the-riddle

I went to "Dunia Fantasi" Indonesian Disney-like amusement park on Satuday. It was tiring, he, he, an amusement park is not so amusing anymore, especially, if you are in early 30's, overload with jobs and seems never ending loans, no regular sport, problems with cholesterol, ..etc, etc.. plus you went with three teenagers and a traumatic seven year old kid.

It was really an amusement park scenes, six of us hanging and running everywhere in the park, bringing bags full with chips, crackers, mineral water, spare clothes, towel and everything.. meanwhile, those teenagers glued to their mobile phone, and we were also busy persuading the traumatic kid to take a ride in a roller coaster or giant ferry wheel, and even the kid needed to be persuaded to get on to the merry go round.. he he..

Well, there was no insight at all until, I went to attraction, called "meteor attack". It's a virtual reality games. We sat down in a moving chair, in front of the giant screen that gave us a three dimentional effect. It was like, we are the pilot, controlling the airplane, jumping into the cliff, flying high to the sky, fighting with the alien. Our seat was moving, like seat in the jet airplane.

It was like true experience, the sound, the view, the move.… but we were not moving anywhere, actually, we were not going outside the universe, we were not jumping into the cliff, we just there, screaming, scarred, pounding, jostling, jumping in our seat, but we were not moving anywhere. We just there, in a dark room, with a giant 3-d screen..

And I’m thinking of another 3 D screen that I face everyday, outside the dark room, outside the amusement park. A 3 D screen that I’ve been facing since I was born . Im not moving anywhere. My life and heart is always there, somewhere, In the hand of the Creator. While my body and soul, is scanning His Giant screen, playing a role in His Play. His virtual reality. Our's too.

Nothing is real, John Lennon once sang.

Those cliffs of live, those peaks, sea in our life, the fall, the winning, the happiness, the sadness, the ambitions, the houses, everything will be left behind. One day, our time to leave our seat will come. We have to get outside the dark room, and meet with the Real.

I think the smartest man, in the virtual reality attraction, is he who tries to see behind the screen. A man who is trying to get the meaning in every view that is presented.

And for me, I keep hang on to the meaning, in every meaning that I find, while my seat in this dark room keep moving, pounding, jumping, …

until the time comes for me (and you) to leave.

Jazz is the most missed understood music in Indonesia. It has been perceived as music for elite, and shamelessly, some people think that seriously, and love (and hate) jazz because of their class. Expensive tickets for jazz festivals, exclusive performances of jazz group in the lounge or club, support the false understanding.

Jazz becomes another “nuveau-rich” performances, an artificial life style, like many others things here, in Indonesia.

And Jazz alienated from its roots.

In the contrary, jazz was born from the lowest class in the society. Dating back to the 18 centuries, where African was forcedly taken to southern part of US, and become a plantation worker, they need rhyme that can help them to express their distressed soul, a music that can give them a vision to their freedom and root of their homeland.

They create music from the home-tools, song lyrics as code of their secret meeting, a full indulging, soulful rhyme, music that brought them into the deepness of their ironic fates. They create a new tone for their music, .. A site describes jazz as:

"The unschooled" techniques from this music, the slurring and bending of notes, the wild falsetto cries and the like, became common features of jazz as both an instrumental and vocal music, but in far more artful ways as jazz developed sophisticated principles for its performance"

I feel jazz accelerate my brain. Like a hormone. It makes everything enjoyable. Like writing this.. unmeaningful piece..

Anyway, good night.

And, gives jazz a chance, will you?

He he..