Lifestyle of Choice

The first time I told mom I wanted to live in Indonesia, she told me that I couldn’t afford living like an Indonesian.

With my fairytale upbringing, there’s no way I could live on grassroots.

No way could I stuff myself in rickshaws in sardine-can-typed buses when my brothers each have luxury cars by the dozens.

No way could a Saudi be living on a stipend of Rp3Million (that’s just $300 to you, including rent and utility) a month when my brother can make and spend SR30’000 in a day.

No way could a girl from Dar Al-Hanan could wear the same clothes for more than 5 years when it’s a brand new SR500 thobe for the boys every month.

No way could the owner of a four-poster bed could live in a 3x4 house and be happy sharing it with a cat and dog when the boys sleep and dine and entertain (oh, how the word seems to unfamiliar to me right now) in a 7-bedroom-9-bathroom showcase villa.

No way could I use a river (right in the open fuckinit! WOooOHOooO!) as my squat-toilet when the boys shit on marble and wipe with currencies.

If you haven’t noticed, I come from a bitchassfucking rich family by Indonesian standards. The RichDadPoorDad boys kept reminding me that, “Life is complicated with money, but it’s more complicated without it,” when I told him that I don’t like money because my arithmetic abilities sucked-disastrously.


How could your life not be so complicated if your freedom is bound to so much money-accessed locks?

How could you enjoy walking yourself to work when you’ve been floating over smooth asphalt, snuggled in so much leather?

How could you be silenced with the singing of croaking frogs and chattering crickets when the only music you hear were produced in studiorooms?

You can’t hear if you never listen.

I love you…

You can’t travel when you don’t have anywhere to go to.

Home.

You can’t want it if you don’t need it.

Bling.

You can’t get it if you don’t touch it with your heart.

Knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a mall-firefly. It’s every so often that I find my eyes glued on something begging to be bought. But with the grass tucked in my hair, I smell the fragrance that hushes the freedom of contentedness, “Do you need it, or do you want it?”

What’s your spellbound curse? How do you break it?