Ruralization, Can We?

Insect Men

In this last couple of rainy weeks I have been through a tough time as a pedestrian in Jakarta. I did not face a wandering madman or Godzilla though, but I felt so much less important in this city life chain. I was almost hit by a motor biker who stupidly passed my precious pedestrian walk. And it was getting more insane when he yelled out at me because he (unbelievable) thought that I was stand in his way. But Thank God there was still good people with common sense who admonished him (with yelling out too, of course >:p). Here cars and motorbikes are in the top of city life chain. They have all the roads as well as the pedestrian sidewalk if there is traffic jam. Ironic and very unfair. People got crazy at that time and even the road could feel the intensity. That madness was actually encouraged by traffic jam. I just wondered is there any correlation between people - emotion - roads - city - traffic jam... It is must be the famous-number-issue again! Yes, people number. Population. The higher population, the more limited the land. In my case, I was almost lost my land; my precious pedestrian walk.. (read it in Gollum's accent).

Regarding to The Urban Age Project by London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society, world population living in the cities is increasing significantly where 10% in 1900, 53% in 2010, and predicted 75% in 2050. Moreover it has been reported that 2% of the earth's surface is occupied by cities but at the same time 53% of world's population lives in that 2% surface. Can you imagine it?

In 2012 Jakarta, where the area is 662 km2, has been lived by 9,6 millions of people. It means that in every 1 m2 there would be 14 people inside it. I would never imagined 2050 when Jakarta has to support 25 people in each 1 m2! We have to stop urbanization! But H.O.W? These people need money, these people love the updated modern life, these people is the breadwinner for their family who live in the country. City is like a bunch of lights, and the people inside it is the insects who fly, crawl, and jump around that big bulb. But not all the insects love light bulb, right? There is still a few who prefer leaf, grass, even a weathered wood. We need to learn how to make the leaf, the grass, and the weathered wood looks attractive as the bulb, even should more attractive since the bulb is artificial thing and could explode anytime. Pretty hard and nearly impossible, eh? Yes, I couldn't agree more.

Chronosphere

Chronosphere in Time Portal

In the end of 2012 and early 2013 I spent my off days in my boyfriend hometown, Solo. I met a whole family members and was having fun with them in crazy delicious authentic local food such as Garang Asem Mbah Tarmo, Bubur Lemu Bu Prapti, Ayam Sungkono, Soto Gading, Nasi Liwet Yu Sani, Bestik Sumber, and err.. I have to stop to name it for my own good tummy sake. I also had chance to visit Yogyakarta Hadiningrat in a while and picked some lovely stuff from Mirota Batik. But after all it was not like an usual New Year vacation because on that festive time we had priority agenda that is preparing for the new house of his family (whom technically will be my own family too :p).

The new house has been finished 80% from its completion. The structure has firmly constructed, strongly nailed in every joint, the entire wall has been well painted, floor and ceiling has been finished, and also the installation of door window has been done. The look of this new house reminded me of their former house because some parts of the former house were brought into the new one such as window, door, and their classic javanese furniture which created similar ambiance of their house that I ever known before. However his family and him are still missing their former house.

With 26 years of life experience (where first 3 years I have no idea about what I was doing, 2 years was craving for astor chocolate, 2 years was considering to be a teacher for Elementary Islamic Study (!!!), and the rest was blubbing around friends’ sharing diary, any kind of messenger, Friendster, BlogSpot, Skype, Facebook, and twitter), most of human is not a big fan of change. Well it is not fully negative characteristic; it is a natural scheme of our most precious mind system that called memory. I can remember how many toys I had when I see my childhood bedroom, I can remember how angry my mother was when I see a scratched glass top table in our living room, and always giggling every time I see The Moffats pin-up that still plugged on my teenage cupboard. Well some spatial things really can reveal and bring our memory out, and at the same time it explains why we always eager to keep our spatial property like house, school, park, and etc. That is why we never accept every time our house, school, park, traditional market is replaced with shopping mall, apartment towers, or super block. Nowadays human memory is the only technology for us to access the past time while spatial things/ spaces are the tools to accommodate it. After writing this post, I decided to stop waiting for chronosphere. I can access the past every time I want to, and I hope it works for my boyfriend and his family too. Happy New Year, live long and prosper for all of us :)