Friday, October 15, 2010

What goes around comes around...

--Attention: this article is loosing its grip and drifted outside the blog's unifying theme :P--

I don't know why this idiom always rings in my head lately...
So I decided to write something in regards to this idiom :P

The idiom means something like this... your deeds, good or bad, will repay you in kind...

And apparently, as far as I know religion also teach the similar thing...
Probably the words such as "You reap what you sow" or "Karma" are more familiar in our ears.

There are people who believe this idiom, but not few people who disbelieve this either.
Regardless which one do you believe, please allow me to share a bit of my perspective... but even if you don't allow me I will write this anyway... hahaha...
My opinion concerning this idiom is based on my experiences and some literature that I've read... but for some of them, I haven't got the chance to read it entirely... and some of them I only skimmed it :P

I will start to explain it with the "ripe" and "sow" approach... As we all know, when we sow a seed, it will takes time for it to grow... and it it depends on the type of the plant to fruit... :)

This illustrate that the "sow" can be happening sooner or later... or in other words it can be happening directly...

I believe it easy to understand... it's basically the human nature of behaviour either to repay or to seek revenge to someone depending on whether a good or bad deeds that the person got.

And I believe it's already crystal clear so example for this type would not be necessary :)

Mentioned also that "sow" can also happening in the future... or even to our kids... or our descendant...

Yup... it's not just a blunt assumption... without any prove... both my personal experience and some story about which based on a true story that I skimmed evidences a similar thing...

Ok, for the negative story... you can search around the internet or find some literature on this following people's history...

Oe Hui Lan --> daughter of a very rich sugar trader from Semarang
Tjong A Fie --> very successful businessman and banker from Medan

You may find writings about both of them by Agnes Davonar... famous blogger and writer in Indonesia :)

The reason that I don't want to discuss in this blog is that the topic is too sensitive can lead me to some problem :) so I don't think it is worth it to discuss it here... hehehe... so I'll give the clue which is "unfaithfulness" and let the you read by yourself and conclude what my point is :)

And I hope that this gives a gentle reminder to people who has already thought that something like that is ok although it is wrong just because it's too common...
Which also similar to a branch of knowledge that tickles my mind... it is called Kelirumologi... hehehe... but let discuss it in another session... :P

Ok then, let's get back to the business... the positive sow but not directly the person who sow who obtains the benefit...

I will use my personal experience to describe this... with this opportunity to share a bit my family background...

Hmmm.... My grandmother from my mother is the second wife of my grandfather. Although the reason was because his first wife couldn't give him even a child, this leaded to a conflict.... similar with the story of the two stories that I've mentioned above :)
The problem was even worse when my grandfather passed away... as he was the only person who worked for the family... my mother family became really struggle because there was no earning at all... This forced the my mom's older sister and my mom to quit from school and help my grand mother working... to get earning so that can support her sister and brother... to buy food, buy clothes and for schools... :)
To simplify the story when my mother and father passed away because of terrible car accident... During that time I was at the very last semester of my study in the university. And one of my uncle offered a scholarship to continue my study... He asked me to choose whether I want to study in the reputable university here in Indonesia or even abroad... It was a very tempting offer... However for some particular reasons I refused the offer :)

That's my story... my mother the one who "sowed" the good deeds but I'm as her son "reap" the benefit...

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Tutorial: Changing a phrase

One of my interest is to change a lyric of a song or a a phrase to be in very different meaning.... no matter if it is going to be silly, sarcasm or even sceptic. However, I still try to maintain the rhyme... :P

I've done this in since I was in Junior High School when Boy Bands were growing like a mushroom in the rainy season... or even similar to... spreading like very contagious viruses... :P So during the time the Boy Bands' song were my primary victim... hihihi...

The simplest way of changing the lyric was by changing the word 'heart' into 'butt'... they both have the same word category which is noun... and they both are body parts... and the best of all they have the both end with the same letter... so the rhyme of the song will still be maintained :P

The other word that you can change is... the word 'beauty' into 'ugly'...
Practice and training is really important so we can improve the ability to the find suitable word to substitute the words... :P
And if I may suggest... watching good quality situation comedy is highly recommended to enrich our vocabulary... specially the sarcastic vocabulary... hehehe...

I won't provide some example to this step because this is very easy to find and you can find enormous number of songs that contains the word 'heart'... since most of theme of the songs are love... but, let's discuss it in the different opportunity :)

However don't be disappointed... since I will provide a step by step example on changing a phrase...

Recently, I have a nice phrase regarding a of a friendship...
"Old friends are gold. New friends may be diamond. If you get diamond, don't ever forget the gold because to hold a diamond you always need a base of gold"

Ok, let's scrutinise this nice... humble... and sweet quote and destroy it into the sceptic one... shall we?

First, find the key words... for example: gold and diamond...

Secondly, find the substitute for those words...
gold --> goat
diamond --> demon

Thirdly, combine it!
"Old friends are goats, new friends may be demon. If you get demon, don't ever forget the goat... because..."

Nah, here's come the tricky part... which requires some thinking and a bit creativity... :P
Ok, since we had changed the keywords, we have to change the part of the phrase that explain the opening. This is important because we have to make the phrase still logical... hahaha... but c'mon this is the fun part... :P

Hmm... on of the way to make it sounds logical is to find the correlation between the words...
so the correlation between the word 'goat' and 'daemon' is... goat head and pentagram is the symbol of the satan/daemon... hahaha....

See! there's a correlation between them...
but if you can't find any... just make them up... hahaha...

Thus we can continue our modified phrase...

"Old friends are goats, new friends may be daemon. If you get daemon, don't ever forget the goat... because goat head is the symbol of daemon."

But wait a second... it's not finish yet... to finalize the modified quote... we have to explain the meaning of it:
"Sometimes we have a very disturbing and annoying old friend and you imagine this friend is just like a goat, and we got a new friend... but apparently the new friend you found is even worse than our old friend"
sounds realistic, isn't it? :)
or on the other words, this new phrase is having the same meaning with the famous phrase "things could be worse" hahaha...

See! changing a nice phrase to the sceptic one is not hard, is it? :P

Additionally, one day when I've become famous and there someone who wants to write a book: "How to think like Teguh Suryadi"* this article should be considered as good reference... hihihi....

*inspired by a book that I am currently reading "How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci" :)