Contemplation on Supernova – Gelombang

Gelombang came to me in a package of black and orange; the release date being two weeks away from Halloween in which the theme colors for it are –yes, say it with me- black and orange. When I’m in the mood of fancying on Jason Orange after he finally decided to escape the fame by quitting Take That; most likely to either continue his education or travel the world (to find me; I just gotta have faith). Not long after I replaced my (torn and ugly) baby pink shoes with the orange ones. Only few months away after I stuffed my room with a trash bin that happens to be orange, or the hangers, or--- what am I doing here again? Oh right. Making a review of Supernova – Gelombang. Pardon the orange obsession, let’s proceed with the book, shall we? 

So as usual, it’s pretty hard to find a starting point when I’m about to make a review about Supernova since things inside it are always interrelating. Unlike Partikel, however, I do feel that I’m more related to this book. Other readers might react differently – this is one of the coolest thing about Supernova, I guess. This book has the power to induce a virtually indefinite range of reaction from its readers. At least for me, it’s not just something that I barely internalize; it sows the seed of growth in me. As I proceed through the pages, those seeds turn to buds, that soon intertwine with both the previous and consecutive pages (and books), and when I realize it, I know that my synaptic connections are never gonna be the same again. Happens all the time.

Well. First reason maybe because of the orange-obsession thing. The word "orange" has always been the first thing that come to mind every time somebody asks me, "What's your favorite color?" When the question is followed by "Why?", the next answer is endless; it's just beyond the scope of current writing. 

Second, because the character’s name is Alfa. I used to have that thing on tall lean dark guy(s) with A as his initial. I don’t quite have it anymore, but since I haven’t had any proof of current serious crush with initial other than A.. this A thing might still partly apply. Well. Not for too much on this, hopefully. Alfa also speaks a bit of many languages, however; one thing that I manage to work on recently. Plus the Jimmy Hendrix and the curse of being 27... which means kind of a lot, and I'm pretty sure you don't wanna ask why.

Third, because most of the setting takes place in The US, along with the presence of the character Dr. Colin. I’m currently kind of into an American guy I encountered in OKC. One of his photos fits pretty well with some descriptions for Dr. Colin: tall, lean (or skinny?), with glasses and black turtle neck. Well. Although he’s not fifty, I kind of imagined that he might have baritone voice too. 

Don’t know. Those reasons are just just stupid and nice at the same time.

I like the pace of the plot, it fits my speed. I was a bit lost during the first pages taking place in Sianjur Mula-mula, but still it’s not that enough to get me to let go of the book, so I went on. I paused shortly after the part where Alfa stated, 

“I’d prefer to call them targets (instead of dreams).” 

It went a bit emotional when I immediately realized that I just found what is most likely to be my biggest weakness/strength: my dreams a.k.a. my targets. Talking about these targets are one of those things that make me cry easily, i.e. my weakness. For me, they are real. Apparently for others, however, not so. Every moment of target-telling is a gamble where people are most likely to look at me with those eyes that kind of say, “what the heck are you thinking?/damn you’re weird”, then question my sanity. While they might know that I somehow say things that are right – sometimes even equipped with statistical data – people these days (or also on those days before?) don’t usually proceed that way. They keep telling me to just be satisfied and stay safe with my life. I am satisfied (content?) and safe, it’s just probably not their definition of safe and satisfied. At the same time, my dreams/targets are my strength. They give me things to do, things to pursue, and ‘home works’ to come home to. They get me into taking some roads less traveled that opens up my way to meet these great and interesting people I’m currently having around. I’m still working on balancing these things.

Anyway, after some moment of thankfulness for the new ‘enlightenment’, I went on. Alfa’s adventure is full of twist and turn; and it’s inevitable that I question “Is he psychotic? Is he real?” But again, the story was just too absorbing that I decided to just screw theories, and just read. Plus, who are us to know what’s real? Is our reality really real? We are friend to ourselves, but we’re also our worst enemy. Such things, and the only thing we can do is to accept, and be okay with it; then yes, it’s just gonna be okay.

Next are the book's side effects. Apparently, this book has most correlation with my current field of study: psychiatry; so damn it, I need to seriously study so Dee doesn't beat me on this. 

First, I deal with sleep disorder everyday, but I hardly look as deep as Dee. I don’t even know what those consonants stand for :( From now on, I promise I’ll dig deeper on sleep, dreams.. and such. I might learn PSG. Or symbols appear in dreams. For a person with a certificate that implies that I can deal with sleep disorders, I suck big time. I should do some fixing. 

The second, the book talks about anchor. I don’t know that much, but anchor constitutes one significant principle of hypnotherapy. I kind of start to wonder whether Dee was actually Jung in the past life.. 

The third, here and there, the book implies about the principle of relativity; that things might be different or just the same, depend on which angle we’re willing to take. To my understanding, this might be the very principle of cognitive behavioral therapy. And yes, when those things people call reality can no longer give you explanation on what you’re going through, we don’t need to change reality then. We just need to take a different look on that so called reality. Also, the best way to deal with a problem is not by escaping from it, but by facing it. Problems don’t usually disappear, it’s just still there. By looking at the problem from different point of view, however, we can skip the distressing part of the problem. If we’re luckier, we could probably find that those things we label as problems are actually disguised chances for us to thrive. It's just the way life is, and it's just... nice, isn't it?

Anyway. Some questions inevitably emerged from the book. I’ll just write it down in Bahasa Indonesia, hopefully I can make this list as interesting as Fenny Rose’s ‘Silet’ style

1. Eten sama Uton jadinya nikah sama siapa?

2. Apa Frank Sinaga sebenarnya sudah muncul di buku sebelumnya? Atau.. mungkinkah ia muncul lagi di IEP?

3. Ada enam komponen yang harus bertemu. Mengapa sejauh ini baru empat?

4. Akankah mamak Ichon melanjutkan pendidikan dengan kejar paket?

5. Di Seattle ada airport nggak? Dari NYC ke Seattle bisa naik apa?

6. Kenapa Alfa beli Fender Stratocaster warna putih? 

7. Waktu Alfa lagi di Lithium dan jasnya dilepas, tidak adakah yang berminat maling jasnya? I mean it's freakin' Armani; it's probably worth my one-year salary..

8. Kenapa Homer Simpson tidak memberi petunjuk saat Alfa mau dicelakai oleh Pemba?

9. Apakah sebenarnya si Jaga Portibi sudah pernah ikut seleksi Penerimaan Anggota Baru PSM UGM dan nggak lolos tes solfes?

6         ..... Damn. I need to learn to read PSG.

Ciao for now. Getting back to my papers ;)