Happy Academy

So far I still believe that the highest institution in humans is consciousness, "awareness", awareness...

HERYUNANTO

Bre Redana

The Happy Academy with huts made of used woods, located on the edge of rice fields in Sleman, Yogyakarta, I felt was a suitable place for a writing exercise project. Together with a dozen participants from various regions, the farthest being from Banda Aceh, we worked together on letter writing (which I called "menyurat") accompanied by body movement exercises. In my opinion, there is no difference between these two, as writing flows language, and body movement flows motion.

I felt comfortable in the earlier location because of its organic nature - similar to our bodies' nature, organic before it gets corrupted by technology. Together with Dean of the Faculty of Fine Art and Design at Untar, Jakarta, Dr. Kurnia Setiawan, we invited participants to engage only with paper and pen.

So far I still believe that the highest institution in humans is consciousness, awareness, eling, and to the end human civilization before the digital era replaced it, consciousness was formed by language. The Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, Modernism, even nationalism as theorized by Benedict Anderson, were all accelerated by the emergence of the printing press which then gave birth to a culture of books, newspapers, reading: in short, literacy.

Maintaining and developing language is not just a matter of honing self-expression and communication skills, but also fostering imagination and expanding cognition. If in the postmo era I used to glorify critical thinking, now it's enough awareness (for that reason I wrote the book Sunday with Teachers, published in the middle of last fasting month).

Of course, like creatures on Earth in this era, I also use digital devices—with the right brands and prices. It's just that I always warn myself to be alert because this medium is able to slowly change the system of neurons in humans, affecting the working system of our brain.

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The flash flood of information, as Umberto Eco said, where stupid people have the same right to speak as Nobel Prize recipients, is not a funny thing for me. Many people argue, ah, it's just funny, gemoian, don't be too serious.

By controlling vast resources, including social media, I see how those in power undermine the democratization of remembering. Taking advantage of influencers and buzzers, they clutter up human memory, filling up what should be forgotten with unimportant things.

They disrupt memory with unnecessary, trivial, lies, disinformation, so, please check for yourself as an example: how much does the current generation know about what happened in this country in May 1998?

They distort memories with unnecessary things, trivialities, lies, disinformation, so please check for yourself as an example: how much do the current generation know about what happened in this country in May 1998? Especially the historical events that occurred long before. We are on the verge of becoming an ahistorical nation.

Information is too easy to get nowadays. We hear anything, including many things that we actually don't care about and don't want to know, including what is presented by journalism, some of which, if not most of it, is just as useless. They produce trivial issues

So, where can clarity be found? On a quality press, or at the bottom of the ocean like in the fairy tale "Dewa Ruci"when Bima was looking for holy water?

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The question is not where, but rather clarity and purity of language can only be achieved through practice. Writing practice is a continuous process in the effort to achieve balance: to speak reasonably, to live reasonably.

Terms like overthinking,healing,disturbed,and others are products of a living environment that has lost normality.

Of course there will be those who consider this view as a form of skepticism towards the progress of the times, that now, especially in the future, everything will be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).

That's true, but I still believe there are things that cannot be replaced by AI, including story telling. Structure, story building, vocabulary and technical things may be able to be taken over by AI, but feelings such as empathy, humanism, love, I suspect will not be taken over by AI. What inspired me was not Mr. Elon Musk, who has a lot of money and is hailed by the president, but Gabriel Garcia Marquez who wrote Living to Tell the Tale.

Fortunately, participants in this activity did not demand certificates which we did not promise or provide. Instead, someone treated me to a meal at a stall on the edge of the river. It's impossible to buy clarity of mind with a certificate, but who knows, by the sound of water splashing nearby while we were drinking coffee.