FRUST.TRA.TION

You know that feeling...

You have leave coming up, you're going somewhere exciting, and you want to do the responsible thing and finish work before you go gallivanting elsewhere.

Except that you can't. Or it's difficult to. Because things, like your computer, keep acting up.

I have, like 25 news items that I would like to scan and some will need to be copied to the server. Imagine my distress when my Firefox pages take forever to load, and text refuses to be copied. It's really; REALLY aggravating. To the point that I feel like smashing the damn machine with a baseball bat. Or a fireman's axe.

Yes, I know that it's not the machine's fault. Which is why it is still hale and healthy now. It could be the antivirus, it could be malware, it could even be the office people spying if I'm doing any work. Some pages have embedded stuff that riles up the AV. Bottomline - it's damn irritating.

And its hard to get work done when you're constantly battling with your emotions.

Ok. End rant. Will try to carry on and work on an offline document when the stupid Firefox jams. Ciao.

Thinking Ahead

For the longest time, I was separate from the things around me. I keep updated with peatland issues all over the region, but somehow I never felt that I was part of the solution. Maybe things can change now...

I was reading an article about illegal encroachment into forest reserves in Indonesia and I thought about how circumstances necessitate this kind of disregard for rules and laws. The truth is, change takes time.

Right now, poor local people NEED crops like palm oil that offers high yields and enough income to feed their growing children. But eventually, Indonesia needs to stop clearing more and more land, especially peatlands to survive. They need to think ahead and start preparing for a future where land is scarce, and money can be made without selling physical goods. Service and knowledge products are the commodities of many advanced economies. People make money by providing service and intelligence, creating software etc.

For this to happen, we need to focus on education and learning. Actually, Indonesians are smart. They just need to adjust their mindset a little. Stop obsessing on immediate gains and think further ahead. We will thrive, insya Allah.

*I say we because I believe we are all people of Nusantara (the Malay Archipelago) share the same roots.