The Oxen

by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock

."Now they are all on their knees,

"An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

"Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,

"I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

‘God is not dead;

nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth,

good-will to men!

MERRY CHRISTMAST 2005

AND

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2006

A DREAM OF HEAVEN

Lately life has been so unfriendly to me. Taking me for a wander through the darkest forest in which there is no point of return. Solitude and emptiness have been embroidered into every breath I inhale. I have lost my freedom and I am on my own.

I laid my weary mind under a shady tree and hoping that mircales would pass by. I have prepared an utterance of the angel so that mercy will be bestowed upon me. Patience, my companion, has began to show a sympton of restlessness. Nothingness lingers with me throughout the long sufferingly hours of impatiently waiting. Yet miracles didnt show any symptons of existence. I began to ponder myself with contemplation. Until the fatigue in me augmented and I fell asleep under the tree, landing in the empire of dream.

Two beautiful angels came into my view, followed by a little boy wearing a circlet of heaven around his head. They play the music of heaven and sang me the song of joy. I raised my head in amazement and felt the sense of ectasy creeping in my heart. I stood up and we held each other by the hand. We were dancing following the tunes of delight. I felt my spirit elevated to an unknown place. The world is occupied by the language of ectasy.

The forest is still dark, and I still have to go through the long hours of weary walk. The dream has elevated the terrifying angst in me. A tiny light of hope is rising in the horizon of my heart. God's patience and blessings will lead me there.

STOP THEM???

Tell the truth and tell it immediately. That’s the basic philosophy. My concern is more on the gap between the philosophical concept and the true and bare fact of the reality.

The entire organization has been a bit like a cat on a hot tin roof since early in the morning. The news that broke out today is damaging us. “Why don’t you stop the media?” That’s the key question that has been posed to me since early in the morning. To begin with let me tell you that I’m not a genie. It really takes a genie to do so, since the media is supposed to take the role of a watchdog. Then, to achieve a better performance we need a partner that can serve as a mirror, and we definitely don’t need a partner in crime. Third, we all have our own roles, let’s do it professionally. Next, these problems do not come out of the blue; it is a blessure that we created in the past and has come in effect today, so don’t expect communication to polish the dark spots that we produced. Finally, bad news is good news for the media.

When the “hurricane” strikes, I miss the warm and comfort of my family and room. May I go “home”???

TRUST
"For better or worse, until death keeps us apart". It will never happen unless you trust a person. Trust is one of the most important essence of our life. Ironically, the usage is abused dramatically and as a result it has lost its true meaning. Trust is a multidimensional concept, therefore the tendency to misinterpret trust is as close as the space between our nose and mouth or even closer as the space between our two eyebrows.
"I dont think I can trust him", the word flows like a prophecy from his mouth. "He has a hidden agenda in every single words that he utters, he added emotionally. Yes, trust is one of the many expressions of our emotion. Experience brought along the emotional aspect of our interaction and it dominates the way we perceive the world, the way we interpret a stimuli, the way we create our social reality.

Flashes of reality crossed my mind, the many and countless experience and conversation that I had with various people with a mixture of background. In a traffic light, when tiny dirty fingers were shoved into our car window, hundreds of questions dance around us and they move along with the the tunes of distrust. A morning greeting on the street, will be assumed as a suspicious gestures. The glue that bond our relationships such as morning greetings have long been buried in the graveyard. Rome is not built in a nite, so does this social reality in which we live. It is a process of a long story. A story that we create with our own brush and paint, a story that create a vivid picture of distrust to our own brother, sister and nation.

NURTURE OR TORTURE?

How valuable is Rp. 800,- to us nowdays. It doesnt take a genius to say nothing. However, this mathematical concept doesnt really apply to every condition. In fact there is a huge gap between a concept and the reality that it creates.

I was queuing behind a 7 year old boy, wearing a ragged clothes in a fast food restaurant. As the lady gave him an ice cream - apparently that was his order- he received the Rp. 600 change and dashed off to the door. I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the display on the register, Rp. 1400,- for an ice cream.

I hold my baby in front of the restaurant, waiting for my husband. I saw the boy again, but this time he was with his sister. She looked healthy with two rosy chubby cheeks covered with melted ice cream. Her eyes was fully focused on her ice cream until my baby cried and pointed his finger to her ice cream. She ran to her brother shoving the ice cream into his hand asking for protection. He was not really ready, though he tried to grip it with his tiny fingers. The cone was wobbly and the scoop of vanilla ice cream fell onto the dusty paving blocks. We all stood in silence for a second. His sister's cry alerted us. She wanted to grab the melted ice crea. but her brother held her hand. Her tears were rolling down on her cheek. The little boy put his hand inside his pocket and took Rp. 600 out. He hold it in the open palm of his hand and gave his sister a blank look. Another Rp. 800,- was desperately needed. He only needs Rp. 800 to express his love for his sister. If only I had the opportunity to infiltrate his mind, I probably will be able to read the various scenarios twirling inside his mind. Will he beg, will he steal, will he soothe his sister, or will he ask for a free replacement to the restaurant??? His decision and choices depends on the values that have been implanted in his mind. Any alternative will be possible. It all depend on us since a value is nothing but a social consensus, part of a culture that we create and that create us in return. In a culture where instant solution such as corruption is tolerated, he will most probably steal some money or beg to get the ice cream. Is it nurture or torture, sometimes I dont see much of the difference.

UNE DEBUTANTE

Two days ago, I began my first move in my new job. The first press conference was held. The result was quite satisfactory. The message has turned into hot news. It dominate the first page of most of the main media. The major reason was the proper timing. The news broke out at the time where the market reacted postively to the reshuffling of the member of the cabinet. We led the opinion. The following day, whatever happened, the tone of the news has to be around the climate that we had built.

However, we were a bit careless with the message and allocation of time. Some media covered a different minor message which actually bears another news value. With this in mind, we need to improve our issue management. It's so obvious that this minor news is potential to becoming an issue, yet, we didnt really pay attention to it. Another improvement that need to be touched is allocation of time for the press conference. We need to set a limit for the Q & A sessions. Once they have ran out of questions about the main message, they moved to another issue. We need to handle this issue delicately or else it turns into a crisis. I'm not ready.....

CREME DE LA CREME
It’s not a name of a French cuisine, nor is it a name of a French patisserie. Yes, it’s a French expression. This expression, like any other expression, bears more semantic components than just what appears in the dictionary. Take the word ‘best’ which more or less has a similar meaning with this expression. No matter how overlapping they are semantically, people will still perceive them to have a different nuance. Try to use them in a different sentences and feel the difference!
The history of word refered to as etimology is closely connected to the context in which it is used. France is quite famous for their pride to use their own language, simply because of their political supremacy in the past. Using one or two words of french in an english conversation will still reflects the sense of supremacy which actually has long been buried in the backyard. The language used in a day to day conversation is just one of the culutral artefact.

The same case happens to our language. The fact that english is considered as one out of the five international languages, has created similar phenomena. Just observed the blossoming soap operas on our television programmes. Even an english way of pronouncing indonesian words is correlated to a particular social status.

This is a real conversation occured in my office: "At the end of the day, kita harus memiliki capability untuk beradaptasi terhadap lingkungan yang terus berubah. Hanya the creme de la creme yang akan survive di masa depan!!!. Voila... c'est tout!!!

BLINDED BY EMOTION

Getting upset is just one of the many colors that paint our life. We are upset simply because we cant achieved the objective that we aim at. We have a tendency to use our myopic perspective and look at an event in isolation. The pattern of our life comprises small jigsaw puzzles. If we tend to focus on a puzzle, we might loose the big picture. However, it is easy to say then to experience it.

I have encountered a situation in which my pride has been so offended until I turned myself into an annoying personality. I made emotional statements and hurt others' feeling. I get blinded by my own emotion.

Life went on and on. The hurt was still there, but I have gained my senses. For the first time I began to observe my new surroundings with a different perspective, and see how much I have adapted myself to this new surroundings. "Not bad at all", I said to myself. In fact it has provided me with new insights. I began to see the big picture. The puzzle is nothing but part of a big picture.

I sat quietly in the evening. The cold breeze patted me gently on my skin. I sat there quietly and thanked God for what had happened to my life. He has given me a new color to paint my life with.

TIME MACHINE

"Do you think the time machine can ever be invented?", asked my daughter. I was behind the steering wheel and pretended as if I was concentrating on the traffic. Actually my search engine was busy browsing for an answer in my mind. At the cross road , I stopped the car since the traffic light was red.
"We can find the answer from many perspectives. Let's find out what time actually is!" I asked her without really asking a question for I dont know the answer nor can I speak scientifically about time. So I give her my own defintion of time. Time is actually a blank sheet on which our motion is recorded. We can repeat our motion but that will not be the same motion since it occurs at a different blank sheet of time. Time machine is nothing but sheets of recorded motions. So if you are looking for a time machine like the one you saw in the movie, I dont think it exists. But time machine that can take you to the past and future is nothing but books. Books consists of experience, motions occured in a particular set of time.
I turned my head to the backseat to know if she understood my explanation. She was looking out through the window, glaring at the lights that brighten up the night. I knew that I failed to give her an answer, but hopefully the night can ease her curiosity for a while, until time provide her with the answer she was looking for.

ON THE TIP OF MY FINGER

The phone roared early in the morning at my desk. I havent even installed myself in my chair. "I think you need to improve your relations with the P. The case has met a deadlock. " The words spurred out of her mouth like a stream of flowing water. The main message is, I gotta make sure that the proposal get approved. When she finally had enough of expressing herself she stopped talking. I jumped into the conversation and answered her calmly : "Okay, I'll see what I can do." In fact I still dont know what to do. But that's the only statement that can cool her off!!!!

I wonder if she really knows why someone, or some people refuses to support us. In some cases it's simply because they are being ignorant. It's easy to solve it. Information, innudate them with information. But in some other cases, they simply have their own objective. They will never be in our shoe , not until their objectives are met. Most of the time what they have in their mind is nothing but big bucks. No matter what we do...we end up in that corner, and I have to avoid it. Next week, the meeting will again be held. I need to come up with a solution. The proposal has to be approved. I wish the world is on the tip of my finger.

TGIF
I encountered my first informal gathering with the whole team. Every Friday morning an informal sharing session was held. "The program starts at 7:30", my colleague told me. At 7:10 I installed myself by the oval table in the corner of the room. Old newspapers and magazines were piling up in the corner of the room. Papers and books were all over the area. I sat there for 20 minutes, no body turned up. At 7:34, a guy appeared smilingly. I asked him where everyone were. "They will be here soon", he answered me abruptly.
We both enganged ourselves into a conversation. In the beginning, we shared nothing but empty words. Then the ice began to melt slowly, he poured out the impeding blocks of his taks. While he was talking, the flow of people began to occupy the oval table. Soon we are all engangging oursevels into a conversation while having breakfast. One claim about the empowerement of the change agent, another one argued about the strategy of our work. I invited the new ones to speak up. They participated shyly, answering my questions and then stopped right there.
It's something good to start with. I just need to spend more efforts to make the most out of them. Pheewwwww.... this type of change is really demanding. Anyway, I am looking forward to Friday...more than ever....

SO SMALL AND TINY
The passion to dig up new things has always been boggling in my mind. It doesnt come out of my hunger for new knowledge, but it is simply driven by my curiosity and the demand of my job. I have to switch my mindset, moving from one area to another.
Knowledge management has occupied most of the space in my mind for the last 7 years. I dug into various references, connect collaborate myself with KM people. Tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, SECI, intangible asset etc..etc.. and all the KM jargons have flavoured my mind ever since. Suddenly....so..sudden...I have to switch it off and deal with new things. Reputation. I need to dig more out of it. I wonder if my guardian angel would be so kind enough as to assist me with references about reputation management.
Somehow, I manage to see the link between my previous job and the new one. At the end of the day, they all follow the stream of epistemology and make me feel so small and tiny...