“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”

If I can summarize ‘life’, this equation might show up:

L + G = P

L= beginning of life (consciousness starts)

G = given conditions

P= present me/you/us

Wait, hold on, is it a timeline? Like this?

Life shows up —————> given conditions ————————> fucked-up present

Well.. the timeline looks so much better!!

Now… At-this-point me is trying to look at the past me (at time zero) who feels, talks, and thinks like a totally different person. She is totally a stranger. I don’t feel like myself anymore and I don’t know who I am. So I’ll try to break down why everything is so fucked up, chronologically backwards from the present moment to the starting point.

Firstly, the present me is 100% conditioned and overwhelmed by the given conditions. At this point, I am consist of 90% anxiety and 10% happiness. I kept on thinking how to make mama feels better by accepting what life has given to us. It’s difficult to accept monstrous cancer inside her.. and literally, cancer doesn’t infect her only: it infects the whole family.

But to think of it, I never see mom happy for these 27 years of my lifetime. Has she ever been happy? And how can I now demand her to be happy, post-cancer? I then tried to recollect all the events that supposedly make her happy. I recall her flat face during my graduation and during my announcement that I ranked first for the whole university. She, as I remember, looked pleased while smiled at me. Was she really pleased? Well we never know.. All of her expressions were blurry in my memory.

Ah, I remembered she was having a stage-fright while delivering a speech for my graduation ceremony. The dean asked either mom or dad on behalf of all undergrads’ parents to congratulate the graduates in front of 1,500 audiences. Her hand was shaking holding the draft paper that she has prepared for weeks. Looking at her showing emotions.. is priceless.

However, the current looks on her face (today, after cancer strikes) she convey are always sad and fear. She seemed to be thinking and angry at life. Any stranger would detect ‘suffering’ and ‘unhappiness’ displayed on her face.

I wondered why we have all these negative emotions reacting at something ‘new’ in life. To think of it, everything was peculiar due to its newness. All events and circumstances were all brand new that need to be learned.. in which I labelled them as ‘given conditions’ in the equation / timeline. I always have a difficult time learning the world’s system and often be corrected by my families and society. Everyone was born as an alien who try to adapt in this peculiar system, isn’t it? So in 1994, I arrived in this world and was given a body and a face, a gender, and a name.. Yulia. Then they are my given parents with their given characters, parenting style and financial conditions. Then I naturally breathe, and what I breathe is called oxygen. And there are white substance called cloud floating above me, and people call them ‘the sky’. The sky constantly changes.. is sometimes blue, navy, pinkish, and sometimes orange. And I am not floating.. I stick on the ground because I am an entity with mass that’s bound to gravity.

Everything was unusually hard to understand.. from the distinction as species and to learn that we are a human and they are animals and plants. The things that each of them having a name, these are chickens and those are monkeys. Chicken is edible but monkey aren’t. Then a more-complicated concept arrived. My sister taught me that a Chinese-blood ran through my vein, and yet not everyone is a Chinese. Those white guy called bule, and those are negrito, and latino. Then I must study and learn to understand God, numbers and more concepts and more absurdities.

Is this world a simulation?

The current world that I live in is the early 21st century. The world is thankfully in order; compared to a more anarchical, past civilization. The 21st humanity considered closer to peace in which possible after controlled by law and an exchange of value called ‘money’. Money is currency of value. This money concept is very bizarre and difficult to understand. So try to comprehend this very carefully: in this survival game, you must have money and there are several pathways that you can do to obtain it, such as: 1) you must perform certain productive activities that you are good at (sleeping and watching TV are not ones) and exchange it with money; 2) you obey someone and do the productive activities for them, or 3) you live with someone who do productive activities and be a parasite. Both number 1 and 2 are called ‘working’ as entrepreneur and employee, respectively, and number 3 is known as ‘privilege’.. Some lucky ones born with family who are productive (which is given) or actually you can ‘commit-to-live-by-law’ with productive people. That action is called ‘marriage’. However, if you married to someone who choose number 3, you must carry out the action number 1, or 2. Those who possess more money is considered ‘rich’ or ‘more’. Money within this 21st century capitalistic system, is a legit and absolute standard of measurement to value a person.

Then a portion of your money is attributed to government: a land with groups of people inhabiting it, who share the same identities called ‘nation’, led by some powerfully influential / corrupted people. The government gives you several certificates and cards indicating that you are part of them. Then, only after a government is recognized by other governments, finally it can be called as a ‘sovereign country’. There are 193 countries that are well-recognized, and several number of countries (Nagorno-Karabakh, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to mention a few) are partially-recognized and they belong to the well-recognized ones.. So I belong to a well-recognized country called Indonesia. Indonesia is situated in the middle part of the world that I accidentally arrive, that known as the Earth.. The earth is round and when I say ‘middle part’, it is really near the 0 degrees latitude between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Because the Earth is round like a basketball, we are closer to the sun — a visible star that emits lights and powerful energy. The earth and the sun is 8 minutes away if I travel with the speed of light. I see the sun as the powerhouse of the universe.. The sun is one of the sources of life.. When you live in the same universe as I do, you must notice the grand sun. It is impossible to miss it. It is SOOOO NOTICEABLE, BIG and warm. Probably we are all children from the sun.

And YES! Due to its roundness, the given earth spins around its given vertical axis (not 90 degrees, but 23.4 degrees because of weight of Northern hemisphere), Indonesia receives more heat from the sun. The other countries I mentioned are geographically located all over the world. Some received different amount of sun’s energy each months in regards to the changing position (again, because the Earth’s tilt) and experience different weather that they called ‘season’ and some countries (like Indonesia, DRC, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Tanzania, Brazil, etc near the equator) experience no changing position relative to, and receive almost the same amount of the sun. In addition, some have bigger lands, having access to the sea and some aren’t. Indonesia has around 271 million human like me and on average, generate approximately 4,200 American Dollar money per person annually. America is one of the most well recognized countries and dollar is its money currency. American Dollar is one of the anchoring currency that we use as a standard measure of value and purchasing parity. America themselves consisting of 330 million people and per person produce around 63,500 American Dollar in a year. So, Americans are 15.5x generate more money and perceived to be more productive than Indonesians.

How can these state of disparity occur? A learned person ever wrote that nations living in the equator are more likely to be less developed than civilization who experience four seasons, in terms of accumulative knowledge and technology. And because of it, even though it is unwritten, some civilizations is considered lesser than the other civilizations. So, me with my given identity and given background, by the judgement of the given concepts of my skin, my card’s nationality and my assets, I am a middle class in this social stratification.

.

I think I’ll continue to explain these given conditions later on since there are a lot (LOTSS) to be elaborated. But these are the basic survival 101 kits that I’ve learned in this planet Earth.

Then to wrapped up everything from the beginning of time, I arrived at hospital (a place where people born, death, and those in between) from my mother’s tunnel called vagina. The hospital was Darmo Hospital located in Surabaya. I was born in July 14, 1994 and stayed in my mom’s womb for around 9 months wrapped in a balloon called placenta where I ate whatever my mom’s consumed. So 9 months before July 14, 1994, say, November 1993, my parents performed in a natural procreate action called ‘sex’ to free them from desire and love.. and since they say that I was accidentally come to existence, the action unintentionally, by a mere slim 0.0x% probability, BRING ME TO LIFE. For heaven’s sake! Isn’t it a miracle?

AN ANGEL COMING TO THE EARTH!!! LIFE, HERE I AM!!!!!

Hello mom and dad!

Hello late 20th century!

Hello Earth!!!!!

Hello civilization!

Hello sun!

Hello concepts!

Hello language!

Hello alphabets and numbers!

Hello money!

Hello fellow plants, bacteria, virus, and animals!

HI IT’S ME YULIA!

So.. what am I before November 1993? I think around that time I was an egg and a sperm. But what preceded that? What am I before the egg-sperm form? Before the beginning of time?

Everyone has tried to answer that but came to conflicting theorem.

So it is what it is.

Life, just show up..

So.. coming back to my present me, where I write this long nonsense because of my mom’s cancer… Everything, really is given. The cancer that we are trying to kill, is GIVEN, the very same with concepts. Alphabets. Money. Earth’s tilt. And the great, great sun.

Everything is given..

And because I learned and able to accept the given conditions as given me; and thinking that I own the given world and try to accomplish my position on the given Earth, I forget the given basics… that things are given.

I given-ly live in these strange, given, dreadful system..

And I attach to this given world.. to my given mom. With her genes, given lifestyle, and given over-expressed HER2 receptor kinase.

Life is what it is.. When we see things from newly born eyes, things would be so much easy to accept since we are accustomed to the given world. But since 27 years have passed, I think I am an adult and I think I am in control.. I forget that I am a student to this complex given world and started to plan my future — that is most likely 90% given due to my upbringing and the gene I inherit. I So John Lennon was right.. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”

So.. why am I sad when actually, there is nothing to lose?

It’s such a cliche but.. why don’t I ‘enjoy life a little’: be happy, eat what I want, love the people I like, live in the other countries, fuck everything off, and simply ‘dance-in-the-rain’? LOL the cliche doesn’t really suit me well. My point is, why I don’t give this given life a little bit stir and rebellion? Like.. for instance, freeing my bra and wearing no panties.. or laughing whenever I angry and angry whenever I feel happy..or having the tattoos and the scars I want.. or simply having beer for breakfast and coffee for dinner?

I’d enjoy all my fucking life drinking beer to break my fast..

Indeed!

This is it!. It is so decided!

I’d have my beer for breakfast.

Given world called Earth, given day called Sunday,

Given date called August 22, 2021.