Travelogue: Literary Hub at Tiong Bahru

All pictures taken by Jessy Ismoyo (Singapore, 2017)

"Perhaps all romance is all like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour." (The Passion by Jeanette Winterson)

First week of April, I went to Singapore. Nothing to do, just doing some family stuff then I bumped out to this neighbourhood at Tiong Bahru. You could find anything from small coffee shop, children bookstore, hipster stalls, and the precious books vending machine. Books Actually was selling very good books that it was hard to choose one. I decided to buy Perfection by Debbie Lee (SGD 19), I promise that I would write the review later. It was long walk from where I stayed, but it was worth it. Funny you knew, when you travelled, it was not only you but also your mind that travelled much. While walking, I thought things that happened to bother my mind. I forgot what it exactly was, but I tried to recall it today and wrote it down.

Maybe it was a sudden change, slight sight, and thin air that made me ask for trees or anything green. I remember I was so angry at certain people, I could not barely control my breath. Not over big things, but over small things I could not know yet. I was angry at people. How, sometimes, they could be irritating. There, where I was wrong. There, I realized that I need to stop at being angry. There, I understood the urge of reading...and travelling.

Earlier today, I found my circle would clearly being apathetic near ignorant, they thought they were being pacifist, weren't they? I found that world was getting crazier, people would drop biological weapons that triggers the possibility of war, extrimists believed that they were right and their belief was the salvation, countries were taking side both political and economical sides, people put aside human rights, indigenous people was losing their lands, multinational corporations were destroying everything in order to fulfill Adam Smith's theory.

It was not stopping there, all circled in one killing machine, we shut our conscience to believe that we were not part of this. We made ourselves believe that we were living in this comfort bubble of ours, that everything we do had nothing to do with things going on outside the buble. Fact: you knew you were wrong but everyday's problem was much enough to put you down on stress, so why bother? Right?

There, I saw where I went wrong. No, it was not because I cared too much. It was because I did not communicate right. Some people would say that 'I fucked up because I cared too much on people, I put so much faith on them, they hurt me'. Fact: you were wrong. Again. Let me tell you where it could turn wrong. Hypothetically, when you cared about something, you gave your best. When you were trying, you was gravitating in your orbit. Meaning, you made everything in accordance with your will. You were not noticing this, because you failed to see anything but your goal. That, where things went wrong, when you started being passive-agressive. Sure you fucked up, and there nothing else to be blamed than others once you fucked. Fact: you were, again, wrong. You knew.

I was familiar with something I reckoned before. People did it as well, circling around the familiar. Acquitances became friends, friends became family, and somehow, sadly, family became strangers. Along the process, it implied various values and norms in which different from one another. Same went with reading a book. I once was sluggish for not knowing where the author tried to direct me, but it changed through the chapters. I understood the meaning of every paragraph after reading it twice as much as I need.

I questioned every real meaning that hidden behind aphorism. I need to distinguish the 'meaning' of real meaning from the 'meaning' of me-constructing-kind-of-meaning. When the stranger became familiar, I usually fall deeper into something called more than life. You paused life, you transferred yourself to another life. Not running for reality, but simply put distance between. Thus, you could hold anger, vanity, and be focused on what you could do to bring some change. The real one.

Same happened with travelling. It taught you not to find meaning, but to face your fear, to make you feel terrified of anything and to teach you to grow empathy out of fear. You would know the difference within people who saw much and people who judge much, it was simply at how long they could see, how much they would be. People who travelled much, saw much, experience much, so they tend to understand. They would not answer all the questions type of person, they ask 'good question' to people just because they wanted to listen more to other people's stories. They would bravely ask something they want to know, or better, they had initiative to do anything first, to be decisive every single time. Most importantly, to hold anger and turn it into writing just to forget the anger itself.

There, I understood that the explosion of dreams lasted vivid flare. It did. It was the time I was smiling because I understood the people who were apathetic and ignorant were the ones who confined with their own insecurities, like everybody else, what a pity they could not turn it into something more radiant. Too bad, and I would leave those people there, right at their place, running and gravitating at their own comfort, like they would see me doing the same. Although, it looked the same, us and them, what we planted was clearly different, and you would know once we would harvest the fruit. Well, time would tell. Meanwhile, keep progressing. The one who should you compete was yourself, not others. May I, you, and everyone else be fruitful along with these world's difficulties, of which, made us stronger!

With love,

Jessy Ismoyo