by Endy Daniyanto

Must beauty hide behind the sadness of a tree by Lemuel Cantos

Last weekend I attended the AXIS 2010 International Java Jazz Festival [1]. I hadn’t planned on coming before, because I felt I didn’t appreciate jazz enough to justify the time and money for a jazz festival. But because Diane Warren [2] came to perform, and me being a musician and all, I decided to come anyway during the busy and jam packed Saturday night.

One of the bands who performed were Tika and the Dissidents [3] – a local indie band whom I heard from Adit, my guitarist. I first heard them when Adit and I were traveling to Bandung together, and he brought their CD. I chose to see them at Java Jazz because their schedule was precisely before Diane Warren, and I wanted to know how they sounded like live.

During one of their songs, the vocalist – Tika – said the inspiration behind it was the thought “every woman is beautiful”. She said every woman is beautiful in her own way, and guys should know that too. Of course, the audience responded with a cheer (or at least most of the female audience), but standing at the back line I said to myself I want to contest that theory:

IF every woman is beautiful, then it should also be TRUE that every man is handsome. Is this correct?

The permutations of beauty

Think about that for a moment: is every man handsome? I think accepting the belief that every woman is beautiful is far easier than accepting every man is handsome. Because history and society has had its share of mass murderers, corruptors, terrorists, kidnappers, violent husbands who are largely the male population. Yet from the logical relation, it should hold true, that ALL men are handsome.

IF you disagree and say NOT ALL men are handsome, how can ALL women be beautiful? What’s the difference between women and men such that ALL women are beautiful but NOT ALL men are handsome? It’s like we’re going against a law of nature when we make that statement.

Therefore, I think NOT ALL men are handsome, and NOT ALL women are beautiful. There are four combinations in total, based on beautiful inside and beautiful outside:

1. Women who are beautiful outside, not beautiful inside
2. Women who are not beautiful outside, beautiful inside
3. Women who aren’t either
4. Women who are both

The same also holds true for men.

The four pillars of beauty

This writing might make you think I’m a chauvinist [4], but I can assure you I’m not. The reason I’m writing this is because I want to ask the truth behind our beliefs. I feel the idea “every woman is beautiful” functions more to console the feelings of women who feel they aren’t beautiful, and gives women a justification to NOT do the hard work to BECOME a beautiful woman.

Beauty is a state of success, therefore it demands hard work and high commitment – whether you’re striving for inner beauty or outer beauty. To say that we are all already beautiful inside is mostly a fallacy – the fact is we all have our ugly sides that still need to be educated. Don’t let the idea make you think that you don’t have any work to do – on the contrary if you have the idea then there’s much work to do.

The conclusion: No, NOT every woman is beautiful, and NOT every man is handsome. Everyone needs to put in their hard work to be beautiful. This includes studying to be articulate in an intelligent way, exercising to be healthy and young in a physical way, experiencing enough adversity to be strong in an emotional way, and understanding grace to be humble in a spiritual way.

The question is then: are you beautiful?

Maybe you’re just pretty.

—

[1] Official Java Jazz International website. I share my thoughts about going there HERE (also includes pictures!)
[2] Diane Warren website. During the concert, she only appeared on stage twice; the rest of the show was to promote her new project Due Voci
[3] Tika and the Dissidents on MySpace. Turns out they have quite a number of fans (and Tika, if you’re reading this I’d like to know your thoughts)
[4] Check Wikipedia for the definition of chauvinist
[5] Photograph by Lemuel Cantos

Popular Affair by ~charlie45

Read the pilot episode here

Cecilia and I continued the topic about having affairs as she took out another menthol cigarette from the twelve-pack. She thought it was a problem specific to a certain group of people, but I told her that isn’t the case. This problem hits all layers of society from all backgrounds of educations; from the ordinary factory worker to the multi-platinum best-selling Hollywood blond.

I told her the story of a friend of mine who works as a shift manager in a garment factory. He told me at one time one of his subordinates jokingly asked him why he didn’t have an affair with one of the lady workers. Of course, this made my friend tickled to the bone from the sheer silliness of the question, but it was an honest suggestion from his coworker.

Cecilia looked slightly surprised when I told her even the simple people have domestic problems, including cheating wives or husbands. For the uninitiated, that may come as a surprise. But the truth is this: the problems remain the same throughout all layers – the difference is merely in the style and exposure it gets.

The next best thing

There is a happiness mentality that starts with the sentence, “If only I had …”. But anybody who has ever worked towards that blank sentence finds out what they sought for in the beginning didn’t bring them the happiness they expected. It’s an endless rat race as we chase down the next high, constantly searching for that sense of fulfillment but only achieving a fleeting moment of success.

Humans are very hard to satisfy, using external objects. The simple folk dream of city life, the city folk dream of luxury living, and the high rollers dream of riding the wave of the next big hit. What’s on the mind of the simple folk, is also on the mind of the privileged individuals. If a humble cab driver can have an affair, so can a millionaire have an affair.

Which raises the question: what is the real reason behind an affair? If it’s money, then the millionaires should be living happy marriages. Instead we may even see more cases of infidelity in the upper class.

Independent inside

There is no guarantee from anything that comes outside of yourself. The next big thing we think we’ll be the answer to all our problems is not. Instead, it may just be the source of our next set of problems.

I told Cecilia how she needed to be independent inside if she is ever to reach the happiness and clarity she so much desires. As long as we still rely on external objects, we will never achieve a permanent state of intrinsic security and will always be on the run. As long as we never love from the inside, affairs will always be an open option as a place to run away to.

Sometimes people prefer the drama and romance. But the happiness isn’t there. The happiness lies in the domain where we take full responsibility of our relationships, our wealth, and our character.

—

And the next song: #4 of 26 – “Hey Shorty” (Read the story here)

Hey Shorty by Endy Daniyanto

During my time active as an MLM distributor [1], one of the main problems we had was that people often said we were being brainwashed. What they mean is, MLM distributors change from ordinary people into people who are obsessed with money and would do anything – including lie and force – to recruit new members from their family and friends. This change of behavior drew a negative response from people who are negative of MLM regardless of whether they have received the complete information or not.

I understand why some would say MLM distributors are being brainwashed; they do experience a significant change in personality, and how much they change is determined by how much they view MLM as their golden ticket out. But I think the non-MLM people have it wrong. If we can say that MLM people are being brainwashed, then in reality everybody is being brainwashed.

You see, we are all affected by the environment we live in. What we think is our character, is in fact our artificial character made up from pieces and puzzles we pick up from the people, places, and culture surrounding us. We don’t truly understand which is our true identity, and which ones are determined by the environment we live in.

Shaping our minds

Take for example a friend of mine; he was previously a web designer, but he has now changed professions into an insurance agent. Since he became one, he always brings up facts and statistics about the insurance industry and how bright the prospect is in Indonesia, and how important it is that we insure ourselves and prepare if a serious illness should strike us. Previously, he never thought about health this way, and mostly talked about landing new contracts with bigger website projects.

Learning from his case – and from many more around me – it’s kind of funny how we wear our artificial characters. It’s funny how we are brainwashed by how our family members think, how our coworkers think, how our friends think, but we don’t realize it most of the time. Yet we believe that that’s the right way of living, and that other people are foolish not to follow.

In the case of the MLM distributors, they are merely choosing a brainwash pattern that has a higher probability to bring them material wealth and happiness. In the case of the non-MLM people, they are choosing the brainwash pattern that allows them to stay in their comfort zones and be safe and still have the option of negative attitude when they want to complain about something bad in their lives. In the case of my friend, he chooses a brainwash pattern that can bring him a steady asset growth from the health business (which makes him think a lot about illnesses and hospitals).

What’s your brainwash pattern?

All these available brainwash patterns we can take in life makes me think: what is our true identity? What part of ourselves would still be the same, regardless of the paths we take in life. What beliefs and values would we fight for, no matter if we were a doctor, an insurance agent, a musician, a politician, an engineer, a salesperson, a teacher, an athlete, or a shop owner?

Which part of us is true, and doesn’t change when we decide to choose a new brainwash pattern? Because of course there are brainwash patterns more worth taking than the default ones we are conducted to in life. What would we look like, if we never took this choice and never became what we are now today?

Sometimes I look at random strangers that remind me of my friends who have become millionaires. I wonder: what would they be like, if they never joined an MLM in the first place? Would they be the same strong person, believing in the same values, or would they be the products of the mainstream brainwash pattern, and be the average negative Joe?

Which brainwash pattern do you choose? And no, you can’t say “I choose my own brainwash pattern” or “I’m not brainwashed! I’m not influenced by those other people”. Because we are all brainwashed, one way or the other, whether we realize it or not.

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*No header image today, because the internet connection is suffering and it would take a longer time browsing for images. I truly dislike inconveniences

[1] Why People Hate MLM People, 2009