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carpe diem

when life gives you lemon, suck it anyway.

Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. One of the thoughts of Descartes I had heard long before I went to college, and become more interesting when I learned more about his thinking. Although Descartes can not be specifically said to be an existentialist thinker, I think that his thoughts have influenced a person -especially me- of my being, of my presence in human form in this world. Is it true that human existence as a rational being in this world purely arises from the rationality of the individual itself? And will its existence stop at one point when individuals are tired of rationalizing its existence?
It's been 21 years, 2 months 8 days living in this world and I still have many questions and puzzles about life that I have not been able to solve until now. One of them is that, the objectivity of my existence on this mad world. When the age of 21 is considered a phase in which an individual has been able to be classified as an adult, I still barely feel the vibe of being entitled to this phase. My inner childhood still appear more often than the establishment of thinking and acting. I spend more time bombarding others with questions about a problem I should be able to solve myself. In addition, I also often question what significant things I have done during these 21 years, which bring benefits to others. There is no achievement for it, no event that can be a marker that I have become a useful individual. A starting point that keeps pushing me to ask myself. What have you done today? How significant are your effects to others? How far have you been going this far?
On the one hand, those questions are enough to maintain my existence, I asked therefore I exist. Encourage me to do something more every day. Makes me an individual who (hopefully) is better than the previous day. Maximize every potential second to make it meaningful, not just for yourself but also for others. On the other hand, there is the fear that later in time I will never be enough to answer new questions that continue to emerge, let alone to solve answers to unanswered questions. Time is running so fast, that often I feel I do not have time to relax because relaxing does not make me a productive individual. Badly, there was once a point when all forms of fatigue accumulated and made me stop struggling to find answers. I was silent, even taking a step back, and allowing the ignorance of my self-controlling existence.
Being an adult turned out to be creepy. It's scary not to get enough time to answer all the questions that come up. It is also frightening to understand that in the end we are forced to stop asking, because we know we do not have enough time to find an answer. A dozen years ago I wanted to quickly become an adult, live independently, have authority over myself. Now, stopping or even playing time becomes a more interesting option. It will be fun when we have more time to just relax and keep asking, without fear of running out of time to find answers.
But well, life goes on. It will not stop. As if one day I will fathom every points of how to be an adult.
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Matsuri ç¥­ã‚Š(Japanese word for festival) is one best activity to enjoy Japan every time you have a chance to visit the country. Since I am pretty late for summer festival and not yet into winter festival, I feel glad that my dorm manager invited me to see a festival held in Kishiwada city, Osaka. I found out that this festival is the biggest and the most famous Danjiri Matsuri among other similar festival which held all over Japan. Many people even from other prefecture come to Kishiwada to see the Danjiri from many groups of neighborhood area. Generally, this festival becomes a symbol of gratitude from the people towards the Shinto Gods as they get blessings through the harvesting season. Several groups of people will gather as one group representing their district and walk along the street while pulling the danjiri or portable shrine which has been build for several years ago with a really huge cost. Every houses in one district should at least appointed one family member to contribute this event,  regardless age and gender. It means that one danjiri group will contained at least 50 people working together to represent their district with pride. I didn't count exactly how many danjiri was at the festival, but I think it was more than 15 groups.
My dorm manager was very excited that some students managed to see this festival with him because he has been participating in this festival for more than 50 times since he was a little boy living in one neighborhood at Kishiwada City. He proudly depicted his hard work when he was assigned to pull the robe, and continuously upgrading his role as he gets older every year, until he could be in the centre possition of the danjiri. Despite the fact that I only saw the practice session of the groups, I felt very lucky because I can get accompanied by a person who was indeed a participant of the festival. Moreover, my friends and I could freely move all around the city because there were less people there. So we could see the attraction from several different spot, which was amazing. I don't think I can experience such thing if I went there by myself. However, the fact that it was just a practice didn't undermine people's excitement to came over and watch the whole session from 1 pm to 5 pm that day. 
To see people really hustling in order to make the danjiri move astonished me that much. I can really see the value of hard work of Japanese people through this festival. I mean, come on, no one will condemn you when you don't want to participate into this event. Then people were still able to be involve into the festival and let themselves became super exhausted after the whole festival finished. People's participation also proves that Japanese people have a high community-based society. Most of them, not to be stereotyping some people who don't, are really attached into their community and willing to give any kinds of participation to increase the neighborhood's pride. I saw some students, young adults, grandfathers, moms with their babies, even the district leader participating into this festival and make sure that every component of the festival works well. Some people even challenge their defiance by standing, jumping and dancing on top of the danjiri while it was being pulled along the road. It was beyond crazy and dangerous but they let it be. Danjiri festival is also cost expensive, from the making process to the execution, even the post-event when some accident unfortunately happened, for instance a danjiri crashed the electricity pole of crashed someone's house whereupon the district should pay for the penalty. 
As I came to Japan not just merely as an exchange student (or traveller to be exact :P), I also have additional responsibility to complete at least my thesis proposal in order to graduate on time. That's why I am very delighted and grateful at the same time because I can literally observe the cultural and social value from Japanese people, which then processed as their common identity. One other good point to be highlighted is no matter how old and smart you are, if you don't contribute even just a single drop of your sweat to the society, it will definitely means nothing. 

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About Me

Andiline Thea Pranasari.
Central Java, Indonesia.

Ambitious procrastinator who always try to gain better everyday. She has plenty random deep-thoughts, that's why she writes. Sometimes.

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