Fiction

I'm tired of trying to sound smart. I want blogging to be more than just a report to what I know. Sometimes, I just want to bullshit and tell stories, just want to hold one feeling, one moment, one man, and show you how that presence changed my life.

There are universal feelings that both intellectuals and simpletons experience. There are common things that keep us motivated and rolling out of bed every morning. I want explore these common things because these are the stuff that gave my education its penny's worth. I feel that fiction is the only way I can explore that kind of truths without stating facts, you know? 

If I learned to write stories well enough, I might be able to show more without losing contextual frame or becoming glaringly sunny. I long to tell the stories that made my life more understandable without turning didactic or (if I can help it) snobby.

Remember that meditation retreat that froze my thoughts? Fourteen months and a few more sects later, and I still can't delete this blog. I still can't quit publishing and satisfying the need to self-exhibit.

Between not wanting to say anything and blog-existential-anxieties, one of these has to give: Either lose Hning's blogging style or lose the core, the god within and her urgent writing-voice.

I don't know what matters anymore. I just need to keep writing.

Counterbalance

I wish I never had to part with the Timekeeper.

I wish I could take him with me everywhere; when Ade got married, when Anggi's turn come, when I'm rocking it with folks my age.

I wish I were as indulgent with my parents as much as I am with him. I feel like all the love and pleasure to serve (the kind that I cannot offer my parents), pour forth with reckless abandon for him.

I understand that things happen and that the time we have with each other is predestined. Sorry. I meant that; Life is predestined. "This many hours ye shall be with so and so. This many hours ye shall be alone."

And for only this many hours left ye shall have in the Timekeeper's company.

It rings in my ears, like an automatic stop to excess. I cannot linger under my shell anymore; because tea-time is up and this is "one less cup from my stock of tea-times with him. So I have to make every sip count."

You know? I'm writing this at the mall. Four-hundred kilometers from the Timekeeper and waiting for Souma to arrive. My darling Souma, how I love her. And from loving her I check myself: Do not love too much, said Jesus and Sayyidina Muhammad and Buddha. Even if it is the Timekeeper. For, even he is but mortal.

The thought of a mortal's predestined life comforts me, actually. Although life is brief, and our meetings are short, and every cup is just a sip, love reaches far and beyond for as long as kindness is passed on.

It was the Timekeeper, my master and spiritual father, who taught me the dignity to accept kindness and bear its counterbalance. As long as I remember and practice that lesson, he will be with me.

What Boobs?

A minicast.

momentum

"To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!" - George Eliot, "Middlemarch"

In Saudi, where men fear revere her effects in public, the woman's initiative and willingness to lose whatever the guys think as privileges is gaining momentum at creating that sustainable social change in Saudi. So even though Manal As-Shareef has passed on the torch and promised not to commit social suicide drive in Jeddah, the media (a.k.a. King and Mufti) is on guard of her sex's wrath.

On one side, Arab News covers the fatwa banning the mingling of sexes in public offices. On the other, we see consolatory efforts on soothing the woman's wrath: Women working in lingerie shops, encouraging the barely effective right to vote on municipal elections, and a boost of 70 thousand jobs for women.

If we can ignore the procedural difficulty to have 70 thousand adults working productively in segregated sections of the workforce (hence employing 70 thousand men to represent and drive them to work and back), ignore that bribery bubbles always burst can only slow the inevitable, I can't help but feel positive imagining the conversations in the mixed family/female sections of Saudi.

We're almost there, Yumma.

Long Drive Ahead

I really like the idea of girls driving in Saudi. It’s hopeful, it’s pretty and sort of liberating.

But I don’t and wouldn’t drive for as long as I possibly can.

I can drive in Indonesia but choose not to. Simply because I’m too lazy to look after a car (I barely shower, man), and because it’s faster, safer and environmentally friendlier to get an Ojek (taxi-motorbikes).

Besides, whether or not I can drive is irrelevant when I’m stuck in a 6-hours traffic jam, in a flooded city, going at 8.3km/hour, which is more or less how fast I can pedal my mountain bicycle.

Needs

Whether or not women can drive in Saudi, whether it’s a Maserati or an 18th century carriage or a donkey, the issue here is personal mobility. Getting between places. Logistics. Getting things done.

People need personal mobility to fulfill basic needs: to buy food, get to work, to get the education that got them working and – here we go again – pay for the convenience of personal mobility. I could go on, but my point is, fi car wala mafi, there have been ways that Saudi women have gotten by without being able to drive.

The argument that the right to drive should be granted gratis, whether or not women need it, bores me. In places where women-driving is the norm, women who must drive are the middle classes and women who are chauffeured are the extra-comfortable. Think about it. When women started demonstrating for the right to drive isn’t it also an indicator that there is a lot of basic needs lacking in that society?

And when basic needs are lacking to the extent that it is driving women out of their homes, armed with a mind that’s ready for whatever may come, doesn’t it  show a symptom of a deeper and more complex desperation underneath?

So what gave? What basic need has been desperately lacking in Saudi? If we ever cracked this part of the puzzle, then the anger that is ruining the journey we’re on, might lighten up a bit.

Law

When it comes to basic needs, the law of لا ضرر و لا ضرار thou shall not do harm, is the only rule that applies.

If driving (the mean) could distract us from doing our jobs and obligations (the ends) then something is not done right. If driving in Saudi could put me in jail, or if driving in Jakarta is going to make me late for my appointments, then wouldn’t it be better, faster and safer to find other means of transportation?

It’s not a moot point; because critical shortages bring supplies of creative solutions. In Jeddah, every one of my girlfriends’ phones are fortified with an armada of freelance drivers. And these girlfriends exchange drivers’ contact numbers, and the drivers recommend one to another.

Legal rights aside, women in Saudi do own the streets. These women make a pretty strong – albeit pink - economic pillar, supporting families who’ve got the cars and not the ways. And let it be known that this credit includes my fellow Saudiyyats as well as my non-Saudi mother and non-Saudi girlfriends as part of the resilient and versatile force behind that pink socio-economic wheel.

Power

Fact is, being able to drive does not guarantee the fulfillment of basic needs, nor does it come free of other additional difficulties. For example: The time we spend waiting for a driver is actually less than the time (and energy and money and worry) we spend on waiting for the mechanic to balance the wheels, or for a turn at the gas station.

Being able to drive doesn’t necessarily create more freedom, or the sudden ability to take better photos or pass exams. And if you’re the type who worries about karmic inventorying, then before the gates of heaven or hell the Auditors are not going to ask you if you knew how to drive. They will ask you instead where you went. And where you got the money to get there. And what you did when you reached your destinations.

On the other hand, whether or not women in Saudi can drive, whether or not they have drivers’ licenses or barely educated beyond tricycles, they have undeniably done heck a lot of good already on the streets, in their homes and as dutiful citizens and resident of Saudi Arabia.

Reread that line again until you can recite it by heart. Then own it. Squeeze every bit of pride in it, for how you’ve managed to get by every day deserves plenty of due acknowledgement.

Priorities

Alfarhan mentioned that our priorities are different from each other; and that the least we could do is to respect each others’ journeys to reach those personal goals. I am all for women driving. I am all for personal mobility and the freedom to self-actualize, as fair and far as they may be optimally achieved. I just hope that we remember during this long journey ahead to look out of the window and enjoy the view and remember what we’ve done so far to make it look so gorgeous.

I wish us all a pleasant journey. توصلون بالسلامة

How to Trigger a Social Revolution in Saudi

Another question: What was the last experience that made you a stronger person ?

"The strongest tree in the forest, is the one that grows the slowest." - David Swenson

Strength doesn't just pop up all of the sudden. It's not a technological upgrade. With humans, it's the accumulation of everyday actions that strengthens our areas of expertise.

A mother is strong enough to carry her children because her body got used to their weight development since pregnancy. Writers entertain a lot of muses and ideas because it's a habit for them to play with words.

The strength of lines on our faces and light in our eyes also indicate the emotions and thoughts we have entertained throughout the years.

It's the daily practices that count.
قال صلى الله عليه وسلم: ما أُعْطِي أحد عطاءً خيرًا وأوسع من الصبر

Ask me something. Anonymously. Or not.