Hectic Traffic

Recently I found myself struggling hard in the midst of stiff, packed traffic. Though I may disagree with my own behavior, apparently I burst out dirty words to some wicked, disobedient drivers or motor riders. Did they do that on purpose, cutting my lane or horning loudly to push me to step on the accelerator deeper? Or did they merely trying to hit me to the edge? Maybe, they do not have time but to make or receive phonecalls behind the steer?

These days, driving in Jakarta could be considered as ‘rough’ or perhaps ‘intimidating’, especially in busy hours. You deal with people rushing towards their workplace with their mind spinning, thinking about what they should do once they sit on their cubicle. Tasks are on waiting list, bosses are making pressures, customers and clients need to be pleased. While kids at home were just showing their test mark which may not satisfying for some parents, or spouses demanded for insatiable requests, or bills awaiting to be paid, or more reasons that might not want to escape from their mind until they are settled.

But driving needs concentration. Driving requires paying attention. Most of all, driving are a matter of transporting to some other place safely. Do you know how much people cost to make crash test? Up to a million dollar, they say. So it’s a pity not to make the best use of the sophisticated breaking system or any other diligent technology since you rarely use it, isn’t it? (So never blame public transportation for taking over your way … they seem to be not familiar with brakes!)

Most of all, driving is about ethics. In Jakarta traffic, or perhaps in any other big cities, you may find sluggish drivers on the fast lane. When you set your sign lamp to take over them, they habitually hit the accelerator deeper, as a sign of not wanting to be overtaken. Or they may not know that it suppose to be one at a time when queuing, so no need to be rush, afraid of not getting the turn, and eventually being so assertive to other driver. I make myself to be used to raise my hands to drivers who slow down politely to give me a turn. It’s simply ethics.

Therefore, when you need to be tested for your patience and tolerance, try driving in Jakarta.

The Enemy

Name the environment’s worst and meanest enemy. Not catastrophical force majeures, not even time. Yes, it’s human.

I have been watching quite numbers of children animation. Some of them conveyed conservation issues very nicely, should you remember Wall-E, Tarzan, Jungle Book, Spirit the Stallion, Pocahontas, Brother Bear, Ice Age, Avatar (well, it’s a teen movie, actually), and so forth. The latest, which I watched just recently, has put across a message on how human could behave maliciously to anything that stands between them and their intention. And that is not merely fictious.

It is stupid for both becoming the most magnificent creature and the meanest living machine of all times at the same time, I’ll say. You were unquestionably bestowed a gift from the very beginning, and being so ferocious means that you are not thankful to the Giver.

But that’s human. They may not have instincts to hunt preys, but somehow the ability to create magnificent mass-destructor, as a result of being diligent yet stifling, is very much the same. Nowadays human are hunters for their surroundings, even for their own race. They seem to try to “fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” in such a really meaningful ways. Subdue, dominate and … destroy.

How very heartbraking.

Couldn’t we human be more tender to any other creature in this planet?