THE CHAOS THEORY

“Indonesia Out of Exile: How Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship” by Max Lane

Perhaps the only thing better than the Buru Quartet, is the story behind the making of the Buru Quartet.

On 30 September 1965, a coup occurred in Indonesia. All the military generals were rounded up and slaughtered, while the movements of Indonesia’s highly popular president Soekarno was restricted and he was practically stripped off his power. The killings of the generals were officially [falsely] blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) with a retaliative genocide took place not long after, towards the communist party members (killing estimated 1-2 million people), while the intellectual Left were all captured and exiled to a faraway island in Eastern Indonesia, the Buru Island. Including author Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

This book provides the life’s story of Pramoedya, his political views, his innermost thinking, and the reason why he was eventually imprisoned for 14 years by the regime that staged the coup, the Suharto regime. The book is also the story of two other incredible men: Hasjim Rachman, a fearless publisher that became the leader of morale inside his prison in Buru Island. And Joesoef Isak, an international journalist that risked his life for smuggling daily news into his own prison camp in Jakarta to keep the fellow prisoners well informed with the changes in the country.

These men’s stories are told in the most crystal clear context alongside the Indonesian history: The fight for independence, the turbulent 1950s, and the crucial roles the 3 men had in trying to build Soekarno’s vision of Indonesia from journalism and writing.

And perhaps most crucially it tells the little-known story of how the intellectual Soekarnoists (the intellectual Left) were treated and shunned from society after the 1965 coup, by the CIA-backed Suharto regime. The torture and hard labour in Buru island, the corruption of the officers, the injustice imprisonment without trial, all of which provides the rich context for Pramoedya’s idea for his book “Bumi Manusia” (or the “Earth of Mankind”) and its 3 sequels, which together are dubbed the “Buru Quartet.”

In the book, Pramoedya’s dark experiences were channeled into the simple enough beginning of the story. Story that grows immensely complicated, with a deep message of resistance against the colonial rulers, through the historical fiction of Indonesia in the 1890s when it was still the Dutch East Indies under the colonial rule of the Netherlands.

In Buru, Pramoedya was restricted from any access of pen and paper, so instead the entire story was created inside his head and recited to other prisoners in the barrack, in the veranda, and in the hut at night, which quickly became a hit on the island.

The incredible character of Nyai Ontosoroh, in particular, became the prisoners’ favourite. Because she defies the odds and able to rise up from a simple village girl sold to the Dutch master by her father to become a powerful lady in charge of a corporate empire that she has built. Before long, people would quote her dialogues, and the strong character that she has developed and earned along the years inspired the prisoners and raised their spirits.

A similar act of courage also seen in the real life of the 3 men, after they were released from prison. In the environment where Suharto’s presidency was increasingly dictatorial, with plenty of newspapers were censored and even shut down, the three men decided to create a publishing company – Hasta Mitra – to publish Pramoedya’s books that are filled with inspirations to defy a ruler.

It has an air of romanticism in it, where the original manuscripts of “Bumi Manusia” were first written in Buru Island after a compassionate move by one of Suharto’s visiting general finally gave Pramoedya access to a typewriter. The manuscripts were then copied by fellow prisoners in the Island and some were smuggled out with the help of a friendly priest, all of which then came back to Pramoedya’s hand once he returned to Jakarta.

It was with these manuscripts that Joesoef began to work his magic as the editor and publisher, as he set up shop in a tiny room inside his own house. And it was in this cigarette-smoke-filled room full of books that Hasta Mitra made an impact in the 1980s on Indonesian historical process. It answered, as the author Max Lane remarks, “the yearning for that dignified and developed national subjectivity evolving before 1965, through struggle and contestation, in many ways breaking from the past. It was stirring the yearning for a different Indonesia.”

Meanwhile, Hasjim Rachman, in his capacity as the publisher, mobilized all the capital he could find to produce the books, including selling some of his own stuff. And so at last, the books are being published.

But it was of course, never meant to be easy. Soon after “Bumi Manusia” was published in August 1980, not long after it was sold out after just 2 days, the Attorney General informally told them not to distribute the book. But they decided to still go ahead publishing the book, and distribute them in 3 days from Friday to Sunday, before, as dictated by the rules, they had to submit two copies of the book 48 hours of working days to the Attorney General office for “inspection.” And when they were indeed prohibited to publish the book, they already sold 10,000 copies within 2 weeks and 60,000 copies in 10 months. Something unread of back then.

This book then took a great length showing just how exactly “Bumi Manusia” was unofficially prohibited, through ridiculous process of summoning and accusing the book of having a communist theme (it doesn’t) which evidently shows that the government officials who wanted to ban the book haven’t even read the book. Or in other case, the government is pressuring Joesoef to burn all copies of the book (but off record, the government official said he loved the book and even had the audacity to ask to spare 1 copy for his wife to read). Indeed, the men endured harassments, intimidations, and a sudden turnaround from incredible reviews to a government-engineered bad reviews at the press.

And then 9 months after its publication, on 29 May 1981 “Bumi Manusia” was officially banned, along with its subsequent sequels in the upcoming months: “Anak Semua Bangsa” was published in December 1980, banned in May 1981. “Jejak Langkah” was published on 1985, banned in May 1986. And its forth and last sequel “Rumah Kaca” was banned in 1988. Moreover, in 1983 “Bumi Manusia” appeared in English language as “This Earth of Mankind”, published by Penguin, distributed in Australia, Singapore, and United Kingdom, and translated by none other than this book’s author, Max Lane. This was also seen as an act of defiance against the government, which got Lane into trouble, where he consequently got deported for it.

But the books never really disappeared. Despite thousands of copies were confiscated and burned they re-appeared in photocopied version and circulated widely in secret. Indeed, the publishing of the books then went guerilla underground. That is, until the fall of Suharto in 1998 – another traumatic event in Indonesian history akin to 1965 that is told extensively in this book – when the books are finally free to be published for the public, and once again became the voice of reason during the post-Suharto Reformation era.

Chapter 12 of the book is an extensive analysis on this voice of reason, that dive deep into the philosophy behind the “Buru Quartet.” They raise an important issue that have been discussed throughout this book: the question of the identity of the nation. Which, according to Pramoedya, Hasjim, Joesoef, and indeed the 4th member Max Lane himself always said, the Indonesian identity is not yet fully developed, that we still in the process of finding out the true colour, finding out our national identity.

As Pramoedya remarks, “The era of Sukarno and the Trisakti doctrine was nothing but a sort of thesis. The New Order, an antithesis. Therefore, for me, it is something that in fact cannot be written about yet, a process that cannot yet be written as literature, that does not yet constitute a national process in its totality, because it is in fact still heading for its synthesis. While I was still at Buru, an Indonesian.”

Today, the three men have long passed away, with Hasjim died in 1999, Pramoedya in 2006, and Joesoef in 2009. And it is perhaps the greatest literary tragedy that the “Buru Quartet” is still not commonly read in Indonesia, except for a brief period of time at the beginning of the Reformation and by the niche few today. It is not even widely distributed, as we cannot find them readily available at the usual chain bookstores. And once I can get my hands on them, they were the photocopied version from a used book store, because Hasta Mitra closed down not long after Hasjim passed away and its successor publisher Lentera Dipantara (founded by Pramoedya’s family) has recently stopped printing Pramoedya’s books.

It is such a pity that the greatest Indonesian literature ever written, and indeed the greatest books I’ve ever read, are buried under the pile of broken idealism for Indonesia. That over time history could possibly forget about these men and their ideas for the country. And that Indonesians won’t even know what they are missing.

Especially considering that after publication its English translation was immediately listed as Top Ten Bestsellers in the Sydney Morning Herald for several weeks, in Singapore they needed to print extra batches of copy to meet the exploding demand, in the US a book review at The Washington Post called the book “the Indonesian Iliad”, while Pramoedya himself has won more than a dozen international awards thanks to the books. But yet, appallingly, he has not won a single award in his own country Indonesia.

But then again, the official ban on these books has never been formally lifted.

More on Buru Quartet: Book 1|Book 2 | Book 3 |Book 4

“Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything Was Different” by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is a unique human being. He has this unorthodox way of thinking that is really out of the usual norm and even considered as dark and twisted. It is reflected in his many work that includes 19 novels, 3 non-fiction books, 2 graphic novels, 2 adult coloring books, and a handful of short stories in between.

This book is an excellent sneak peak on that: his thought patterns and the way he sees things, which show the reasonings behind his weird but wonderful stories, stories that he observed as similar like the typical punk rock music that starts strong, very loud, and finish abruptly before you know it.

The book, however, is not your typical memoir. Yes there are bits and pieces about his life every now and then, but the main focus of the book is his writing journey, the drawing board behind his masterpieces. All those technicalities on writing and publishing are covered, which makes reading it like talking with a football coach about the specific parts of strategies, or watching a movie with a director’s commentary.

In several chapters he breaks down the art of writing into very specific parts and use a huge library of examples to make his points, with the relevant scenes from books and movies.

Specifics, such as how to dictate the speed of the writing, how to fill in the gap between 2 scenes, on creating memorable dialogues, how to use page breaks, avoiding the common mistake to give away everything at the opening sentence, on creating and curbing tensions (the stripper and the comedian), how to create new rules in the story and repeat them, how to submerge the “I”, how to crowd seed a writing idea, using head authority or heart authority, on character developments occurring through the little choices they make, or how to find imperfections in nonfiction form and use them to make our fiction seems more real and less polished. He even create his own grammar rules at some of his books. Yup, as I said, out of the usual norm.

He also dwell deep into the many techniques to do special effects in the flow of writing, like the vertical and horizontal expansion of a story development, on using what he calls the clock versus the gun, or even putting a page number backwards with the end at page 1 in order to create extra tension. I never knew that there are so many writing ways to create something like a sound effect or camera tricks in a movie. His example on how he build up his story from merely his dog’s sadness when the dog sees his suitcase, to a dark twist where a child is trapped inside the suitcase, is a prime example for this.

Moreover, I love the way he describes his process of creating a writing from zero, to first draft, to the many drafts afterwards where he’s making ongoing notes, bounce off ideas with his trusted people to close some gaps or loopholes, perfecting it as he goes like painters perfecting their art, and tweaking the pace and ending. He also shows how he can draw inspirations from the menial day-to-day tasks or from the unlikeliest places such as a magazine, his laundromat, the 4th step of the AA meeting, or a seminar for used car salespeople.

The book also discusses anything that surrounds the process of writing, such as having a complete stationaries or logistical tools for writing, having a support group of fellow writers and mentors, and addresses difficult issues such as book piracy, copyright violations from the fans, scams and traps from people who wants to claim that we stole their ideas, on book tours, and the many incredible stories about his interactions with his fans that can teach us one or two things.

Indeed, there is arguably no other book on writing that provides us with the blunt honesty about writing and its world than this book. And there are so many advices told after the line “If you were my student…” which makes this book the closest thing to attending Chuck Palahniuk’s writing classes in person. The last chapter in particular, where he provide a table of all the tips and tricks to troubleshooting our writing, is superb and forces us to think about writing (and view the world in general) in a whole different way, a fresh and unique way.

I like him, he’s brilliant but nuts.

“Notes of a Dirty Old Man” by Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski doesn’t pretend to be a saint. He’s more of a rock-and-roll type of person that has surrendered to his vices and even has that hint of proudness of his shortcomings. Heck, he literally called himself a dirty old man, which is fitting with all the misogyny and perverted comments.

We all know that type of old man, a blunt and sarcastic one who have seen it all and tired of all the bullshit. Which makes for a hilarious companion, where we tend to stick around near him and cannot wait to see what he will say or do next, but never want him to be anywhere near our children.

This book is exactly that, a series of few dozens short essays that represent Bukowski’s most mischievous observations on society, some fictions, some weirdest true stories, some blurry between real or not, but mostly the greatest hits from the collection of his underground newspaper columns with the same name – Notes of a Dirty Old Man – for the Open City newspaper (which prompted the FBI to keep a file on him).

It is part autobiography, part crude comedy filled with alcohol, women and bizarre adventures, written in a 1960s style of conversation.

The book serves to show that the immortal writers with their masterpieces are humans after all, and sometimes their life’s story are even more amusing than their work. Which makes the book weirdly enjoyable, because it is so damn uncensored and raw, a blend of honesty and bat-shit crazy that makes a brilliant read.

The long backstories that leads to the phrase “I once lost a million dollar to a Japanese fisherman” or “eating a small animal with a tiny asshole” or “cold shit, warm shit, it’s still shit” are some of the standouts. Chapter 33 in particular is superb, filled with one liners inspired when he was drunk. Lines such as:

• When love becomes a command, hatred can become a pleasure.
• If you don’t gamble, you’ll never win.
• Beautiful thoughts and beautiful women never last.
• You can cage a tiger but you never sure he’s broken, men are easier.
• If you wanna know where God is, ask a drunk.
• There aren’t any angels in the foxholes.
• No pain means the end of feeling. Each of our joys is a bargain with the devil.
• The difference between art and life, is that art is more bearable.
• I rather hear about a life American bum than a dead Greek God.
• There is nothing as boring as the truth.
• The well-balanced individual is insane.
• Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.
• A brave man lacks imagination, cowardice is usually caused by lack of proper diet.
• Sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing.
• When men rule governments men won’t need governments, until then we are screwed.
• An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way. An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.
• Every time I go to a funeral I feel as if I had eaten a puffed wheatgerm.
• Dripping faucets, farts of passion, flat tires are all sadder than death.
• If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.
• Hospitals are where they attempt to kill you without explaining why.
• The cold and measured cruelty of the American hospitals is not caused by doctors who are overworked or who have gotten used to and bored with death. It is caused by doctors who are paid too much for doing too little. And who are admired by the ignorant as witch men with cure when most of the time they don’t know their own arsehair from celery shreds.
• Before a Metropolitan Daily exposes an evil it takes its own pulse.

But one line from chapter 12 haunts me the most, until chapter 42 and even after I finished the book. It is one of the more serious parts of the book, on war and politics: “Revolution sounds very romantic, you know, but it ain’t. it’s blood and guts and madness; it’s little kids killed who get in the way, it’s little kids who don’t understand what the fuck is going on. it’s your whore, your wife ripped in the belly with a bayonet and then raped in the a** while you watch. it’s men torturing men who used to laugh at Mickey Mouse cartoons.”

“Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire’s Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire” by Ryan Holiday

This is a story of a war strategy. It is a great battle of tactics in the field of law, between an untouchable antagonist and a secretive protagonist. This is a story of a conspiracy.

“Conspiracy entails determined, coordinated action, done in secret—always in secret—that aims to disrupt the status quo or accomplish some aim”, explains Holiday. And it was this secretive strategy that eventually prevails where nobody else before them succeeded.

This story begins with a take-down post at a notorious gossip blog owned by Gawker Media.

Now, Gawker is no saint. Founded in 2003, they are central to many nasty publications from celebrity sex tape to copyright leaks to framing public opinions on hot controversial topics, and all done while hiding behind the First Amendment on freedom of speech. This is a media who early in the game already uses clickbait and pay writers by the traffic, and “turn writing, social commentary, and journalism into a video game.”

But little did they know that their one blog post on 19 December 2007 – which reveals that the private and secretive protagonist is gay – would ripple into a world of chaos for them for almost a decade. Yes, a decade.

As Holiday remarks, “Machiavelli said that a proper conspiracy moves through three distinct phases: the planning, the doing, and the aftermath. Each of these phases requires different skills—from organization to strategic thinking to recruiting, funding, aiming, secrecy, managing public relations, leadership, foresight, and ultimately, knowing when to stop. Most important, a conspiracy requires patience and fortitude, so much patience, as much as it relies on boldness or courage.”

This is exactly how the story develops – slowly, patiently, with lots of calculations. And this is how the book is also organised, where at each step of the way Holiday draw parallel to strikingly similar occasions in history, so much so that it feels at times that I’m not reading a Ryan Holiday book but rather his mentor’s Robert Greene.

No more spoiler, because the story is so gripping with secret planning, setbacks, and several plot twists along the way, with an ending revealing a genius plan that could well be the plot in the series Money Heist.

But I can safely tell you that it teaches us a lot about the step by step process of a lawsuit in the US and the intriguing courtroom strategies to win over the hearts and minds of the jury. And perhaps most importantly is the ending of this saga, which I learned from the most, where the Romans often refer to as the Gallic Way.

Ryan Holiday has a unique vantage point for writing this story, because he had a direct access to abundant of information from both sides or the war, including from the main antagonist and protagonist. And he has repeatedly said that of all the dozen+ books that he has written, this one is his favourite to write and even claimed that this is his best work. I can see why. It’s an absolute masterpiece.

“Rumah Kaca” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

5 pages into the story, this 4th and last book of the Buru Quartet already provides some unexpected realisation: the narrator is now different! And it’s really intriguing knowing who this person was in book 3, and how it ended between this person and Minke. It truly gives that ending another angle, now with the background story from the opposite vantage point before that crucial ending.

The book then elaborates on life in the Dutch East Indies, from the ruler’s point of view. It covers the governor general, the many roles of the officers, the inner conflicts between humanity and enforcing injustice colonial law, the intermittent vacuum of power during when Netherlands was involved in World War 1, and of course – continuing the narrative from book 3 – the many different organisations that spring up among the locals.

Indeed, here at book 4 everything that were building up in book 3 are already in full force. The figurative fire is spreading nationwide and cross-countries, and it looks so damn terrifying from the vantage point of the colonial ruler. It also has a brilliant element of doubts instilled in the narrative, and conflicting dilemmas in between nostalgics from the past books. And just as book 1-3, the story is so hard to predict and full with surprises.

Oh there are so many things from this book that I wanted to share more but afraid to spoil anything. But let’s just say, the ending of the book makes me understand why in real life Pramoedya Ananta Toer was jailed by the Dutch, jailed by Soekarno, and was sent to exile in Buru Island by Soeharto. And it’s astonishing how it was just like the actual story of Tirto Adhi Soerjo, the real-life inspiration for the character Minke.

All in all, there are 535 pages for Bumi Manusia, 536 pages for Anak Semua Bangsa, 721 pages for Jejak Langkah, and 646 pages for this one Rumah Kaca. This work has won 11 awards, with Pramoedya himself was awarded with 7 more honours.

Now I’ve read Hemingway, I’ve read Shakespeare. I love Coelho and was pleasantly surprised by Voltaire. Huxley and Orwell gave me the creeps, with the former in a good way and the latter in a bad way. I’ve read Twain’s classics, two in a row, Thoreau’s overrated musings about isolation, got lost in Tolstoy’s big-ass book, and got carried away by a little known Southern classic by Walker Percy.

But nothing, I mean NOTHING, compares with the Buru Quartet. It easily becomes my absolute favourite literature, and most possibly my favourite book ever out of 558 that I’ve read so far.

More on Buru Quartet: Book 1| Book 2 | Book 3 | The making of Buru Quartet

“A Collection of Essays” by George Orwell

George Orwell (1903-1950) is world famous for his novels, most notably 1984 and Animal Farm. And as a big reader of non-fiction books I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that he wrote a series of non-fiction essays, 2 dozens+ short stories that dive deep into his world views and opinions.

However, you know that expression never meet your hero? Well this is kind of like that, never read the real-life thoughts of your fiction-writer hero. Because it is just God-awful. It is full with rants and criticism towards seemingly everyone in his childhood, towards the English language, as well as filled with all the negative things he has been holding in for fellow writers such as Charles Dickens, Henry Miller, Rudyard Kipling, and many more. And the awful things he says about Mahatma Gandhi? What a dickhead.

To be fair, it’s not all bad, the essays on his experience at the Spanish War are insightful. The essay on why he writes, almost single-handedly makes the book so much better. And the essays on his time in Marrakech and Burma are quite interesting, although the former reveals his racist views on Africans and the latter shows a terrible colonial racism mentality that he apparently has. A “man of his time” indeed.

Needless to say, apart from few 4-stars essays there are loads of crappy 2-stars gibberish to counter balance the value of the book. And this, in the end, is the reality of his real thoughts. Truly disappointing for a man of his stature.

“Jejak Langkah” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

After the introduction in book 1 and the build up in book 2, now we’ve arrived at the middle of the action. All 721 pages of it.

The story in this book happens far from the scenes of the first 2 books in East Java, in a new scenery in Betawi (or Batavia). It vividly portrays the everyday life of the capital city, the multi-nationalities living there, the tram, automobile, the entertainment venues, and the mash up of cultures. It provides a new environment for our protagonist Minke, in a new 20th century, with new friends, new superiors, new antagonists, a new special friendship with the enemy, an unexpected double agent, and one particular amazing new character in Minke’s life that I would not elaborate because no spoiler. Make it two amazing characters.

And the apartheid reality of the Dutch East Indies portrayed in book no. 1 and 2? It gets escalated, and challenged, in fact, where the cross-culture actions become the main theme of this book. And the secluded events in just few towns in book 1 and 2 become a cross-cities events in this book, scaling up from local events to national events.

The book also get wonderfully entangled with global current affairs, where the situation in the Dutch East Indies is both directly and indirectly affected by the liberal movement in Europe, the Russian-Japan war, the China-Japan war, the British triumph over the Boer in South Africa, the spread of diseases, etc. It also put a special attention to colonialism as seen by the coloniser, as a saviour or moderniser, with compelling arguments that add to the complicated mix of day to day life in the occupied land.

Moreover, the book specifically highlights the vital importance of the media, how news is being told and interpreted through various vantage points, about the target audience of the media that represent certain demography or race, about the organisation that works behind the scene of a media and/or the organisation that uses media as the mouthpiece or their ideology, how ideas can slowly be taught and cultivated in the readers’ mind, and of course in this context, how national movements can be ignited and mobilised from the lessons taught and news told from the media, and the struggles from the backlash over their success (which simply means resistance from the ruling powers and a lot of encounters with law enforcement and intimidations, even murder attempts).

The character development of the protagonist is also noteworthy. It’s astonishing how Minke really did have to go through all the things in book 1 to book 2 and the first 1/3rd of book 3, in order to shape him into the person he becomes, which is very crucial for what about to happen in the rest 2/3rd of book 3. All that experience and knowledge that he has gained, has made him see everything that are really going on in the Dutch East Indies. Everything, from the injustice, the bribery, the covering up, even the politics within the Dutch government in East Indies, at the backdrop of an increasingly burning nationalism.

The book also touched so many real-life history of the birth of local organisations and the fascinating struggles to build them, on trade and commerce, on local politics, on the very complicated law and regulation in the Apartheid society, on breaking old customs, on gang wars, the fight against the powerful cartel, on the everyday interactions in the wonderfully multi-layered society, and many other aspects that give a big picture feel of the Dutch East Indies.

I especially love the letters montage in the middle of the book and near the end, and the small details such as the recurring characters from book 1 and 2 that he accidentally bump into on the road, or met in a much different luck, or simply re-appears on memory.

And that ending? Holy crap! Like any great stories, I really cannot guess where it will lead next.

More on Buru Quartet: Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 4 | The making of Buru Quartet

“Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames” by Thich Nhat Hanh

What is anger?

Anger is a sign that someone is suffering, from whatever causes. We can tell that a person suffers deeply from the way they speak that are full of bitterness, always ready to complain, and blame others for their problems.

Anger is a manifestation of our physical condition. Modern medicine is now aware that sickness of the mind may be a result of sickness in our bodies, and vice versa. Mind and body are not 2 separate entities, they are one.

Anger is in our food, where the food that we consume can play a very important role in our anger. When we eat the flesh of an animal with mad cow disease, madness and anger are there in the meat. When we eat an angry and unhappy chicken, we are eating anger.

Anger is also in the over-eating. Over-eating can create difficulties for our digestive system that cause pain and anger, it can produce too much energy that if we cannot handle this energy it can become the energy of sex, violence and indeed anger. When we eat well, we can eat less.

Anger is in our consumption in other senses. What we view on television, what we read in newspaper and magazines, what we consume on social media, and even conversations can also be toxic as it may contain anger and frustration. In one hour of conversation, the other person’s words may be toxic and ingest a lot of anger, which we will express later on.

And of course, anger is an overall negative energy that are trapped inside us.

So, how to treat anger? By focusing on the right thing. As Thich Nhat Hanh remarks, “If your house is on fire, the most urgent thing to do is to go back and try to put out the fire, not to run after the person you believe to be the arsonist. If you run after the person you suspect has burned your house, your house will burn down while you are chasing him or her. That is not wise. You must go back and put out the fire. So when you are angry, if you continue to interact with or argue with the other person, if you try to punish her, you are acting exactly like someone who runs after the arsonist while everything goes up in flames.”

So, how to put out the fire? First and foremost, what not to do: don’t settle for a temporary solution. The roots of anger lie in ignorance, wrong perceptions, lack of understanding and lack of compassion. When we vent our anger, we simply open the energy that is feeding our anger. The root-cause of anger is still there, and by expressing the anger by venting we are strengthening the roots of anger in ourselves.

And so instead, the key step to contain the fire of anger is to go back to mindfulness.

How to treat anger: breathe. Anger is like a baby in a tantrum, crying and suffering. The baby needs his mother to come and calm him down. We are the mother for our baby, our anger. The moment we begin to breathe mindfully in and out, we have the energy of a mother ready to embrace the baby and the baby will feel relief right away.

How to treat anger: embrace it and fix the source. The Buddha never advised us to suppress our anger, and instead he taught us to take a good care of it. Just like when something is physically wrong with our stomach or body we have to take care of them, do some massage, use a hot-water bottle, etc. And like our organs, our anger is part of who we are, and we should acknowledge its pain, threat it carefully, and fix its wound.

How to treat anger: tell it to them nicely, and don’t keep it to yourself. We should not keep our anger and suffer silently ourselves for more than 24-hours. Otherwise it can becomes too much and poison us. So we have to tell the source of our anger about our suffering. 24-hours is the deadline.

How to treat anger: seek understanding. When we understand the situation that the other person is in and the nature of their suffering, anger could vanish because it will transform into compassion.

How to treat anger: focus on the positive seeds. Anger is within us in a form of seed, so do love and compassion. In our minds there are many negative and positive seeds. The key is to avoid watering (i.e. putting attention to) the negative seeds and to cultivate the positive seeds everyday.

How to treat anger: listen (or being heard) deeply. When firemen come to put out a fire, they have to have the proper equipments such as water, ladder, and clothing to protect them from the fire. They have to have the skill to protect themselves while surrounded by the fire. When we listen deeply to someone who suffer, we step into a zone of fire. It is the fire of suffering and burning anger, and if we are not equipped we might become a victim of the fire in other person. This is why we need the proper equipment, which is compassion.

How to treat anger: Recycle the energy into something good. An organic gardener does not throw away the garbage, because she can use it after she transformed it into compost, and the compost turn into flowers, lettuce, cucumber, and radishes again. Anger and love are both organic in nature, so that means they both can change.

How to curb anger: give them present. When nothing else seems to work, the Buddha proposes that we give the other person a present. Because, when we’re angry with someone, we want to hurt her. But giving a present changes that feeling into wanting to make her happy.

All in all, this is another excellent book by Thich Nhat Hanh. In his signature style of short but weighted words he breaks down the elements of anger, and produce simple but powerful solutions to treat them. And indeed, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones. I would recommend this book to anyone struggling with anger.

“Beyond Good and Evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche

Right after I started reading this book I realised that it needs a special kind of mindset and environment to help me be fully immersed with Nietzsche’s philosophy and his challenging arguments on humanity. A state of frequency that I’m currently not in.

In other words, it’s a book perhaps best read in a Theta brain frequency with deep focus and meditation (like a monk in a temple), while I’m currently in an active Beta state (like a soldier ready for war).

Still finished the book though, mercifully, with some notes taken. But I feel that I’m missing out a lot and didn’t get the most out of it, even though I have familiarised myself with Nietzsche beforehand from several philosophy’s greatest-hits books, to get into the context.

But still, this is the original manuscript, the white-paper of his thoughts, surely there’s more than just confirming what I’ve read from secondary sources.

Hence, I will definitely revisit this book with a better state of mind, with a clearer note taking and a level of review that it deserves. I will come back when I’m ready for this book.

“The Bilderberg Conspiracy: Inside the World’s Most Powerful Secret Society” by H. Paul Jeffers

The Bilderberg group is as real as it gets. While the existence of other secret societies often rely on second hand sources or urban legends – such as the Freemasons and the Illuminati – the Bilderberg meetings are literally covered by the media, with world leaders and business people seen in front of the cameras arriving at their very public meeting venues. They even have an official headquarter in Leiden, the Netherlands.

However, unlike the World Economic Forum or the UN General Assembly, nothing has ever officially come out from the meetings. No statement, no summary, no interview, not even a general idea of what they’re doing and discussing. This is what make them highly scrutinized, with many conspiracy theories emerged to fill the information void.

This book is attempting to shed a light into this secretive organization, by connecting the dots from various different sources, including the many meeting attendees (that wished to remain anonymous), journalists, observers, and critics.

So, first and foremost, who are they? According to the author, H. Paul Jeffers, the members of the Bilderberg group “include European royalty, national leaders, political power brokers and heads of the world’s biggest companies.” They gather together annually at different 5-stars hotels around the world, and they are named after the Bilderberg hotel in which the first meeting took place in 1954.

As further described by Jeffers, “From the beginning, Bilderberg was administered by a small core group called a Steering Committee, consisting of a permanent chair, a U.S. chair, European and North American secretaries, and a treasurer. Invitations are sent only to important and generally respected people who through their special knowledge or experience, their personal contacts, and their influence in national and international circles can further the aims set by Bilderberg.”

And what exactly are the aims of the group? This is where it dives into a grey area. For a start, Jeffers stated that their goal is “the elimination of national sovereignty, creation of a world government with a global currency, and consolidation of economic power by a small number of bankers.”

But then a testimony from a former meeting attendee played it down to just merely one of those international forums that discusses boring world affairs without any significant development coming out of it. As Jeffers noted, “As described by Rockefeller, the Bilderberg Group is as benign as other fraternal organizations and is no more menacing than the Rotary, Kiwanis, the Knights of Columbus, Freemasons, or countless professional and social bodies that constitute the phenomenon known as the old boy network.”

But then again, at different parts of the book we’d find lines like this: “One of the speakers was reported to be Senator John Edwards. He was so well received, said Bilderberg critics, that the Group saw to it that Edwards became John Kerry’s vice-presidential running mate in 2004. The Group has also been credited with the elections of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and both George H. W. Bush and his son to the presidency. The Group is also said to have been the motivating force behind the rise of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair to be British prime minister.”

Indeed, this is the core argument of the conspiracy theories surrounding this group. That it makes or breaks a career in global politics and control the process of democracies. So, is it true? The book provides some compelling arguments, but with evidence that are difficult to verify. But reading about its history might give us some clues.

The group was founded by Joseph H. Retinger, an undeniably fascinating human being with an incredible life story, where the organization was born out of his charm and social skills. As Jeffers explains, “Retinger displayed great skill and an uncanny ability to pick out people who in a few years time were to accede to the highest offices in their respective countries.” And his masterful social skills looks apparent in the growth of the organization from a small gathering into the impressive network of “statesmen and potentates of all sorts” that benefited from joining for group.

Furthermore, the group has its roots from post World War 2, when European nations were at war with each other and Ratinger was on a mission to unite the warring countries back into peace and harmony. So it started out with a noble cause. But then their “villain origins story” (if you like) began when Retinger met David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, with their expansionary ambition to the east of Europe as well as in north America and Asia look a lot like a plan for a global domination, which are all mentioned in pretty detail manner in the book.

Moreover, things began to really changed after the USSR was dissolved. As Jeffers remarks, “With Communism checked, an increasingly frequent topic of discussion among Group members was proposals for political and economic unification of Europe.” The formation of the single-currency European Union is said to be their mastermind, as well as NAFTA in North America, and the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe.

The book then proceeded to present the many past meetings with impeccable details, which include the date, the venue, and the attendees. It also provide the list of topics, the many disagreements within the group over various subjects, some turbulence and crisis within the group, and of course like in any big organization they began to have factions and loyalties to certain figures, most prominently those surrounding Henry Kissinger.

Mind you, however, as impressive as the details in this book are, it is almost impossible to verify the legitimacy of these claims. So a healthy dose of skepticism is needed when reading it. Especially when the book describes Alex Jones as a normal “documentary maker” rather than a conspiracy theory nut job, where the book actually uses him as one of the main sources. And as most of us now know, years later after this book was published Alex Jones became notorious for spreading hoaxes and fake news.

All in all, it is a good introductory story-telling about a secretive organization, one that understandably difficult to write. It is nevertheless a shame that it keeps repeating the same things over and over again that it feels like the book, if written with more brevity and more organized structure, could even make its points across by just 1/3 of the length.