Happy 75th Independence Day

We are definitely a greatly-sized nation. With greatly-sized islands and greatly-sized mountains and greatly-sized lakes and greatly-sized everything. But are we a great nation?

The great nation is the nation that honors its heroes.

– Ir. Soekarno, Indonesia Founding Father

To each his own. But this post, uploaded on a day where we celebrated our nation’s greatest and most glorious day, is dedicated to our heroes, most of them unsung and unheard of, in the front line of Covid-19 pandemic countermeasure. We may celebrate differently this year, but the spirit of fighting for freedom and independence was never out of date.

We are lucky to still have heroes. Superheroes, even. And not all superheroes wore capes. Some of them are medical, some civil, some military. Some are called while some volunteered. But they all have sacrificed. Most lost their precious time, part of them lost their health and wealth fighting this pandemic, and a certain number even lost their lives.

So all kinds of supply profiteering, cheap talks about conspiracy, and attention seeking tricks, swiveling around everywhere, are demeaning, outright petty, and simply cruel. Any negligence to keep our own health and the health of those around us is reckless and endangering.

For anyone who read this, I urge you to do right by your nation and do right by your forefathers. We (can) be great.

Photo by Areza Pahlevi on Unsplash

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Happy Chinese New Year 2571

Happy Chinese New Year 2571 for all of us.

恭喜发财
Gōng xǐ fā cái
Congratulations and Prosperity

新年快乐
Xīn nián kuài lè
Happy New Year

万事如意
Wànshì rúyì
Everything goes well

年年有馀
Nián nián yǒu yú
Wishing you prosperity every year.

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Happy New Year

Happy New Year. May this new year bring out the best in all of us on and through every path we take.

Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be
In working or in waiting, another year with Thee;
Another year of progress, another year of praise,
Another year of proving Thy presence all the days.

Another year of mercies, of faithfulness and grace,
Another year of gladness in the shining of Thy face;
Another year of leaning upon Thy loving breast;
Another year of trusting, of quiet, happy rest.

Another year of service, of witness for Thy love,
Another year of training for holier work above;
Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be
On earth, or else in Heaven, another year for Thee.

– Frances R. Havergal

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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

yuàn míng yuè cháng yǔ nǐ xiāng bàn, zhào liàng nǐ dě jiàn kāng、 xìng fú hē fān róng zhī lù.
愿 明 月 常 与 你 相 伴， 照 亮 你 的 健 康、 幸 福 和 繁 荣 之 路。
May the glow of the moon surround you and light your way to health, happiness, and prosperity.

Farewell, Mr. B. J. Habibie

That’s what he once told us.

Live as if you’re going to die tomorrow. Rejoice as if you’re going to live forever.

– B. J. Habibie

Now he’s not with us anymore. May his legacy inspire the generations to come.

An engineer by trade. A politician by chance. But always a lover by heart.

Farewell Mr. Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie (25 June 1936 – 11 September 2019, 83 years old)

The Grass is Greener where You Water It

Always.

That was like the cardinal rule of everything.

If you were wondering (and secretly envying) why your neighbor’s grass was greener than yours, then know this secret:

He was out there watering it every morning before you even woke up.

Wow. Such Secret.

There you go.

Remember the Iceberg of Success?

People chose what they wanted to see and not what really happened. That’s why, they judged other people’s success far more willingly than they put effort into their own success.

Don’t do that!

Genius is One Percent Inspiration

And ninety-nine percent perspiration.

I remembered reading a book titled The 100: A Ranking of The Most Influential Persons in History back when I was still a child. Written in 1978 by Michael Hart, the book was controversial at that time and it was a wonder that it was even translated into Indonesian and found its way to my grandfather’s library.

Thomas Alva Edison was undoubtedly a genius. But it wasn’t his brain that earned him the spot (35th to be exact) in the list. It was his approach to solving the problems of his time and thus providing the future a certain bright comfort, pun intended.

He once described his invention methods as involving a lot of hard work and repeated trial and error until a method was successful. Rumor had it that to finally get the first light bulb that changed the world work took 1,000 tries.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 1,000 ways that won’t work.

– Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of light bulb and apparently master of positivity

His protégé, Nicola Tesla, shared the same view. Tesla’s namesake adopter, Elon Musk went through the same trials. Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, even Colonel Sanders go through failures and rejections in large numbers. But eventually, there’s only a limited number of failures and/or rejection you could experience. Eventually, the bulb would light up or someone would say yes. That’s when it all counted.

Ever tried. Ever failed. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

– Samuel Beckett, failure expert and Nobel prize winner