Welcoming 2021

 2020 is the weirdest year, well, we have a pandemic, of course, it's weird.

There are few thoughts and event that comes into my mind.

first, I don't think I want to be the top dog in any company, I don't want the responsibility, but knowing how my life works, someday, someone will think I'm good enough for that weird position even though I spent my time not actually working. I know someone of my age who is already a General Manager at big agencies, I think she just resigned and move to an even bigger company a few months ago, learning of what she did to achieve that position is sickening, for someone who just entered this industry 4 years ago, I'm already ahead of the curve.

top tip: learn the system, find the loophole, game the system. most people accept the system even when it's broken, don't be most people. Oh and by the system, I don't mean just the hierarchy or who reports to who kinda thing, also how your coworkers react, different people react differently to stimulus, learn the trigger, I'm not saying you should fake it, it's just how you respond to certain people, but don't fake the respond. If you don't like the boss, find out whether there are other people who don't like him/her, if most people dislike him/her, your boss is the problem.

also KPop, this is the year where my KPop enjoyment change from watching the MVs, to just listening to the song, well, because almost all of them have sad lyrics with the most fun dance, the disconnect, my brain can't accept it. Sure Minatozaki Sana in Cry For Me dance practice looks hot as hell, but I still prefer just listening to the song. Also don't watch those Studio Choom 4k 60FPS dance video, unlike most 4K live stage from Korean TV, which was much more compressed because it's for live TV, the Studio Choom encoded is much better, thus the difference between face and neck, also over make up, shows a lot. Please only use 60FPS for games.

Tis the year where Adidas announced Adidas Predator Absolute Remake, my first Predator. My first encounter with Predator was Mania for 2002, but first ownership was Absolute, too nostalgic to miss, I just spent a stupid amount of money for a football boot that I will wear probably in March 2021

But it looks so goooooooooooood

also, two of my closest cousin got married and engaged, good for them, now they have more household income, more money to buy a car, less tax to pay. What a heartless man I am, ada yang nikah malah ngitung pajak

millennials kills (insert industry here)

In the past few years, as I enter my late 20s, there is one issue that keeps bothering me, housing.

See, like in a lot of other societies, owning a house is considered one of, if not the most important rite of passage to adulthood. Why? I don't know, and any adult I talked to have given me a good argument, but there are few arguments they have 

I'll list a few

It's a sign of settling down

My question, in what way? As you go older, a lot of things will start to settle, first is your career path, as you go further into your career, it'll get harder to change direction, with all the investment in time and energy you spent into your job, it's better to be very good at few particular things. Then people around you, sure you probably still not married, but it's less likely to get new close friends after a certain age.

Also with yourself, hopefully as you got older, you know yourself better, and for me, that is settling down, you're not as chaotic and directionless as you were in your late teens and early twenties.

But choosing one place to stay for the rest of your life is not settling down, it's stupid. See, my generation won't stay in one company longer than needed, so job-hopping every year or so is normal.

Say, you bought a house in Serpong because that's what your income allowed, but most people work in Jakarta, you'll spend at least 4 hours of your day commuting on top of 8 hours working, isn't it better to stay as close as possible to your workplace for your sanity?

Also, it'll keep you flexible. See? Flexibility is not the opposite of settling down, also reducing the idea of settling down to a place is shallow. 

Also, in case your income fluctuates, you can adapt

You're going to waste your money renting.

As if owning a house is the only way to increase your asset. You only lose money if you spend the remaining income on partying 24/7. There are arguments that if your investment rate is better than inflation, or even better than the appreciation of the housing price itself, you'll win because you have the same amount of asset, but yours is liquid

Buying a house on a mortgage is just a form of forced savings because you wouldn't save your money otherwise.

But my issue with housing changes, from "is buying a house with 20 years mortgage worth it", to "why the fuck housing prices appreciates"

I found that there some countries where house prices depreciate as it goes older, by the time you finish paying it, it's worthless. I haven't read too deep into it, but it's an interesting concept.

Another shit that grinds my gear about housing is the fact there is a shitload of empty big houses in Jakarta, yet most of us millennials wouldn't be able to afford to buy a house in Jakarta.

I need to research more into Jakarta zoning laws if any, but upon further research, in Japan, most of the old houses will be demolished, because they know nobody can't afford it and basically worth nothing, but not the land tho.

In Tokyo, it could be 30-40mill/square meters, so it's like the center of Jakarta, the difference is the average house size is small, most of them are 80 square meters.

If only those greedy rich bastards with 1000 square meters as their extra house decided to demolish it and sell 10 100 square meters houses, they'll get rich faster.

Girls - The 1975

Ada quotes Oscar Wilde yg pernah gue bahas di blog ini

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." 

Gue bahas ini 11 tahun lalu kali ya, dulu gue mikirnya soal oppressive government dan orang2 baru akan berani speak the truth when they're anonymous. 

Gue gatau kenapa Tiba2 kepikiran lagi kutipan ini and something clicked, macem pointless eureka moment gitu lah

Truth disini not necessarily means factual truth, tapi subject's truth, as in whatever unpopular opinion they have.

It was 2009, there was no anonymity with huge audience online, ada kaskus, you're mostly anonymous, kecuali lo jualan Di FJB, being anonymous in online forum tuh ya gitu doang, lo ga bisa gaining popularity.

Jadi inget video interview David Bowie soal Internet, kayaknya itu interview 90an akhir atau 2000an awal, ga ada yg bisa prediksi Internet bakal kayak gini, ya ada sih, kayak bang Bowie, tp at that time nobody really thought anything about Internet.

Taun 2009, 99% manusia percaya satu kenyataan faktual, belum ada tuntutan untuk always on, media took their time with each article, they made sure all facts are there, or mostly there, most people read 2 - 3 brand of newspapers, watch multiple TV Channel. 

Mostly for second perspective, but it wasn't the age of punditry, it wasn't "kita rehat sejedag" days. 

Internet comes, people expect free access, thus publishers relying on ads for their livelihood, bigger user based, more money, so they focusing on driving people to read the news as opposed to making sure the news that they share are true. 

I guess that is why I am tired most of the time, the expectations of being always on, always uptodate, doesn't stop with media, but with the user as well.

I'm guilty of this too, you have the entire human knowledge on your phone, why are you not up to date? Now that I think about it, I am a bit hypocritical, I don't follow any news site on social media, I turned off all notifications bar my WhatsApp, I mute work and friends WhatsApp group, it has to be on my terms, these Internet stuff.

Sure sometimes I missed fun conversation on WhatsApp group, but I think keeping my sanity is higher priority than being up to date. 

Ketauan maen FIFA21

I don't know how long it usually takes for someone to be disillusioned by a lot of things, but I guess 29 years old is quite young.

I guess growing up in a less than ideal environment can be one of the factors.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, and I can agree with that. Living a life where you only know what you experience, basically, an isolated life, can be good to your mental health, I guess, this is me ranting, I don't have a fucking study to cite here. But you're less likely to have a condition where you have to face your demon face to face, like crying in a blanket in the middle of the night listening to nostalgic songs from your better days.

But I don't have that luxury, it's not like I made a conscious effort to be empathetic, to care about things like social justice and climate issues, but it was there, I have to care about it, not caring about it makes me a piece of shit. 

Probably because I'm privileged enough to have a good grasp of more than one language, and that other language is English, you know? The International language? Like every single knowledge available would have a version of an English translation of it. So I know things can be better, it'd have to be better. It's not like we're the first country in the world, there are hundreds available for us to learn from, it's like trying to do something yourself, denying any form of help, where if you asked/receive that help, things could have been a lot easier.

There are a lot of things that people already know what the best practice is, sure some adaptation might be needed to make sure it works best for our specific cases, but sure it would have been easier compared to starting from the ground up.

My friends think I'm a pessimistic, if not completely chaotic person, but I'd like to think I'm an idealistic person, a disappointed idealist.

I'm a self-proclaimed commitment-phobic, if that is even a word, mostly because I have commitment issues caused by childhood trauma, the other reason would be to commit yourself to this goddamn country is a bad life decision, and thanks to 29 years of moving houses here and there, I have a pretty flexible concept/idea about what a home is. 

Someone Q

I like finding a movie/song/tv shows that are good, but apparently quite old by the time I found it, and by old, I mean 5+ years have gone from the actual content being produced to me actually consuming it.

I think one example I really remember is when out of boredom, I decided to watch My Sassy Girl on YouTube. These were the days when YouTube did not really care about copyright enforcement. When you could find a full movie divided into as many parts as it needed as long as each part was less than 10 minutes.

It was 2011, so I watched it, and it was so fucking good, I decided to Google it for further details, and it turns out it was released in 2001, and I was awash by these feeling, a sudden realization that there's a lot of things that can and will happen without me noticing, realizing that a whole life-time went by the time I watched it. 

The film released in 2001, the actors were 25 and 20 years old when it was released, they were 35 and 30 by the time I watched it, they'll be 45 and 40 next year. I was 10 years old when it was released, I watched it in my second year of college - the third year if we're being pedantic, somebody's child would already be in 4 or 5th grade if they were born in 2001.

I guess what I tweeted at that time was something along the line, "where have you been all my life?".

I will be 29 years of age this November, 19th, to be exact, 7 PM, to be very exact.

When my mom was my age, she already has 2 children, me and my sister, she'd have her third by the time she's 34. Next year I'll be 30, the age when my dad married my mom.

My brother that was born in 2002 already 18 this year, oh, the 2002s are legally able to get married.

Hypothetically, I can marry someone who was born in 2002 and it'd be perfectly legal. Ethical? Might not be, but ethics and rule of law are two different things.

If I get married at 23, I'd probably try to choose an elementary school for my child with my wife, or I could be a divorcee, who knows.

Being an adult is hard, even when you have a stable 9to6 job like I do, I'm stressing at the fact that I don't have that much money that if I want to buy a house, I'd probably have to sell my soul to the bank, paying only the interest for the first 3 years. Imagine spending a shitload of money and your main debt is still there.

woooooooooooooow this post got dark quickly, I guess I'm just an inherently pessimist person.

shit's cray

I rarely have gone full-on angry, there's not much point of being outwardly angry, you know, screaming and shits, because most of the time, what I'm angry about is something that is outside of my control.

A shit campaign due to either agency guys haven't gone thru their Google's Academy for Ads training, or they're just too lazy to explain the intricacies of Digital Marketing to their client. The former I can kind of forgive it, it comes from a state of ignorance, the latter is just pure inconsiderate and unprofessional.

But then again, ignorance sometimes does not excuse you from your sin, you're working on digital media, having your certificates up to date is the least you can do.

There are cases of just shit managements, that as opposed to treating every project as a window of unlimited possibility with a chance of failure and learning, with each of us within our scope of expertise, would try to reduce that chance of failure - because things that can fail will fail - basically a collective work to get to your endgame, instead they will treat it as a way to increase as much revenue as possible, without communicating the potential risks and rewards, while putting all the burden to the lowest of the low of the food chain.

But then again in a normal working environment, rarely your credentials are being questioned when you get to a certain position. Sure there are careers where your credentials mean everything to your reputation and whether or not you're considered for the job.

I actually work with someone who doesn't understand the business model.

But to be honest, I don't care, they paid me handsomely, well, I care enough to rant here, but not care enough to actually raise it to the management.

The future's bleak man, if working an office job is like this, then I don't know how I'll survive the next 25 years of working.

It's funny, my best working experiences were when I was paid the least. I mean yeah I get paid like shit, I was overworked, the management sucked balls, but at least the ones that I worked directly with were a blast, every project was a fun prospect, sure sometimes it fails, but every concern I voiced were heard.

Sudah Agustus, 

mid-June thoughts

It's June 15th

2020 already 45% finished, more or less.

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░ 45%

— Year Progress (@year_progress) June 13, 2020

Few thoughts come into my mind in the past few days.

I'm a manager now because I survived my days as a staff, it's quite a weird feeling, to be honest, I can spend one day basically doing nothing, but I technically do something, I have to track my subordinates' work, I also do their job just in case they get sick and I have to be ready.

But one thing for sure is that I get paid to talk to the client, or at least to bluff them. Or if we face a problem I have to be the one who explains it.

I actually enjoy my job and the people, no politics at all, well, there's no sales target so there's no competition.

Another thing, gue sebenernya capek dengan ekspektasi, harus ngapain begitu umur segini. Gue cuma pengen punya motor sports fairing sm mobil yg fun to drive.

Gue cuma pengen kerja, berangkat pagi pulang sore, sambil nabung dan kadang beli hal-hal yang gue pengen. Oke big things nya itu ya kalo bisa CBR500R sama WRX. Tapi ya kalo sampe mati ga kebeli ya gapapa juga

Paling instead of beli motor, gue repaint aja motor gue biar kayak warna terbaru

Dari dulu pengen motor item matte baru rilis sekarang tai banget

Sekarang galau nih Swift 2013 atau Ignis 2017