To Fear or Not To Fear

Do you know the best thing to do when you are very very stressed and in the brink of another downward spiral? Watch the movie that is basically all of your trauma and fear combined! >=D

Well, okay, that's probably not what the doctor would order; but that's exactly what I (without even realising it) did yesterday.

Picture credit: Aunty Acid

As I'm getting older (and please do notice that this is a comparative phrase) I realise that I am getting better in covering what I am feeling, including to myself. Luckily, my body is honest; and I am trained enough to notice the small signs of protests my body is making. And it has been screaming stress for quite some time now.

Knowing so, I decided to have a de-stress weekend with my friends that include food, movie, and songs. Unfortunately, we encounter a slight problem. I have watched Mad Max and my friend has watched Tommorowland, and we really don't want our other friend to choose which friend she likes better; so we decided to watch San Andreas instead. "It's just another disaster movie," he said. Of course, being a person with serious trust issue that I am, I googled it first. Big earthquake, Dwayne Johnson, and Kylie Minogue. How bad can it be?

The movie is not bad, au contraire, it was actually quite enjoyable. It's just that I am truly amazed on how the movie managed to capture (as I said previously) most of my trauma and fear in 114 minutes. Now, I realise that unless you are a very avid stalker of mine, you will not know about my trauma and fears, so here they are (as portrayed in San Andreas):

Earthquake

What happenei in San Andreas is known as "strike-slip" where
the two sides of the fault slip horizontally past each other. Yes,
I googled.
Picture credit: Hwaairfan's Blog

According to Wikipedia, "an earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the perceptible shaking of the surface of the Earth, which can be violent enough to destroy major buildings and kill thousands of people." (Wikipedia, 2015). And this phenomenon is basically the underlying theme of San Andreas movie.

I do not have a ridiculous fear of earthquake, but I did experienced an earthquake in 2006 and still shudders whenever I feel the ground is shaking. The earthquake itself was bearable in the place where I lived, but Indonesia is not a country well-prepared for disaster. The level of catastrophe in some areas are devastating. I joined in an effort for children trauma healing in one of the areas highly affected by the disaster and live in a tent for three months with little to none training on both response and trauma healing. In retrospect, I really really wish that we managed to bring more good than bad.

Explosion
I hated explosions since 22 July 2001, when I was caught in one. However, usual explosion scene does not really bother me. What bothers me about the movie is the fact that the explosions were accompanied by a very realistic falling debris. And they happens repeatedly. I guess every single explosion brought the part of me I would rather forget, drained me, and left me a little bit limp at the end of the journey. Okay, maybe I exaggerated a bit; but the intense discomfort I felt when seeing a building explode from the inside is real, and I truly hate it.

Height

Picture credit: Bored Panda

You know that escalator to the movie theater in the Grand Indonesia shopping town? The one that is twice as long and twice as high as the other ones? I hate it. Hate it with all my heart. My friend forced me on it once, and I went numb. I still secretly hate you for doing that to me, Bee!

I have this thing that the French call "the call of the void". The urge to jump from high places. I used to think that the feeling means that I am acrophobic. But after a careful trip down google lane, I see that this is actually a primal self-preservation mechanism.

Hearing the call of the void actually prevents me from getting to close to any edge that might lead to accidental slipping and result in me hitting the ground on 100 mph. So, in a way, it ensures that I stick on this earth a little while longer.

...or at least that what google told me.

Losing A Sister
Not many people now, but I had one sister who died at birth back in 1992. I was still a very young girl at that time, and we did not really have that deep of a connection for me to feel a profound loss. However, the void is there; As well as the longing to be able to chat with and hold her during my most difficult times. She would have been 23 by now and I simply cannot help to wonder what kind of a woman will she be had she still be here with us.

Losing Control in General
Above all, I am a person who are obsessed with control because, let's face it, the world will be a so much better place had everything turn out exactly the way I want it to be. And any kind of naturally-occurring deviance in my life (such as one caused by an earthquake measuring 9.6 on the Richter scale) rips me from having a sense of control. Scenes in the movie are arranged in a way that we could not deny that, when faced by nature's immense strength, human being are essentially nothing. And I hate that feeling of helplessness., especially when it comes to keeping your loved ones safe. I would really love to think that no matter how bad the situation are, we still have control over our lives, and those that we care about. But I'm not naive. I realise that this is not the situation.

***

That being said, I think the rush of norepinephrine and cortisol induced by the movie is quite pleasant. Maybe sometimes, stress just need an outlet and this movie did exactly that. Icing on the cake: I get to see Ioan Gruffudd and Kylie Minogue, even just for a little bit. I am still upset that they canceled "Forever", though. Seriously, America, what's wrong with you?

Nadie

Credit: Musico na Estrada

It's been 11 years since I first saw you

9 since I hesitated, and gave up

7 since I last took a ride on your bike

6 since I last saw you

4 since we last texted each other

2 months since you messaged me out of the blue

1 month since you popped on my timeline by chance

before vanishing once more

Somehow, you always know the perfectly bad time to reappear in my life

Always

that exact moment I stopped thinking about you

but I guess, I don't know if I ever really do

We are nobody to each other

yet I seek you in everyone I met

and until now

none of them compare to you

The 100 Year Old Man Who... Well, You Know What He Did

"Ada seekor anak kelinci main-main di lapangan.
Dia sangat senang sekali melihat rumput-rumput yang bergoyang..."

Whoaa..! Dad! You should have taught me not
to go with strangers. Especially when it's a
shady bear in the woods! I'm not Masha!
(Photo credit: We Know Memes)

Are you familiar with a Mobius strip? It's basically a simple strip that when you draw a straight line on the surface, you would end up on the spot where you begin. The piece of the story (in Indonesian) above is the beginning of my Daddy's version of a Mobius strip.

Every night when I was small, he would tell us a story of a little bunny who got lost, met Mr. Bear, went to his house to spend the night and eat Mrs. Bear's cooking, decided to take a nap while Mr. Bear told him a story about a little bunny who got lost, and the story goes on forever. The ending of this movie reminded me of that story from my childhood. However, as Julie Andrews said (or sang): "Let's start from the very beginning. A very good place to start."


Run, Allan! Run!
It has been a crazy week. Between work, friends, family, financial, health, and personal sanity dramas; I think I can proudly say that it's an achievement that I have not completely lost my mind. So in order to remain functioning, I decided to went and watch the Europe on Screen alone on a lovely Monday night.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared was playing. I first heard the ridiculously long title when I saw the book in my friend's house. She told me it was a great book. But I haven't had a chance to read it. So, when I saw the title in the screening schedule, naturally I feel the urge to go and watch it. And thus I went and watch.

The movie started with a bang. A literal bang. The main character, Allan Karlsson, is an old man with a livelong obsession of blowing things up. And he decided to take revenge on the lovely red fox that killed his overweight cat (appropriately named Molotov) by blowing it up. This maneuver send him straight to a nursing home.

But first, let me just say that any geriatric who are brave
enough to climb out of anything deserved my utmost
respect. (Photo credit: The Holywood Reporter)

I think you can instantaneously tell that Allan is quite a character around the time you see him wrapping a bunch sausages around dynamite and meticulously putting the pile by the hen house. But even this quirky move will not prepare you for what you about to see about Alan's character.

He live a carefree, colorful live; I suspect without even realising it. He had had people, "from conductor to dictator," yelling at him. He saved Franco's life (from himself, but that's out of the context), advised Oppenheimer on how to make bomb, dined with Truman, danced with Stalin, befriended Einstein (Herbert, not Albert), and (unawarely) tricked Gorbachev with his recording of Reagan's yelling to his gardener. Hell, he was the Scandinavian version of Forest Gump!

To Think or Not To Think
Technically speaking, I love the colorful scenes in the movie. The scenic Scandinavian countryside, the cute houses, the amazing make up, the uplifting music, the one-of-a-kind characters, the quirky storyline, the witty dialogues; all of which are directed into making you feel that blissful happiness you rarely let out. I watched the movie alone, but not once did I feel the need to hold back on the laughing. And it's deliberating.

I could spend so much time babbling about how great the storyline is and describing every single scene, but I won't. You could go on and watch the movie yourselves! One thing I could say, though, is that the maker of Allan's story, Jonas Jonasson, is a genius! I haven't had as much fun watching a movie like this ever since Harold and Maude. The whole studio cannot stop laughing throughout the screening. There were also occasional applause during several scenes. Well deserved applause, if I might add.

And while we're on the subject, May the Fourth be with you!
(Photo credit: Adventure Time Wikia)

Witty comic aside, I think Allan's story serve as a reminder of how we, modern people, have the tendency to over think. "Thinking would not get you anywhere," his mother said just before she died. That in turn shaped Allan into a carefree, happy-go-lucky person that we saw throughout the movie.

And then we saw the character Benny. A character so indecisive that he never decided where he should go with his life, and thus went nowhere. On top of it all, we see that Allan is a blessed golden child of destiny; and so do the good people around him. They came so close so many times to misfortune, even felt that every now and then. But they always prevails in the end. The message is clear (at least I think it is): Carpe Diem! (or as modern hip people say: YOLO!). If you want to do something, do it. Don't waste time thinking about it. Nitey nite!