Fresh Wind & Green Grass

Wherever I'll go in the next chapter of life, I'll surely miss Bali's Makoto Shinkai sky

Here it comes again; a biannual state where a little part of my brain starts to re-contemplate all the life choices I’ve made and which path I’d like to take moving forward. I’ve been bragging about my multi-worlds to everyone - that I do science as well as a true scientist, and I do involve myself in various for-profit industries and politics. But late at night, or whenever I find myself sitting alone in the airport or a cafe, among these worlds, what kind of world do I want to be in eternally? I’ll be celebrating the age of 30 around a year from now, and which part of me I’d like to see is still there and not?

I’ve been talking about this with my husband lately, and I found something funny. He took selfies as he grew older, and he said he felt better about himself than when he was younger. This is the total opposite of women. A woman grows insecurity when she grows older, with wrinkles on her face and body that are different from her youth. The decision to have or not to have kids, to pursue her ambitious dream, or just stay low and be happy in her daily routine. And I’m standing in this crossed path. I have everything in my hand to choose one good path; some first-author publications and ongoing grants to pursue an academic career, some good portfolio and recommendations to pursue a commercial industry position for life or any other good thing that I could be. I am so privileged with a supportive husband, closest friends, and advisors. Financially and mentally stable at this young age, nothing I could ask for more. But I know that life can change easily in one finger snap. So this is my insecurity, asking if it is time to take only one path and be fully dedicated to it, or not take any and be a generalist for the rest of my life?

I don’t know. Lately, I have taken an extra day off on Friday so I can have time on my own to watch my favorite crime dramas or just pick out clothes that I’d like to donate. Thinking that, sometimes, being a stay-at-home wife would not hurt for a year or two. There are so many things that I like to do, but it’s hard to find that I really like that I would willingly spend my entire life doing it. My childhood dream was to be a detective and a data-driven strategist, and it has been fulfilled every single day. Finding the exact problem and trying to solve the puzzle. This has been enough. But as silly as it be, the puzzle and questions of life are even harder to be solved.

For example, a major question I’d like to find the answer to is whether it’s time to be back home or not. Bali offers a lot; peace, slow life, and the privilege of having a house within 10 minute drive from beaches or mountains. In Bali, I learned the importance of work-life balance for the first time in my life. But two years of the pandemic, limiting my activities showed me that being close to people I dearly care about is more important. It’s so sad to be absent from all your best friends' weddings or their big day, it really is. My younger version, who traveled around the world alone, wouldn’t understand this, but as I watch my parents and friends getting older, distance is becoming one major consideration. I visited a long-time high school best friend, who picked me up from the airport when my mom died, and now is pregnant. It’s such a shame that I missed her wedding (well, she missed mine too, but because her father passed away on the exact same day), but I actually don’t want to miss it when she’s giving birth. 

Is this the right time to go back to where I truly belong?

There are more and more questions in my head, and I failed to find the answer… will I be a good mother? Or will I be a strongly committed person to marriage as it is portrayed in Netflix’s documentary “My Love”? Will everything be fine with continuous climate disasters and disease evolution? Will I be able to be there when my Dad is on his deathbed, not like when my Grandpa passed away some months ago?

Long faces after a long flight and train journey just to visit our beloved family and friends

After spending 3 weeks around my family in Central Java and the Capital, I felt homesick for my house in Bali, not because it’s Bali -- because it is my home, where I have my life with my husband and a grumpy cat. Had this house been located anywhere else, it would have felt the same. 

And in that Terminal 3, the biggest but coldest terminal in Soekarno Hatta, I said to myself, there will be a time I won't be here again waiting for my flight to Bali. Weird because that felt fine. Maybe, all the answers to my questions - it’s just about time. By the time it happens, I would lead myself towards the door - and I know it would be myself alone. Because what I know is there is no one in this world that has the answer to all our questions except ourselves. What makes it maybe different is that we have another hand to hold, and it’s comforting.

Showcase of some optical illusion and renewable energy technology in a museum in Amsterdam

My husband is not a fan of movies full of dialogues between two persons, so I spent time alone watching movies like Marriage Story, Lovely Man, or I’m Thinking about Ending Things. I like to hear people talking in meetings. I love to observe people in trains and stations. We can see through them a lot when people talk to each other; the emotions, the hatred or love, or the expectations. Sometimes it sucks, though, when you can see through a person and find things you did not expect before, but the truth is more satisfying in the end. However, among all those kinds of movies, I think Malcolm & Marie captivated me the most. The core problem is the man forgot to give credit to his long-time girlfriend in the speech of his most acclaimed movie. I enjoyed how the man thinks it is a very small matter compared to all that he’s done for the woman, while the woman thinks otherwise. At the end of the day they might be together again or not, but the nice thing is that to find someone we can talk about something over and over, maybe through an emotional roller-coaster, but it is the best thing in life because we’ll spend our entire life talking with our partner.

Speaking of credits, I think science organizations have been talking about this in recent years. I’ve seen numerous efforts in eradicating parachute science (one journal now has a requirement to include local authors if the study is conducted abroad, and some donors have eliminated the Western counterpart requirement). Maybe in some industries like art or technology, it’s quite hard to define how big credit is that needs to be considered, but in science, it’s more clear. Original ideas, conception, and initial foundation need to be credited.

I want to tell you the heartbreaking story of Mileva Marić, the first wife of Albert Einstein. I’d never heard of her until I watched Genius: The Series. Then I learned about her from articles and news and found out that her contributions to Einstein’s works started to be considered when there was proof of letters and other correspondences. She was left being a housewife when his husband was busy with all the inventions and pursuit of the Nobel prize. He was free to go to the library, thinking, and discussing with his fellow scientists, and she was left at the house - and later cheated. I think that’s not only cheating in romance but also in career and academic achievements. Einstein has stolen a woman’s brilliance, making her an assistant to his papers, and never mentioned it to the public.

The series might have exaggeration in some parts (and that’s okay), but one thing that I’m sure of: she was raised by an egalitarian father who supported her brilliance and passion for the science of physics and told her to never depend on any man to succeed. I’m so sure because I have two fathers in life that told me so. My biological father told me to get a good job, write, win competitions, and outsmart others. To have my own savings, to never have a debt besides a house mortgage, to go places on my own, to learn to drive well, and to not cry when life fails me. My other father, a professor, taught me to stand on my own feet, to be a good researcher without being a jerk, and to get the justice I deserve. He has taught and shown me what academic integrity means by giving me all the spotlight I deserve, stepping aside from all first-author places when it’s truly mine.

Integrity and ethics are like domestic abuse: it’s running in circles. When you've been shown once by people you respect, you’ll do one. If someone stole your spotlight in the past, there is a big chance you’ll do it someday to someone less powerful than you. Power tends to corrupt - numerous studies have proved this.

I believe that not all people in the world are kind. The world is full of liars and cheaters, including in academia and the science industry - just like what I found in my studies. People want to maximize their own profits compared to the greater good. Some of them are intentionally mean, and others are forced by situations. My respect for Einstein now is solely due to his predictions of the universe, but my view of him as a decent man has gone somewhere because what he did, I think, was not unintentional. In real life, I feel fortunate because never in my life do I feel bad about cutting ties with these intelligent but toxic people. It’s been a long time since I don’t rely my happiness on a single person. I am okay with being left with only some people around who are able to provide proper credit to others. I know I won’t be alone anyway.  

In this world full of jerks, the least we can do is not be one.

Recently I watched two good series about biohacking, Orphan Black and Biohackers (spoiler alert). Initially, I was just curious about Orphan Black because the main actress played more than dozens of characters (they’re clones, by the way). I mean, how can you play so well that we can distinguish each character that shares similar physical features? Anyhow, I found these interesting, and I was slapped so hard on how science can be so wrong. I revisited my article in this blog, The Danger of Science, where I stated that two things are dangerous in science: exclusive science and silence. Now that I’ve watched the series, I think that no standardized moral compass is also one of science’s dangers. Scientists’ vision is to find new things, explore the unknown, and study the unexplored. Some of us think that having such a standardized moral compass may somehow lead to limitations to science, and is that an ethical thing to do for scientists? Who has the righteous opinion to stop a scientist?

Add another series here, titled Zoo, which has a good premise in the first season (the second season onwards is just silly for me), that animals may reach their full awareness and collaborate with other species to destroy humans. But then, this capability includes human involvement. Lots of atheistic beliefs and progress are made by genius scientists and philosophers, but does the God complex itself transfer to these communities? The thought that “we can do anything to anyone or anything as long as we can”. As a scientist focusing on experimental psychology methods myself, this got me thinking at night. To what extent can we experiment on humans and animals? Is it ethical that I got my cat trained to be lazier and not to catch birds anymore?

If we expand the discussion, the God complex seems very innate in humans. Our higher cognitive ability makes us (probably) the only non-predatory species that reach the food chain pyramid. We can make technology that protects us from beasts and predators to create complex food technology so that even if we lack meat, we can make a hamburger from mushrooms. Ever since the river valley civilizations began, we’ve been developing this complex to the smallest elements in life. Me, for example. I manage several jobs at once, so I make my online calendars and other supporting software functions to their fullest. I even installed an automatic timer for my garden. I spent two months researching and trying out several water taps, machines, and connectors prior to the final installation. Now it works, every 6 PM and AM, I don’t need to worry about my garden anymore. I feel the urge to control everything I have in my life so that I would make the minimum mistake.

Take a wider example of domestic abuse. Even with the thought that we want to control our spouse or partner, I think that’s already abuse. Our God complex gives us the desire to control people, pets, and any living beings around. At some point, it becomes abusive, and the other part can die, literally or mentally. Three Idiots and Guide to be a Perfect Family movies portray this phenomenon perfectly. We always forget the old adage that power tends to corrupt. There is no guarantee that when we become parents, our desire for our kids becomes a demand - and it kills them softly. To what extent can we control our own power? Does controlling our power equal to limiting our God complex with our God complex?

And that’s where I think social norms are still important. Even if this norm is a conceptual thing, our dual reality, it gives us a guideline to what our ancestors had experienced before and wanted to warn us to make similar mistakes. For example, in psychology, we always submit our method to an ethical board because the history of our study field is so dark. Take the Milgram, Little Albert, or Stanford Prison Experiments. A good friend once asked, “So what is moral?” I think now the answer is something that prevents our God complex leads us to make foolish, repeating mistakes.

From all the series and movies mentioned in this article, I think the ending of Biohackers got it right: a multimillionaire right wing that doesn’t want humans to be perfect and making Earth more overpopulated, killing his own sponsored scientist who created lots of biohacking experiments to making humans as a perfect species from inside the womb. It’s a beautiful representation of stopping our “what if” inquiries with a proper moral compass.

Today I celebrated my wedding anniversary with my husband. All this time I’ve been married, I am surprised at how more often I was asked why I decided to get married rather than congratulated for being married. I think my friends often see me as a free-spirited person rather than someone that actually really appreciates commitment, but considering how I spent my youth, that view is totally acceptable.

Previously I often felt afraid to write about my marriage and romantic relationships. I had the experience when I deeply loved some people whose minds inspired my works and wrote about them (sometimes in this blog), but then they let me down. At some point in life, I decided to stop relying my happiness on something or someone. That was liberating, very much actually. Blessed me, I found someone that is mature enough to feel the same way while still can appreciate my presence. And that was when I decided to marry that guy.

Someone said to me once that becoming an adult means to take decisions that we never know where they’ll take us. We never know whether we’ll be happier or dismayed, but we take the risk. That sentence, which was said to me in fieldwork - in the middle of nowhere, left a deep influence on me. No one will ever actually guide us in adulthood. Parents will give advice that might work for their generation but not ours. Mentors would never see from our own eyes. Friends would only give some friendly suggestions because maybe they are afraid to hurt you, to tell the truth. So we are on our own. My discussion with my then-boyfriend was that marriage is a good thing for us to learn to be together in this journey and to have each other’s back whenever things go wrong. And that’s all; there was no romantic proposal or flowers. Just a quick discussion after having some personal time to think about it. That’s a decision my husband and I will never know whether it will end sound or be bitter.

After years of spending time with this person, I realized that a healthy relationship is hard work between two people. We came from very different circles and worlds, but we decided to compromise. When I got a call from my lead researcher to get on a plane soon to help him in the field, he let me go because he tried to understand what are the most important things to me. We back each other to cook if the other one is busy with meetings or video calls. We compromise with each other’s weaknesses and take it as a daily joke. He’s not romantic to society’s standard - but I think there is nothing more romantic than when one doesn’t understand the academic world but is genuinely happy when I gets my scientific article published or a funding request granted. Without the need to feel competitive or belittle my smallest achievement, I am sure this is what a healthy relationship feels like. Without the promise or complex conversations on feminism, he always helps with the chores and feels the obligation to share any domestic responsibilities equally. And the best part is that he always takes good care of me whenever I'm sick (my Dad said someone who really loves you is not the one who's there when you're healthy, but when you're sick, and it's true).

I hope it’s not too much to say that I still hang on to my speech at my wedding dinner, that I agreed to marry him because though we have everything in the world to be different, we have similar fundamental values of life, and that’s enough. This is a person that I can say is done with himself, that I would say has a way of thinking similar to an F1 driver that doesn’t want to drive on a public road - because he’s afraid to speed up the car and kill someone. He is my daily reminder to always acknowledge my own limits and what I am capable of, and that is far more important to me for becoming a better human being rather than wordy love letters.

Happy anniversary, my love. I am privileged to have you.

Recently I got a new client that works for a new, sustainable protein source production. This, of course, not the first time I handled a commercial sustainable product, but this got me thinking: do we have an agreement on things that we do every day that we consider sustainable really sustainable? Is this new protein source not a scam or green-washing as many products are?

These are my very personal opinions on sustainable lifestyle - very unfavorable, you might think, but I want to initiate a discussion where we are very skeptical about our decision-making process. 

1. Have fewer children, marry when necessary
   
   Growing up, I am not a fan of marriage for having a lovey-dovey life. I am a crime documentary and drama fan, and I have a firm opinion that there's no such thing as true love. How will you answer the concept of true love when people remarry after being left by their loved ones or when they can marry more than one person? What exists is a true partnership, and it can be platonic or romantic, and it still has a similar importance. What I believe is marriage is a civil union, a bond that governs who can make important decisions at critical times (say, accident or critical surgery), to whom your wealth will be handled when you pass away, and with whom you will share your everyday matters, opinions, laughter, and cries. With this in mind, I didn't have any problem getting married a bit late compared to society's standard, but I know that not everyone is privileged with this.
   
   What I want to say is I found that postponing marriage is a very environmental-friendly decision. Did you know that women that marry at a more mature age will get better access to education, wealth, and healthy reproduction? That it will be related to psychological maturity in parenting? Women who marry at an older age will also have fewer children, so they have a chance to raise their children and have more money to provide better education for their kids. The human population, I think, is the epicenter of environmental problems. Every species on this earth needs food, habitat, and other resources to survive. As the most intelligent being on this planet, the growth of our population has been and is still predicted as a major cause of habitat loss and environmental degradation. By having fewer kids or at least just 1 child per family (or adoption) we will need fewer resources from water, food production, and land conversion for human settlement. All production will be smaller, and we can focus more on human advancement in science and technology rather than basic productions.
   
   I still believe that using a condom made of rubber will always be more sustainable than having an unwanted kid. Unwanted pregnancy has been a source of many mental problems (and mainly always on the mother, not the father) and economic turbulence in a family, and we need to stop this loophole. Up until today, my heart goes to organizations that work for planned parenthood and women's empowerment because that helps the environment a lot.
   
   
2. Diversify our food, eat whatever is available nearby
   
   
   I am a bit fed up whenever I am told that veganism is the solution to all environmental problems. The most important thing that I learned as I grew up is that there is never a single solution to all problems. Did you know that entomophagy is also a solution to save resources to produce protein? And what kind of silly opinion is that saying we can only consume things that don't feel pain when one study suggests that plants also experience pain? How will you tell a family living in poverty, on a remote island where a flight to there from Bali is even more expensive than to Jakarta though the island is closer to Bali, to stop eating lamb or cow in an area where water is scarce, and no vegetable will survive the climate? 
   
   The problem with our diet is production. I have a commodity client, so I am in touch with commodity production calculations on a daily basis. It's scary, but again it makes sense since we need to feed more and more people now. Throughout these years, working in wildlife institution research made me come to the conclusion that diversification is important for ecosystems. When something is dominant, the ecosystem will go unbalanced, and there will be something that falls. I have analyzed many data for my research that I compared with LULC (Land Use & Land Cover) data that shows how scary the land conversion for farming (vegetables!) is. Did you know that potato is the culprit behind Dieng's landslide? 
   
   We can't just ask everyone to eat a single type of food when land is needed for production. Diversification, which I see in religions that ask their followers to eat different food, is somewhat good (e.g. Buddha prefers veganism, Islam orders no pork, and Jews have kosher restrictions). I would say that eating everything (but not wildlife) that's available nearby is the best solution for time being. And if that's not even solving the problem, then we need to go back to my #1 point above.
   
   
3. Buy multipurpose cleaning product
   
   I have been privileged to live on my own since a long time ago, so I have full independence in choosing which products I can use for home cleaning. Being in Bali for 6 years now and having a hobby of cleaning dishes, I am fortunate in how easy it is to access environmentally-friendly products here, so I could make comparisons. My house has a circular water management system, meaning that every drop of water from my kitchen or bathroom will go back to my garden, and that's where I will get water for a drink (I use a water filter and no longer buy bottled water since 2018). I slowly realized how important it was to consider the chemical used in my cleaning products. I started to cross out SLS, paraben, phthalate, and palm oil from all my cleaning products. It's very convenient that now small shops have started to provide a versatile, multi-purpose cleaning product that can be used for the body, hand, dish, floor, and cloth. I can just add small drops of essential oil whenever I want to. I hope these shops are growing bigger and more people will be interested in trying them. We have taken water for granted from the very first-time river valley civilizations that started thousand years ago. It's time to stop.
   
   
4. Manage our own organic waste
   
   Waste management relies heavily on infrastructure, meaning that it's useless if you have divided your trash by type, but the garbage pickup service at your housing complex will mix them up anyway. I have witnessed so many failing waste management programs because there is no infrastructure provided at the end of the customer journey. A similar problem happens in my area; I don't know if my garbage man will divide the waste or not, but the least I can do is have one bio pore infiltration hole, and I always put the valuable yet reusable waste in one bag. I know if I put them in one bag, that will make the garbage man realize that he can sell it again somewhere to be recycled. The most crucial is the organic waste because when it mixes up with reusable waste, then everything maybe needs to go to the landfill. By eliminating this, then it will reduce the number of landfill waste at least.
   
   
5. Pet only domestic and stray animals - sterilize them
   
   Okay, now is a very debatable issue for pets. Studies show that it is only the human species that keep other species as pets. The reason is many, say loneliness and the need for control. But humans are so selfish that it selects the most breed they want on domesticated pets, especially just because it's "cute". I am never a fanatic about any animal, but I choose a cat to pet. He came to my house around 6 months after I moved here, and I found something peculiar on his genitals. I decided to pet and love him, but not other cats. Time went by, and he got a urinary problem and was brought to a vet, and the vet said that he had been castrated. I was just about to sterilize him and kept thinking, who had castrated him? Was it the government or a random vet or clinic that had a stray operation?
   
   At that time, I realized the importance of taking care of stray cats. I taught him to not catch birds or random geckos (and now he's lazy af, a homebody lair, but that's fine), and I support movements to sterilize stray cats and dogs. There was a huge debate on Twitter saying that sterilizing them is ripping away their reproduction rights, but what I know is that feral animals can be a serious problem. Let's take an example in Australia. Feral cats have gone wild and killed an estimated more than 1 million native birds and 1.7 million reptiles across Australia every day. The government made a difficult decision to eradicate them just to be hated by the public. Speaking of reproduction rights, I am a full supporter of planned marriage and pregnancy, so while I am donating to the sterilization campaign, I am also limiting my own self rights to reproduce. When you think about it, sometimes, these not-to-sterilize campaigns for domestic pets are just used by greedy breeders to gain optimum profit by saying that some breeds are expensive and exclusive - while what I can see in all cats is... a cat.
   
   
6. Use a menstrual cup or reusable pad
   
   We can't debate someone's belief when they see a menstrual cup as a virginity destroyer, but there is always a safer choice: a reusable pad. As a woman, I've regretted how many single-use pads I had thrown away and ended up in a landfill. I've been using a menstrual cup, hand-in-hand with a reusable pad, for around two years now. It equals to 3,024 single-use pads (I used up to 4 a day in the first 3 days of my period). Some have criticized the rubber used in the cup or how much water is needed for washing reusable pads, but I see no other options at the moment. I once thought if I sterilized myself, I won't get any period, but that is wrong - so again, it's not a good option for now. It's up to you whether you see a menstrual cup as something against the cultural norm, but the hassle of washing reusable pads is not a reason to stop using single-use pads. I've seen so many personal care products, including diapers and menstrual pads on waterways in my research site, and don't you think it's one of the most disgusting things a human can do? 
   
   

   Baby diapers, just 3 meters away from a river

   
   
7. Clean up our cloud storage
   
   Did you know that Google now has a new regulation where it will reward any website that works fast (under 3 seconds) and lite? Data centers have used 1% of world energy to just run their server, and it's a bad situation for both the environment and their finances. That's why they will now reward good websites and punish bad websites by pushing them down in SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page). This is why I have a regular checkup on my cloud storage (I have so many emails that serve different purposes) and clean whatever that is already obsolete and unnecessary to keep. This looks silly, but as a person working in the digital industry, this is something that I can do for the environment. Using paper is so last year; our trash online is the new environmental waste.
   
   
8. Use electronic products as long as we can
   
   When I was a kid, my dad always taught me to buy electronics that could last for years. Later I found it's not only financially healthy but also environmentally friendly. At the moment, I still use a Toshiba laptop that my previous workplace bought for me in January 2014. I still use it for many data analysis processes until this year, almost all internet frameworks will stop supporting my OS. It still works well, and I even can still use it without any charger cable connected (and I haven't even replaced the battery). Toshiba has even closed its manufacture and support in Indonesia for laptop products, but my laptop is still running well.
   
   I fully understand that many producers now only build products that last up to two years, so consumers will keep buying, and they have cash flow. Nonetheless, electronic waste is worrying, and this is what keeps me to keep minimal when it comes to gadgets. I do regular clean up and check on my devices, making sure that they will run as long as possible until it's not possible again for them to run. I think, as a generation, we need to grow the spirit of maintenance and repair instead of replacement.