Ohhh, I thought I wasn’t able to continue this book because it’s too frontal and was recommended for adults only—then I realized I’m also a young adult, aha! I was sighing and reflecting while reading this book. The first book that taught me about life of others, opened my blinded eyes and heart, and increased my empathy tremendously. It feels like I have so much things to say about this book but I can’t—or I just don’t know how to explain it? But I’ll try it anyway.
In short, this book talked about the backside of Jakarta, the city where people seek their fate. Many of us recognize Jakarta as a bustling city and have a massive metropolis while also being the country’s economic, social political, cultural center. Jakarta has a lot of skyscrapers, tourist attractions, cultural heritage, and (expectedly) job offers. However, those are only what appears in our sight, our television, or our expectations from mouth-to-mouth story. We never know how’s life behind those high-rise buildings, the life of marginal people who have dreams at their first step when they came here—brought smile and hope. And this is what the book talked about.
I knew that life is too short and I might not able to explore, discover, and observe a lot of things in this world. Therefore, read a book would be my alternative way. Reading this book, showed me many point of views of people that actually always beside us but we tend to ignore. For instance, those who’ve been buskers, street clowns, ladies companion (LC), transvestites, and more—which we often underestimate them based on their work. Sad tho, judging them by the way they’re struggling just for eating once in a day, and being superior eventually. I assume why we think that way is because we have a better privilege materially than them and we never experience the same, so we don’t truly understand about that.
I do love this W quote: "Sebagian orang beruntung terlahir dari keluarga yang kaya.
Sebagian lagi lebih beruntung karena diberi hati dan tulang yang kuat untuk mampu berusaha sendiri."
I think everyone has their own beneficial privileges but we often ignore it and look someone who above us, like comparing ourselves to others who were given more by God. But, we never actually see someone who below us and be grateful for it. I don’t mean to insult they who are definitely stronger than me, while I just take this as a reminder for me to always be gratefully enough on what I have.
One day when I saw a reel video that disagreed about this statement: “Orang miskin karena malas.” How about we turn the claim into: “Orang miskin bukan karena dia malas, tapi karena sistemnya yang salah.” What I mean is, if person work all day long (whatever the job is) and the wage is below the minimum, are they still considered lazy? You know, judging is easier because we don’t know what EXACTLY they’re striving to get out of the judgement. Maybe they’ve tried but failed, or maybe they indeed wanted to change but it’s hard for them. Everyone has their own life standards. Funny tho how we judge another human since we all are human. The world’s judgement never be justified because the fairness only belongs to the God. Human and God differ in every aspect of life, so the conclusion we often made might be misjudged.
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