Puty's Journal

I always dream to be a writer. A professional one. Yes, I often dream to be someone whose books are found and sold out everywhere; whose signature is valued even more than the copy itself. It is not that I want to be famous, or rich, or both. It is actually the vision of living a life with coffee and cheesecake and notebook and writing all day. Ah, I’m starting to think naive, but late at night, it just sounds more tempting.

But well, it’s maybe more than that.

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Because writing is something magical.

You can make people fall in love with you, with life, with something even when they have no idea about anything. You can make them laugh, you can make them cry. Smile, frown, or even sleep. You can make them wonder, and if you’re powerful enough, then you can make them think (oh yes, you should be flattered when you can make other people use their brain). You can inspire them. You can be alive in your death. You can stay young and wise for hundred years. Isn’t it magical?

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What if it is not magical at all?

Unsuccessful professional writer is the other name of the lame and unemployed you, with unpaid debt, beers and cigarettes on the floor, and a stack of dusty unsold-plastic-wrapped-books-you-author in your shelf those you bought yourself just because you couldn’t stand seeing your words left untouched, unseen, unintended, in the bookstores. Sleeping with dream, and dreaming about something else other than sleeping. Broke. Well, it’s my worst case scenario of a writer, but I know, it’s pretty realistic for an idealistic life-plan.

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I always dream to be a writer. But I’m never a risk taker. I choose to be a coward turns an earth exploiter. I love words, but they are too fragile. They are my dream, but they are not the only ones. I can’t put my dreams based on another dream. I can’t stand taking risks. I can’t stand dreaming to be a dreamer.

Then I left it here. Where my words are mine, and people won’t kill me just because I write or I don’t write. Some people may be inspired, and I don’t have to worry, whether people would feed me by buying my words or not. Whether people would care or not. Whether Earth would grow old and dying. It just would.

Thanks for letting me know that
it doesn’t have to be extraordinary
to be special

Thanks for letting me know that:
There will be sun, sun, sun

For a materialist, I’m pretty idealistic (no, I’m not mocking Paramore). Maybe some of you, who have been reading my blog for a year, more or less, know that I think and write in swordlike words, plus innuendos. About consumerism, or being trendy or being cheesy or even about definite individuals. Like this, or this, or dozens more tweets and under-160-characters type of posts. I know a lot of people were offended. A few protested and countered, and some might disliked me silently (or maybe not, and it’s just me).

I maybe sound so skeptical, but it doesn’t mean that I never regret my words. It doesn’t mean that I’m happy being a cynical person. I try to tell my version of truth, but sometimes it turns me unwise.

I wish I were wiser.

And the best way, I can think, to be wise is trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes as much as possible.

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Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is an idiomatic expression.

It’s meaning is that you should consider other people’s circumstances before passing judgement or making conclusions about them. Figuratively, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes means stepping directly into their life and viewing a situation as if you were that person. Hence, you would understand their thoughts and actions.

The lesson is that one should always consider other people’s perspectives before making conclusions. The expression most commonly applies to situations of conflict and judgement.

(very definitive definition from here)

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To be wiser, maybe I have to try owning my own shoe shop.

So I can put myself in a lot of kinds of shoes.

Ugly brown boots, pink ballet flats, rubber flip-flops, cheapo fake Crocs ™, red stilettos, plain sneakers, old moccasin, fluffy slipper…

Ultra-expensive shoes of millionaires, or ultra-glamorous shoes of celebrities, are never affordable though. Too rich, and too popular, kind of shoes. Head over heels.

There, I can’t be any wiser.

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“The idea of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes — that’s pretty basic. But staying conscious of that stuff helped me.”
- Don Freeman

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(image from gettyimages.com)

‘Hello world!’ is the default title of the very first post when we start blogging with Wordpress. Well, quite representative because it’s true: the second you start owning your blog, “BAM!”, you’re instantly world-class publisher. You say hello, and you greet the world, but whether people would read it or not, would say hello back to you or not, it really depends on you.

I was interviewed in E-Lifestyle program in Metro TV this afternoon. Me, and Mas Koen. We talked about blogging, macro-blogging (oh yes, ‘macro’ is just for dramatizing the difference between blogging and plurking or twittering or even worse, facebooking :P), whether it’s already been defeated by the charm of 140 characters limited posts or not. Whether it’s still worth it to strike back or not. Well, you can see the full interview in MetroTVNews.com, I won’t retell about it in here.

Being on TV was somewhat exciting :D But not that much. Well, as I’ve always said, I’m more like behind-the-lens type. The second reason is: I don’t watch TV. I sometimes do, but I’m pretty cynical about everything on TV, well, in general, everything popular.

However, this afternoon, I, errr, felt like biting my tongue. I used television popularity to say something I always want to say about blogging.

About how I love blogging, and how it has nothing to do with money. My blog doesn’t pay me, instead, I pay for it. My blog has been teaching me a lot of lessons, and I’ve grown up with it. It gives me more than one dollar or two per click:

It gives me opportunities, and it gives me friends. A lot of them.

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Hello world! This is me on my blog,
I love you, and now, let’s start to forget about being on TV :)

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“Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.”
- Bill Gates