THE PURGATORY

THE THINGS WE LEFT BEHIND

"Death is not the end"

What would happen when a person stops breathing forever? No, we're not going to talk about where’s his/ her next destiny. Hell and Heaven is known in almost all religions, but there was no one between us know if them both really exist. Well, do not call me an atheist. Since we are still alive, then there is no one who really going there. Yet there’s no one return from there and tell about it down here. But, nevermind. That's not my point when I started to make this article-ish. 

Once when a man dies, his life is gone. While his body remains on earth, and decay with time. People will talk about him and his behavior when he was still alive. We're the Javaneses, for instance, send them prayers at every 7, 40, 100 and 1000 days after a person’s death. If he was a public figure, his life story will be days graced on the screen and social media. A few years later there might be a book about him, a monument would be established, or a pet dog named after him. Just like my beloved grandfather named his dog Hitler (and given me this name ‘Swastantika’). 

My grandpa was a soldier of the very first military troop our country been formed. He fought the imperialist, hidden in the woods, and eaten worms as a mean to survival, just like Hollywood war movies. Our Indonesian First President had given him and his fellow troop medal to honour his role during the Independence War, and also a Certificate of Merit signed by our President Sukarno himself. He loved his country, respected his president and ready to fight for them till the end. 

About two years after President Sukarno collapsed in 1967, the country arrested my grandpa, accused him as being an Indonesian Communist Party partisan. They locked him in jail without trial, left my grandma, my mom, uncles and aunts without financial support for two years. Sometimes I thought about grandpa, wondering what was he thinking when he was in prison. Did he ever question ‘is this what my country paid me, after what I did for them?’ 

But, anyway, we were lucky enough to have him back. Unlike the other suspected Communist partisans (evidently or not) who never came home again. Was my grandpa a communist? I’m not really sure, he’s dead 25 years ago and I couldn't questioned him about it. Whether he is or not, I don’t think he got what he deserved, same with all the killed and vanished suspects. People say communist is bad, for reasons that I still cannot understand. But, it doesn’t mean that we were allowed to take these (some people consider them) bad folks lives vigilantly. Were they die for the greater good? We’re not God, by the way. 

Harbored a hidden time bomb

Wealth flirts and throw people on two oceans. Ocean with malignant and unbroken deadlines, as well as foaming wave of fame and praise. Those people think, life is them and what it is in themselves. Life is today, then enjoy and pursue the glory before death. Glories can be achieved in many ways, but ways that are trendy these days is exculpating the ways itself, appropriate or not appropriate, legal or illegal. When needs meet the opportunity, they will create the legal basis to legitimize any exculpation ways.

Someday, our children, grandchildren, children of our grandchildren and the grandchildren of our grandchildren may still use many more exculpation ways to reach their goals, and may even have it upgraded for hundreds of thousands times. That's because they are good dedicated next generation, who follow the teachings of the predecessor generation sincerely. 

If Tavis Smiley said, ‘The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave,’ we the Javaneses raised by a saying, ‘mikul dhuwur mendhem jero’. Which means, carry highly bury deeply. A child or citizen should bury all of the infamy, disgrace or humiliation of his parents, the country or the community where he lived. Criticizing is equal with preserve rancor and hostility. This maxim is distributed with the aim that all people should move on from any bitter events which involved either the family or the State. 

The obligation of 'for the good of our country...' imposed on all citizens, old and young, adults and children, even those babies also obtain this gift long before they born. This means when a policy, or decision, was taken for the greater good we shouldn’t ask or have doubt about it. Such as 1965 Indonesian Massacre, Brexit and Iraqi War, which probably decided to prevent any bitter events from happening again. 

This Javanese proverb indeed appeared long time ago, in which the supernatural phenomenon as an event that suddenly appear and disappear was considered as natural. However, time goes by. Ghosts are no longer created from angry spirits, but the animation effects. Bad things occurred not because someone is practicing black magic, but rather the result of a set of interrelated events. 

We are keeping too many questions with no answers, so that there was no room left in our mind palace to plant more decent constructive seed. Too much stigma and unwanted events locked in a safe, stored and piled up high, until no empty room left. There will be a moment when the safe explode as there are too many secrets store in it. Consciously we're making a ticking time bomb and we do not know when this bomb could explode. Will the explosion by this bomb hurting anyone? Hurt or not, there's always a price for anything we sell today, after and before.

Preserving the predecessor ‘legacy’ 

There is a possibility this Earth will destroy not because of natural disasters, nuclear war, nor ingested by Black Hole. But due to the increasing number of people who are unaware that they're mentally ill. These people are not lunatic ones who stay on mental asylum, not the ones with depression or other mind diseases. Apocalypse could be startle by ones who behaving like a normal person, but grow delusional thinking inside their heads. They who become crazy because of losing the ability to accept and understand  that reality doesn't always go straight like their desire.

However, lunatic schizophrenic persons has disconnected himself from the world, thus he will be no danger for anyone, or any country. He who felt right when he was wrong, that's the most dangerous person on the surface of this planet. 

Is it wrong if I conclude that our predecessors, despite their fame and glory, were also a group of selfish and paranoid people? They have been long gone and not have to bear the consequences of any decision they made in the past. However, we follow their lead by exploring and draining nature resources to the core and leave nothing but the destruction for the unborn youth. And still, we think our action is fine because ‘we do what we have to do,’ because we need those oil, gold and those shark fin, and so on, and so on. And because we hope that all those massive destruction is years to come and won’t be happen anytime soon. It would be none of our responsibility because we (are hoping to) die before it happens. And yes, we are good next generation since we keep doing our predecessor mistakes. 

I once followed an online discussion in Quora that talk about what it feels to be descendants from ancestors who never do anything but bad and embarrassing stuff. The answering of these questions reeal that they really are the descendants of the most evil persons in the world. They say, once their forefathers was a bank robber, children torturer, slave traders, involved the Nazis, Ku Klux Klan activists and some are also involved in kidnapping and torturing Communists party member in Brazil. 

They describe all the bad things ever made by their predecessors in great detail.They know acts committed by these predecessors are far of the right, and they admit it. Human nature, they think, is not infallible. Nature always gives life, but human nature always tends to ruin it. So many things left behind our old generation’s tail, it is what’s left for us to re-think which is necessary to conserve and immortalize as the real legacy. (Swastantika)