Apanya Yang Lucu?

Beberapa menit yang lalu saya menyempatkan diri untuk melihat apa yang sedang dikerjakan oleh adik perempuan saya di kamarnya. Dia masih duduk di tingkat terakhir Sekolah Dasar, dan termasuk murid yang pintar di sekolahnya (melihat gelar Juara Umum yang berhasil didapatnya dan juara kelas berkali-kali). Saya menyadari potensi yang dimilikinya, dan selama ini selalu berusaha untuk membimbing dia sedapat mungkin ke arah yang positif. Dilihat dari perkembangannya, hebat juga koleksi film kartunnya hasil download sendiri di Rapidshare. Dari parental control yang saya lakukan, selama ini semuanya masih positif, sampai beberapa menit yang lalu. Adik saya (Liza Rachel) sedang YouTube-ing ketika saya masuk ke kamarnya. Dari tampilan layar yang berwarna-warni, sepertinya kartun tersebut biasa saja, sama seperti kartun lainnya yang diperuntukkan untuk anak kecil. Ternyata ia sedang menonton Happy Tree Friends; kartun yang sudah sering saya dengar namun tidak pernah saya tonton sebelum hari ini. Tapi ketika saya memperhatikan adegan-adegannya, dahi saya langsung berkerut. Langsung saya bertanya. "Buat apa sih nonton ini? Memangnya bagus?" "Habisnya lucu, Kak. Buat iseng-iseng aja." Lucu dari mana? Adegannya tidak jauh-jauh dari bola mata yang ditembus ujung gunting, pecahan kaca yang masuk ke dalam mulut, aquarium dengan air berwarna merah darah, karakter yang dijepit kursi sampai badannya hancur lebur, bahkan ada satu episode dari Mondo Mini Shows tersebut yang menceritakan bagaimana karakter berbentuk rusa berwarna biru yang kakinya terjepit pohon terpaksa menggergaji kakinya dengan sendok dan penjepit kertas sepanjang hari. Saya sendiri bukan tipe orang yang takut melihat darah, tapi ketika (dulu) saya menonton film Saw buatan Australia itu, jujur saja saya sempat mual melihat adegan kaki digergaji yang persis sekali dengan adegan Happy Tree Friends tersebut. Ini memang bukan isu baru. Namun saya tidak dapat tidak memikirkan; apa kira-kira akibat jangka panjangnya bagi adik saya? Bagaimana dengan anak-anak lainnya? Apalagi mereka yang di bawah umur lima tahun (The Golden Age), yang kemampuannya menyerap informasi menentukan pertumbuhan cara berpikir mereka untuk (setidaknya) 30 tahun ke depan? Hasil penelitian melalui metode content analysis oleh Parents Television Council terhadap kartun-kartun serupa di negara-negara maju menunjukkan bahwa dari 443 jam penayangan kartun-kartun tersebut, terdapat 3.488 bentuk kekerasan. Penelitian yang sama juga mengindikasikan bahwa lebih banyak kekerasan dalam program acara televisi untuk anak kecil dibandingkan program untuk orang dewasa. Sampai sekarang belum ada tanggapan yang riil dari pemerintah. Mereka hanya dapat menghimbau para orangtua untuk memperhatikan acara-acara televisi yang ditonton anaknya, dan memberikan penjelasan atau bimbingan tertentu. Keseluruhan permasalahan ini membuat saya teringat dengan salah satu episode di The Simpsons, ketika Marge Simpson berinisiatif menghitung sendiri jumlah adegan kekerasan di kartun Itchy & Scratchy kesayangan Bart dan Lisa, kemudian menuntut perusahaan yang berkaitan untuk mengurangi kadar kekerasannya. Usahanya tidak sia-sia, karena Marge mendapatkan banyak dukungan dari orang-orang yang mempunyai visi yang sama. Dan untuk sementara, saya hanya dapat 'melindungi' adik saya dari kejahatan kartun tersebut. Menyedihkan.

Surreality vs. Hyperreal

I’m aware of the fact that human being is full of mysteries. Nobody could predict what’s in our mind precisely, just like nobody can understand us completely. It’s impossible to reach 100% similar field of experience in life. Only The Creator has the authority to access that other side of our life. Come to think of it, human beings nowadays started to scare the hell out of me. I saw these tendencies, many tendencies becoming more and more habitual every day. They covered up their life, their daily routines, with this pseudo-mask to portray a pseudo-world, causing us to live in a pseudo-reality. And that makes us.. what? Hypothetically speaking.. The Greatest Creation of God? Or mediocre homo sapiens? Look around. Switch your meticulous mode on. Smell the view, see the sweats. It’s everywhere. They’re imminent. You can run, yet you can’t hide. We sweat the small stuffs, and ignore the humongous stuffs that matters. Or is it the small stuff that matters..? Or the big stuff is innocuous..? I can barely tell the difference no more.

Ever feel like you’re one of them? Have you ever went to a party you didn’t even want to attend, but you felt that you have some obligation to do so, just because your hello-then-goodbye friend told you to come over because he/she’s gonna spin the vinyl when you bumped into that person at some random place? And we justify it with the label “social-being.” Have you ever hurt someone’s feeling? Just because you know that you’ve done something wrong to that person, but that pompous heart of yours told you not to apologize? Then you’re being repulsive, denying the fact that it is a paradoxical scene that you’re supposed to solve, and we justify it with the label “position means power” or even worse; "love hurts." Have you ever seen those images or videos of war? That costs more innocent souls than you can imagine, and you know that their government’s only concern is the soil left to burry the corpses, but you just stay put and sit still in your sleazy leather couch, potato couching and stuffing microwave-heated popcorns into your mouth, showing a glimpse of sympathy for a second, then changed the channel, snubbed those feelings away and go on with your life like nothing happened? And we justify it with “Oh, let’s not worry about something we didn’t need to think about. It happened in the other side of the world anyways.” or even worse; “They already have authorized peoples to take care of them. We can do nothing, because we’re nobody. We are not that astute enough to change the world.” Ever read an article that explains about how the symptoms of global warming becoming more blatant and obvious, damaging and dangerous day by day, but you put down the magazine, walked out into your vehicle that produces a massive amount of carbon dioxide along with other vehicles you passed by on the way to your 35 stories high office building with mirrors all over the skyscraper, causing a glass house effect that leads to another damage toward the earth’s ultra violet shields, which we should overhaul instead of ignoring it? And we justify it with “One small change wouldn’t change the whole world.” or worse; “We didn’t build the goddamn buildings, so go mind your own fucking business!”

A concrete state of reality has changed its form into a formal delusion that we’ve created to hide our guilt. The reality itself, is covered up with ‘other reality’, which I may call the ‘hyper real’ world, where the real ‘reality’ doesn’t appear as the real one anymore. The real ‘reality’ has gone far more beyond that. It became ‘surreal.” And may I ask.. How concrete is surreal? Go ask yourself. Which side of reality are you living in right now? Are you hyper real? Or are you plain surreal? And that should lead us to the final curiosity; What is real? And this is the point where I should leave. So you guys can think with your contaminated brains. Civilizations made a troglodyte out of us. Dig out some reality. See if you can still find any.

More Creature Than Human

Amongst all theories, statements, or even opinions from brainiacs all around the world, most of them mentioned The Humanism Theory in their explanation, or in educational context; lectures. Human being is the greatest creation of God, and ‘they’ say that’s because we have emotion, which is derived from our right brain, filled with aesthetic, emotions, sympathy and empathy, and so on. They say that aspect of internal factors is the only factor that differentiate George Bush and those purple toads from Suriname; human vs. animals. The big question is: Is it true? There’s this scientist whom I forgot his name, but he made some sort of an research, an observation about how different types of music could make a difference for lab rats experiments. Classic music makes them healthier, rock music makes them grumpy. Even this kind of observation is nonsense, IMO. How could such an experiment with a variable such as music, can be best described as rock and classic music as the only types of music qualified enough to determine the result of an observation? Stereotypes. Sigh.

In the other side, I once read about an experiment where different types of music could also determine the growth of plants. Now this may sound.. Looney. But almost all scientists are lunatics, right. That’s a statement, not a question. Have you met Einstein face to face? I met him in my dreams once, and his hair looks exactly the same like the one in his worldwide spreads images. Now.. Imagine if you’re a plant. Let’s say you’re Cannabis. Classic and pop music makes you grow faster, and blooms in minutes. (Now that’s a hyperbolic statement) But dance music and house music makes your leaves grow in its least quality, whatever. Scientific research has proved that it’s true and reliable. Very well then, Mr. Smart Ass. And now, as the inferior group of those geniuses, let us do the math. Human being has the ability to process everything their braincells received. That’s why they reacts to music. Trip Hop ballads from Portishead or Sigur Ros might trigger the depressing feeling within your mind. Italo Disco and Krautrock might increases your serotonin hormone and adrenaline rush, makes you want to dance, dance, dance, as if you're under the influence of amphetamines substance.

But then again, why do we feel depressed when we hear Massive Attack’s Teardrop tune on a random radio station? That’s because we have emotion, of course. But how did rats become healthier and marijuana grows faster when they listened to particular types of music? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the same concept from those theorists is implemented in the last two experiments, that means US (humans), are no different than animals. Or mammals. Or carnivores. Or cannabis. Or white lilacs and red roses. HUMAN reacts to music as a proof that we DO have emotions. Could someone please explain it to me, what about the rats and the marijuana..? Otherwise I’ll draw a conclusion by myself, and that'll make me an atheist. Because if I believe in Darwin’s theory that human beings are originated from the apes, then it’ll be a contradictory against my own beliefs. Oh, fuck it. We’re more creature than human.