dear friend,
i’m writing this to you because nowadays
i don’t know how to make you listen and understand,
not that i want you to understand me
but it’s for you to understand what’s really wrong
with YOU

i just wanna help you, my friend

so before i go any further,
i need you to sit still,
do not interrupt my words,
and read them in a full soberness and
open mind

has anyone ever told you what’s your real problem?
let me tell you now,
your real problem is YOU ARE NOT LIVING IN PRESENT REALITY
you’ve been living in the past, in certain time line which
have happened
you keep looking back, and stay there
and that’s why you cannot move on in this reality
you keep being outrun by anyone

everybody has his past, including you and i
past is part of everyone’s life
BUT do not forget where you are now
the reality you are facing NOW
the tic in the clock keep moving forward
and our lives as well

no matter how wonderful your live was,
it just has passed. done! you cannot bring those times
to this present time, because IT IS LIFE!
and no matter miserable your life now,
it is your REALITY, that like it or not,
you have to FACE IT.
because IT IS LIFE!

a song said “LIFE’S A BITCH!”
no one has ever said life is easy
but to make it sucks or wonderful,it’s always your choice.
in your very hands

and one more thing:
STOP asking the world to be as you wish, to understand you
you know what, that’s a big BULLSH**T!
that could happend within your own haven, your home
but the world out there is full bitches!!
stop being naive

no, STOP BEING CHILDISH. wake up!!

like it or not you have to grow up
peterpan cannot exist in this real world
and yes, growing up is suck!
but the option is only suck it or leave it…
and leaving it means you have no gratitude
for God has given you each second as a chance
to create a very wonderful life for you, your family
and the world
so the option left now is to SUCK IT
we, human, have to live ourlives no matter what,
until our time on this planet has stopped,
that’s our only option
that’s life

NO, stop arguing me!
because you know that’s useless

shut your mouth
open your eyes, heart, and mind

you know i care for you
and i really want to help you
but i’m so desperate because you don’t want to help yourself

so friend,
hope my letter will help you

I watched Blood Diamond today. The movie was insipired by the real issue that happened in Africa few years ago. Also i watched The Great Debaters somewhere about last week. Then i remember The Constant Gardener, Babel, Crash, Children of Heaven. These kind of movies are good quality movies because they are not only entertaining, but also opening up our eyes and mind, telling and showing  the things that we actually need to know.

I think it is a human nature to only see and hear what we want to see and ignore what aactually we NEED to see or hear. Some people will avoid talking about poverty, wars, or any other things that actually is happening around us but they are unpleasant or if i may use Mr.Algore’s term, inconvinient truth.

I know that some unfortunate people do live in poverty, in wars, being  refugees, being victims of unfair life…just like Madison character said in one of the scenes in Blood Diamond “it’s a shit shit world.” Maybe it is, or IT IS.

I watched a video about women’s life in Afghanistan. How they have been suffered and treated unfair and have been struggling until now to have an equal rights as men. That moment when i watched the video, i realized how fortunate i have been to be born and raised in Indonesia.

Well my country also have lots of issues and is as terrifying as conflict countries in Africa for some people in western world. But no, i can say Indonesia is quite pleasant And NOT AS TERRIFYING AS whatever YOU MAY THINK. Though yes, we are still struggling with poverty, eduaction and health quality, terrorism issue (ironically the terrorists leaders are actually Malaysian), and any other issues. But every country has its own issue right? Even for a country as small as Singapore. They’ve been working out how to balance the raise of its population growth with the very limited land, so they have been trying to expand the land and do some land reclamation and unfortunately it’s getting ugly with the fact that they have to steal sands from their neighbor, Indonesia for the sake of that project. Well some Singaporean reading this now might be yelling at me, but that’s the damn fact, bro. Just Googling and you’ll find everything that journalists have written about it.

Yes, i can say living in Indonesia is not easy. Hell no. But that doesn’t mean that Indonesian people cannot get a good quality of life. Some people can be very crazily rich, either by making money from clean business or dirty business, like illegal logging or corruption. Some people can be very poor that they have no home and can only eat a small amount of rice and salt twice a day. And some others are not very rich neither poor, but can make good enough living for the whole family: have a house, eat good food three times a day, wear enough clothes, and send the children to school.

I hate it when foreign people underestimate Indonesian people. No one does like being underestimated right? Some people think being an Indonesian means hungry (poor) so other countries can supply bad quality of food, unintelligent so we can be fooled by other country, or even slave that can be abused by those-who-thik-they-are-the-masters. NO WAY!!  Even personally, i really hate it when people underestimate me just because my parents are not rich. I mean, SO WHAT?? What the problem with coming from a family that is not rich? Do you think that because of not rich so we’re stupid and unintelligent and cannot have as good future as a millionair’s children? NO WAY!  We are all the same, human. Everyone has the same rights, no one is better than anyone.

This world is not friendly, that’s for sure.

I haven’t even talked about religion issue. I know there are billions of people out there  who hate Moslems for no reason and haven’t even seen or met any Moslem in their lives but just REALLY HATE Moslem. Isn’t that crazy? Oh yeah, they HEARD that some millitant Moslem people did the September 11th 2001 attack in US and killed thousands of people, so they hate every Moslem on earth. But they HEARD that Jew people has been killing thousands of people in Palestine and stealing the Palestinian lands BUT they still love Jew people everywhere and even support the Israel invasion in Palestine. Isn’t it confusing that some people put some other people in the same shoe for some particular religion only???

And just yesterday i watched TV and saw this interview of a black journalist to a white people in one area in US about the Presidential election. This one man said his opinion about why he thinks that Obama shouldn’t be the next president of USA. He said more less like this, “His name even Barrack Hussein Obama. That’s a Moslem name, that’s not American name. That is just not American.” Then the journalist more or less said, “but he is the senator now. He is a good American. And he is a Christian.” And the white man just spoke no more.  

So,,,,what should we do to create a better world? Or is there even such a better world? Or is it just a utopia?

Then i remember some words from John Lennon’s song Imagine. “You may say i’m a dreamer. But i’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will be as one.”

I believe that nothing is impossible in this world. Even for something as impossible as PEACE.

I am no saint, nor hero. And not trying to be neither of those. I’m just like any other people who is hoping that world will be a better place for everyone. But all i have is just me with my small brain and two little hands. So all i can do is just some small and simple little things that my hands can bear for myself, my family, my friends, and my surroundings. I heard that if you want to change the world, you’ve got to start from yourself. Because you are the world.  If you remember the movie Pay It Forward, so it’s actually as simple as that. If you still think that i’m talking a crap, that’s your business, that’s your choice.

Leon Sebastian Alberti’s on the Art of Building

Translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, Robert Tavernor

The MIT Press

Seventh printing 1997

Book One : The Lineaments

I am not really sure how to make a good definition about the word lineaments, but from what i read, it has something to do with design process in your mind: where should it (a building) be located? On what kind of land (slope, flat, etc)? …things like doing SWOT Analysis… how big will it be? What shape should be applied? Where to put elements like walls, columns, openings and how is the roofing system? And so on.

As Alberti explained:

It is quite possible to project whole forms in the mind without any recourse to the material, by designating and determining a fixed orientation and conjuction for the various lines and angles. Since that is the case, let lineaments be the precise and correct outline, conceived in mind, made up of lines and angles, and perfected in the learned intellect and imagination. (p.7)

Then he structured this first book by explaining about locality, area, compartition, wall, roof, and opening.

Before summing them up, i wan to give my opinion about how he structured this first book. I think Alberti had done a clever way to present his writings in the same process as building the building itself. I mean, he began with constructing idea and then planning and after that constructing the building in the same process as on the field (begin with erecting walls and columns then put the roof on top of them and then turn to the openings problems). He has brought us (the readers) from macro view (locality) to the micro view (opening).  

Locality is basicly about site analysis. Air and water were the main considerations. I think that is because back in that time (and also based on his observation on ancient buildings) those two aspects were the most significant things that determined the quality of people’s lives.

While the locality is more general, area is more spesific site. It is no more merely about site analysis, but it is about all the things that is covered by the building. The consideration is more of the building’s function, whether it is public or private or sacred or profane. Then the consideration determined the locality, the size of the building, the lines and curves should be used, the arrangements of the plan…things like that.

Furthermore, Alberti discuss about wall and/or column’s system, roofing with rain and water flow as the consideration, and the last thing was the opening with air circulation, light, and human activities as the considerations.

Alberti explained the whole things with words only, without any illustration at all. I think it is quite confusing for some people who are not very familiar with those things he discussed about. However, considering the time he wrote this book, which was published sometime around 1450 AD, this book was projected more for humanist patrons as an architecture writings than for the architects as building manual.