Articles - Page 2 of 11 - The Cracked Door

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.

Is the T-Rex a deux machina at the end of the first movie: A Defense

A fearsome beast or a deux machina savior?

I have heard others bemoan how the T-Rex shows up randomly at the very end of the first Jurassic Park movie right when the raptors have them cornered. They call her a deux machina, that is a common trope in movies where some big force inescapably arrives at the last moment and saves the day for the characters.

Whether something is a deux machina is usually subjective, generally labeling something as a “deux machina” if it goes against their expectations for the story and its themes and thus takes them out of the story. What I find interesting about calling the T-Rex a deux machina is that it really demonstrates the tensions between many viewers’ expectations of the movie as an action film and the fact that Jurassic Park is a really horror film. Based on this, it’s actually the second deux machina that no one talks about that I think breaks the story.

The major theme of the first Jurassic Park movie is that life/nature always finds a way. Life goes on because individual organisms are able to take advantage of lucky opportunities/breaks that happen to come their way to survive. The ability for particular species to adapt emerges out of this. Through this, life itself continues on, expanding beyond any boundary humans may set for it. For example, being able to make sex changes because of the frog DNA used to make them was a lucky break that allowed the dinosaurs to survive, and the electric outage was another that the T-Rex took advantage of to remake its world.

With this theme in mind, the characters spend the final act of the movie desperately trying to survive the coming advance of life/nature, specifically the raptors hunting them. The central question is whether they can use their human ingenuity and tools to stop this advancement, and the answer is no. No matter what they do (using a gun, locking the door, escaping through the vent, etc.), the raptors still continue to surround them. It’s all over. That’s when the T-rex comes in, causing the raptors to fight the T-rex, allowing the main cast of characters to escape.

This moment demonstrates the movie’s central theme about nature. Can they use their ingenuity, skills, and technology as humans to survive against nature’s ascension? No, they are ultimately subject to the whims of nature for their very survival. This conclusion to the fight illustrates the final dominance of nature over humanity. The sudden lucky break the T-Rex presents still reinforces this theme. Their only hope for survival lies in a lucky break presented by nature that they must take advantage of, and they do, using it to flee. Just like every other species, their only hope for survival lies in taking advantage of a lucky break.

This differs from regular deux machinas. A typical deux machina is a problem because it undermines the story’s themes by providing lucky coincidences or some overly powerful saving character, technology, or other entity as the reason the characters succeed. Did love save the day, or the grit of persevering, or whatever other central theme the story is based on? No, it was the divine superhero who showed up out of nowhere and fixed the problem. Whether the T-Rex came or not, they are completely subject to nature in that final moment. Thus, surviving based on a lucky draw from nature only reinforces that theme.

The deux machina in the next scene is the bigger problem, since it undermines the theme: the wealthy billionaire somehow arrives outside, with no dinosaurs around, ready with a helicopter to whisk them away to safety. (And for that matter, if he was out there in a car, why didn’t the T-Rex eat him and Malcom in an open convertible before coming into the building? They were easier prey presumably right where the T-Rex was right before.)

The implication of the theme of being subject to the whims of nature is that sure, they survived a few more moments, but they are forever trapped by this new emerging world. The dinosaurs are taking over the island, and outside there are endless more threats for them, whether that be other raptors or some other threat. The best they can hope for are lucky breaks, but you can’t expect that each time. But instead, the billionaire arrives and magically whisks away to the safe human world far away from this nightmare.

This gets to the heart of the tension as to what genre this movie is. In the US, people often categorize Jurassic Park as an action movie, and action as a genre tends to run counter to fatalistic themes. Action movies, at their core, center on how humans can develop and use their skills to surmount improbable odds and achieve success. This makes them inherently achievement-oriented, with viewers expecting the main characters to use their grit and skills to win the day. Hence, in such movies, a coincidence or lucky break being what causes success undermines the key theme of action as a genre and hence a deux machina.

Although officially classified as an action movie, Jurassic Park opposes this common theme of action movies. I would categorize it a horror film, which tend to explore how death is all around us. In the movie, in addition to being awe-inspiring, the natural world produces death. In these movies, survival is the key, but using one’s skills to achieve survival is always how characters survive depending on the film’s themes.

This reflects one of the major tensions in the movie. It wants to show how we should both marvel and fear nature, but it also wants to give regular people good clean fun. Obviously, it would not be as graphic as some horror films can be given that it was intended to be a family film. That’s fine, but horror films can still explore fatalistic themes in a child-friendly way (just look at the number of horror stories written for children).

Instead, though, we see the characters whisked off to safety. They wanted viewers to both feel the horror that the characters are now victims of the new natural world they accidentally unleashed but still receive the action-movie catharsis of seeing characters survive this apocalypse and literally fly into the sunset. These contradict each other and make the viewer feel cheated.

Most viewers blame the T-Rex as the source because they expect the characters will come up with a way to get out of their mess like a typical action hero. But if after the T-Rex accidently saves them, the group were still trapped in this hostile world instead of having the cavalry arrive to pick them up, viewers’ expectations based on action films would be firmly pulled out from underneath them, and they would have to confront the key theme that they are really subject to the whims of nature.

The Tower of Hattan (A Short Story)

One day a man of Hattan said, “We should build a giant skyscraper up to the heavens. It would be the perfect city, heaven on earth, with everything we need all in one place: our homes, our businesses, our shopping, our schools, our worship, our recreation. We would be able to do everything inside without ever having to leave.”

Many people in Hattan liked this, so they elected him mayor. They began construction immediately in the city’s center.

God saw their desire to build a wondrous tower just like the heavens and decided to help them. As construction demands grew, they needed more and more workers, so God brought people from all corners of the world to help create, build, and dwell in this new heaven, and they settled in the areas surrounding the tower.

As these workers started to build, some became weary of how these foreigners were hurting the city. Even worse, they started to incorporate their own thinking, their own concepts into the building. As the building became larger, these became parts of the foundation of this skyscraper.
The mayor tried to counter with an even more ambitious, unified plan to build over and around the deviations, which had become too embedded into the tower’s structural integrity to remove.

This required even more people with even more language and ideas. They moved into the ever-expanding communities surrounding the tower. Eventually, these peoples became weary of constructing the tower for the ungrateful inhabitants. Instead, these communities elected a new mayor who cancelled its construction once and for all to focus on the economic development of the now sprawling city and its residents.

At a press conference after her inauguration, she announced, “We will preserve the remains of this site as a memorial to our attempt to build a tower over the heavens.”

“The past mayor promised to build a heavenly place for us to live. What do you say to criticism that you are stopping this attempt to construct this heaven?” A journalist inquired.

“We are still going to try to make this city into its own heaven,” she replied. “But God’s Heaven is just wide before it is high.”

How to Speak to a Stray: Treating the “Dangerous Other” with Respect

One day, when I was walking down the street in Suva, the capital and biggest city in Fiji, there was a dog crying in extreme distress. He was a hairless dog with only a small strand of hair on the ridge of his back. The indifferent way the other people responded to him made me think he was a stray: no one took responsibility for him or decided to help him when he was clearly shouting in pain.

He was sitting on the edge of a hill on a concrete staircase. He tried to simply sit on the hill but could not keep his balance. He would topple down the stairs, slamming into the concrete on the way down. Each time he fell, he would try to burrow into the crevice of the stair he was on, only to lose his balance and fall again until he crashed into the gutter below. There he cried chest deep in the water, seemingly disoriented, unsure what was happening.

I tried to approach the dog, but the dog who lived in the house did not like me and barked territorially at me. So instead, I called soothing words to this dog as he lay there frantic in the water. The soothing tone of my voice – or at least the fact that he had stopped falling – seemed to calm him down, and he lay there panting like he was still processing where he was. I still don’t know what was wrong. The way he was twitching on the one side made me think he was having a stroke. I will never know since the other dog wouldn’t let me approach, so eventually I left.

The people who lived nearby came out, but they seemed indifferent to this dog as if he wasn’t their problem. A few hours later, the boy living there told me that the dog had scurried away, and they didn’t know where he was now. They didn’t seem to care much for this stray dog; I guess it’s just one of many to them in the neighborhood. I just hope that however long this dog has left to live, he has as little suffering as possible.

Here’s another example. One night, when I was walking into a store to buy some water in American Samoa, I saw two dogs lying there. A staff member exited the little shop carrying a large, empty cardboard box, and one of the dogs followed him. He looked excited walking next to him wanting to say hello. The guy whacked the dog with the empty box harshly as a way to tell him to get away.

When I left the store a few minutes later with my water, right as the staff member was walking back into the store, the dog seemed noticeably more distressed. He was barking erratically like he was emotionally distraught. From the barks’ tone, I thought he was a mixture of scared and angry. He didn’t approach me as I walked by a few feet away, and he didn’t seem interested. He was just barking his distress to the world.

These islands are full of stray, semi-domesticated, and pet dogs who roam the yards and streets. Roaming dogs are common in many countries around the world. What feels weird is the extent to which humans in Oceania only seemed to interact with hostility with the dogs.

In response, the dogs in this part of the world feel noticeably more aggressive. When I was walking to my Airbnb, several dogs came after me growling, showing their teeth, and trying to signal that they would attack me. That is the default response many dogs have to any human they do not know. A neighbor recommended I carry some rocks when I walk to throw them when they barked at me, and I have seen others carry a big stick for a similar purpose.

I do not doubt the practical wisdom in having a weapon in case of a specific dog who seems intent on biting you. I have had dogs there come within a yard of me biting meanly like they are about to jump me. Interestingly, they never do; they seem to only try to warn me, not actually come after me. A weapon, though, just in case the dog changes its mind does sound nice in a situation like this.

At the same time, I feel like this kind of hostile response to dogs, in general, just leads to an arms race. Dogs become more aggressive, and in turn the humans become more violent in response. It just escalates the response necessary to handle a dog. Dogs in this part of the world seem noticeably less friendly. Even if they think you are safe, they will stop at about a yard/meter away. This is not normal for dogs, who are often very eager for pets. I suspect because so many humans have lounged themselves at them, that they have learned to feel afraid when a human is nearby. There has to be a better way.

Some of this may be cultural. Not every culture or individual likes dogs, for example. At the same time, I wonder if there is a broader pattern for how to deal with others we perceive as threats. During the heat of an attack, we may need to defend ourselves, sure, but in my experience, how we respond to others influences how they in turn respond to us.

But if we treat another (whether a dog, another animal, or a fellow human) as a threat that we need to stave off, they will pick up on that energy and respond to us accordingly. Maybe we should cultivate creative ways to nonviolently engage with others around us rather than cajoling those we see as threats to our wellbeing. This may take innovation but leads to more wholesome relationships.

The Principle of the Five Why’s and How Can You Use It Better Listen to Others

The Five Why’s is a common technique among UX researchers and other qualitative researchers that has personally transformed my approach to conversations. UX researchers interview people all the time, and to understand what they think about something, they always make sure to ask five “why” questions about their opinion in order to get to the heart of their opinion on the matter. Humans often rush into assumptions and judgements about what the other person thinks, and this forces us to slow down and get to the heart of how they view the world.

Let’s consider a classic UX research example. Say you just developed a great new app, and you wanted to see whether people actually find it useful. So, you observe several people using the app and ask them what they think. The first person says, “I find it frustrating.” This is really useful information, but obviously, more details would help even more. So, a natural response would be, “Why do you find it frustrating?”

Say the person gives a quick answer like, “I find the interface confusing, so I can’t do what I want to do” or whatever their frustration might be. This gives you a better understanding of their frustrations, but you can dig even more. According to the Principle of the Five Why’s you should ask at least five follow-up questions about why (or in some cases, how) they feel the way they do.

This allows you to hone in exactly what their underlying needs and expectations are and how well your product meets those needs for them. Now, technically, not all follow-up questions have to be “why”. The idea is that like, “why” questions, ask questions that nonjudgmentally help uncover the underlying reasons for the opinions. For example, in this scenario, I may next ask, “What about the interface do you find confusing?” or “What are you trying to do, and how is it preventing you from doing it?” Both of these are not “why” questions, but they help orient me to understand why the person feels frustrated. Sometimes you have to learn some basic data about what their experience was before you uncover the next level of detail about why they had that experience.

I often use this principle in regular conversations as well. Too often people assume they know what the person is thinking and make assessments based on their initial judgements. Asking follow-up questions forces us to slow down and consider in-depth what that person is trying to communicate. After listening, one can still disagree with a person’s conclusions, but at least you will know why. In almost every situation, I have found at least some points of agreement even when I thought we had opposing, conflictual perspectives.

It also calms you down. In tense conversations, we often simply react. Maybe we presume they meant something hostile and respond in turn. This helps us survive threats but clouds our ability to empathize with others and reason through their ideas. Asking questions allows us to pause and reflect for a few more moments on what else might be influencing where they are coming from.

Feel free to try it in regular conversations, especially potential arguments or other tense conversations. Pause and ask a few “why” questions to understand the layers behind their thoughts before launching into your perspective on the matter. It will change the course of the conversation. Worst case scenario, by the end of it, you will still disagree with them just as much as you did initially, but often you will learn something and will discover a way to carry on nonconfrontationally in a way that involves both of you getting what you want. If you disagree, you have lost little by hearing them out and gained the ability to disagree productively since you now know exactly where the other person is coming from.

Now in every interaction, you don’t have to literally ask five questions. That exact number may not fit every interaction. The spirit of the rule is to ask follow-up questions that force you to engage with the reasons underneath someone’s impressions. For me, I often ask follow-up questions until it feels uncomfortable, until I feel my thoughts well up so strongly within me that I am eager to jump in. Then, I ask just two more follow-up questions. In the unlikely event that I still think they are totally wrong by the end of those two questions, I can jump in with my perspective. This slows me down and forces me to practice more constraint and helps me see a path to empathize and/or disagree in a positive and productive manner.