Iblis perempuan berbalut kerudung

Tuhan, aku berlindung

Dari iblis perempuan berbalut kerudung

Yang hadir diam-diam menyapa lewat bisikan

Dengan kedok manisnya perhatian

Padahal di tangannya tergenggam racun

Yang perlahan menyusup,

Menjarah, membius

Menjauhkan cinta yang hakiki dua insan manusia

Iblis perempuan berbalut kerudung

Merayu dengan teknologi

Dalam tat tit tut pesan digital

Yang syarat dengan godaan.

Iblis perempuan berbalut kerudung

Bertopeng iman dan kebaikan

Di tangannya tergenggam belati

Siap memporakkan maghligai suci

Iblis perempuan berbalut kerudung

Bibir merahnya menyumbar bisa

Taringnya menyeringai

Siap menerkam mangsa.

Tuhan, aku berlindung

Dari iblis perempuan berbalut kerudung

Bandung, Oct 13, 2008

The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire

British parliamentarian and soldier Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) conceived of his plan for Decline and Fall while “musing amid the ruins of the Capitol” on a visit to Rome. For the next 10 years he worked away at his great history, which traces the decadence of the late empire from the time of the Antonines and the rise of Western Christianity. “The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic memorials, pose equal difficulties to the historian, who attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration,” he writes. Despite these obstacles, Decline and Fall remains a model of historical exposition, and required reading for students of European history.

Edward Gibbon.

The Turning Point : Science, Society, and the Rising Culture

The author expands his focus to show how the revolution in modern physics foreshadows a similar revolution in many other sciences and a corresponding transformation of world views and values in society. In particular, he explores paradigm shifts in biology, medicine, psychology, and economics

Capra, Fritjof, ” The Turning Point : Science, Society, and the Rising Culture”, Simon and Schuster, NY, 1982

1421 The Year The Chinese Discovered The World

“…On the 8th of March, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was ‘to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas’ and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. The journey would last over two years and circle the globe. When they returned Zhu Di lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years before the Europeans…”

Menzies, Gavin “1421 The Year China Discovered the World” Bantam Press, London

Sofies Verden

Pelajaran filsafat dalam bentuk sebuah novel ABG (anak baru gede, red). Pertanyaan-pertanyaan filosofis, seperti dari mana asal-usul alam semesta ?, Big Bang ?, apa maksud keberadaan kita di dunia ?, apakah takdir itu ada ?, dari mana asalnya Tuhan ?, dibahas lugas dalam buku ini

Dengan bahasa ringan, kita berkenalan dengan para filosof dunia, mulai dari Thales, yang dikenal sebagai filosof pertama, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles, Descartes, sampai Kant, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, dan Freud

Gaarder, Jostein, “Sofies Verden”, The Author and H. Aschehoug & Co, 1991

GENOME, The Autobiography of A Species in 23 Chapters

Genom manusia, seperangkat lengkap gen yang terdapat dalam dua puluh tiga pasang kromosom, tidak lain adalah autobiografi spesies kita. Ini terungkap dalam sekitar satu milyar kata tiga huruf menggunakan empat huruf abjad DNA, karena apapun yang dialami oleh spesies kita, dari generasi ke generasi selama lebih dari tiga milyar tahun, semuanya tercatat dalam langkah-langkah penyuntingan, pemotongan, penyingkatan, pengubahan, penambahan, dan sebagainya terhadap kumpulan kata tersebut. Dengan telah diumumkannya draft kasar genom manusia, berarti kita, generasi yang beruntung ini, menjadi mahluk hidup pertama yang mampu membaca buku pintarnya sendiri, sekaligus memperoleh wawasan paling mendalam sampai saat ini tentang makna hidup, tentang arti menjadi manusia, tentang kesadaran atau fenomena jatuh sakit.

Dengan mengambil 1 gen yang baru ditemukan dari tiap pasang kromosom kemudian menyuruhnya bercerita, Matt Ridley mengajak kita menapak tilas sejarah spesies kita sendiri berikut nenek-nenek moyangnya, sejak fajar kehidupan hingga peluang datangnya zaman kedokteran masa depan. Ia menemukan gen-gen yang juga dimiliki oleh bakteri, gen-gen yang membedakan kita dari simpanse, gen-gen yang mungkin mengutuk kita dengan penyakit-penyakit mengerikan, gen-gen yang mungkin mempengaruhi kecerdasan kita, gen-gen yang memungkinkan kita bertatabahasa, gen-gen yang memandu perkembangan tubuh dan otak kita, gen-gen yang memungkinkan kita mengingat, gen-gen yang menunjukkan keistimewaan unsur bawaan dan pengaruh pengasuhan, gen-gen yang membebani kita dengan kecenderungan egois, gen-gen yang saling berperang, juga gen-gen yang merekam sejarah perpindahan penduduk. Ia menggali berbagai upaya penerapan genetika. Ia mengupas munculnya kecemasan dan kengerian terhadap eugenika, serta implikasi filosofis dari memahami paradoks kehendak bebas.

Ridley, Matt, “Genome, The Autobiography of A Species in 23 Chapters”, 1999

a critical moment

Sabtu, dua puluh dua oktober dua ribu lima, siang bolong, antara Purworejo-Wates. Ada mobil mendekat dari arah depan dengan kecepatan tinggi. Hampir mustahil untuk menghindar. Kondisi kritis, bahkan panikpun tidak sempat lagi. Hanya pasrah. Tapi ternyata, bukan Laa ilaaha ilallah yang secara refleks terucap, bukan Allah yang secara refleks masuk ke dalam ingatan. Ternyata aku belum benar-benar menyemayamkan Allah dalam refleks bawah sadarku, walaupun Ia telah membantu menghindarkanku dari kejadian yang semula kukira tak terhindarkan.

Allah,
berdalih sibuk, aku lupa pada-Mu.
Sedang dalam sibuk-Mu,
Kau tak pernah berpaling dariku.

Friday, January 14, 2005
A neighbour’s son, 24 year old, died of drug overdose, yesterday 2pm. The syringe was even still biting his arm, when people found him. The parents were both still at work when it happened. What an awful way to end a life.

psychiatrist

I called my son’s psychologist to ask her whether she knew some good psychiatrists she could recommend me to meet. She mentioned 2 names, and both work on Jalan Riau 11, a hospital for insane people. (Well, thank you, I think I am not that insane).

But I did meet one in a hospital near my housing complex, last Saturday. The schedule was at 1 pm, but doctors usually come late, 30 minutes late is punctual enough. And I got the number 3, meaning that there would be 2 other patients inline in front of me.

It was 12 noon, so I still had 1-2 hours before I could meet the psychiatrist. Then I went home and showed up again at 1.30pm. To my surprise, there had actually been no other patients except myself that day, and the psychiatrist, a short man, had been waiting for me for 30 minutes.

I told him the reason why I thought I need to meet him. It was because of the psyicho test I did the other day. The psychiatrist told me that I did not need to worry about anything. Some tests are just not accurate enough (they told me that the test is 99% accurate). Then he talked about a more accurate test he usually gave for employee selection. He also told that recently he had just conducted the test for the house of representative members. The session finally ended up with he talked and I listened. And it was all about the tests he did, and my problem was still there, undone.

While he was talking, an imagination came to me that probably this short man was not the psychiatrist I should have met. It was probably that the psychiatrist had never really shown up, and that the short man was actually the patient no 1 or no 2.

Anyway, it was hillarious enough for me and that now I am 100% confident that I do not need any psychiatrist.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

De minimis non curat lex

Life is too short to think about small things (Disraeli)