. Well, sort of, I became aware of my presence, of my body, but I could not move. He controlled my body; he controlled all our bodies. We stood in formation at his command. But who even was he?

The part of it that doesn’t make sense is that it felt like I was actually there. It didn’t have the fuzziness that dreams normally have. I felt like I was seeing with my actual eyes, feeling the sensations of my actual body, and moving with my actual limbs. I could still feel it in the way my muscles twitched now from exhaustion just thinking about it. It didn’t feel like a normal dream. No haziness in my perception. I swear I was actually there.

And who were the others? They were countless other bodies; other drones to his will. I guess the more important question remains, who was he? I have a vivid impression in my mind. Of him looming large before me. He did it. He felt like an evil monster bearing down at me from above. But I have no face, no body for him.

And what did he have us do? I can scarcely remember that either. He had us march. He sent us to do his bidding. As he did so, I saw that he saw that I could see him; that even though my body was still under his control, that my sensations had somehow woken up. He brought me back into a deep sleep, and I lost the ability to remember anything at all.

I felt like I had barely slept at all. My mind rushed trying to remember it all yet the air of my memory is quickly evaporating. How was I going to go about my day today? How would I survive work? Exhausted, I feel like I can barely move, even though I just woke up. If I had too many of these restless nights, I would have to see a sleep doctor.

Who was he? I couldn’t get this thought out of my mind. My thoughts felt like ropes that I pulled and pulled until they faded away into nothing. Whoever he was, I did not like him.

I got up and followed the rhythm I had always known to get ready for the day. I was on autopilot, too tired to do anything else. Eventually, I skated out the door, and the dream just remained as a faint feeling. I could not decipher any details. When I thought back, I only felt a looming terror washes over me. My body convulsed with anticipation. I felt the sensation of standing, of marching, of someone staring down at me. Nothing more.

When The World from Under Rebels (A Short Story)

Every several years, the moon successfully ascends to dethrone the sun. That is when the worlds invert, and night invades the day.

The moon absorbs all the dead spirits that fall down into the underworld. This gives them a home while the courts of the sun prepare for their trial at its appointed time so that these ghosts don’t muck up the earth too much. Every night, the earth flips over, facing the moon, allowing some of the spirits to transcend to the world and find their kin or take care of some unfinished business.

But this is not always enough. Every once in a while a contingency of the moon ghosts make a climb up to the heavens during the day to supplant the sun and finish its job filtering ghosts from the earth. We call these an eclipse.

The moon turns the earth into night. The animals know what is about to happen and freak out in horror. The humans, mesmerized, simply stare up at the sun.

Like bats, thousands of spirits pour out from the moon and make their initial jump into the earth. You can hear their strange whoosh in the air all around. They take the spirits of the most persistent ghosts who refuse to sink down and join them below.

They can only hold back the sun for a few minutes, though, and eventually, the sun throws them back down. These ghost soldiers know this and go straight after the ghosts they are set to capture to bind them up. Some soldier ghosts, though, once free secretly remain on the earth, often the first deserters to be sought after next time around.

Through all of this, they cleanse the earth of the spirits of old, that is until more spirits can accumulate. The earth’s environment must adjust to having no spirits. You’d think this would produce consistency, but our ecology systems were built around the presence of these ghosts and spend the next several days readjusting. Eventually, however, it instills a brighter world until too many spirits accumulate again, and another cleansing is needed.

A Tentative Defense of One-Side Advice Arguments

In two recent conversations with friends, each independently mentioned how they have come to value expository writing that maps out all the different sides of a complex issue and explains how various people or schools of thought have navigated the issue, letting the reader explore the various perspectives themselves and forming their own answer. This form of writing is important, but for whatever reason, when I write prose, I have been drawn to a certain type of opposite: presenting a specific side or angle as a persuasive piece in order to nudge the reader to consider that side. This essay is a tentative defense of such one-sided arguments.

Life is complex, and practical or everyday wisdom needs to include multiple, even contradictory, pieces of advice in order to successfully navigate this complexity. Books or other compilations of proverbs as a genre of literature handle this well. A proverb is a one-side suggestion for how to handle a particular situation, and many compilations of proverbs offer conflicting advice over the course of the work.

To a strict logician, this may at first glance seem like a contradiction, but in the complexities of life, two conflicting thoughts can be true in differing situations. For example, the early bird does get the worm, but the slow and steady also win the race. These popular proverbs in US society technically reflect opposite sentiments, but there are times in life when quick action is advantageous and times when slow pacing is more useful.

Everyday wisdom is best when it is well-rounded and can consider the potential values in all, including directly opposing, vantage points. This is where one-sided opinion pieces fit in. They, like a proverb, offer one side or vantage point about how to navigate this complex thing called life, and as such, have value in the tapestry of everyday wisdom.

Society and regular social discourse may favor certain angles or ideas and don’t give other advice or vantage points due consideration. Presenting these left out angles as one-sided pieces counters that tendency and gives this perspective its due. It too may not be the only answer, just like the mainstream angle isn’t, but by unabashedly preventing it in a one-sided way, one counteracts the tendency to ignore and forces people to give it its due.

There are times when encyclopedic maps of the entire landscape of an issue are useful, but such an “in the clouds” perspective does not always meet people where they are when figuring out how to navigate the complexities of everyday life where it occurs. For that, one often needs to trudge along on the ground and explore how each piece of advice is well-adapted to its specific circumstance to determine what lessons (if any) one will glean from it that day. Maybe that is why so many cultures synthesize their everyday wisdom into proverbs, since it precisely reflects what has worked to solve each of the problems of that day.