STANDING ON ZERO POINT

The story begins in Toyomarto Village, Singosari, Malang in East Java, whereas a relic of Empire Singhasari recognized as Sumberawan temple stand still. Unlike the common temples scattered in the region of East Java, this temple, or Stupa Sumberawan, has viscous Buddhism characteristics and was built during Singhasari Kingdom glory days among its Hindu majority . Stupa Sumberawan just a stone building with a square base, with no statues of gods nor goddess, without ornament, without any Kala head, with no reliefs at all. Such unadorned Stupa has similarities with the Arupadathu  main stupa of Borobudur, which is believed as a Buddhist symbol of majesty and greatness of the Life Creator.

I used to feel so tickly when I accessed a social media page during this New Year's Eve recently. When the whole universe celebrated the end of the year through music out loud, luminous fireworks and deep diving beneath the sea of alcohol, some friends, whom I know them well stated bluntly in his/ her status update that they ' do not and refuse to take part in any kind of party, and chose to dissolve in self- contemplation and stay away from the crowd of pseudo-joyfulness' . I wonder if this implicit/ explicit statement was made under consciousness, or just a plain disappointment due to some reasons like unfriendly weather ( heavy rain ) , financial issue ( end of year takes place on end of the month when lots of us here in Indonesia haven’t get our salary which usually paid by the beginning of the month ) , personal excuse ( being single or recently broke-up) , the decision of the local government ( and indeed prevailed in one certain area within Indonesia ) , matters of duty ( can you imagine how soldiers on remote country’s borders celebrated their New Year’s Eve? ) or, well, you can add any reasons that succeeded to keeping ordinary humans miles away from thousands of madness and hedonism like it used to be.

                                                                                                                                                                               

Before we jump further to discuss my dearest fellow likeliness, first of all shall we pull open the old photo album in our dusty bookcase. Since the amazing Adobe Photoshop had not been even imagined by its creator during the period of 80’s and 90’s, then I undoubtly believe that all those blurry photographs represented the real ‘it was ’you as well as all the events, locations and expressions captured. Try to compare your younger figure with your recent social media profile picture, for example. What did you see, and what do you see? Where did those sharp eyes which used to pull the girls into their wildest dream? Slim waist which turned into fatty body and never seem to return to what it used to be? We were party-goers on those good old days and used to stay awake until the party was over and the sun had risen, but why some of us then caught ourselves in flu after celebrated New Year’s Eve all night long (not really that ‘long’ because you felt asleep somewhere on between 12 and 1 AM right after the fireworks went out) ?

Humans will never gain their glory against the forces of nature which are driven by matter of time, and your body as well as mine, are a simple undeniable truth.  At their early life human seem like to adorn themselves with any glittering things and conceited manner as if the world was theirs. All those superficial victory seems come into an end and suddenly disappear when it reaches the absence of zero.

Zero Point
When a baby came out of the womb, they were born innocent and plain without any knowledge about the cruel world at all. Ignorance has sent them to a trap, they were driven by such a naïve  misleading to take the same path, later fell back into the same hole as well. Anyway, the universe didn’t fail as it’s not able to speak any words that could be heard verbally and literally, so that human never managed to learn anything. But human refused to acknowledge that he/she is not knowledgeable, and therefore wishes to free himself from the pursuit of Sisyphus stone and acquire knowledge.

Do we able to release ourselves free from suffering and bitterness as soon as we gained knowledge? Not yet. As human finally got and revealed knowledge in so many ways that he/she can get, and then the natural laziness soon came up re-emerging. Fast-paced era not only make people grumble when waiting for pages loading of a web site, but the same sputter behavior often carried away by the time they no longer face the virtual world. Is there a shortcut to pass the exam successfully while ignoring books and homework? Yes there is, we can cheat. How if we’re getting caught? Easy, just bribe the exam supervisor.

One night our hero sneaking off with a handful of hundreds thousands money in his pocket to be handed to the invigilator . The bribe money to smoothen his dirty road had not been given yet, but suddenly camera lights flashing everywhere. You blinked your eyes yet to realize that you were already handcuffed , and once we realized that we were still falling back to the same hole . In the deep cold remorse , human lying alone abandoned and forgotten. Here any wishful thinking will rise and rampant suppose if something comes to bring us far away from the bitter reality , but both hands and feet did not able to hear any orders to move . Here is the point where you and I lost our way to get back home , either chances to move forward. No, it’s not a dead end. A stalemate still allows us to explore an alternative way even with the help of sewer rats . This is a zero point, a point where human has to admit that they are just the same with ghosts, lock between here and there and unable to move on long lastingly, don’t want to die nor live .

Long-term deadlines
Human life is never being free from zero point, both in joy and sorrow. Wherever we stepped our foot there will always be zeros around. You saw zero before start to fuel your vehicle, zero on the cars speedometer stuck in traffic, zero in the new year countdown clock, zero balance on your bank account, also lots of zeros in the list of assets owned by a prominent businessman, and many more zero. So do not worry, we will never stand alone at the zero point. There are a few and a lot of people out there who do not realize that they have their destiny in common, due to being too busy regretting their misfortune respectively. But, it doesn’t matter. That's their problem with their own world.

Before the trees re- sprout in the spring, once they will molt, drying , shed their leaves and pretend as they were dead. Before any human born and grew up into new human beings , their mother had to fight in between life and dead battle , some of them don’t even survive , in their efforts to bring this cute little life called new born baby. Before our wallets get back its wealth, we often fell into temporary poverty so many times, until almost ' dead' drowning in a sea of ​​barrage debt.  We regret and strive against an unwanted death, but stands at zero point is worst so that you and I might get down on our knees and plead to death take us away. Zero is an end, and it’s true. But how could any number will come up before zero? Then, what would happen if such numbers had been performed? One after zero, two after one, three after two, four after three, and keep goes on.

What happens if all the numbers in the world has run out? Obviously, we’re getting back to zero again. WTF! That’s what you said. Whatever path we choose will always be the only alternative or the other version of the journey towards zero, which one day will come to an end, then starts, ends again, start again, dead, alive, blink, and blank, and so on. Why should torture yourself in a job that will never be finished if we are indeed still sane individuals and recognize the way out? So what if it allegedly that door turned out to lead us to a different exit, and another exit, and somewhere to the exit and the other exits that exist?

There are several types of occupation in this world that is formed or exists as a favour of the synergistic performance of early humans phase to fill their simple days. Like an old couple never tired to 'work' as a parent until the end of their lives, as the children never too exhausted to troublesome their parents. Do we know when the deadline comes to stop us from being a child, grandchild, father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandparents, grandchildren, in-laws parents, in-laws sisters, in-laws brothers, husband / wife, friend, somewhat friends? Well, I think I ( might ) know your answer. (swastantika)