Fresh Wind & Green Grass

Recently I got back from North Flores to help my team with tourism discussion and workshop and collecting data for my thesis. It was a bumpy-and-lonely journey, as I spared most of my 10 days alone. Sleeping on a bus, jumping on a plane, thinking about a car, or enjoying a pleasant view from a truck window. A truck is common local transportation in North Flores, which can bring you to travel from Pota to Riung for 1.2 dollars. 

On my last trip to North Flores in August, I met several exotic and native birds of Flores with the help of the truck driver. This time, his elder brother drove me to my destination. He was a bit quiet and did not talk unless necessary. So I mostly enjoyed my time in silence.

On that bumpy journey, I sat next to the driver so I could freely take photographs. Enjoying the bright sun and blue sky - which Carl Sagan described as a "fake sky" in his book The Pale Blue Dot. The real sky is dark, limitless, and black. If we see a white, blue, orange, pink, red, or purple sky, we see a (or a few of) color spectrum(s) of the sun's light. Planets with a non-black sky are the planets that have atmospheres. So, enjoy it, folks! We have a fake beautiful sky during the day and a real sky at night without stars. I remember a passage in the novel Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome: we are the sons of the sun; we really enjoy the lights and are afraid when the night comes. 

The world from a truck window is romantic, especially when you take a trip through places you've never visited before, and the people along the road recognize you. Sometimes it was a loud call, a waving hand, a smiling face, or just a nod. You will also feel the wind, sometimes it cools you, and sometimes it whispers a lonely song.

Taking a trip to my research site is quite interesting regarding the weather. It was rainy season in Bogor when I started my journey, then 39 degrees Celcius in Labuan Bajo, then I should transit on Ruteng when it was (I believe) 10 degrees, then again, 39 degrees in North Flores. This is my fourth time traveling alone to (and from) Flores, and I found out that looking out the window really helps me to pass the hours of a lonely journey. I rarely listen to my MP3 player on my phone to reduce battery usage and to prevent being rude to local people who talk to me. But you know - as psychology research found - when we are lonely, we tend to feel there is someone or hear voices talk to us. For me, it's always a song. I never imagined someone talking to me in the middle of the journey, but a song will be played in my head.


When I passed the North Flores trans road, staring at the open, calm ocean, "Beyond The Sea" was played. Not Frank Sinatra's version, but Michael Bublé's. Someone told me he fell in love with diving because it is peaceful down there, beautiful, and you can find many interesting things beneath your feet. The Flores Sea is rich in corals, tuna fish, and also, pearls. It tickles me that I saw several serious farms of sea pearls owned by Japanese corps in East Flores. Some locals referred to it as "we are not completely obtained our independence." They said so due to local conflicts where many fishermen cannot fish around the Japanese farms, and the practice has been there for many years (like, 20?).

Well, I am not a marine scientist, but someday I hope I will understand the best marine resources management practice. Indonesia is the largest archipelago, so it is our obligation (and, of course, privilege) to master such knowledge.

Savanna is one of the major resources in North Flores. It is where people do agriculture in the rainy season and shepherd their livestock. A recent movie that I watched, Marlina, really gives a glimpse of both sides of the savanna: life and death. In my research site, monsoon forests are available surrounding savannas, people are lost there sometimes, livestock's dead - or stolen, and wild animals attack, but some ancestors, find waters between the great stones.

In a such great areas, it is common to find conflict over land (which are basically savannas). Some tribes claim here and there, war is sometimes unavoidable, and stories about it are available in so many versions - depends on where you sit and whom you talk to.


Another point of the road, which I can only see if I travel at the end of the year: is a burnt monsoon forest. People there still practice slash-and-burn agriculture. We should not blame anyone for this - the limited education in agriculture, lack of infrastructure, and resource support, may be involved. Even access to good seeds is limited. The song of Nosstress, Tanam Saja, played in my head. Life is so harsh there that they only can plant corn for three months in a year, sometimes paddy, but depends on the rain. In March, the dry weather already awaits the farmer again to rest until around October.

When we see it with our very own eyes, somehow, we will understand how people can do things that we never understand indeed.


See a bird flying in pictured above? I wasn't sure whether it was an eagle or not, but people said that it was a migration period for birds from Australia. Flores has an incredible sky full of birds; sometimes I see kingfishers, I've seen Asian Paradise Flycatcher twice, eagles so many times, pitta once, Flores' common hill Myna, and others. I often was not ready with my camera, and suddenly What a Wonderful World played in my head. It is always thrilling and exciting to see wonderful, free birds in the sky.


Last picture: is a broken road in North Flores. I was really afraid when passing this road, but the driver calmed me and said that he passes it every day, day and night, and we would be fine. The government had not repaired it at that time. However, their effort in establishing the main road in many remote areas in Flores should be appreciated. Each village now has funding for 1 billion rupiahs each year, and we can see improvement in many places. No song played in my head. Just a hope that the road will be fixed soon and people's life there will get easier a bit.

The world from a truck window is not lovely. But I want to recall what Carl Sagan wrote in his Pale Blue Dot book: mind wandering is important, as humans are wanderers. His mother sailed alone to America as she wondered how his husband was doing and then started a new life in the new country. We, and our ancestors, never stop walking. Even if we failed in one point or one place, we kept moving forward. That's what makes human civilization so advanced. And why are we not thinking of living on Mars? It is not a harmful thought; rather, we will be encouraged to think about how we save our only current home, our Pale Blue Dot. As humans often think that the universe was made for us, our wanderings and explorations will lead us to wide knowledge and ideas that we are only speck of dust in the universe.

Keep moving; that's what makes us at least an important speck of dust to make an impact in our very own world.
And that was what the truck driver taught me when our truck was trapped in really bad mud: you have to keep moving no matter how bad the road is unless you will never get anywhere.

There has been a body of research that shows how we act differently in our social groups or context, even when it violates our morality. One of the magic of conformity in daily life is when we fake our laugh in social groups when the joke is not funny or do standing ovation even when we actually do not appreciate the presenter in front of us. In the video above, Jonah Berger, a social psychologist who specializes in social contagion, explains how it happens. Contagion - an extended phenomenon of conformity, also happens in social media. Berger also wrote a scientific paper about how content with stronger happy or angry emotions will spread more quickly than any other content.

But social psychology is open to new explanations and findings - as the usual science should be. Conformity theory has its flaws; it varies depending on culture, influential members, group size, and also, the minority who speaks up. Consider this; conformity happens and benefits the majority, and you are doing what majorities do basically because you do not want to be seen as weird and violating the social norm. But when a minority speaks up consistently, you start to think, "What happens? Why is this person consistently saying the opposite of majorities? Are the majorities doing wrong?" This thought starts to haunt you over and over, and you may change your opinion and then support the minority.

Social psychology is a toddler that starts to walk. It is starting to grab people's attention as a science because of its strict experimental, quantified, and replicable method. But I think the magic of it relies on several things; (1) how it researches daily things that we think are not scientific, (2) how it is open to any possible explanation or new questions, and (3) how some people succeed in making people understand about our own behavior in a way to make society better.

Science itself is magic. I hope I can bring that magic to you, someday.

I have a huge debt to silence.

I have spent so much time with it, mostly mind-wandering. There were times when I enjoyed myself, around 2013. I spent time with books and became an avid writer. I learned meditation and practiced it every morning. At that particular time, I learned how to become independent and trust myself in tackling problems at the end of the year, focusing on my main goal. It gave me space to learn more by myself and meet new people. 

When I started to work, I changed my perspective toward silence progressively. I observed how people were being ignorant; they were silently hating each other but never brought it on a discussion in the meeting sessions. People were being ignorant; they were aware of the group problem, yet let another fix it (you know, the bystander effect: in the end, everyone does nothing). People were being ignorant; they had different opinions but remained silent. People were being ignorant; they were studying things yet making no change.

But in a world full of silence, I met mentors who rejected silence in the team.

My group mentor argued that when you can't talk and discuss with someone, you have to hit his head with a stone (it was only a pun). 

My thesis (and life) supervisor said, who underlined, "You have to tell me when you have an objection, and we can discuss it" in our projects.

In psychology, silence is an important thing in an interview and counseling session, and I still do think it is important. But research showed some incredible results of discussion: it reduces your prejudice and bias toward outgroup members, making you have positive attitudes toward strangers and even fall in love. 

Silence gives us a space to rethink and evaluate ourselves, especially when we are angry.

Silence gives us a space to fight our Id and let the Superego comes in, maintaining our sane Ego.

But silence kills when you give it a superpower to dominate you.

Kapan terakhir kali saya benar-benar pergi dari suatu lingkungan?

Barangkali beberapa bulan lalu, saat saya memutuskan pergi dari kota Depok. Tahun lalu, saya pergi dari pekerjaan dan hubungan saya. Pergi kadang rasanya bisa sangat menyenangkan, kadang bisa sangat menyakitkan. Tidak ada yang bisa menjamin juga apakah kebahagiaan saat pergi dapat menjamin kebahagiaan seterusnya, dan sebaliknya. Setidaknya itu yang saya pelajari dari kisah Alfred Russel Wallace dan Thomas Stamford Raffles, yang baru selesai saya baca kisahnya di buku Tim Hannigan.

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Saya suka premis buku Raffles ini. Kata Hannigan, ia jengah dengan banyak ungkapan orang Indonesia yang ia temui selama mengajar Bahasa Inggris di Indonesia: “seandainya kita dijajah Inggris, pasti kita lebih maju dari sekarang, layaknya Malaysia atau Singapura…”

Sebagai Warga Negara Inggris yang memiliki akses kepustakaan tentang Raffles, surat-suratnya di perpustakaan Inggris, serta buku-buku biografinya, ia kemudian menghimpun informasi dan memaparkan kisah sejarah non-fiksi dari sumber-sumber tersebut. Jauh dari image saya sebelumnya tentang pendiri Kebun Raya Bogor dan residen pertama Singapura ini, ia adalah orang kejam, licik, dan ambisius, namun menyenangi ilmu pengetahuan. Dalam masa penjajahannya, ia menjarah banyak babad dan naskah dari Jawa setelah berhasil menaklukkan Keraton Yogyakarta, memaksa para pangeran angkuh yang membenci orang asing untuk mencium lututnya. Ia juga kagum dengan kemegahan Borobudhur dan Prambanan, dan melalui History of Java-nya, candi-candi peninggalan kejayaan Hindu-Buddha di tanah Jawa ini dikenal luas di negara Barat.

Aliran air panas di dekat Bandara Soa, Bajawa

Saya selalu menganggap bahwa kepergian Raffles dari Indonesia adalah buah pertukaran dengan Belanda untuk dapat menguasai Singapura, karena dianggap lebih prospektif dari Hindia Belanda. Namun menurut buku ini, dari korespondensi-korespondensi pribadi, Raffles pergi dari Jawa karena dipecat. Alasannya karena menyebabkan banyak kekacauan di Jawa; mulai dari kebijakan sewa tanahnya, hubungan dengan Keraton, pengiriman wanita-wanita dan penjahat ke Banjarmasin, dan lainnya. Pemerintahan Raffles menyebabkan defisit luar biasa sehingga sampai akhir masa hidupnya, ia berhutang pada perusahaan. Hidupnya jauh dari kata indah; saat ia sedang terpuruk luar biasa karena perseteruan dengan orang nomor dua di Jawa (ia nomor satu saat itu), istrinya meninggal. Kesehatannya memburuk akibat iklim Jawa. Ia kembali ke Inggris untuk bisa sembuh, kemudian menikah lagi dengan perempuan bernama Sophia, dan dipindahkan ke Bengkulu yang saat itu menurutnya tempat terburuk yang ia pernah lihat. Ia memiliki lima anak, empat meninggal karena sakit, dan anak terakhirnya diselamatkan dan dikirim ke Inggris. Saat akan pergi dari Bengkulu, kapalnya karam namun ia dan Sophia selamat, seluruh jarahan dan naskah yang ia dapat semuanya tenggelam. Ia kembali ke Inggris dalam kondisi terpuruk, satu anak barunya yang lahir saat ia akan pergi dari Bengkulu juga lagi-lagi meninggal.

Raffles meninggal dalam kondisi reputasi buruk, hutang, dan sakit kepala berkepanjangan yang menurut Hannigan pada masa modern ini adalah tumor otak. Ia meninggal terduduk di anak tangga paling bawah rumahnya dan ditemukan oleh Sophia. Kisahnya sedikit mengingatkan saya dengan Wallace, yang meninggal dalam kondisi miskin meski telah menemukan teori evolusi – yang belakangan kontribusinya ini baru diakui dan bersama Darwin kini mereka jadi penemu sah teori evolusi.

Petarung Caci dari daerah pegunungan

Dalam buku Raffles, Hannigan menyebut bahwa banyak daerah tak terjamah Raffles di timur Indonesia, termasuk Flores. Keganasan laut dan iklimnya belum memungkinkan untuk ditaklukkan, sehingga Flores lebih banyak mendapat pengaruh dari penjajahan Portugis. Saya jadi mengingat kembali perjalanan saya selama sebulan lalu di Flores. Perjalanan kali itu ke Flores Utara terasa lengkap. Penelitian selama dua tahun saya selesai, menonton upacara Caci, mencicipi perairannya, berbincang dengan tetua-tetua adatnya, memakan siput yang enak sekali, serta bertemu burung-burung aneh yang bisa diamati.

Kencan saya selama di Riung. Masih kelas 3 SD.

Pada pagi kepergian saya menuju Ende dari Riung, 17 Agustus 2017, saya dipeluk erat oleh seorang anak yang biasa menemani saya saat malam menjelang selama saya di Riung. Tidak ada kata terucap, hanya pelukan tersebut bertahan cukup lama. Kala itu saya pergi dengan perasaan yang membingungkan. Saya senang karena akan bertemu kembali dengan teman-teman saya, namun juga sedih karena belum bisa berbuat banyak untuk tempat penghiburan saya selama sebulan tersebut, dan selama dua tahun ini.

Penghiburan dari kota-kota besar yang semakin mengsegregasikan umat-umat beragama dan perbedaan yang selama ini menjadi kekuatan kita, penghiburan dari udara sesak kota yang dihiasi klakson di kanan dan kiri, penghiburan dari ketidakpedulian, serta sikap yang paripurna.

Perasaan ganjil tersebut agaknya belum berubah sampai sekarang, dan sepertinya itu menandakan saya belum benar-benar bisa pergi dari sana.

Hati saya berlabuh di Flores, dan entah kapan bisa pergi berlayar menjauh.