tulisan hampa

Kita terbiasa berpikir bahwa rindu muncul karena kehilangan. Tapi ternyata, rindu juga bisa tumbuh dari kehadiran yang sengaja dijauhkan. Bukan karena tak ingin dekat, melainkan karena tahu; kedekatan tanpa jeda bisa kehilangan makna. Dalam jeda, ada waktu untuk mengingat tanpa tergesa. Ada ruang untuk bertanya pada diri sendiri: apakah yang kita rasakan masih sama, atau justru tumbuh dalam diamnya? Rasa rindu yang terjaga bukanlah perasaan yang menyiksa, melainkan tanda bahwa sesuatu masih hidup di dalam diri — meski tak lagi dipegang erat. Ia seperti cahaya kecil di sudut hati, yang tak padam meski malam datang panjang. Mungkin memang begitulah cinta yang matang: Ia tahu kapan harus mendekat, dan kapan harus menjaga jarak. Bukan untuk menjauh, tapi untuk menjaga agar rasa tetap bernapas. Dan di antara jeda itu, rindu menjadi lebih jernih. Bukan tentang ingin memiliki, tapi tentang menghargai — bahwa kehadiran tidak harus selalu dekat, untuk tetap terasa. And if you miss me, this post...

November always feels like that quiet in-between month — belum benar-benar akhir tahun, tapi juga bukan lagi “masa sibuk” yang penuh semangat awal. It’s the calm before whatever December brings. A kind of stillness, but not entirely still. Not as much as I love September, but November is quite something too. This year, November feels… full. Full of waiting, mostly. Waiting for approvals, feedbacks, green lights. For ideas to become something more than proposals. For my name to appear in an email subject line that could possibly change the next few years of my life. I can’t say much — not yet — but I’m applying for something big. Something that sounds so formal and academic, yet so deeply personal to me. Between drafts, revisions, and endless forms, I keep thinking: what if this is it? What if this is where everything starts to unfold? Di sisi lain, November juga membawa excitement yang lain; travelling with my mom. It feels surreal, honestly. We’ve talked about it for year...

  It’s strange, how a feeling can both lift you and drown you at the same time. I call it swingforce — that pulse that starts somewhere deep in the chest, travels up to your head, and refuses to leave. Loving someone, perhaps blindly, feels like that. It’s wrong, maybe. I know it’s wrong. But the more I tell myself to stop, the more my mind circles back to them, like gravity that ignores logic. Like the body remembering a rhythm the soul never agreed to dance to. There are moments that pump this heart faster and the beats become harder; a text, a glance, a memory. Each time it happens, there’s this rush, almost like adrenaline; thrilling, dangerous, addictive. It’s not love in its purest form; it’s love tangled with chaos, maybe even guilt. Tapi anehnya, justru di sanalah letak swingforce itu bekerja. It’s not just emotion, it’s sensation.  It floods the brain, hijacks the heart, and whispers, “Just one more time.” Sometimes I wonder, is this what being alive feels...

Kadang aku mikir (kebanyakan mikir emang ya): kenapa ya, menjaga alam dianggap amal, tapi jualan handphone dibilang jenius? Strange world, isn’t it? We praise people who invent faster phones, smarter apps, shinier screens — and call them innovators . But when someone spends their life replanting trees or cleaning the ocean, we call them volunteers . It’s beautiful, yes, but also… kind of sad. Seolah-olah, doing good for the planet itu cuma bonus. Something you do after you’ve made enough money, after your brand gets big, after your company can afford CSR. Padahal tanpa alam, semua itu nggak akan ada. No oxygen, no phone signal, no market. Just silence. I've just even realised that the CSR-related subject in schools are highlighted for the kindness and charitable action instead. A bit shameful about it now. Tapi entah kenapa, kita hidup di dunia di mana value diukur dari profit , bukan dari purpose . Selling phones? That’s “innovation.” Conserving nature? That’s “charity.” --- May...

Kemarin malam, a friend of mine bercerita — mobilnya nabrak trotoar ditengah hujan deras setelah menghindari pengendara motor. Bukan di jalan sepi, melainkan di jalan padat , dimana semua mobil honking, lampu rem menyala-nyala, dan hujan seolah mempercepat detik-detiknya menjadi semakin panjang. She felt panik. Rasa takut bukan karena hujannya saja, tapi karena kerumunan, karena car horn yang tak berhenti, karena perasaan “I’m stuck, what do I do now?" Winda. The strong girl I admire. Setelah mencoba memanggil towing service, dialing, arguing, dan gak ada yang mau bantu dia. Dia merasa hopeless. Until, tiba-tiba, beberapa strangers muncul. They came over. They didn’t look past her with judgment, they just stopped. They helped her checked the car, they bantu bereskan yang mengganggu jalannya mobil, all while soaking wet, tanpa pamrih. When they're done they just let her go, even the asked her to go karena jalanan udah semakin macet banget perkara mobilnya itu. Mereka pergi be...

Our Common Mistake: Thinking People Would Do the Same You know that feeling when you do something kind for someone — maybe you text first, you check in, you help, you remember their birthday — and somehow, deep down, you expect they’d do the same for you? And when they don’t, you start wondering, “Am I asking too much?” or worse, “Do they even care?” Here’s the thing: one of the quietest mistakes we often make in relationships, friendships, even work, is this — we assume people would act, think, or feel the same way we do. We expect others to show love the way we show it. We expect them to care the way we care. We expect them to be as thoughtful, as considerate, as emotionally aware as we are. But people are not mirrors. They’re entire worlds with different weather, languages, and rules. Maybe you grew up in a home where saying thank you mattered. Someone else might have grown up where showing up mattered more than saying the words. You might think helping means offering s...