Me, MTV, and Alternative Era

I was six or seven years old and i had an uncle who was young and very cool. He was in the high school at the time; a decade older than me. He introduced me to skateboarding, taught me how to do an ollie, told me that MTV was the coolest TV station ever, bought me Jackass DVDs, and so many other cool things. He definitely made me a loyal MTV viewer. MTV brought me Green Day and Avril Lavigne. I love those musicians. Until i watched a music video of "The Rock Show" by the world's pop-punk pioneer named Blink-182. And i instantly fell in love with that band until today.

I grew up listening to alternative music. I started listening to Blink-182, Green Day, and Avril Lavigne in the elementary school. I became a Slipknot's maggot when i was in junior high school. In senior high school i started listening to extreme metal bands like Dying Fetus, Behemoth, Napalm Death, Suicide Silence, Terror, Madball, Hatebreed, Cro-Mags, you name it! Many different type of extreme genres as well; death metal, black metal, grindcore, hardcore-punk, deathcore, metalcore, and the other alternative kinds of music. At my high school's last year, i added Weezer and Alkaline Trio into my favorite bands's list.

I've been idolizing singing-guitarists that were brought by MTV such as Tom DeLonge of Blink-182, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio, and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, while most of my friends idolized football players. Actually, my taste of music is very simple; bands or solo artists with distorted guitar. That's it. And that music taste of mine was constructed by MTV.

All my favorite bands i've mentioned above and all musicians i idolize, were brought to me by MTV. I grew up at the in between era; the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s. And one of my favorite things to do when i was in the elementary school was watching MTV right after school, maybe because i hung out with my uncle too much. That TV station made me a huge fan of many cool bands, cool video game (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater), and cool TV shows (Jackass, Beavis & Butthead, Celebrity Death Match, etc). MTV did make me a huge fan of alternative culture. It made me me think a lot of alternative ideas, all the time. I became a person who is not easily get affected to mainstream stuff, because of MTV.

I might be the last MTV generation of alternative era. MTV stopped bringing cool things until the mid of 2000s. At the beginning of the 2010s, i stopped watching MTV. It started bringing pathetically disgusting shits. Techno-pop singers, EDM, boybands, DJs, corporate sluts, mawkishly mushy faggots, they all suck. To be honest, i've been dissapointed with MTV since it gave global popularity to 'artificial' artists such as Justin Bieber, One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, and many other faggots. MTV changed the global music taste into a garbage full of MIDI drumbeats, non-distortion guitars, artificially digital instruments, digitally-tuned vocals, minimal musical skill, and a bunch of materialistic faggots.

Materialism ≠ Happiness

I'm just a regular college student. I'm unpopular. And based on people's 'happines index' these days, which is measured materially, i'm not a happy person.

Economically speaking, i'm from a middle class family. I ain't rich, but i ain't poor either. Gratefully, my parents have enough money to buy me decent food and pay my educational cost, but not enough to buy me things like high-end PC, sophisticated video game console, or irrationally-expensive smartphone, while my friends do.

The pathetic thing is, when my friends start talking about one of those 'exclusive' things (the most common one is high-end video games), i can't understand it cause i don't have that such thing. And it's a kinda shame. Not because of the economical limit of my parents, but i feel marginalized. I'd surely be quiet everytime that topic comes outta their mouths.

The question is, am i unhappy with all of that 'economically limited' condition? Well, according to material-oriented people, they might say that i'm an unhappy person who doesn't have enough money to buy things that bring happiness.

Fortunately, i've learned much lessons of life which, indirectly, told me that there are so many things that are much more important than money and material stuff. And those lessons made me a non-materialist person.

Things that make me happy are located inside. It's what inside my heart, what inside my head. Most of those materialists might judge me that i'm in a denial of what i'm incapable of. But i'm not.

I do have things that are much more precious than money and material stuff. And i do believe that those things could make me tons of money someday. As i mentioned above, those things are inside me; my attitude, my ability, my creativity.

I'm not being such a snob right here, but it's all i've got. Those things inside me are the 'finger' that pull my trigger to achieve 3.78 GPA, level 8 TOEIC course, ability to write this post in english, and gratefully many other 'inner beauties'.

So, let me ask this simple question : who will be more needed by the world, by people, by societies, by huge companies? The one who has 3.78 GPA or the one who has PlayStation 4? I think you know the answer.

Once again, i'm not being a smug, arrogant, vain, or whatever you'd call me. I'm just getting things straight. I'm trying to tell people who are materially and economically limited, to never be hopeless, frustrated, or desperate. And i'm trying to tell the world that money, economical condition, and the other material stuff are not the indicator to measure someone's happiness.

So, to the people of earth, please stop making your fellow beings to think that they won't be happy if they're not rich. Stop spreading materialism ideas.

First things first. Believe me, if you enrich your brain and heart, automatically, you'll be happy, rich, and money will come to you.

When The Whole Universe Betrays You

If i had to answer the "who's your favorite author?" question, i'd say Dan Brown is the one. I've read all of his books multiple times. But in this case, i think i'd gotta say Paulo Coelho, altough i've only read "The Alchemist" and "The Winner Stands Alone" once.

Coelho has written so many books, but i think the best one is "The Alchemist" which has its most popular thought-provoking quote "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

The book talks about destiny, the way things happen for some reason. And the quote above does make people optimistic, which is actually very good.

I'm such a pessimist, and when i read "The Alchemist" for the first time, and got thought-provoked by the quote, somehow, it gave me power. So, i used to rely on that quote.

Theoritically, the quote is quiet right. If you're destined to achieve something you want, it feels like the whole world does some kind of teamwork to realize it. Everything feels so easy, no obstacles.

Practically, it isn't always work that way. The universe does conspire to help you achieving what you want, but it doesn't always occur in every condition.

I applied that 'theoritical' quote in real life, in order to realize my biggest desire. It made me very optimistic, and it made me less realistic as well.

I've sacrificed everything i had to achieve that desire because i was kinda over-optimistic. But i didn't consider the fact that i might fail, the fact that i wasn't destined to realize that desire.

The quote inspired and motivated me. But it failed to prove its validity. So, after all i've done, after all i've been through, i failed to realize my biggest desire. And it kinda drove me crazy.

The failure made me recall the quote. The universe conspires to help you achieving what you want. Who controls the universe? According to my religion, God does. I thought that if the universe doensn't conspire in helping me to achieve the big desire, then God doesn't exist. And that's the time when i considered to turn into an atheist, for the first time.

On my way in achieving the big desire, i totally dedicated myself to God. I prayed a lot. But when i lost the hope, i was dissapointed. Started with questioning the existance of God, being mad to God, and thinking that there's no such thing as God.

I spent a lot of my time googling about God's existance from another perspective; the atheism perspective. I found a research that shows the 'happiest' countries in the world based on happiness index are non-religious countries, which are dominated by atheists.

I might say that atheists don't blame anything when they fail. They are way sincerer to accept failures. So, they live with less pressure and regret. Therefore, they live happier than the religious ones.

But the atheism ideas didn't fully succeed to take over my thought. Eventough i was very interested in atheism, but i haven't officially declared that i turn into an atheist.

I found a better idea. I found an idea that God does exist. The only one who decide your destiny is God. If God wills you to achieve what you want, God will make the whole universe conspires to help you. But if God won't let you to achieve something (yet), God will make the whole universe conspires to make you fail.

The non-atheism idea is way more relevant, according to my experience. I did fail to realize my biggest desire, but it doesn't mean that God is not there. God is there. God just doesn't will me to achieve the desire. Or at least, not yet.

And everytime God doesn't will you to achieve something, the whole universe betrays you. And that's the time when you'd better throw your hope away and start a new one.

Is Solitude A Reason to Die?

I've been listening to Blink-182's debut album 'Cheshire Cat' these days. The album was released in 1995, and it has my favorite punk rock song ever called 'Carousel'. One of the many reasons i love Blink-182 is that they have tons of musically and lyrically thought-provoking songs. 'Carousel' is one of 'em. It's about growing up, like most of  the songs in their early days.

Written by Tom DeLonge, 'Carousel' has a very interesting line; "I know not a reason why solitude's a reason to die." and it did provoke my thought. At the first time i listened to that line, i instantly asked myself "Is solitude a reason to die?"

It feels like facing a mirror, everytime i listen to the song, i see myself; a human being who is considered as an introvert. I don't go out much, i don't hang out, i kinda hate crowds, i spend time with my family and a few closest friends.

My friends see me as a loner, i love doing things like reading books and watching movies, so i spend most of my time at home. I cannot find any interesting thing in hanging out. To be honest, i hate to hang out with friends at some boring places like bar, pub, beerhouse, restaurant, or whatever it is.

I like to eat and have a cup of coffee in some cozy restaurant or coffee shop, alone or with my family or closest friends (the few best ones). But if that 'outdoor activity' gets interfered by some random friends, i'll definitely lose my interest and want to go home immediately.

Strange things happen. I love being a loner, but sometimes i feel sad and pathetic about my loneliness. I realize that i'm a human being and human beings are social creatures. I took the photo above when i was having a cup of coffee, alone. At that time, i was feeling like i need someone to share, to talk, to spend time with, i need someone to love.

I felt like i lost my family when i officialy became a broken home boy. My parents got divorced and it makes me want to start a new happy family. It makes me a true family man. It makes me think that it would be very great to be married, to have a partner to grow old with, to have children to play with, it's like building our own ship to conquer the world and spend the rest of ourlives together inside it.

I agreed with the people who think that true love is such a bullshit, especially when my ex cheated on me. But needing a true love is not a bullshit. I'm feeling that desire, i'm craving for a true love, a soulmate, another loner. I need the right one for eternity. I need a true lonermate.

So, i think could answer the question. Solitude is not a reason to die. Not for me. All i need is another loner.